Mckenzie's Service to Society - Characteristics & Rules of a Deliberative Assembly!

 In November, I had the privilege of working with the Somerset Area FFA seniors and leading a workshop on the characteristics and rules of a deliberative assembly. The students in this workshop were seniors, most of which had only experienced parliamentary procedure through their time in FFA. Most of these students were unaware of the characteristics of a deliberative assembly and I knew that this knowledge could prove to be very useful for them as they leave high school and branch out to other organizations that utilize parliamentary procedure. 

My main take away from this workshop is that students will be more engaged and interested in a workshop or lesson when they can relate to the material that they are learning to events or areas in their everyday lives. At the beginning of the workshop, I asked each student to write on a sticky note where they see parliamentary procedure being used throughout their everyday lives. They came up with a wide variety of places from 4-H meetings to the House of Representatives. As we continued throughout the workshop, students were able to relate the characteristics and rules that they were learning to these areas outside of school, where they will continue to use this knowledge for years to come. Students were definitely able to learn and take away more knowledge from the workshop when they could relate it to other areas of their lives.

The main activity of this workshop was “breaking down” the rules and characteristics of a deliberative assembly into terms that the students felt almost anyone could understand. The students really enjoyed this activity and being able to debate and discuss what they believed was the meaning of each characteristic and rule. This activity also allowed them to see how differently they all viewed each characteristic and rule. Not only did this activity help the students better understand the rules and characteristics of a deliberative assembly, but it also helped them learn the importance of being open minded when listening to how others may interpret a parliamentary authority. 

Not only was this project very beneficial for the students, but it was also very beneficial for me. While going through the characteristics and rules of a deliberative assembly, the students had many questions about terms or concepts that they found confusing. Being able to teach someone else about my knowledge of parliamentary procedure and teaching others how to find answers in Robert’s Rules of Order was very beneficial to my overall understanding and confidence in parliamentary procedure. 

I feel as though this workshop went very well and that the students had a lot of fun. My advice to others who teach a Parli Pro workshop is to not be afraid to admit when you don’t know something. Throughout this workshop, I was asked a few questions that I was not 100% sure of the answer. Rather than trying to create an answer off the top of my head, I worked with students to dig into Robert's Rules of Order to find the answer. Not only did this help the students learn how to navigate Robert’s Rule of Order, but it also provided me with some great problem solving practice leading into my final exam!

Mckenzie Mahler

Agricultural and Extension Education

AEE 216

Service to Society Project

Parliamentary Procedure from a Different Angle

    For my service project for the Practical Parliamentary Procedure course, also known as AEE 216, I had the privilege to attend the National FFA Competition in Indianapolis, Indiana. At National Convention I served as a Collegiate Assistant for the National Parliamentary Procedure competition. This was a learning experience for me for many different reasons. The main reason being that I have had the opportunity to compete at the National Parliamentary Procedure competition for Greenwood FFA. Having experienced both aspects of the competition, I finally got to experience the nuts and bolts of how everything goes down. 

    My parliamentary procedure experiences all started sophomore year of high school when I was asked to compete on the Greenwood FFA team. This experience took a lot of time and learning to get to the level that we reached. Our team would meet early before school, so it was a very big time commitment for all of us who were on the team. Unfortunately, in high school I did not take it as seriously as I should have because I didn't understand the purpose or benefit in competing at a high level. When we started winning the smaller area and regional competitions we started to practice more and got better as time went on. Competitions were always my biggest fear and were very stressful. The main reason that they were so nerve racking was because we had to rely on each other to get all of our required debates, motions, and extra motions in without talking about any of it prior to the competition. We had been practicing so much that our level of trust for each other would continue to rise, but we were all very competitive, which made competing very stressful. Looking back on the experience I wish I would have taken more time to study and the opportunity more seriously. As a student I never knew the different tricks and flaws that came about in parliamentary procedure because I never understood the judging aspect of the competition. 

    When Dr. Foster reached out to our class with the opportunity to be a collegiate assistant, I jumped right on the opportunity. I thought that for my future students, this would be a great experience for me to learn more inside information about the competition as a whole. When we arrived in Indianapolis, we were joined by three students from the University of Idaho who were also serving as collegiate assistants. We were each given a specific job to do during the semi-final and final rounds. This was to ensure that the competition went smoothly and got done in a timely manner. My role during the semi-final round was to write down the judges feedback cards. These cards then went into packets that we prepared for each of the teams, so they know what they could have done better and what they did well. The judges would comment on their team effect, chair, presentation notes, and parliamentary errors that they made. For some of these errors we included a citation to Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised. There were two semifinal rooms, so there were four collegiate assistants who helped with judges feedback cards. There were four teams who made it into the final round who consisted of: California, Nebraska, Ohio, and Missouri. For this round there were only two assistants in charge of writing down judges feedback since there was only one room, so my job then was to be a host in the waiting room. From this experience I got to see many different team strategies and study habits happening. I enjoyed this part of the experience because I could relate to the students, since I had been in their shoes before.                                                                  

