The purpose of
this project is to better prepare educators in teaching the subject of
leadership in a high school curriculum.
It will focus on, specifically, Agriscience Educators, as leadership is
already a part of most Agriscience curriculums. While teaching leadership, Agriscience educators can teach
certain aspects of leadership as one specific unit in a class or incorporate
several aspects of leadership throughout the subjects that they already teach.
The methodology used in this project
will be to design a specific curriculum for teachers who either want to develop
a leadership class for an Agriscience Program or give specific examples of how
to incorporate leadership into already existing topics. Some topics included are parliamentary
procedure, negotiations, and the use of mission statements, public speaking and
developing teamwork skills.
This project can be useful as a guideline to Agriscience educators who want to better prepare students for actual situations which they may encounter as they proceed through this complex world. It will also serve as a guide to developing leadership classes in Agriscience programs in this country.
The method chosen for this project
is a curriculum that can be used by Agriscience teachers at the 9-12 grade
level. This was chosen because it is
the most common classroom situation for Agriscience Teachers. This often forces
teachers to unleash their creativity on the class. It challenges teachers to do a variety of classroom activities
suited for all levels of learning. This
model will be designed for all levels of learners including LD (learning
disabled), EI (Emotionally impaired), ADD (Attention deficit disorder), and others. It will include several different activities
including: cooperative learning
activities, role-playing activities, discussion activities, and oral
presentations.
This curriculum will be highly
adaptable for any given situation. Most
Agriscience courses vary significantly from year to year based on individual
students. These variances are due to
things such as, learning styles, maturity levels, learning disabilities and
several other factors. Due to these
changes it will be valuable to have a curriculum that can be used in several
different ways. It is important to
remember that the value of the skills taught should remain the same regardless
of the group.
This curriculum will be presented in
the block schedule style of teaching.
Block scheduling has been implemented in several schools throughout this
country. It also seems to be the
direction that more schools are heading toward. Block format has been proven to increase student retention,
student outcomes and assessment, and material presented in a class. Block scheduling has been proven to better
prepare students for life after high school.
It also gives more opportunity for hands on activities, which has improved
student achievement in agriscience classes (National FFA Organization, 1995).
The basis for this project arose
because of the expanding role of leadership education in today’s agriscience
programs. The changing of the FFA in
recent years has reflected a change in the way that we approach agriscience
education. Agriscience Educators today
are gearing more and more of their programs toward leadership development than
programs did in the past . Currently
20% of local agriscience programs in Michigan have added a Leadership class to
their local programs. This change has
also caused several other agriscience programs to look at developing a
leadership class for their own schools.
This project also arose because of
the need for quality leadership training in today’s American Education
system. The quest for leaders in this
country may soon be a problem. If we do
not have quality leaders for the future trained in practical and useful
manners, our future will be bleak. More
often than not, young people are ill prepared to take on the challenges that
face them out of high school. Hopefully, this curriculum model will offer some quality programs
for students to use as they get older and take an active role in their
communities.
This curriculum can be used as a model for an already existing leadership class, or can serve as the basis for developing a leadership course in an agriscience program. The topics presented in this model are not the only ones that can be taught in such a course, but are some of the most relevant ones in today’s society. These are several reoccurring topics that have appeared in Harvard Business Review, The Drucker Foundation Series, Franklin Covey Series, and several other leadership based books and publications.
This project is designed to assist
agriscience educators in teaching a semester long course on leadership
development in their local agriscience program. As mentioned before, this model is limited in that it does not
discuss every single leadership topic that could be taught, as that would be
virtually impossible to accomplish.
This curriculum is divided into eight subsections. Each of the subsections is devoted to a
topic of leadership relevant to today’s world.
In this model, learning objectives, student outcomes, time required,
learning activities, materials needed and student assessment tools are
presented. Also included in this
project is a sample syllabus, which could be used in such a class.
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