SAE project visit - Placement

Although I visited 2 students over the Summer to see their SAE projects, this is the first SAE visit I had since I've been student teaching this semester. Mrs. Berndtson and I spent our Friday afternoon visiting student SAE projects! This particular student has a placement SAE where he works at a community dairy farm. He assists with various farm activities with his main role consisting of milking the cows (usually with another person).

The student sharing about his SAE project.

This particular student is a very outgoing and dedicated worker. It was clear in how he talked about his duties, is willing to try anything, and how he interacted with his boss. Mrs. Berndtson doesn't have a set schedule for SAE visits, but tries to see as many students as possible. She admits that she just can't get to every student because it is a single teacher program with a lot of students. Because she can't see every student she doesn't give a grade for the visit itself.

Grades on student SAE consists of presentations and journal entries on theAET.com where she moderates how students are progressing. Students are required to have at least 5 hours in every month which she stresses to students is important because SAE should be a process - not working the yearly required hours in one month and finished. Although they don't have grades tied to the visit itself, she evaluates student progress.

SAE visits in Wellsboro consist of asking questions and getting students to set goals for their project. For this particular project, the questions consisted of the following:

• How many hours do you work?
• What kind of work activities have you been doing?
• What have you learned while working here?
• What do you hope to learn yet

With this project there was also various questions asked about the routines and what animal care is being done. The SAE visit is an important part of student development and really gets these students thinking about what they are doing and what they strive to accomplish.