Middle School Agriculture Programs

1
Middle School Agriculture Programs
2
Teaching Middle School Agriculture

• How is teaching middle school agriculture
  different than teaching high school?

3
High School Agriculture Departmental Objective

• Upon completion of the high school agriculture
  program, the student will have earned, saved, and
  invested enough money, and will have acquired the
  necessary knowledge, skills, and attitudes to
  enter and succeed in
• Agripreneurship,
• Employment which requires agricultural knowledge
  and skills, and/or
• Agricultural college or technical school

4
Less than 30 of 2000 elementary, junior, and
senior high school students gave correct answers
to relatively basic agricultural questions.
5
Teaching Middle School

• Focuses on
• Career exploration
• Agricultural literacy
• Hands-on learning

6
What do Middle School Students Want?

• SCORE
• Success
• Curiosity
• Originality
• Relationships

7
Success

• Before we can use success to motivate
• We must articulate the criteria for success
• Provide clear, immediate, and constructive
  feedback
• Show students skills are within their grasp
• Help them see success as a valuable aspect of
  their personalities

8
Arousing Curiosity

• Students want and need work that stimulates their
  curiosity
• To arouse curiosity, our curriculum must
• Include topics that are fragmentary or
  contradictory
• Topic relates to students personal lives
• Lack of organization may compel students to
  understand it further (outside of the textbook)
• Use mysteries (What killed the dinosaurs?)

9
Encouraging Originality

• Students want and need work that permits them to
  express their autonomy and originality
• Connect creative projects to students personal
  ideas and concerns
• Expand what counts as an audience
• Consider giving students more choice

10
Fostering Peer Relations

• Use cooperative learning strategies
• Use group activities that take advantage of
  students various skills

11
Working with Middle School Students

• Girls are about two years ahead of boys in
  maturity
• Middle school students need to be in groups
• Middle school students have identity problems
• Middle school students have varying degrees of
  dependence on parents
• Middle school students should not be competing
  against themselves

12
Working with Middle School Students

• Middle school students set up networks need
  friends
• Middle school students need protection/success/
  nurturing
• Middle school students are very sensitive to
  height
• Middle school students need the opportunity to
  talk to you and among themselves
• Middle school students need to know class rules

13
Working with Middle School Students

• Middle school students are very visual
• Develop groups of five or fewer students
• Group assignment should be random
• Feed them. Kids like to eat
• Soft background music is soothing to them