We are back! Fulfilling our Professional Responsibilities- Moving from Digital Citizens to Digital Leaders

We are back! The #AgEd2Malaysia group had a great experience for the past 5 days at the FELDA Ayer Hitam; however, due to connectivity availability, they took their “blogging” offline.  They are excited to share some of their observations from the past few days.

As Fulbright Scholars [Learn more about the Fulbright Program], we are asking a great deal of our of participants on the #AgEd2Malaysia experience to move beyond digital citizenship and move confidently into the role of digital leaders exerting a positive influence on the dispositions of the profession as a whole!

We are doing this through daily blogging and the strong development/extension of the professional community of learners utilizing the hashtag #AgEd2Malaysia across multiple social media platforms, but primarily, Twitter.

But Why?

  1. For Yourself as a Professional.
    • Moving into digital leadership pushes you as an individual to not just “experience” something awesome, but to crystallize into actionable thoughts to advance professional goals developed as individuals on this journey.
  2. For Your Students (both current and future).
    • Being able to effectively engage/share in digital space is a necessity that is only projected to grow in the future, not decline! When we ask our students to do tasks, it is also wise to engage and serve as role models in those actions.
  3. For Your Profession.
    • We need strong advocates for education and for school-based agricultural education. This focused sharing allows us to increase awareness of secondary school-based agricultural education as well as share this transformative learning experience for a potential exponential impact with our colleagues across the world. Together, we can do anything and collectively we must work together to ensure a bright future.

We do hope you will actively engage with us! Do not hesitate to leave a comment on a blog or ask a question for us to answer! Share your thoughts and feelings on Twitter. Let us know that someone is reading, learning, and enjoying the effort being expended to share.

We are entering the third of four phases of our experience in the next week as we travel to Sabah and visit two rural agricultural education programs (Taman Tun Fuad National High School; Mat Salleh National High School) and the Kinabalu National Park. We look forward to sharing with you as we continue to grow and learn!

Daniel D. Foster (@FosterDanielD)
is an agricultural teacher educator
at Penn State University (@TeachAgPSU).

 

#AgEd2Malaysia Status Update – A New Phase (July 18th-22nd)

Thank you so much for following along on our adventures! For the next 4 or 5 days, we will be traveling to a location where connectivity is not as accessible. We will be traveling to the FELDA Air Hitam Community and will be staying with host families.  FELDA stands for Federal Land Development Authority. They were created in 1956 as a government initiative for human settlement and land development. [Here is a 1995 journal article describing more detail about the Air Hitam]

In addition to the powerful learning experience of a “home stay” with a host family for four nights, our adventurous learners will be:

  • Conducting Agriculturally oriented industry visits including:
    • a Fish Farm
    • the Veterinary Institute of Malaysia
    • the Agriculture Institute of Ayer Hitam
    • Food Industry Tour with Kluang Coffee Power Factory
    • Touring a Palm Oil Plantation
  • Engaging in Cultural Events like:
    • UK Farm Evening
    • Cultural Show with FELDA Community
    • Community Zumba
    • Trading Game Evening
    • Zapin Dancing
    • Teaching an Agriculture Day at SMK Seri Lalang

Be sure to subscribe to the blog so that you can see all the updates from these experiences when the new blog posts come out!

Setting Context: Why a Blog for #AgEd2Malaysia?

Thank you for checking out some of our thoughts/feelings and reflections as learning adventurers who are constructing a framework to increase our capacity as positive change agents by stretching our global learning! I encourage you to “subscribe” to receive emails when cool things are posted! Don’t forget to see the in-time conversation occurring on Twitter at the hashtag #AgEd2Malaysia.

As you know, our #AgEd2Malaysia experience has 12 bold learners. Six are pre-service teacher candidates from Iowa and Pennsylvania) and six are current secondary agricultural sciences teachers from Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin! Each participant was provided a “grand challenge” of that involved sitting S.M.A.R.T. goals to accomplish in three phases: pre-departure, in-country, and post-travel. As they created their individual learning plans, they also went through an external review process where a team of four individuals read, reviewed, and provided feedback on their learning plans. The review teams included:

  • a student teacher from a different state,
  • an agriscience teacher from a different state,
  • a local school administrator and
  • a member of the project team (Ie Melanie, Daniel and/or Brad).

Participants will use this space to share thoughts/ideas/inspirations they have as they complete their personal learning journey! I think you are really going to like it. The video below talks through some of the inspiration behind this particular transformational learning instruction design.

Check back soon to see the thoughts and perspectives of the #AgEd2Malaysia participants!