FLC Secretary Workshop Reflection

This year's Fall Leadership Conference, hosted by FFA was my first opportunity to attend the conference; my role was to teach and explain 21 chapter secretaries about their roles and duties. During this two and a half hour workshop, Jenna Timmons, Nate Repetz, and myself engaged students through activities and active discussion. There were a couple struggles, but there were many things that we did that I thought went very well during our workshop.

What Went Good:
(1) I think that my co-facilitators and myself did a good job of getting students attention early on and engaging them right off the bat. Jenna made cookies for an interest approach and related the ingredients of the cookie, to the "ingredients" that a secretary must include. I think that giving the students cookies caught their attention, who doesn't like food?! Getting students attention early on in the morning was something that I was initially worried about because I knew if we didn't, it was going to be a long workshop. (2) I also think that our group worked well together and each of us did a good job on picking one another up, and helping each other when we were stuck on instruction. (3) Running out of activities and instruction is something that I am always worried about, especially on a workshop that is so long. Things never seem to workout as planned, but we hit the nail right on the head this time. We had just enough time at the end of the workshop to reflect on what was learned, and even take some pictures with the students!

What Could Use Work:

(1) Although the lesson went smooth, I believe that there can never be enough planning and every lesson can get better; so to improve this, I would just practice the lesson more with my fellow facilitators.

I thoroughly enjoyed working with my fellow classmates on teaching secretaries their roles and duties; attending FLC was a great opportunity for me to grow and learn more about how FFA conferences were ran and to meet great new people! For many of our secretaries, this was their first FFA event as an officer and I believe that we made a good, lasting impression on FFA, Penn State, and ourselves!

Thanks,
Mike