Agriculture Workforce Training for Collaborative Leadership (AWT4CL)

by Ben Casteel --  I have fond memories of my time as a Scout; and though I never made it to Eagle rank, I proudly wore the sash embroidered with the merit badges I earned.  When we began working on digital badging for students in our Agriculture & Natural Resources programs in conjunction with the AWT4CL project , I couldn’t help but to reminisce and draw parallels to the BSA merit badge process .  After two years of piloting the AWT4CL Digital Learning Badges , I strongly believe that there is so much more to these virtual credentials; and what better way to confirm this than by working directly with employers. As a program chair in a technical field, I am not only concerned with grades but even more so for the students employability.  It is for this reason that we meet annually with our Curriculum Advisory Committees at Virginia Highlands Community College.  The Horticulture and Natural Sciences Committee is comprised of 9 representatives (mostly owners/...

Author: Curtis R. Friedel     -- You are an agent of change. By the nature of you solving problems, you create solutions that change the situation from the current status to a more desired status. We each create change that others may resist, and others may create change that we choose to accept or resist. If we consider the different aspects of change, we can better communicate about the parts of change we like, and the parts of change that are troublesome. We can assess different aspects of change to better help us Navigate Change and Ambiguity . Among many of the ways to assess change, we can consider change by its speed (slow to fast), size (small to large), sophistication (simple to complex) and style (evolutionary to revolutionary). Each of these aspects of change are independent from each other. You may want to think of various changes, both personally, nationally, and globally, and consider how they are different based on these four criteria. Another resource to c...