Inside This Issue: Roundup Location 2 Honor Club Summary Leadership & Citizenship Portfolios Due 2/1/18 2 3-5 Master Chef Jr. 6 Upcoming Events 7 Tennessee 4-H Ideas Volume 18, Issue 1 January 1, 2018 Happy New Year! Dr. Richard Clark 2018 has come in with a vengeance. At least that s how it feels with the frigid temperatures, frozen pipes, and flu bug. But this will pass and a new series of wonderful 4-H experiences will get underway. A number of our Tennessee 4-H members are in Denver, Colorado this week (it is warmer there than in Tennessee) at the Western National Roundup. These state winners will compete in a variety of contests and hopefully, do their personal best in their competitions. Next week, I will highlight their accomplishments. Believe it or not, the State 4-H Specialists and Regional staff have already begun planning for this year s 4-H Congress. It will be held at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Murfreesboro, March 18-21. This event is one of the highlights of the 4-H year and focuses on our leadership and citizenship efforts. Having the opportunity to visit the senate and house chambers and interact with our political leaders in always an exciting time. We are looking forward to returning to UT Martin for Roundup this year, July 23-27. This will begin an every other year rotation with UT Knoxville. This event is the culmination of project efforts, selects state finalists and awards scholarships to the winners. Our All Star conference will take place during Roundup and will provide an opportunity to highlight the wonderful community service efforts of our All Star members. 2018 will continue to bring new curriculum for use at the county level. This will be both in the form of activity sheets and lesson plans tied to state standards and materials focused on each of our state project areas. In addition, portfolios will continue to move towards a digital format with exciting ways for youth to display their project accomplishments. Finally, I hope you have had a refreshing holiday season and will join me in making 2018 the best year yet for Tennessee 4-H.
Page 2 Roundup Location 2018 State 4-H Office Roundup 2018 will be held at UT Martin and will coincide with the Milan Field Day in the future. This will begin an every other year rotation of location with UT Knoxville and UT Martin. If you have any questions, please contact your Regional Program Leader, Area Specialist or the State 4-H Office. 2017 HONOR CLUB SUMMARY Justin Crowe, Extension Specialist Congratulations are in order for all 4-H agents, volunteers and teen leaders who encouraged 4-H'ers to apply for Honor Club membership last year. A total of 533 4-H'ers were initiated into the Honor Club during the 2017 calendar year, an increase of 86 (19.2%) as compared to 2016. Bradley and Madison counties initiated the most Honor Club members in 2017 with 41 new members each. Other counties in the top five included Crockett County with 27; Sevier County with 26; and Claiborne and Hawkins counties with 22 each. The Eastern Region was the top region with 240 initiates, followed by the Central Region with 147 and the Western Region with 146. Additional data on Honor Club initiates may be found on the Web site at https://4h.tennessee.edu/pages/honorclub.aspx. Remember Honor Club is a recognition program. Honor Club recognizes members for participation in educational opportunities; membership does not involve winning any kind of competition. Members receive points on the application form just for participating. Any 4-H'er meeting a minimum number of points can achieve Honor Club recognition. An active Honor Club is an indication of a quality teen program. Why not invite your outstanding 4-H members to an application party hosted by your Honor Club members? Don't delay. Start your 4-H members working on their Honor Club applications today! We're awaiting your applications for 2018.
Page 3 Leadership and Citizenship Portfolios Due February 1 Minor Changes to Portfolio Process Announced for 2018 Lori Gallimore, Extension Specialist Leadership and Citizenship portfolios are due into the State 4-H Office by February 1, 2018. Portfolios will be submitted in the same format as last year scanned and emailed or sent via the UT Vault. However, if you remember, we are in the process of moving to a more technology-friendly, webbased portfolio format so minor changes will continue to occur until we reach this goal in 2019. The Portfolio Workgroup Committee met before Christmas to finalize a few of these changes as we continue making our way to a new format. Most of this is just FYI. If there is something that needs to be done differently, it is highlighted in yellow. Anything that requires an action on your part WILL NOT interfere with the work you have already done on your February portfolio submissions. If there is a problem, please let me know and we will get it worked out! Here s what is new for February 2018 submissions: RUBRIC We will use the same scoring rubric as we did in 2017. You can see the new rubric by going to the 4-H Website and clicking on Forms and Materials on the top bar. Then scroll down to portfolio. You will find the new rubric listed as Portfolio Score Card, Rubric, Comments Page (2018). There are three changes to the rubric and they are as follows: A zero column has been added. This will be used to mark sections of the portfolio that are missing (instead of leaving the section blank and with no score indicated). The Friends, Family and Community section of the Section C Citizenship has been divided. Contestants will be given a score for Friends and Family. They will also be given a separate score for Community. The overall benchmark scores for the Friends, Family and Community have also been divided. So, for example, if in order to get a score of 3, a contestant needed to have a minimum of 10 activities related to friends, family and community then the contestant now has to have 5 activities for friends and family and 5 activities for community. Contestants may use the same Section C form as in years past. However, an updated Section C form for 2018 will be introduced on March 1 for the May portfolio entries. More information is forthcoming. In the interim, the judges for citizenship and leadership will be instructed to divide this section and look for the work in family and friends AND community.
