Progress 12/15/14 to 12/14/18

Outputs
Target Audience:The constituencies and partners for this initiative represented 50+refugee-serving farming programs and the 1200+ refugee beginning farmers who participate in them.Additional immigrant-serving projects also were encouraged to participate.Many resources developed and/or disseminated will be of value and made available to any program serving all categories of socially disadvantaged beginning farmers, particularly those with limited language and literacy.But refugee-serving projects and their farmers, with the fewest existing resources, will benefit the most. The refugees represented at least 35 nationalities and ethnicities.Constituencies include Bhutanese, Burmese, Somali, Burundian, Kenyan, Sudanese, and many other recently arrived refugee nationalities. The refugee farmers are of all ages, with both genders well represented.Characteristics of most include limited language, literacy and education; limited resources. Most have an agrarian background and are anxious to return to food production in their new homeland. The core project partners (RFIPs) were primarily urban land-based multi-farmer training initiatives, supported by ORR and USDA funds, foundations, local businesses and volunteers.Many are led by refugee-serving social service agencies, voluntary resettlement agencies, and other community-based organizations (CBOs) that specialize in refugee and immigrant services. To build farming T&TA capacity, they link up with local providers such as universities, Extension, experienced farmers, municipal and county agencies, and other community groups and networks.In aggregate, theRFIPs involved had over 800 enrolled participants in 2018(based on ISED and NIFTI surveys).While somewhat specialized, all the resources will be available to any interested refugee or immigrant serving projects nationally and all other beginning farmer programs, via active outreach and dissemination strategies. Changes/Problems:The importance of skills / capacity development for adult education for our audiences was under-appreciated. We were fortunate to find an education specialist with a strong interest in this area and relevant experience. She spearheaded a much-needed expansion of Training of Trainers (ToT) for partners and future providers. This included webinars, readings, presentations at meetings, and other instruction, as well as development of guidance for instructors covering multiple dimensions of adult education. In addition, it resulted in an enhancement of the content of new resources to include guidance on how best to use these resources in applied settings as well as other dimensions of curriculum development and delivery. With respect to the dissemination aspect, we were surprised (positively) that more than 4500 individual resources downloads took place in the year or so after they were posted. Even of all the known refugee and immigrant incubators downloaded every resource we developed, it still would not have reached that total. So clearly there is a wider audience for these resources than we anticipated. Subsequently, we ended with a template for the modules and a set of experienced partners who were willing to develop more of them. As a result, we have received funding from RMA for two straight years to develop 18 additional modules. Eight re already completed and posted to the website from our 2017-2018 award; and 10 more are in the works. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?We held sevenpartner-wide national meetings for partners and other refugee projects.At these meetings, wereviewed the resources being developed. We also had special presentations oninterpretation and Plain Speaking, and on instructional techniques.We also visited local refugee projects as paert of each meeting. In addition we psted resoruces and organzed several webinars for professional development, including adult education techniques. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Weuploaded all finalized resources to our major partner's website (New Entry / NIFTI).This was completed in early December 2017.The 60+ items are available here:https://nesfp.org/new-american-resources and they were also included in theRVSreports to be added to the Farm Answers website. We did active promotion to build interest in and awareness of the modules. In the year after they were poster, over 4500 copies of individual modules were downloaded. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? We had aggregated over 100 resources initially develop by partners for internal use. We reviewed them all for suitability to enhance for wider dissemination. About three dozen met the quality criteria for upgrading.These were enhanced to fit the format used for new resources, including guidance for instructors. The rest were not posted because of quality and/or intellectual property concerns. 60 resources were produced in total for the project. Two dozen were modules were formulated from scratch, with a combination of guidance for instructors and content for farmers. * Instructor or provider guidance included the following: Core skills, teaching methods, tips and variations, objectives, suggested activities and lessons, etc. * Intellectual property issues were addressed, to be sure no third-party content was used that was protected and/or not credited. We developed a three-page guide for all developers to use for vetting and protecting the content. All 60+ resources were vetted for conformity to intellectual property rights for any written and graphic content sourced from third parties. All partners signed agreements to allow the resources to be circulated in a manner consistent with the intent and obligations of the grant. * A graphic designer was hired to create a colorful standardized template via Adobe InDesign in which all the new and enhanced resources were incorporated. All 60 resources were posted on the New Entry / NIFTI website:https://nesfp.org/new-american-resources.A redesigned search format was included specifically for finding titles or topics of interest across these resources. The search options include: Audience Farmer experience Prerequisites Climate or region Season Staff & interpreters Time Additional Supplies needed Background material In addition to single topic modules, we developed a Refugee Farmer Teaching Handbook: https://nesfp.org/resources/refugee-farmer-teaching-handbook. This was developed to complement the guidance in each module and to guide all instructors (new or experienced) in the nuances of providing T&TA to audiences with limitedEnglish literacy, language skills, and overall education and (sometimes) farm training. The 87-page guidebook includes: Chapter One: Refugee Farmers as Learners:Knowing more about who farmers are helpsus to be better trainers. Chapter Two: Assessment and Goal Setting:Foundational understandings and applicable strategies for using assessment and goal setting. Chapter Three: Teaching Methods and Approaches:Strategies and approaches for teaching adult English language learning farmers. Chapter Four: Communications and Interpretation:Verbal communication strategies with farmers, with or without interpretation. Chapter Five: Participatory Teaching Activities:Participatory teaching activities designed specifically to help farmers learn and demonstrate learning Chapter Six: Designing a Lesson Plan:Strategies and templates for designing your own curriculum and workshops. Photobank:We created a Flickr photobank with several hundred photos and graphic images to help developers.We decided not to post them to the website due to intellectual property concerns; but may be able to do so in 2018. ?

