My
first SAE visit of the year was conducted during school. I wanted to work with
a student to start up a project. He was a senior and did not see the value
within these projects and felt the need to rebel against it. He proclaimed he
had no job after school or took little responsibility/ownership at home. I took
on the challenge to help this student see the importance of a project. I
started him off with an exploratory project. I tried to base it off of what he
could do when he graduates.
During
one of our in-service days, we visited the Western Pennsylvania Laborers Union
and learned about Future Road Builders. Future Road Builders is a virtual
pre-apprenticeship where students can gain hours to prepare them for an
apprenticeship in highway construction. I had the idea of making this into an
exploratory SAE. He participated in the virtual pre-apprenticeship and kept
records on what he accomplished and learned along the way. It was a very simple
project, but enough for him to see the value in record keeping.
I
will admit this project is not the best one out there. It was a great start for
this student though. He saw the value in both Future Road Builders and keeping
records in Agricultural Experience Tracker. I would rate this project, based on
the criteria, with a rating of 4 (1 meaning not valuable, 5 meaning valuable).
I
would check through his records after each SAE day we had in class. I
recommended that he put more effort into the planning section. He needed to set
goals for him to complete during the project. He also needed to improve his
entries.
Students
at Mohawk have the opportunity to take a ½ credit course for SAE. These
students do not meet up for class, but have to complete their records through
AET (Agricultural Experience Tracker). They are graded on completing entries in
their journal and keeping their records up to date.