Agriculture Workforce Training for Collaborative Leadership (AWT4CL)

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 Dr. Heather Lindberg --  Internships are a great opportunity for students to bridge the gap between classrooms—which emphasize theory with minimal practice and application—and industry, which focuses on applying theory and solving problems in real time with real consequences. Internships can help to address this gap. Research indicates that internships can help to ease this transition for students—from the classroom to the workforce—by providing dedicated mentorship, training, and experience within the industry setting (Veenstra, 2014) . Roanoke Valley, VA and surrounding areas are encouraging innovation related to agriculture, life sciences, and the biotechnology industry. Programs, such as Regional Acceleration and Mentoring Program (RAMP) , a regional business accelerator, help to support STEM-related startup companies.  Some of these startups will turn into companies, increasing employment opportunities in the region.  With these developments, there will be more o...

  By Jama S. Coartney and Eric K. Kaufman --  Many have identified the need for more durable skills as students transition from school to the workforce. But, what exactly are durable skills? And why are they so important? Durable, employability, and soft skills have pretty much the same meaning. For example, the Association of Public & Land-Grant Universities defines employability skills as the “nontechnical skills used every day in the workforce to ensure the smooth operation of projects and offices.” America Succeeds and Training Industry also provide lists of competencies related to durable, employability, and soft skills. Examples of these types of skills can range from empathy to decision-making to adaptability. While these studies highlight the importance of—and need for—teaching these skills to current and future generations of workers, they do not provide much clarity on how to go about doing so. Luckily, Dr. Theo Dawson and team have developed teaching and lea...

By Megan Seibel  --  Did you know that the full proverb is actually " Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back? "  I didn't.  Of course, I had heard and been told the front portion many a time over my decades of life. To say I am a "curious" person is an understatement. Learner and Input are part of my  Clifton StrengthsFinder  profile. My college roommate and I decided that by the time we were parents our goal was to know at least a little bit about everything (yes, we thought that was normal as 19 year-olds)! As I became an adult, however, I remember others aligning negative connotations to this old proverb. As far as I was concerned, it didn't matter to me if curiosity killed the cat; cats have nine lives, after all.  It is my nature to ask questions. Lots of questions . And I did. In certain settings, though, I started to notice that the practice of asking questions didn't always seem the "popular" thing to ...

By  Celeste Carmichael --  What is the equation of experiences that helps us to identify as learners, leaders, and enthusiasts?  For most that equation goes beyond the classroom and into out of school time activities, recreation, jobs, and relationships.  What if we, as formal educators, intentionally recognize the value of those experiences and point to similar opportunities for enrichment?  The Center for Multicultural Education at the University of Washington and the LIFE Center— a research collaboration between the University of Washington, Stanford University, and SRI International, supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF)—established a panel to study this question and develop a set of principles that could help us to weave together learning across contexts and help students succeed. The panel poses that if educators make use of the informal learning that occurs in the homes, communities, and co-curricular activities of students, the achievement ...