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Feature Stories
Engaging All Students | Cover Story: Putting the 'Culture' in Agriculture | Agriculture for Everyone
Overcoming Cultural Barriers | Enhancing Diversity in Agricultural Education
Teaching Teachers How to Engage All Students | Engaging all Students in all Parts of Agricultural Education
Engaging ALL Students in ALL Parts of the Program
Amber Striegel - Managing
Editor
Whether it's your fourth day on the job or your 4,000th, when you step into the classroom, the goal remains the same—to engage every student in every aspect of the agricultural education program. From coursework and labs to SAEs and FFA, it is up to you to make sure all of your students—not just the bright and bold—have an equal opportunity to become engaged with and involved in all three parts of the circle.
Because we know this can be a challenge, we have devoted this issue of FFA Advisor's Making a Difference to helping you explore ways to engage your students. Below is a quick overview of what we have in store.
Check out “Putting the ‘Culture' in Agriculture,” where we talk to two teachers who have incorporated their state's native culture into the agriculture classroom. We also discover how one teacher leaves the t-shirts and trinkets behind when she travels to foreign countries, and instead brings back cultural items and ideas she can share with her students.
Read about how teachers who have multicultural students embrace the diversity and incorporate it into their curriculum in the article, “Overcoming Cultural Barriers.”
Discover how teachers at three urban schools have engaged their students in agriculture—often in ways where they least expected it—when you read, “Agriculture for Everyone: Urban and Rural Ag Ed Programs Engage Non-traditional Students.”
Read “Enhancing Diversity in Agricultural Education: The San Antonio Project” to learn how Toyota and Texas A&M have changed the face of agriculture at three San Antonio schools by increasing the enrollment and involvement of Hispanic students with their “Enhancing Diversity in Agricultural Education” pilot program.
José Bernal, an agriscience teacher and FFA advisor at Amphitheater High School in Tucson, Ariz., gives his perspective on engaging all students in his editorial “Engaging All Students in All Parts of Agricultural Education.”
Dr. Kyle McGregor, an associate professor in the Department of Agricultural Services and Development at Tarleton State University, discusses the importance of educating new teachers on how they can engage their students by being prepared and using their gifts in his editorial, “Teaching Teachers how to Engage All Students.”
Finally, for some quality discussion on this important topic, read this month's “Question for the Profession”, and click on the link at the bottom of the article to give us your opinion of how the three-circle model of agricultural education fits in to today's program
We hope you are enjoying the new online FFA Advisor's Making a Difference and continue to read it every month—and encourage your peers to take a look at it, too. If you have any questions or suggestions on anything you've read or would like to see in the magazine, please click here and send us an email.