Agriculture Workforce Training for Collaborative Leadership (AWT4CL)

by Megan Seibel -- I don’t know about you, but there is something about starting a new year that brings mixed emotions – anticipation, excitement, and even a bit of stress over all the things that were supposed to get accomplished last year and, well, just didn’t.  It is also interesting that each new year seems to be long anticipated, yet happens abruptly. And the changes that go with it sometimes require thought and attention. Take writing the date for example. After 365 days of writing 2023, it became a motor memory. It takes thoughtfulness to write 2024, with the trust that it will quickly become automatic.  So it goes with habits and intentions. New Year’s resolutions, so to speak. Looking back over the past year, perhaps some things warrant reflection so that adjustments can be made to improve, begin, or even stop certain behaviors. Here are a few tips and thoughts, similar to the PDSA (plan-do-study-act) model , to consider as we go into this new calendar year, and seco...

by Samson Adeoye and Eric Kaufman --  The summer of 2023 activities comprised three sequential sessions – a project evaluation and two check-ins – where different engaging avenues were employed to further the Agricultural Workforce Training for Collaborative Leadership (AWT4CL) project. Celeste Carmichael facilitated a focus group as part of the project’s formative evaluation to ensure continuous process improvement and enhanced learning. Members of the AWT4CL cohort met virtually to discuss their experiences and perceptions about the project. According to the cohort, the AWT4CL has helped to enhance their communication, networking, relationship-building, and collaboration skills and abilities. A participant recounted: “ I think it’s been very valuable, and one thing I think would serve us better is the networking aspect. I feel like we have developed relationships and been able to do some checks and balances for one another to improve our program’s consistency across the VCCS...

 By Tom Scales --  The Advisory Group for Southside Virginia Community College’s Agribusiness and Business programs meet every year. It is made up of business and industry leaders throughout SVCC’s 11 county service area. Every year people tell us that the need for the “soft skills” is often greater than their need for job skills when hiring people. A dairy farmer can teach people about cattle fairly easily because cattle are their livelihood. But it’s a different ballgame for that farmer to teach people about time management, politeness, neatness, communication, work ethic, motivation, responsibility, etc. Often, they will tell us, “we hire for attitude and then train for skills.”  Thus, they ask us to prepare our graduates for better attitude, willingness, and communication. For some, they see soft skills as more important than the actual job-related ones. (The milking machine they’d use on the job is probably different from the one I’d teach them on, so the farmer wo...

By Jama S. Coartney and Eric K. Kaufman --  The Agriculture Workforce Training for Collaborative Leadership  cohort met January 13, 2023, to check in and discuss topics of mutual interest, including PDSA projects, opportunities to share key insights with a broader audience, and the potential of incorporating digital badges into the learning management system. During the summer of 2022, each member of the cohort drafted a PDSA proposal to focus on an aspect of their teaching they would like to improve and test.  The January 2023 meeting focused on updates on this work.   The cohort faculty used  IdeaBoardz  to share news on pilot projects, gain feedback and insight from others, and explore ideas for future improvements.This video summarizes a discussion around the challenges faculty face with balancing the amount of class time to both engage with students and cover content.  The project blog  contains some updates from va...

by Jama S. Coartney and Eric K. Kaufman --  The Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) Model for Continuous Improvement  has been around in one form or another since the 1930s. In the early days, Dr. W. Edwards Deming, an educator and engineer, called it either the  Shewhart's cycle or a cycle for learning and improvement . Have you ever heard of PDCA or Plan Do Check Act? In the 1950s, the business world derived PDCA from Deming's lectures and work. In fact, Moen and Norman (2009) note that PDSA was the basis for the Total Quality Management (TQM) framework, still used in business today. Deming, however, preferred that it be called the PDSA Model for Improvement; and so, people in the know tend to use the term PDSA.   Why use a PDSA approach in education? Today’s culture calls for data-driven disciplined inquiry; we see examples of this through the introduction of new terms, such as data analytics. As noted by the Deming institute, PDSA can provide a useful tool in...