As an educator, I have always told my students that each and every time we step outside our norm, we are constantly building our resume. Every word, action and step we take is constantly being judged or evaluated by someone around you. We never know who they are or who they know that could impact our futures. Although, that usually scares them into behaving better when in public, it truly revolves around networking. When students learn that networking is their best friend in life, they tend to become more outgoing and get excited to meet others. Networking provides opportunities to swap and gain ideas, become more noticeable, broaden horizons professionally and intellectually, discover multiple resources, establish long-lasting relationships and develop self-confidence (Miller Cole, 2019). I have seen this across the board from being an agriculture teacher, taking students on FFA trips, to becoming an athletic director teaching a conditioning class full of athletes who travel across the state to compete in their respective sports. I constantly live by the motto and tell my students and athletes, “There is no growth in the comfort zone and no comfort in the growth zone.”
Project based learning is something I have based my career around as an agricultural educator. From classroom, lab, shop and work-based learning programs I’ve also centered instruction around hands on and practical application of learning. Theory is great and is needed sometimes but experience pays off in spades. Take for instance you can talk about the digestive tract of cattle and the functions but what better way to learn than to raise a calf changing the needed feed ration with each stage of development, trial and error with different feedstuffs to teach you about bovine nutrition.
Specifically, in my current role as an athletic director I am teaching an enrichment course on athletic leadership. This class is primarily being taught through a learning management system and the class is working on goal setting. To provide enrichment beyond the “classroom” I would have students extend their learning by reaching out through email correspondence to local, national and worldwide celebrity athletes to interview them for a “podcast” class project. Corresponding with elite performers challenges students to push through obstacles and assists in calibrating their moral compass (Allison & Goethals, 2019). This use of old school correspondence to initiate the conversations needed to complete the project reaches beyond the goal setting unit as it teaches English and the necessary soft skills to have those conversations which many of today’s students struggle with. In turn these students are building their network of positive figures in their lives that will help them way beyond high school.
References:
Allison, S., & Goethals, G. (2019, March 28). 10 Reasons Why We Need Heroes. Retrieved August 27, 2020, from https://blog.richmond.edu/heroes/2013/05/17/10-reasons-why-we-need-heroes/
Miller Cole, B. (2019, March 30). 10 Reasons Why Networking Is Essential For Your Career. Retrieved August 27, 2020, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/biancamillercole/2019/03/20/why-networking-should-be-at-the-core-of-your-career/
Comments