5.2 Breakout Session -- Detailed Notes

Participants:
Suresh Babu (SB)
Jacqul Ashby (JA)
Willis Kosura (WK)
Venkataraman Balaji (VB) facilitator
Jean Njiru (JN) notes
Carl Eicher (CE)
Athula Perera (AP)
Baseema Banoo (BB) notes
Robert Tripp (RT)
Janet McCue (JM)
EA Heinrichs (EH)
Ken Giller (KG)
Pete Baker (PB) notes
Sieglinde Snapp (SS)

Detailed Notes:

VB -- intros, and can we go through a process of identifying a presenter?

RT -- I nominate Ken (Giller)

KG -- You are really mean

VB -- Thanks Ken. Shall we review the questions we are asked to address and consider whether or not there are questions to modify?

JM -- How can a system of academic rewards interact with open-source information systems?

JA -- Which audiences would we like to discuss?

VB -- Can we address mult. audiences with one approach, or should we identify multiple approaches?

WK -- The way the content is derived will differ based on audience.

JN -- We could look at both smallholder and student perspectives

RT -- I would assume that we're talking about non-farmers in order to make things manageable.  But I do agree that it is desirable to identify audience.

JM -- What piece of the info chain are we talking about?  Or all of it?

VB -- For the purposes of this discussion, should we look at non-farmers while keeping the farmers in focus?

KG -- When we say students, we tend to think of univ. students, but most extension workers are trained in tech colleges, so we need to think about adult ed.

AP -- We have a regular review process with a director of agriculture who reviews the curriculum in order to make it manageable.

VB -- So how do we bring the non-traditional learners into the equation?

AP -- We communicate with the farmers, and they tell us their needs.  Based on that communication, we establish the curriculum.

VB -- We are going from training to education (proper).

JA -- Suppose we devise a matrix that separates the audiences in order for us to discuss them and their curricular objectives in an organized fashion.

(Matrix peopled by Grad students, extension workers[PB], village-level paraprofessionals [JA], and the farmers [WK], and undergrads, vocational training, univerisities, see presentation for complete, organized matrix)

SB -- Who is the paraprofessional?

JA -- A village member who's received some training and is maybe paid a small stipend to disseminate some knowledge.  This training is going to be, in some sense, formal.

SB -- I would add one row for mid-career professionals or subject matter specialists.  

VB -- Now, we can go to the training institutions.

RT -- Are we talking about training all these audiences, or are we talking about only those who will interact with the farmers directly?

JM -- When you look at the matrix, we need smallholder farmers to be connected to the training and curriculum development for all audiences.  We're also supposed to be looking at the ways in which smallholder interests can be integrated with all these curricula.  One of the methods is bringing in farmers to inform the university curriculum, and another is interaction with smallholder farmers (external curriculum review)

WK -- Whatever the curr. is, it's not static.  the point is that we need to talk to farmers to find out how the curriculum meets their needs.  We find out what the farmers did so that you can incorporate it into the curriculum.  It's not exactly experiential learning.  It's external curriculum review.  the experiential learning for the students comes in on the other end.

PA -- The farmers don't participate directly.  It's not possible to do that.  In general, there will be review of all the curriculum.  The Minister of Ag. is responsible for bringing the farmers' input to the curriculum.

SS -- The minister of agriculture's needs are just perceptions of the farmers' needs, and that's what differentiated WK's model from PA's model.  We need to differentiate between the two.

SB -- We need to be very objective in the ways in which we should review the curriculum.  farmers are imp. and their problems are important.  Now we need to determine how the connection between the farmers and the curr. people is made.  One way of doing that is through the M of Ag.  Another is to bring actual farmers into the curriculum devel. meetings.  Additionally, all other stakeholders will have their say.  it's a broad review of what is needed.  

SS -- What an NGO does, what a M of Ag does, what an academic does, they all come to different definitions of exactly what farmers' issues are.  i think we should list some of the options for external review.  Some examples?   The Kenya Model (WK) and the Sri Lanka Model (AP) will be two good examples.

WK -- The farmers are extension agents in their own way, so their opinion is important.

VB -- What about the methods for ext officers and mid-career professionals?

JA -- The farmers' participation is very important in the process of fine-tuning the curriculum.  Participatory monitoring and evaluation of extension agents.  The way I've seen it done, is that extension agents work with a committee to work out what the goals of the training are; they keep some kind of log to measure the extents to which all the goals are or are not being met.  Community feedback is essential in the process.  providing the ext. agent's boss is recpetive, you can get a pretty agile readjustment of quality and content.  It's being done in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Bolivia, etc.

