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| AGFs Johnson, Germany, and Jones (right to left) plan their lesson for tomorrow’s class on goat assessment. |
We started our unit at the very
beginning. Our six students helped us
define multiple parts of the goat’s skeletal anatomy so that we could easily
communicate what to be looking at or feeling when assessing an animal. After no more than 30 minutes in the
classroom, we led our students out of the classroom and our wonderful herd of
goats! We demonstrated how to calmly
approach a goat, how to perform a physical assessment, determine BCS and
methods of record-keeping which would allow them to observe changes that occur
over time. They then were given goats
and spent the next 2 hours doing their own assessments, some happily finding
that their goats were solid 3’s while others realized that we had purposefully
bought some 1’s and 2’s in order to demonstrate the differences. Don’t worry, we told them, after three weeks
with us they will all be looking like 3’s for our goodbye dinner.
Turning
learning into teaching
After
this full day of training, the AGFs began developing lesson plans that teach
the competencies that they gained from our first lesson. Working in pairs, they will put collaborate
on a lesson plan and co-teach this coming Friday to a local youth group. This will not only increase their experience
teaching to students, but further their perspective on how different a lesson
can come out in practice than how you initially write it.  |
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AGF Jones demonstrates how to take a goat’s temperature
while keeping the animal calm with great handling skills!
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And
finally, some practice!
After a day of
workshopping their lesson plans yesterday, today they had a practice run. Each of our teaching groups took turns being
the teachers and then the students with the other group of AGFs who are being
trained in agroforestry and matters of the soil (clearly an expert talkin’
here…). It was amazing to see how
quickly they turned what they learned with us into expert knowledge! It is so much this part, watching our
trainees become the trainers, that makes us love working in agricultural
education. I could harp on this forever,
but will instead leave with a string of photos showing how comfortable and
professional they have become with the goats!  |
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AGF Michel ( red shirt) walks the goat through a visual
assessment of this
friendly neighborhood buck!
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