Publications

• Type: Websites Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: https://nesfp.org/new-american-resources This contains 60 individual T&TA modules and a T&TA guide for use by refugee beginning farmer projects.

Progress 12/15/15 to 12/14/16

Outputs
Target Audience:4). TARGET AUDIENCES: The constituencies and partners for this initiative represent 24 refugee-serving farming programs and the 1200+ refugee beginning farmers who participate in them. Additional immigrant-serving projects also will be encouraged to participate, as well as any other BFRDP grantees (current or former) that see value in the proposed products and services we will develop. Many resources developed and/or disseminated will be of value and made available to any program serving all categories of socially disadvantaged beginning farmers, particularly those with limited language and literacy. But refugee-serving projects and their farmers, with the fewest existing resources, will benefit the most. The refugees represent at least 35 nationalities and ethnicities. Constituencies include Bhutanese, Burmese, Somali, Burundian, Kenyan, Sudanese, and many other recently arrived refugee nationalities. The refugee farmers are of all ages, with both genders well represented. Characteristics of most include limited language, literacy and education; limited resources. Most have an agrarian background and are anxious to return to food production in their new homeland. The core project partners (RFIPs) are primarily urban land-based multi-farmer training initiatives, supported by ORR and USDA funds, foundations, local businesses and volunteers. Many are led by refugee-serving social service agencies, voluntary resettlement agencies, and other community-based organizations (CBOs) that specialize in refugee and immigrant services. To build farming T&TA capacity, they link up with local providers such as universities, Extension, experienced farmers, municipal and county agencies, and other community groups and networks. In aggregate, the 24 RFIPs involved had over 1250 enrolled participants in 2013 (based on ISED and NIFTI surveys). While somewhat specialized, all the resources will be available to any interested refugee or immigrant serving projects nationally and all other beginning farmer programs, via active outreach and dissemination strategies. Changes/Problems:The major challenge to overall dissemination has become obtaining proper authorizations and signoffs to circulate resources. Recent developments such as trolling has resulted in our institutional sponsors tightening up the procedures to assure compliance with copyright, ownership, and associated protections afforded to authors and owners of various resources. For our project, this has two parts. A major focus of our work has been to assemble and review existing resources for refugees. These were developed by incubators for their own T&TA and we felt that, given the paucity of materials for refugee farmers T&TA, that sharing them would help build the volume of available materials for other incubators, especially newer ones. One key element of resources for low or non-literate audiences is the high use of images - photos and graphics as part of PowerPoints, handouts, and the like. Many of these were sourced off the Internet without scrutiny of source, copyright or ownership, since the use was internal. But once these were transferred to us, with the intent to share, these issues became important. Specifically, we had collected, complied, catalogued, and posted most of these on the Tufts New Entry website. But after the fact, following an unrelated trolling incident, specific steps were needed to be address the risk of having third-party materials posted without knowing if they were copyrighted and / or otherwise protected. This concern also was to be relevant to all new content being developed via the BFRDP grant. We began consultations with lawyers at the university to determine what specific safeguards were needed. This included determinations of what constituted protected property, and what types of protections against potential lawsuits or similar actions were needed. This includes needing sing-offs from the partners who provided the materials. It became clear that simply posting the resources as is was not acceptable, and that we need to review all of them for possible risky content. We also needed to be sure that all our new resources met the criteria for shared use. Because this is new content, that is easier to manage. However, the language for agreements among all parties is also an ongoing discussion that is being resolved in Year 3 before materials get posted and circulate on the website and elsewhere. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?In Year 2, we focused on learning through new resource development and establishing a feedback cycle. RFIPs increased their capacity to implement and test with the goal to improve the pedagogical and sharable elements of these new resources. All RFIP partners deepened their instructional capacity around implementing and reflecting on their teaching, through webinars, in person workshops, and written guidance. This training was applied to the feedback cycle, where we learned how to share tips, strategies and methods that each program had previously been engaging with in isolation. This focus on testing and improving the development process, as well as the focus on increasing individual staff capacity, is moving in the direction of equipping all RFIP's with the agency and tools to develop, deliver and adapt their own curriculum, incorporating