ACES 2K15

The ACES conference was always one of my favorites as a student. It was an opportunity to be away from home for the night and engage in a fun interactive conference. As a college student I had the opportunity to prepare and deliver a workshop at ACES, a completely different side of the conference. This year however, I attended the conference as a "Teacher", this meant getting the students to the main room and then leaving to attend teacher workshops. The workshops this year consisted of an Inquiry based lab by the Dupont Agriscience Ambassadors and a workshop about AET.

Two great professional development opportunities for teachers to engage in if they so chose. As we sat through the Inquiry workshop the saying teachers make the worst students came to mind. Our group did not carefully read the procedure, something that I am constantly preaching to my students, and encountered several questions and made a few mistakes. Overall it was a great opportunity to go through another injury based lab and discuss how it could be modified to suit other topic areas.

Once the workshops were over I had the opportunity to catch up with a former Ag teacher from my county and many people were interested as to how student teaching is going. Not long after this the students arrived as our established meeting point with the conclusion of the workshops. We got them checked into our rooms and headed to dinner to get a table so we could all sit together #advisorconcerns.

As always we enjoyed a great meal and then there was some fun with a teacher know the lyrics game. It was great to see the students shouting, clapping, and cheering for their teacher as they competed in the front of the room.

After the meal there is always a dance witch we make our students attend to avoid unsupervised activities else where in the hotel. What does one do as an advisor do at a dance? I chatted with my cooperating teacher, caught up with other student teachers, patrolled the dance floor to make sure everyone was keeping it PG, and I encouraged my students to get out on the dance floor, busting out my uncoordinated dance moves. It was amazing to see these students breaking out of their comfort zones out on the dance floor , sure it may have been a farming dance move, but a move is a move. I saw quite, shy, reserved students encoring their friends to get out on the dance floor and at least talk with others, the comfort zones were stretched for all this weekend.

After the dance I volunteered to be apart of the courtesy core to ensure that the students were staying in there rooms and being quite after curfew. It was great to be part of the teacher team and once again feel like a real teacher.

Overall the ACES conference was a nice relaxing event, our students expressed that they enjoyed the workshops and had a great time getting to meet members from across the state. For many students an overnight conference is a completely new experience for them that is just the beginning of their leadership career. In addition, these student shave formed new friendships and bonds not only within our chapter but with other students across the state.

Till my next leadership conference… SLLC