Agriculture Workforce Training for Collaborative Leadership (AWT4CL)

by Heather Butler --  I teach a 4-credit Dendrology course at Virginia Western Community College , which includes a 3-credit lecture and 1-credit lab. The lecture takes place in a traditional college classroom and covers tree physiology and forest ecology. The lab, however, is field-based and entails weekly field trips to forested areas where students learn to identify the common and Latin names of 100+ trees and shrubs native to the central Appalachia. I based the class on  Virginia Tech’s field Dendrology lab  developed by Dr. John Seiler. He still teaches at VT and was my instructor when I studied forestry. Each week, students learn to identify and properly name 8-10 new species, which are then added to a growing list of potential items on lab quizzes. Weekly quizzes are given at the beginning of each field lab, and the species add up quickly. If students aren’t engaged and practicing from the beginning, they can easily get overwhelmed, making it difficult to catch u...

 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 Megan Seibel & Curt Friedel --  As educators, it is thrilling to witness a student’s AHA! , the proverbial “light bulb” moment. We see it when ideas are generated, connected, developed, executed, and shared. Some are on point, some seem tangential, but all are valuable.   The way in which our course content is designed and delivered has a direct impact on our students’ engagement and learning.   In developing assignments, establishing expectations for success in those assignments, and creating opportunities for input, feedback and growth, it is important to consider how we engage in these activities. Many of us may not stop to think about our own preferences in how these are structured when we develop them, and whether or not that is in alignment with our students’ needs and preferences.   Adaption-Innovation Continuum of Creative Style  As human beings, we are each hardwired in the WAY in which we prefer to generate ideas, utilize structure to imp...