    This experience was one that I will never forget because it not only allowed me to experience a new aspect of parliamentary procedure, but also I could meet new and old FFA members and increase my network of people in my future profession. To the left you will see me pictured with past Pennsylvania FFA State Secretary, Jess Herr. This was taken at the Career Fair at the Indianapolis Convention Center. Jess was attending the convention as a state delegate where she attended many sessions with other past and present state officers to discuss delegate issues. Jess currently goes to Penn State, Berks Campus and will eventually come to University Park and be a member of my cohort. My Parliamentary Procedure Collegiate Assistant opportunity allowed me to meet up with old friends and future colleagues! Overall, this experience was one that I will never forget and has benefited me in so many ways. I hope to someday be able to use my parliamentary knowledge and network of professionals to engage the future leaders and implement parliamentary procedure into my classroom!

            Ella Brummer

Agricultural and Extension Education 2025

AEE 216

Student Service to Society

2021 Space for Innovation: Project Parli Launch!

For the Space for Innovation Project, our class members collaborated to create a website designed to engage both students and teachers alike consisting of resources that will assist in understanding, learning, and preparing for the Pennsylvania FFA State Parliamentary Procedure Leadership Development Event. In order to create this website, we worked diligently throughout the semester to contact individuals for their parliamentary procedure resources, sort these resources into their appropriate categories, and upload them onto the website. 

Our Website: https://sites.google.com/psu.edu/psuparli 

Morgan: For this project, I contributed my skills in multiple ways to help develop the website, but more so behind the scenes of the website. I first worked on gathering information including our plans, purpose, and goals, and organizing them onto a document for planning purposes. I also drafted and wrote the email that was sent to the PA Ag Ed listserve, with the help of Dr. Foster, to gain resources from fellow professionals in the field. After resources started to file in, I then created a folder on the shared Google drive and uploaded all of the resources sent to me directly and that was gained through the form. This included resources from teachers that emailed me directly and the superintendent of the state competition.

My other contributions to helping develop the website included editing and creating the introduction video found on the homepage of the website. I took the raw footage we each filmed and used my digital skills to create the video we have on the site. Additionally, I searched and sorted through the NAAE Communities of Practice pages consisting of Parliamentary Procedure resources to find the resources relevant to our website and added those to the resource pages throughout the site. I also spent some time locating and uploading the national final team's video to the website for users to take advantage of as an example. 

Mikey: My contribution to this assignment, for the most part, was frontloaded in building the website. In the beginning stages, I did a lot of searching to figure out what would be the easiest and most functional platform for this website. For the sake of collaboration, I decided that Google Sites would be easiest for us to work as a team. After identifying that this was our platform, the annoying process of designing the website began. I am not an artistic or creative person at all. I wouldn't go as far as saying that I hate art, but I can easily say that I am one of the least artistically inclined people that I know. This made it difficult to design a website that looked good and allowed for the functionality that we were looking for. After hours of trying and deleting, I was finally able to build a backbone that I was happy with. With that out of the way, I had to teach the rest of my peers how to use and edit the site so we could all begin to collaborate together. Throughout the rest of the project, I remained the point person for all things technology and website functionality related. This includes things such as uploading videos, fixing broken links, and standardizing website design techniques. As the project progressed, I was tasked with creating the LDE overview at the state and national levels. Initially, I was planning on researching the LDE and putting a bunch of bullet points into the website. I found however that it is not as visually appealing, so I instead chose to make google slides presentations. For both the state and national competitions, I researched the LDE and made a detailed presentation, which is embedded into the website. On the overview pages, I also provided useful links in the form of buttons. 

Ella: This space for innovation project included the need for many different skill sets. The website let each of us have a specific role that would help get it all pulled together in a short amount of time. One of my main goals was reaching out to Mr. Brandon Walters, a parliamentary procedure professional, to help us collect different resources and give us advice on what we could include in the website. Although I did not have much experience with building websites, this allowed me to help collect a number of resources to be used in the website. I was unfortunately quarantined at the most important and final days of putting the final touches on the website and bringing our resources together. This made it hard for me to contribute over the week that I was not able to meet and get tasks accomplished. 

