Standard #10 Artifact Title: Judge at Skills USA competition brochure Date of Artifact: February 17th-18th 2012 Artifact

Description: My junior year of college at UW-Platteville I was enrolled in a Principles of Vocational Technology. One of the main things I had to do in this class was attend the Skills USA completion in the Dells. I was a judge for the CO2 drag cars competition. My artifact that I have for this standard is the brochure of the competition. Alignment Reflection: This artifact best aligns with Wisconsin State Teaching Standard #10:. The teacher fosters
relationships with school colleagues, parents, and agencies in the larger community to support pupil learning and well-being and acts with integrity, fairness and in an ethical manner. The reason that this artifact aligns best with this standard is that the head of all the competitions were Technology Education teachers. When aiding with the judging of the cars specifications it was important to keep in contact with the teacher that was in charge of the event so every students car was judged the same. What I did in this artifact was check all the cars to make sure they were within specifications. I checked over 100 cars to make sure the wheel sizes were correct, axel length did not exceed the limits, and many other items that if they were not to specifications I had to disqualify the car. Between me and another student from UWP had to keep in contact about being fair in what could compete or what should be disqualified. After checking all the cars we setup the course to run the cars and kept track of the times of the cars and placed the cars according to age class and fastest time. I feel as a teacher trying to get your students involved in this would build up a very strong program to get students involved in other classes in your department. This opportunity will open up ideas for students that the Tech Ed field is not just what happens at their high school by showing them all different types of projects that can be done. UW-Platteville School of Education Knowledge, Skills, and Dispositions Alignment: KSD4.f This artifact best aligns with KSD 4.f: The candidate has the ability to participate professionally in staff decision-making and be highly proactive in serving students, working to assure that all students, particularly those traditionally underserved, have an opportunity for success in school. My experience reflects this KSD in particular because after witnessing this program opens up to students a goal that they can shoot for. This KSD is a perfect example of students being able to participate and add competitive edge to doing school work. I believe strongly in that everyone has something that they are extremely talented at and this also follows their interests. Being able to give the students an opportunity to compete in something that they have an interest in could further help their choice of a career further down the road. As a teacher I want to open the possibilities of many options to students that they may not have ever thought of doing.

Secondary alignment: KSD1.b, KSD 4.b

Personal Reflection What I learned about teaching/learning from this experience: One of the main things I learned from this experience is being able to communicate with other Tech Ed teachers can give me ideas of possible events or to be able to give me a recommendation. I believe that the more you are able to network with others the better your teaching and program will be. Networking with other teachers will allow you to obtain ideas of what topics or classes other teachers are involved with in their schools. Another thing that I thought was important about this artifact was witnessing the way the students from all over the state acted outside of the school environment. All the students were so determined to win that this gave some students the competiveness that is not always given in class. The last thing I learned about this experience is that every teacher should be on the lookout for possible competitions like this one to. Being involved in something like this will build your program and get more students interested in what field you teach. What I learned about myself as a prospective educator from this experience: The most important thing that I have personally learned from this experience is the extracurricular activities bring interest to students and the boost that this may give your program. Having this competition as part of your program students will become more interested and start taking more and more classes. As a teacher it is important to have something that sets you apart from others. Skills USA competition is definitely something as a future teacher that I will try to get my students to compete in. This will also give you a chance to see students to get outside of their comfort zone which would benefit them down the road. As a future teacher seeing my students compete in something like this would give me exceptional reward of seeing students succeed or being more involved with the program.