Throughout my student teaching experience, I have really strived to ensure that I am implementing all aspected of the three circle model into my agricultural education program. One of the main components of an agricultural education program is Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE). An SAE is an agricultural related, student led, work based learning experience. This can look different for every student. It can include working at an agricultural related business, doing agricultural related research, or becoming an entrepreneur in your own agricultural business. The possibilities of an SAE are truly endless.
Throughout my time student teaching at Biglerville, I have been fortunate enough to work with students who have a wide variety of SAE projects. The first project I go to visit involved a student who was raising puppies that they had recently rescued. This student worked to record time that they spent working with the puppies, the expenses related to raising puppies, and the overall growth of the puppies since they were rescued. This was a really uniques SAE experience, and one that I had never even considered as a possibility until I came to Biglerville. Through this SAE, this student gets to learn about how to care for young puppies, track young animals growth, and complete important health tasks, such as giving shots.
To prepare for this SAE visit, we contacted the student and their parent to make sure that the visitation time would be okay for them. We then checked the students AET journal to make sure that they were staying up to date with their records and to familiarize ourselves with the work that the student had been doing.
As potential areas for improvement on this SAE, we suggested that this student keep more accurate records of their care for the animals. For example, tracking the time that they spent allowing the puppies to exercise or the expenses associated with buying medications for the puppies. Overall, we just suggested that the student could make more entries documenting what they have put into their SAE.
At Biglerville, students have the option to sign up for an SAE elective. Students are graded on their records in the AET program including journal entries and financial entries. Students can chose to receive either a half or full credit for SAE. SAE is typically given a pass/fail grade.
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