"Once you stop learning, you start dying" -Albert Einstein
Just as I ask my students to continually learn and grow as learners and equestrians, I continue to be a lifelong learner. I believe that in order to grow you need to change, and keeping up with industry and education practices helps me be the best educator for my students .
PD Sessions I've Led
As I have grown in my teaching abilities, I have started to lead more PD sessions to help teach others what I have learned.
2022 KACTE Conference
I hosted a workshop about how to implement Minecraft into the agriculutural education classroom at the Kentucky Association of Career & Technical Education Summer conference. I won the 2022 Ideas Unlimited Contest for the state of Kentucky and was asked to present on my idea.
Utilizing Minecraft In Agricultural Education
The National FFA Organization invited me to lead a PD session on how to implement Minecraft in agricultural education classes. They had seen a post I made on Facebook about the awesome pollinator gardens some students at Franklin County had made using Minecraft, and reached out to see if I would be interested. I of course said yes, and led a 30 minute session on the different ways you could use Minecraft along with resources that National FFA had compiled to make lesson planning easier. I also led a school PD at Locust Trace on using Minecraft, and added in how level 1 equine students had used Minecraft to build equine facilities.
Want to learn how to implement Minecraft into your classroom? See the video below!
Encouraging Self-Expression by Showcasing Student Success.mp42021 iCEV CTE Inspired Conference
I created a workshop about how to implement digital portfolios for the 2021 iCEV CTE Inspired Conference. I had so much fun and success with the project, I wanted to share with other educators how to do the same. In a pre-recorded video, I covered the benefits of implementation, websites to use, how to implement, and showed a few examples. During the actual conference I attended a live Q&A where listeners could ask questions they had after my presentation. I hope that because of this video more educators will realize the power that a digital portfolio has to equip students to be successful.
I attended the Thrive Conference hosted by the National Association of Agricultural Educators the winter of 2021. I attended a session led by Kirby Schmidt who talked about bandwidth. At first, I thought this was going to be about the struggle of virtual learning when students have different internet speeds. But, I quickly realized he was also talking about cognitive bandwidth, which I hadn't thought of before! I showed my administrators and media specialist a graphic Kirby used, and they asked if I would lead a best practices workshop about it. I put together some information that I had learned from Kirby, and then put it into a Pear Deck so the teachers in my building could brainstorm ways to lower not only the physical bandwidth needed to complete lessons, but also lower the cognitive bandwidth.
UK Student Teacher Workshop
Dr. Vincent at UK invited me to come teach a few hands-on lessons about horses in 2021. He was worried that due to the nature of online learning our future teachers hadn't grasped experiential learning. I brought our wonderful TAs (Cracker Jack & Max) to teach about grooming, brought our plastic horse, Larry, to practice bandaging, and set up a station about the differences in saddles.
Conferences & PDs Attended
Staying Current in the Horse Industry
While I've worked with horses for most of my life, I know that good horse people are constantly learning and trying new things. I know that while past experience will be helpful, I need to stay current on industry standards and brush up on my handling skills. To me, it's important that I continue to work sales and get as much hands on skills as possible so I make sure my skills stay relevant for my students.