RT -- But, we're talking about improving the quality of a particular extension method -- not the curriculum itself.

VB -- Has that happened in the countries you mentioned?

JA -- It tends to make the ext officers more accountable.  This makes them more accountable.

VB -- In terms of source for training of ext workers and mid-career professionals, who are we identifying?

JA -- You can get it through mult. channels including universities, NGOs, Ms of Ag. in kenya are incorporating this sort of methodology

SS -- There are also content issues, but are we going to talk about upgrade training for this group of people?

KG -- I thought in the middle column we were actually talking about some of these institutions?

VB -- we assumed that universities would do that.

SS -- Universities and vo-tech institutions are doing it, but CGs are not to the same extent.

SB -- I disagree. We do that all the time.

JM -- Are we talking about what we currently do or what we should be moving towards?  We may be wasting our time working on these extant models at the expense of coming up with any new ideas.

VB -- that brings us back in a loop.  How do we really collect feedback?  We'll conclude this with paraprofessionals and farmers.

SB -- In India, we have farm science centers.  it's a training school.  These train paraprofessionals and farmers.

EH -- One of the things that comes to mind is the relevance of faculty and their information.  Can these faculty be relevant and address the farmers' real needs?  The faculty at our India sites are involved in our research demonstration plots.  It allows them to experience the real needs of the farmers.  tech transfer to farmers, and real farmers' issues come to faculty.  Sometimes it's an ivory tower situation, and that's where the tech needs to come to.

JA -- I think we're talking about how farmers' issues can be better integrated into the various curricula.  Other techs like videos and radio are some powerful, creative options for farmers' experimentation.

SS -- This did have some implications for researchers.  First, you do a perceptions survey.  Then, you design curricula to dispel the errors (myths) in their perception.  Feedback from surveys can help with this.  Radio and video must be linked to survey findings.  This is discovery learning.  

JA -- Disc learning is the basis for FFS.

VB -- The other issue is modularization.

KG -- We can say "YES."  next question?

VB -- But has modularization been done?  

SS, KG -- Yes.

WK -- In the past, no, but now universities are doing modularized courses.  Issues impacting farmers are modularized.  We get ext agents to come to the universities where we train them as to policy matters and farmers' issues.  We have incorporated that kind of approach

Dwight -- What potential sources for modular content have to considered?  There are lots of obvious options, but what options are appropriate?

VB -- It's the wikipedia issue.

JM -- There's a lot of content out there, but it's rarely integrated.  Many institutions are creating good content, but it's not integrated.  We need to have a community buy-in to any system.  There's not much on agriculture because wikipedia is not seen as a good source of qual content.

KG -- Loads of people are making good content, buit when it comes down to it, the professor determines the content.  When you compare Europe to Africa, each curriculum is inappropriate for the other context.  the whole idea of developing one standard curriculum is absurd.  We need to realize that this will not be sufficient.  Contextualization.  Courses' content is sometimes irrelevant.

Rex Reimond --  Where can the system be improved and changed to enable the applicable people to access the right information?

WK -- The modularized curriculum is developed with farmers...

SS -- It's important for new graduates to develop good research skills so that they can have the skills to develop new solutions to new problems.

KG -- Many of the people teaching ag in Afr. universities were raised on smallholder farms, and this was a big advantage for them.  Now, that's shifting, and lots of new professors have no idea how rural life works.  We're trying to train a new set of urban students.

JN -- In Kenya, we developed lots of different one-week modules.  All the equipment was bought, but when the project ended, the projects were not of use any longer.  Financial capacity is lacking.

JM -- There has to be a participatory element in this curriculum development.

JA -- It's important to think of the gender aspect, as well.  it's important for students to come to the field, and it's important to engage women farmers as teachers in the process.  It's a general principle that if you're dealing with women farmers, a lot of your students and teachers will need to get accustomed to learning with and from women farmers.

RT -- We need to be cautious about what section of the rural reality you are trying to introduce to the students.  We have to be cautious when thinking about how that is done.

VB -- What is the criteria you follow? Which model?

WK -- Participatory, need-driven curr. development.

KG -- we need to train people in the skills that will allow them to solve their own problems.  In a sense, what we could have is a more generic curriculum designed around analytical skills, integrated systems analysis for instance.  It's wonderful if you can get people to think in a structured way, observation, reflection, they'll be equipped for successful negotiation of all sorts of problems.  Skill sets are important.  Local adaptations can be made through case studies.

