Integrating Employability Skills Into Agricultural Courses using the PDSA Model of Improvement
| dc.contributor.author | Kaufman, Eric K. | en |
| dc.contributor.author | Westfall-Rudd, Donna M. | en |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2025-01-21T18:41:22Z | en |
| dc.date.available | 2025-01-21T18:41:22Z | en |
| dc.date.issued | 2025-01-17 | en |
| dc.description.abstract | More than a decade ago, the National Research Council (2009) challenged agricultural teachers to transform their relationship to the global food and agricultural enterprise. With this in mind, Auger (2019) made an important observation: “Some skills are more lasting. Skills like leadership, collaboration, and communication” (para 4). These employability skills are of critical importance to agriculture’s workforce (Crawford & Fink, 2020), and research suggests they are “more difficult to train for” (D2L, 2019, p. 4). Agricultural educators must find ways to incorporate employability skills into classes so that teaching and learning can take flight, soaring to new heights. To improve agricultural courses, our workshop introduces the Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) model for improvement (Langley et al., 2009). It is a strategy to pilot, evaluate, and implement changes to courses. PDSA provides a cyclical process, based on the scientific method, to support data-driven continuous quality improvement. It also provides a strategy for post-secondary teachers of agriculture to improve the scholarship of teaching and learning. This workshop is one of the results of a collaboration between a four-year program, technical program, and community college. Workshop objectives are to improve agricultural courses by (1) providing a simple, effective improvement process tool—Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA), (2) reviewing PDSA examples that integrate agriculture and employability skills, and (3) practicing the PDSA model. Participants can practice the PDSA process with their own courses. Interactive activities include (1) reviewing examples done by other agriculture educators, (2) sharing ideas on how to blend employability skills into existing courses, (3) drafting an actual PDSA plan, and (4) discussing how this approach might transfer to other agricultural teaching experiences. PDSA provides a simple, powerful tool and strategy to continuously improve teaching and learning. This workshop introduces how to use PDSA to integrate employability skills into the scholarship of teaching and learning. References Auger, J. (2019, May 6). Soft skills — not technical ones — should be the focus of upskilling initiatives. Training Industry. https://trainingindustry.com/blog/workforce- development/soft-skills-not-technical-ones-should-be-the-focus-of-upskilling-initiatives/ Crawford, P., & Fink, W. (2020). Employability skills and Students critical growth areas. NACTA Journal, 64, 132-141. D2L. (2019). The future of skills: In the age of the 4th industrial revolution. https://www.d2l.com/future-of-work/ Langley, G. J., Moen, R. D., Nolan, K. M., Nolan, T. W., Norman, C. L., & Provost, L. P. (2009). The improvement guide: A practical approach to enhancing organizational performance (2nd ed.). Jossey-Bass. National Research Council. (2009). Transforming agricultural education for a changing world. National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/12602 | en |
| dc.format.mimetype | application/pdf | en |
| dc.identifier.orcid | Kaufman, Eric [0000-0001-8009-0066] | en |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/10919/124278 | en |
| dc.language.iso | en | en |
| dc.relation.uri | https://www.vaffa.org/vaae-pd | en |
| dc.rights | In Copyright | en |
| dc.rights.uri | http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ | en |
| dc.title | Integrating Employability Skills Into Agricultural Courses using the PDSA Model of Improvement | en |
| dc.type | Conference proceeding | en |
| dc.type.dcmitype | Text | en |
| pubs.finish-date | 2025-01-18 | en |
| pubs.organisational-group | Virginia Tech | en |
| pubs.organisational-group | Virginia Tech/Agriculture & Life Sciences | en |
| pubs.organisational-group | Virginia Tech/Agriculture & Life Sciences/Agricultural Leadership and Community Education | en |
| pubs.organisational-group | Virginia Tech/All T&R Faculty | en |
| pubs.organisational-group | Virginia Tech/Agriculture & Life Sciences/CALS T&R Faculty | en |
| pubs.start-date | 2025-01-17 | en |