This is a brief update on the Agriculture Workforce Training for Collaborative Leadership (AWT4CL) project. Our intent is to send a message like this once a month to keep various stakeholders informed of activities and opportunities related to the project. If this is no longer of interest to you, please reply to let us know. Otherwise, here’s the news….
AWT4CL Update for March 2024
The Journey So Far: In a recent post for the AWT4CL blog, Samson Adeoye summarized insights from the January check-in with faculty in the Virginia Community College System. It includes a brief video clip and links to related resources. You can find this and other project-related blog posts at https://sites.google.com/vt.edu/awt/blog
Learning Badges: We are continuing to pilot test the AWT4CL employability skill badges, and we welcome feedback along the way. What do you believe would be helpful to include in an instructor guide? What information needs to be shared with students so they understand the relationship between their learning, the badges, and success in the workplace? You can share your thoughts by emailing Eric Kaufman at ekaufman@vt.edu
Liberating Structures: Have you found that conventional approaches to group work sometimes stifle engagement? You may be interested in exploring Liberating Structures for approaching and designing how people work together. The Liberating Structure Menu offers thirty-three options to replace or complement conventional practices, and the menu links to detailed instructions for facilitation. Perhaps one of the options is the perfect way to engage students in a lesson that needs a boost.
NACTA Conference: The annual meeting of the North American Colleges and Teachers of Agriculture (NACTA) will be June 24-28 in Wooster OH. The conference provides participants with new teaching techniques, ideas, and resources. It is also one of the best professional development activities for networking with other teaching professionals in agriculture. For more information, go to www.NACTAconference.org