Experiencing Learning - Kryslynne

For our service we went to United high school to teach their ffa chapter about parliamentary procedure. One take away from this experience is that sometimes you may have to change the lesson to better fit the students. We created a power point with all the terms and motions we thought were most important. Before we presented the power point we spoke with the students to asses their knowledge. After speaking with them we decided to remove some of the slides because we felt like the class didn’t need to go over them. Also we were able to spend more time on the topics that they had more difficulty with. 

I feel like this was a great learning experience because it taught us that our intended lesson plan might not be what the students need. Also that we should be able to adapt to the situation to provide students with meaningful knowledge. All in all we had a great time at United high school, increasing their chapters knowledge on parliamentary procedure. 

You Never Leave With Less

I never once thought I would be in a parli class, let alone sharing my newly learned knowledge with others. Coming from an FFA chapter that had no parli skills, I knew that AEE 216 would be a challenge, but I also knew that I wanted to be the best agriculture educator that I could be.

It wasn't a hard decision of where I wanted to go to preform my service activity. I would travel the 1 hour and 23 minute drive to Armagh pa, and I would take Kryslynne with me. We prepared a power point presentation that has the motions needed to compete in the CDE. I knew that I wanted to head back to my home school to be share the knowledge that I have gained though a simple decision to take a  class about Parliamentary procedure.

Walking into AEE 216 I knew nothing about making motions, or even what bylaws were and why a club would create them. And now I would be walking into a classroom and teaching them how to make motions, and correctly use parliamentary procedure.  The students that were ours for the day seem excited to be there, they were actually excited to learn, but when it came to participating in the mock meeting they were shy. Mistakes were made, and laughs were had but at the end of the day I knew that the students left with me information than they walked in with.

Now that my time in AEE 216 has come to an end, I know that I have left the class with so much more knowledge than I walked in with. When taking up an opportunity there is no way possible that you will leave that experience with less knowledge that you started with,therefore every opportunity is well worth it. Although I am not an accredited parliamentarian, I can say that I have succeeded in this class, I impacted others, I have gained more knowledge, and I have left with more.

Blind Leading Blind

Through Parli Pro I have felt as though I was not quite on the same level as my peers whether that be experience wise or just overall knowledge of the content. So, when I began work on my service project I became very nervous, how was I someone who has little to no background in Parli Pro suppose to teach a group of high schoolers the basics?? The planning process was probably the most difficult part,  knowing that I need to teach the students at Penns Valley something but not really sure what that something was going to be yet. I agonized a lot about my portions of Justin and I’s workshop as I felt as though I was not qualified to teach these kids because I knew the frustrations of learning from someone who was not knowledgeable enough about the content. So, I start with the stuff I knew, I knew. 

• Robert’s is a book of rules about parliament procedures (essentially the parli pro bible for FFA members) 
• Members have the right to: 
• Attend
• Debate 
• Vote
• 1 item at a time 
• I move is how you make a main motion 
• 5 basic principles 

All of these things helped me to better understand the very complicated concept of parli pro. The students at Penns Valley Area High S

Through parli pro I have felt as though I was not quite on the same level as my peers whether that be experience wise or just overall knowledge of the content. So when I began work on my service project I became very nervous, how was I someone who has little to no background in parli pro suppose to teach a group of high schoolers the basics?? The planning process was probably the most difficult part know that I need to teach the students at Penns Valley something but not really sure what that something was going to be yet. I agonized a lot about my portions of Justin and I’s workshop as I felt as though I was not qualified to teach these kids because I knew the frustrations of learning from someone who was not knowledgeable enough about the content. So, I start with the stuff I knew, I knew. 

• Robert’s is a book of rules about parliament procedures (essential the parli pro bible for FFA members) 
• Members have the right to: 
• Attend
• Debate 
• Vote
• 1 item at a time 
• I move is how you make a main motion 
• 5 basic principles 

All of these things helped me to better understand the very complicated concept of Parli Pro. The students at Penns Valley Area High School we’re just as eager as I was to get some knowledge about parliamentary procedure and we’re not expecting to become pros over night, making my confidence level go up. As I talked through the topics, I began to realize I knew more about parliamentary procedure than I realized and then I had given myself credit for. I am glad that I made the decision to step out of my comfort zone and deep dive into an area that I had yet to discover and I’m thankful for the opportunity to better FFA members and their chapters. 