The second part of the project that I contributed to was creating a video to be added into a small introduction video that went on the introduction page of our website. To do this I had to create a zoom meeting and record a video to get all of the teachers and students who will be accessing our website excited about the future of Parliamentary Procedure. Since I have experienced the National Parliamentary Procedure competition from both a competing aspect and collegiate assistant aspect I was able to include some of my knowledge about both sides and encourage future participation! Overall, I think that all of our roles played a major part in us pulling together this exceptional resource.

Mckenzie: My contribution to this assignment was primarily in the organization of materials as well as in the collection of advice from the advisors of successful Parliamentary Procedure teams in the state LDE competition. My first task for this assignment was to gather advice from past winners of the state LDE. In order to do this, I created a google form titled “Collection of Parliamentary Procedure Advice”. I emailed this form to six of the most recent advisors that are state LDE winners. Of the six advisors that I contacted, three were able to respond with advice that they have for other advisors who are preparing their own teams for the state LDE event. I then added all the advice that was sent out to the bottom of the page titled “Resource Library”. On top of collecting advice, I also sorted the resources that were given to us so that they could be added to our website. In order to do so, I sorted through all of the resources that we have been sent, and sorted them into categories such as “Motion Cards & Questions” and “Team Problem Solving Practicum Examples”. I also went into each document that we decided to use for the website and made sure that it was in a google document and accessible to anyone with a link leading to that document. 

Our Advice: Advice that we would give to other students in this course is to find something you are passionate about, or a need in the profession of the agricultural education community, and start brainstorming ideas for this project from there! We felt a true need to create this website of resources, tips, and more for educators across the state as something we can all benefit from. Other advice we want to offer future students in this course is to make sure that you have a clear understanding and goal of what you intend to create for the project to help it run more smoothly. Find something you are good at, and use your skills to your benefit throughout the creation of your project. Do not be afraid to try something new and innovative, it may lead you to some pretty cool results!

Morgan's Service to Society Experience at the National FFA Convention and Expo #SuperBowlLDE

As part of my service to society experience, I had the opportunity to expand my knowledge in the National FFA Parliamentary Procedure Leadership Development Event. As part of this experience, I got to assist the event aside from other collegiate interns from the Pennsylvania State University, and the University of Idaho. Although the national finals event was limited in the number of teams who got to compete due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I still had a great time being immersed into the #SuperBowlLDE! 

The week’s events started off with a flight to Indianapolis, Indiana, where the National FFA Convention and Expo were held. After arriving and settling into Indy, I and some of the other Penn State collegiate assistants got to help Dr. Foster and the other event chairs set up for the contest. It was very nice to meet the judges and event chairs in advance of the event and become comfortable in the room. We worked on preparing envelopes for each team with their awards and result cards. We also counted award pins and organized papers for the following morning.  

The morning of the semi-final and final team rounds, we were up early in preparation for the rooms and to learn our specific duties for the day. I was tasked with timing both the semi-final and final rounds throughout the day. We helped to set up the semi-final rooms by setting up chairs and the stage for the event. I got to learn how the official timers work for the event, and practice using the remote to ensure I could fix it when issues arose. During the semi-final rounds, it was so intriguing to watch and learn from each of the finalists. I was not ready for the fast pace and precision each team brought to the table, but it was very fun to watch. While also timing each of the teams, I got to replace the motion cards on the stage and reset the stage for the next team to begin. I think my favorite part about the semi-finals was getting to hear each of the teams complete the questioning round. This is where I felt each of the team’s knowledge of parliamentary procedure flourished. It was very impressive to hear their depth of knowledge and passion for parliamentary procedure. 

As we transitioned into the final rounds of the top 4 qualifying teams including California, Ohio, Nebraska, and Missouri, is when the fun really began. As I oversaw the timing of the final rounds, that meant I also had to sit on stage in the final hall, which was a bit terrifying. Overall, the final rounds on the big stage went well with no technical or timing issues, the first time in many years I was told that nothing went wrong! After the finals round concluded, we took a short break and then returned to help set up for the awards banquet. We helped to set out plaques and the awesome Parli Pro artifacts that Dr. Conners worked on gathering. The banquet was a great time to watch the students and educators celebrate all of their hard work throughout the year! 

Throughout this service experience, I got to learn from many different individuals, and see how the national event runs, along with networking with individuals from the Parli Pro family on a national level. Before arriving in Indy, I had no idea what to expect, having this been my first time assisting with a National Leadership Development Event, I feel that I learned a lot about all the work and time that goes into prepping for the event, the logistics of running the event, and the awards banquet that occurs afterward. It took many individuals to make this event a success and I was honored to meet some of them through assisting with this event. I got to build lasting connections with students, educators, and professionals in the field through this amazing service experience!

Morgan Bear

Agricultural and Extension Education 2023

AEE 216

Student Service to Society