Kristen Vingoe

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Student Personal and Educational Profile

During my observation at a high school I observed an agricultural

science program at, I had the pleasure of identifying a student to interview

and meet with, as well as interpret some different learning styles and

learning techniques that that this student does well with, and what their

strengths and weaknesses are. At a Houston-area high school, where I

observed agricultural science classes at for my Clinical Professionalism in

Agricultural Science Programs course this semester, I interviewed John Doe,

who is a student in more than one of the high schools agricultural science

classes, as well as a member of the FFA program at this high school. John

Doe is a Junior at this high school and comes from a working-middle class

family in Houston, Texas. Johns family lives inside the 610 loop of Houston

which is basically where the center of Houston is, therefore John lives in a

very urban part of the city. Along with his two working parents, John has a

college-aged sister who goes to Sam Houston State University pursuing an

agricultural degree. John become involved with FFA when he was in 5th grade,

due to his older sister being heavily involved with the FFA program and

taking agricultural classes at the high school, which John would eventually

attend as well. When asked why John became involved in the agricultural

science and FFA programs, John answered, I saw that my sister loved being

involved, and I felt that it would be a really good opportunity to get involved

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with something at my high school and meet people before even starting high

school so that I would be familiar and have something new to enjoy.

Upon observing John Doe in one of his agricultural science classes,

which happened to be Livestock Practicum, I learned that John thoroughly

enjoys the realm of livestock, and applies what he learns in this class often to

his own FFA supervised agricultural experience projects of broiler chickens,

and a breeding heifer named Grace. John likes to learn best when there is an

interactive lesson, such as a PowerPoint with questions or interesting videos

incorporated, instead of just words followed by more words. John also

appreciates and collaboratively learns with others when there is a group

project, or group discussion, whether it be between the students and the

teacher, or just among the students. During the observation, I asked John a

series of questions that were a part of the questionnaire for the NC State

Index of Learning Styles Questionnaire and we answered the entire

questionnaire together, with him doing the answering, but me clarifying any

of the questions if needed. John also discussed some of the questions with

me, which shows me that he is very hands-on, but thinks about questions

thoroughly, as well as wonders and considers other peoples opinions or

explanations in depth. The results showed that John was far left on the side

of active instead of reflective, which John agrees with because he feels

that he learns best in active scenarios, where learning is directly taking

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place. John was slightly more sensing than intuitive, which John and I both

were surprised about because as I had noticed, John asks a lot of questions

and thinks about something a lot before coming up with an answer, which

John recognizes that he does as well. John measured the highest possible

rating of visual, as opposed to verbal, which John definitely agrees with

because he is definitely a visual learner, and states, PowerPoints or

homeworks with words just confuse and bore me, but when I see pictures,

diagrams, graphs, or videos, I am really interested and want to continue

learning or working. Lastly, John measured slightly more sequential over

global, which can easily be understood because John likes to go step-by-

step in order to understand a process, as opposed to getting the whole big

picture and then trying to learn the steps. John claimed that he enjoyed

taking this learning style questionnaire because it helped him to better

understand why he thinks and learns the way he does.

When I asked John what his favorite ways to learn in class are, as well

as what his favorite topics hes learned in class so far are, he answered, I

really like to learn when the teacher has a discussion with us and answers

any questions that we have, and I also like when he allows us to work with

partners or in a group to complete a project or study together. I really like

when we learn about something related to animals and raising animals. For

example, we learned at the beginning of the year how to raise broiler

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chickens, and I had never raised broiler chickens before, and none of my

friends or my sister did either so me and my family were clueless on how to

raise them, but I wanted to raise them to challenge myself. When we learned

about raising broiler chickens in this livestock class, I got a lot of valuable

information and access to resources that helped me throughout my whole

project and I actually ended up winning reserve champion broilers out of 7

projects at my schools FFA show last week. This was extremely exciting for

me to hear, because in my opinion, this is an excellent example of a student

realizing the importance of what the students learn in class, how to be

actively engaged, and then how to apply what they have learned to

something in their real life scenarios.

John is currently a Junior in high school, and is taking two AP classes,

while also being involved with FFA, as well as the city of Houston-Junior

Council, which is a Houston area city council but for middle and high school

students, and also plays varsity football for the high school, and will next

year for his Senior year. John has always excelled at school, and has always

been involved with a number of extracurricular activities and still manages to

keep up with school work, which he accredits to learning early on from his

sister, and the desire to succeed and still be involved in a different activities

and groups. When asked about his future, or the plans he has for the

upcoming years, John would like to either attend Texas A&M, Texas State,

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Louisiana State University, and then Sam Houston State University (in that

order), and believe that he will most likely pursue a degree in agriculture, but

that medical fields interest him as well. John is mainly interested in the

production side of agriculture, therefore I suggested to John that he possibly

study meat science, or agribusiness, to possibly own his own breeding and

production operation. John agreed that these were both good career

opportunities that he wants to look into and get more information about,

which is when I showed him the TAMU AGLS page and how to look up each

major, and what you will need to study for each. John really enjoyed the

conversation about his future, I believe mainly because he is interested in

seeing how agriculture could and will hopefully play a part in his upcoming

choices and decisions.

I truly enjoyed having the chance to meet with, and observe John Doe

during my visit. His interview, which really only felt like a good discussion

between friends, even though we had only met once prior to this, was a vital,

interesting, and positive interview and experience for the both of us. I

believe that if this were my student in my agricultural science program, I

would truly try to use this student to the best of my ability for the success of

my program, and use my strengths to further advance this student in any

way that they would like. I would attempt to motivate John by always having

lessons that include pictures, videos, discussions, and group work, because I

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know that John, like several other students, would learn best in that scenario.

I believe that Johns background when it comes to juggling extracurricular

and academics, ties into why John learns the way he learns, and succeeds as

well as he does. John is an exceptional student who could have a bright

future in the career of agriculture, but truly, has a bright future wherever he

goes, just as every other student that I hope to one day teach, will learn that

they have as well.