SAE Visit #1 (Conducted Jan. 29, 2016)

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.