Tuesday, June 23, 2015

FCCLA Integration Workshop

I attended the FCCLA Integration Summer Workshop on Monday; June 22, 2015 at the Lowry Conference Center. Lenora Reid, National Consultant Team, was the presenter. What an engaging and fun day! I learned a variety of new ways to integrate FCCLA into my classroom and am excited to try several of the ideas. I will highlight the three ideas I plan to implement.

First, I loved learning about the Jenga game. She had us get into groups of 6 and we played Jenga with questions from the Step One National Program. This would be a great way to have all students complete Step One and I plan to submit their names for recognition at the State Conference.

I really appreciated how Lenora taught us how to recruit, retain, and recognize FCCLA members. I plan to be more cognizant of the recognition and will encourage it in our local organization. Ideas include officer pins, end of the year banquet, and a membership point system, that I have utilized, but we have not used in the past few years.

A third concept that resonated with me was putting the opening and closing ceremony in the script for officers for use in monthly meetings. I loved this idea and am certainly going to do this next school year.

I am excited to start the 2015-2016 school year by implementing these three major reminders and learnings. Thank you for having her come to Colorado! It is greatly appreciated.

Monday, May 18, 2015

2015 CAFCS Conference

I attended the CAFCS Conference on Saturday; April 24 2015 at the Ranch complex in Loveland, CO. The theme was Trends in Education. Breakfast was served to allow for networking of CAFCS professional. This is one of my favorite things about being a member of AAFCS since 1982. I love the networking opportunities at AAFCS/CAFCS conferences that allows me to dive deeper into the FACS content.

Following the breakfast, conference attendees were treated to a presentation by Katy Blatnick-Gagne' on Technology Trends. Katy is currently pursuing a doctorate degree in educational technology and had a wealth of information for us. I learned new concepts and had other concepts reinforced. It was a terrific learning opportunity!

Some Colorado State University students presented their Colorado legistative action boards. This opportunity is also very valuable. I appreciated the time that the students spent on researching, developing an engaging board, and educating us on the current legislative bills.

The new officer team was installed and I will be serving as the President-elect. I am excited to have this opportunity to give back to the profession that I have loved being a part of the past 30 years.

2015 FCCLA State Conference

I attended the 2015 FCCLA State Leadership Conference on Thursday; April 9 through Saturday; April 11. Our school district had five FCCLA members attend and two advisors. Four of the five members competed in a STAR Event. Those events include:  Job Interview, Career Investigation, and Fashion Stylist. They learned so much. I was a co-chair of the Career Investigation STAR Event and had a great time helping with the coordination of that event. I learn so much when I do this. It was a long day as we had many participants. I enjoyed interacting with the judges a little bit and also was able to catch up with the other co-chair.

We enjoyed the multi-media presentation and the opening session. Great, inspirational stories were brought back to my classroom. The banquet was delicious. We were unable to view the session during the banquet as we were in a room with no audio. That was frustrating as we missed out on the announcement of the 2015-2016 State Officer Team, something that I look forward to every year.

The dance and movie were attended by our members and they thoroughly enjoyed their time that evening. The passing along of this information is crucial to recruiting new members, in addition to the success that members had in their participation of a STAR Event. It is amazing to me how word of mouth and photos from previous years encourage students to get involved in FCCLA.

It was a great experience, once again and I can't wait to bring students next year. Our goal is to have more students attend!