Page 4 You can help by making sure that your 4-H ers have clearly identified if there might be a question into which group the work they have done fits. Instead of being ranked 1-5 on each section of the rubric, contestants will be scored 1-15 with each of the five benchmark areas of each section having a range of three points. Whew?! Sounds confusing! Let s make this simple last year the rubric looked like this: 1 2 3 4 5 This year, a three-point range will be provided for each score. This encourages a higher quality of work on the part of the 4-H er and allows for more autonomy of judging by the judges. The rubric now looks like this: 1-3 4-6 7-9 10-12 13-15 How does this work? It s very simple. While a 4-H er may have the minimum number of activities required to receive score of 10-12 (formally 4), the judge may only award he/she a 10 if the quality of the work appears to be mundane, repetitive and not contributing to the growth of knowledge and skill which is the objective of the portfolio. Keep in mind, it is about the quality of work not the quantity! SUPER REGISTRATION For 2018, in addition to emailing your portfolios or sending them through the vault, please register each portfolio in SUPER. The link to the registration site is as follows: http://super.tennessee.edu/event/ Description.aspx?id=12490. All portfolios for Citizenship and Leadership must be received and entered into SUPER by 11:59 p.m. on February 1. Judges have been selected and will begin judging on February 2. If this is an issue, please let me know. Registration will make it easier to keep up with submissions and hopefully cut down on emails and phone calls regarding checks and double checks between you and the State 4-H Office. LEVEL I NARRATIVE/RESUME AND INTERVIEW Based on the recommendations of the Portfolio Workgroup and with approval of the state and regional 4-H staff, Level I competitors will move away from the narrative and to a resume. This will be effective for the May 2018 submissions.
Page 5 To ease this transition and for February 2018, all Level I contestants may submit either a narrative or a resume in their portfolio. State finalists in Level I Citizenship and Leadership will NOT use a display during their interview at 4-H Congress. Instead, Level I finalists should bring a resume with them to the interview just like Level II finalists. GETTING READY FOR 2019 We got through the toughest part of the portfolio change last year! Kuddos to you all! Curious as to what else is happening to the portfolio? New format with Showare so that scores AND comments will be printed instantly and included in the participants packet that he/she receives on stage. Training videos for each section of the portfolio were written by the Portfolio Workgroup and are being produced now. These videos include information on each section of the portfolio what goes in each section, how the sections fit together and what the judges are look for when looking at the portfolios. These will be made available for agents, volunteers, parents and 4-H members through the 4-H website. More information to come! Portfolio training will be offered multiple times (3) in each region this year. Our goal is to have those trainings completed before school begins September 1. The two-day training will be for 4-H agents and include one day on the in s and out s of the Tennessee 4-H portfolio and the second day on how to create a web-based portfolio. Multiple trainings will be offered so that each agent has ample opportunity to attend and/or re-attend (if they so choose). More information to come!
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4-H Motto: To Make the Best Better ALEC Graduate Program Masters of Science in Agriculture Leadership, Education and Communications (ALEC) Online degree available!! For more information, please visit https://alec.utk.edu Or Call 865-974-7371 Carrie Ann Stephens Professor, 4-H/ALEC State 4-H Office 2621 Morgan Circle Room 205 Knoxville, TN 37996 Phone: 865-974-2128 Fax: 865-974-1628 4-H PLEDGE I pledge my HEAD to clearer thinking; My HEART to greater loyalty My HANDS to larger service; and My HEALTH to better living, For my club, my community, my country and my world. 2017 State 4-H Calendar 4h.tennessee.edu Upcoming Events Jan 4-7 Jan 11-13 Jan 26-27 Jan 26-17 Western National Roundup, Denver CO State Junior Market Hog Show, Murfreesboro State 4-H Shooting Sports Instructor Certification State 4-H All Star High Council Meeting, Lebanon TN4hfoundation.org ALEC.utk.edu