RT -- But do you want to balance that with some of the unattractive parts of the educative process?

JM -- Can we go back to the gender issue?  I am not familiar with trhe gender distrib around the world.  If women are under-represented, we need to consider that as a priority.

SS -- There are very few orgs that pay for the grad training of women.

JN -- ICT, communication, facilitation skills are all important for ext workers and undergrads.  I don't think that, as of now, those are part of their skills.

VB -- So, can we develop a concensus that these skills are needed?

WK -- These are there in most curricula.

VB -- Can we do the third question?  Once we have modularization, how do we meet the criteria for standardization?

KG -- For more than 20 years, we've been teaching in modular content.  I don't know what we're talking about here.  In any curricula, we have external review processes.

VB -- In Brit. system, modules are identified based on the total number of hours of learning a student is to perform.

KG -- this system is now across Europe.

SS -- for new types virtual universities, is this what's brought up?

WK -- When we talk about modularizing a course, it's addressing a specific problem for a short amount of time.  This is dif. from the rest of the reg. curriculum.  Modules are designed for specific groups -- not everyone.

SS -- There are things that fly under the radar of creditialing

KG -- Can we forget about the questions, and go back to the idea from yesterday?  One point was that extension needs to be rethought into a brokering function that can access information from different source.  How should education train somebody with the skill sets to be able to do that?  it seems to be a valid point.  How do we train students to be info brokers?

JN -- They need to be trained in technologies to help them access information.  

KG -- Does ext training at the moment encompass all those skill sets?  i don't think it does.  But it's beyond organizing groups and teaching participatory curriculum.

JN -- Maybe it's been introduced, but when i got my undergrad it wasn't in the curriculum.  i think we are coming to an edge where people have to use technologies.

VB -- One of my suggestions was to discuss a slightly different creation process for modules.  Is there a way to combine the stand-alone courses that come together to form something different?  This was, I think, one of the ideas.  A quick way to respond to farmers' needs that will also feed into the larger curriculum.

SB -- there is just one issue.  How do we connect the research info to extension.  Modularization requires a synthesis of information from different sources.  We have to ensure thaty quality is controlled.  Then, we have to organize this information in a meaningful, systematic, simple way.  It's a futuristic thing, and that is what they mean by modularization.  The formal classes could be designed into a bunch of bits and pieces, but you should be able to pull together the contents to teach whatever you want to teach.  Universities don't want some other univ's data.  they want a generic set of learning object that they can adapt to the specific problems of specific farmers.  Now we need to develop a set of generic learning objects.

SS -- i think we have have biologically sound content.  i am working on a book right now that I decided to edit to try and provide more materials for educators out there.  We will develop an education resource website for these people to use.  We need to be careful not to present information out of context.

JM -- If you'd used creative commons, these modules can be adapted.  

SS -- Then, it gets back to the reward structure.

It's important to note here that ownership of intellectual property was what was going on here...  There were some different issues, but that came to the fore.

KG -- Modules seem to have different definitions.

AP -- After the tsunami, we had two short programs -- one on disaster management, and the other on salinity.  

KG -- These are called short courses.  I'd actually like to go back to the matrix.  I'd actually like to add primary and secondary schools to our list.  Having some key ideas right into the little kid school is much more powerful than in universities.  

SS -- In Thailand, they tried to get experiential learning into the classroom.  there's teaching curriculum which is separate from the agricultural curriculum.  We need interaction between the Min of Ed and the Min of Ag.

VB -- the first point is that there are different definitions of modules.

KG -- I think that PM and E is important at some level.

JN -- In my experience, there are fixed courses you must take, but I don't know how rigid it is now or in other countries.

Now, we all went into an overview of what was going to be presented.

KG -- I think you all need to trust me.  I have never been a fan of writing by committee.

AP -- We also have a very regular quality assurance program.  This is of primary importance.  Regulated quality assurance is very very important.  

JN -- What do you equip extension workers with to allow them to be good info brokers?

JM -- Yeah, what are the tools you need to be a good info broker?  training, information, etc.

JN -- If we go by the old approach, perhaps there is a need to change back and look at groups.

WK -- The issue of feedback -- strengthening the feedback mechanism -- there needs to be some emphasis on feedback.

AP -- We have that in our Sri Lanks programs.

KG -- I think the whole thing with feedback from farmers is being over-simplified.  We need to come to some agreement as to how you articulate feedback from millions of farmers.

JN -- How do you incorporate farmers' indigenous knowledge? 

JA -- By using them as teachers.  and recording their experiences.