CPPD: Center for Professional Personal Development

Penn State University is a great institution because there is a multitude of resources and opportunities that it offers, especially in the department of agriculture education.  It was a pleasure to attend and participate in activities/programs put on by the Agriculture Education Center for Professional Personal Development.  I was able to engage in a stellar workshop put on at ACES this past February. 

During the workshop I was able to listen to an educator from Saul High School share about inquiry based instruction and utilized a lesson known as “Tragedy of the Commons.”  This lesson included materials such as chopsticks, goldfish, and Swedish fish and the learning message for students was related to conserving our resources and achieving sustainability.  This lesson was similar to one delivered by one of my co-hort members, Morgan, in a lab last fall.  So since I already knew the goal of the lesson I was able to concentrate more on the delivery of the lesson and ways to adapt it.  For instance students are supposed to use chopsticks to “fish” (remove the Swedish and goldfish from the pond), however, if a student has limited hand abilities, or if an instructor has limited time, it could be adapted with the use of a spoon.  It could also be connected to another lesson on leadership and trust and the FFA.  There are many ways to adapt a lesson and that was extremely helpful to be reminded of early on in my student teaching experience because I wanted to be able to use online curriculum and develop ways to modify it and better connect it to my instruction. 

Another component of this professional workshop was to listen to Mrs. Carol Fay and her presentation about AET.  She was able to provide great insight about how AET can be connected and useful for every student.  She suggested using a graduated students records to show the class as a demonstration to get members started.  One of the features that impressed me with AET is that an educator can use it to develop a webpage for the chapter that continuously updates itself.  I know that when I am hired as an agriculture instructor I will want to utilize AET because it helps to keep everything very professional and provides a place for me to keep my records of activities outside  of class that relate to the FFA and the further development of the agriculture program. 

Overall the workshops were well organized and certainly beneficial!