It's All in the Cards

It's All in the Cards

I served the entirety of my time as a Collegiate LDE Assistant at the National FFA Convention as a comment card assistant. What does that mean you might ask? Let me explain. When a parliamentary procedure team is presenting, three judges are taking notes and writing down scores. Three collegiate assistants sit at the table with the judges and also take notes. When the team is done presenting, the assistants sit with judges as they tally up scores. While the judges are conversing, the collegiate assistants write down the recommendations given by the judges on a comment card. These comment cards are then put in the team packets that the teams will receive at the end of the competition. The comment cards are crucial for teams as these are the only professional recommendations that they will receive from the judges. It is imperative that the collegiate assistants write down any recommendations or critiques that the judges might give. If a parliamentary error occurs, the assistants will also write down the error and give a page and line number from Robert's Rules of Order for the team's reference. 

On a personal level, I find this to be the best opportunity to learn parliamentary procedure from professionals. I learned so much as I listened to these professionals apply parliamentary procedure right in front of me as they talked about the performance of each team. All of the judges have parliamentary procedure credentials of varying degrees and each of them have unique experiences in which they apply parliamentary procedure. One of my favorite people to work with is a full-time parliamentarian.  It is amazing for myself and students alike to know that you can pursue parliamentary procedure as a career option. It proves that this LDE is extremely relevant and applicable outside of FFA.

This is the third year in a row that I have assisted with this LDE. By serving in this capacity, I have a greater appreciation for parliamentary procedure and its relevancy in our lives. But I have obtained an even greater appreciation for the countless hours that students and advisers put into this competition to be the best that they can be on the national stage. 

A Parli Pupil & Peer: A Story of Service

A Parli Pupil & Peer: A Story of Service

Megan and I's Visit To Penn's Valley FFA Chapter

A real test of knowledge is not taking an exam or assessment but rather, trying to convey the information to others in an effective manner. Megan and I underwent this test trying to get a group of 13 high school students to be excited about something like parliamentary procedure. As with life, the work paid off eventually.

Upon starting, the students showed little interest , and who would blame them? This stuff is like a second language. Megan went over some parli terms, to test the waters, trying to get their knowledge level. To my surprise, they knew a decent amount about parli, such as what quorum is or how to rise to a question of privilege. SO now it wasn't how to get them to understand what was going on but now it was getting them to care about parli. "Okay, Justin." I said to myself. "If you've got an idea, you better pull it out quick or this may be a flop". I remembered Megan mentioning a few ways committees would be interesting and just like that, I had it. Megan turns the floor over to me and I more or less told the group that in order to do whatever they want, anything, all they had to do was put a plan together for the chapter. How do you get work done for a whole chapter in an effective manner? COMMITTEES!! Penn's Valley didn't have any committees so the group took off quickly to establish goals for committees.

Just like that, 2 parli pupils and peers, actually made a difference by igniting a passion for students. After all, that was the point of this assessment. This service was a real test of knowledge.

Revising bylaws with collegiate 4H

At one of the 4H meetings I had mentioned about looking at the bylaws and saw that they were really out of date. I suggested that we make one of the meetings dedicated to revising the bylaws for the club. They agreed to do it the following meeting which was two weeks after I had made the announcement.

When it came down to it we looked over each section of the bylaws and talked about what could be changed based on how the club is now. I came to find that people can be really stubborn when it comes to change. Especially when it could tamper with the Assembly's roots. After some discussion, we decided to just focus on the officer section of the bylaws.

What was changed:

• News reporter changed to news reporter/social media chair. We wanted to change this title so that way it was more up to date with how information is given out in today's world

• Ag student council representative turned into Ag student council representatives, they wanted to pluralize the position so that way it was understood that they wanted more than one person to represent collegiate 4H at the council meetings.

• They did away with the position of banquet representative because it was a position that was in conjunction with the teach Ag society, which is no longer a club here on campus anymore. 

After all the decisions were made I would say I really benefited from seeing all the conversation that can come out of discussing an assembly's bylaws.

Service and Innovation Review

After taking multiple weeks to create the 13 Ranking Motions Jeopardy game, and worksheet for the students of the Midd-West FFA Parliamentary Procedure Team, on Monday November 19th I officially presented it.

Along the way, I was stretching myself thin trying to make sure the worksheets lined up with the presentation to make sure that the students had to work hard first, then they could play harder in the competitive spirit of Jeopardy. The packets themselves consisted of a lesson preview, charts for main motion, subsidiary motions, incidental motions, and privileged motions, a score card for the jeopardy game, and a review sheet outlining what we had accomplished. There was extra time allotted for questions before and after the activity to make sure there were no questions.