Agriculture Workforce Training for Collaborative Leadership (AWT4CL)

By Megan Seibel  --   Recently, I had the pleasure of listening to a webinar sponsored by several national agricultural education organizations entitled, “Empowering Agricultural Education: Engaging and Retaining Leaders for Future Workforce Preparation.” Human resource experts from BASF , Elanco , and Syngenta shared insights related to wants and needs of future workforce, and how agricultural education can support both educators and students to address these needs in preparing for the future.  While the primary target audience of this session was educators of secondary students, the topics discussed proved to be in direct alignment with the programmatic goals of post-secondary education and training programs. When it comes to leadership skills sought by employers, there are ways to develop and enforce them at multiple times throughout a student’s education. Interest in particular careers may be planted early, so that they come to community college, university, and ca...

by Samson Adeoye -- As we approached the end of the year 2023, Dr. Curt Friedel took us on a journey of capturing the year in pictures and keeping memories alive. An insightful blog post that connects reflection with learning and experience. In a seemingly orchestrated order, Dr. Megan Seibel provided an educative blog post on how one may approach a new year with new perspectives, drawing connections to cognitive styles and decision-making. As part of reviewing and reflecting on the previous year, members of the AWT4CL met virtually to discuss their teaching and learning experiences. They shared practical wisdom from engaging with their students based on PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act) projects, synchronous and asynchronous learning, and implementation of digital learning badges. The conversation and reflections indicate that the AWT4CL project is creating avenues for cohort members to create engaged learning environments, where instructors create opportunities for students to participate ac...

by Curt Friedel -- One of my favorite things to do at the end of the year is to find the websites offering the year in pictures. As they say, “a picture is worth a thousand words”, and tells a story of significant events of the past year. Sometimes, the pictures are associated with a newsworthy event; sometimes, the picture is a colorful and beautiful moment. It seems like each picture offers a glimpse of our humanity, and sometimes our inhumanity. Pictures offer a great opportunity to reflect on what we can be proud of, and what we could do better or different. Some great websites for seeing the year-in-pictures include: CNN - https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/specials/year-in-pictures/ The Associated Press - https://apnews.com/article/photos-2023-yearend-photography-ap-0a62ee84672da7a03685c5f5f64f2c47 Time - https://time.com/6337364/top-100-photos-2023/ Reuters - https://www.reuters.com/pictures/pictures-year-2023-2023-11-28/ What does your year of pictures look like? Maybe you ta...