Information for Teachers

Internship guidelines for teachers hosting students:

• At least 70% of work should be mentored / together work.
• Provide a wide exposure to different tasks, e.g. at least 3 different tasks in a day.
• Provide a safe working environment, e.g. encourage use of gloves, ear protection, eye protection, dust masks, etc. This includes providing tools in working order. Interns should provide closed protective footwear.
• Provide an animal briefing (snakes, insects, scorpions, goats, bulls, roosters, etc.).
• Provide at least organic food and drink, preferably locally sourced. Finer points of food (e.g. preparation) should be agreed between host and intern.
• Provide healthy (dry, warm / cool enough, clean) facilities. Finer points of accommodation (e.g. use of own facilities e.g. tent or van) should be agreed between host and intern.

Requirements of teachers:

• Completed a PDC or equivalent, and..
• Completed a PTT (Permaculture Teacher Training) certificate or equivalent (eg Dynamic Groups, secondary school teacher qualification, other industry training certificate/training), and..
• Be nominated and be seconded by two existing “member” teachers, and..
• Acceptance of minimum professional standards (see below).

Or..

• Not having a PDC or PTT certificate, be invited / nominated / seconded by three existing “member” teachers.

Minimum professional standards:

• Be really familiar with the content.
• Use organised planning and effective teaching methods - i.e. as taught in permaculture teacher training (e.g. visual, audio, kinesthetic, participatory, group work).
• Maintain a supportive learning environment.
• Sustain a healthy teaching environment (light, air flow, temperature, cleanliness, noise).
• Provide at least organic food and drink, preferably local.
• Don’t discriminate on any basis - e.g. background, gender, race, religion, experience.
• Adhere to permaculture ethics and principles - also in class, while teaching, teaching environment, etc.

Attendance:

1. The student will share their pdf document of the Course Structure with you with Comment access.
2. This will enable you to indicate completion of sub-units by adding comments to their document.
3. The Teacher / location doing final cross-verification has to check that the student's document has not been altered (against the master document of that version available on the website) and comment “completed” and the completion date at the end of their Course Structure document.
4. The Teacher / location doing final cross-verification needs to create the PDC certificate using the template provided in the email sent on acceptance. Please email Martin R. the student's name and completion date.

Requirements for certificate:

• The student must complete all mandatory sub-units, including modules 8 and 9 that include 1 high level conceptual design and 1 detailed design for a real site.
• The student must complete 20 of 44 optional sub-units.
• The modules, their descriptions and the required outcomes are described in the Course Structure which can be accessed here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1V0xFyH_NV3nEiZiqgGZ33PDXwBl0oSPz.

Contents of certificate:

• Date of completion.
• Name of teacher / location doing final cross-verification.
• List of teachers / tutors who have presented the modules / units.
• “Branding” and signature of issuing teacher.

If you would like to participate, please complete the Teacher’s Registration form (https://forms.gle/a1tLSVGAjYfzyV7m6) as an application. As it says at the end of the form, you will need to forward the form link to 2 or 3 referees (see above).

You can use the interactive map to see the other teachers/locations.

FAQ

What are the time-frames involved for the completion of the PDC?

At this stage we have not put any time-frames on it - students can complete it as fast as they can get sign-offs, or as long as it takes for them to do internships. We have some recommendations in the course structure (see below) but those are merely guidelines.

What is the curriculum and the basic standards that they need to complete?

Here is the link to the curriculum (we call it the course structure):

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1V0xFyH_NV3nEiZiqgGZ33PDXwBl0oSPz

• The student must complete all mandatory sub-units, including modules 8 and 9 that include 1 high level conceptual design and 1 detailed design for a real site.
• The student must complete 20 of 44 optional sub-units.

Also considering the PDC gives the participants the theory so that they can understand the what and how, where generally internships is more about the practical aspects, how are you thinking the criteria can still be met?

The general idea is that students will get the theory from class type mentoring sessions (and these may be actual PDC style group classes - if you check the scenarios page https://sites.google.com/view/pdc-exchange/scenarios it illustrates how this can be dove-tailed with part-time PDCs). The students will also get practical experience through their internship work. However, having said that, there are some subjects (we call them sub-modules) like soil, water, and the design approaches (sectors, zones, etc.) that can be taught "in the field" so to speak. At the end of the day, if the student can complete the outcomes (there is an outcome section for each subject in the course structure) they can get sign-off for that piece of work.

What efforts are being put in place to make sure there is a level of quality in the teaching of the extended modular intern based pdc offer?

We've put two mechanisms in place for this -

1) Teachers have to nominated by two (or three) other teachers already on the program (depending on their qualifications and experience). Although this is no "guarantee" of the quality of their teaching, the objective here is that teachers would not nominate co-teachers (or friends) that will jeopardise their own reputation by association.

2) We have provided a very public feedback mechanism for students - it is right on the page where they select their internships - so teachers who do a good job should be highlighted, and vice versa those doing a bad job (or not offering "fair" internships) would be pointed out.

What do you require on the teacher registration form?

On the teacher registration form we ask :

- Full name

- E-mail address

- Two referees (full names)

- PDC teacher and date

- Teacher training and date

- Other qualifications / experience

- Commitment to minimum professional standards (Y/N)