the new and enhanced materials skillfully and as they see fit. National Partner meetings: Developer and Trainers Skill Building: Nashville Conference: From March 15 through March 17, 2016, we gathered in Nashville, TN for our third conference together. The core purpose of the Developer meeting was to review the progress of past few months and plan for the coming season.The priority of the greater conference was to build opportunities for our other incubator partners to interact with us and for everyone to continue the learning trajectories that are integral to this project. We also used significant time to have four developers present their resources to the larger group to get feedback before the formal testing process begins. There were 12 Developers in attendance, 11 others from partner organizations and 3 ISED staff participating. At this meeting, RFIP's engaged with the skills of understanding the language and literacy levels of the farmers they work with, why this is important, how to use diverse assessment practices to do initial needs assessment and on-going assessments of how a farmer's language and literacy needs evolve and improve with time. To further this understanding, via an instructor from the Highlander Center in Tennessee, we learned about how interpretation and interpretation best practices are issues of language access and language justice, learning how to examine our own programs for gap in our language accessibility. To turn this knowledge into actual teaching and resource development, we learned to incorporate participatory teaching methods that relied on hands on engagement and pictures, instead of text, and learned about how to design effective visual resources that engaged and strengthened farmer learning. Kansas City Conference: From November 1-November 4, 2016 we gathered the Developers in Kansas City, where one of our partners, New Roots of Catholic Charities was our local host. One goal of the conference was to have developers present on their new resources that were ready for testing. In Year 2, we capitalized on the planning and prioritizing work of Year 1, and the Developers completed content production of 10 new resources. This conference was also a critical time to strategize about our next round of new resource development as a group. In preparation for this conversation, the ISED team compiled and organized the existing resources into a document titled "Comprehensive Refugee Ag Curriculum" to help the group see where there were gaps in shared and developed resources. We came up with the topic and sub-topic areas (for things important to refugee farmer training programs) by looking at partner project's end of year farmer assessments. We then brought this to the developers in Kansas City and they used their expertise to revise it. We also added one more layer to this document. While at first we were just thinking about identifying gaps by seeing where we had no resources, we also thought about the fact that while we might have resources in that area, they may not be fully addressing that topic area, or covering what farmers need. This is what brought us to the idea of core skills - skills that farmer may need to know in the different topic areas. The other way we will use this is, going forward, developers will note the core skills in the resources they enhance or develop. This way, you will most likely be able to search for a resource that contains the teaching of a certain core skill if need be. An additional ToT training at the conference was the introduction of the Participatory Teaching Methods document and an activity for developers to practice how they might best be used. The participatory activities outlined there can be used to teach a variety of skills and concepts related to beginning farmer training. Because these activities do not rely on the written word or too much verbal explanation, they are well suited to farmers who are learning English and literacy for the first time. In addition, each activity is designed to allow farmers to demonstrate their learning through the activity itself. Therefore, these activities are used as teaching and assessment tools. It is largely understood that the best way to teach farming related skills is through doing hands-on-demonstrations and participatory activities in the field. However, combining those with these rigorous and engaging classroom activities during training times will help to reinforce learning in a safe learning environment. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Mainly among partners in the project as everything is still in development What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Complete all objectives in the proposal and expanded objectives as described in above sections and in Year 1 report

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Project staffing and contracts: Hired project Coordinator to combine original manager and administrative assistant as a 75% position. Also, we hired an Education Specialist as a consultant to focus on development and testing of resources, and on Training of Trainers (ToT) skills development. Objective 2: Assessment: Identify and review existing curricula and gaps in the education, training and mentoring of refugee and immigrant beginning farmers and ranchers. Aggregate existing refugee T&TA resources. Resources currently developed by RFIPs across the country were requested and then centralized in a Google drive folder. The resources are categorized by title, source, format, farmer knowledge level, English level, region, keywords and adaptability to pre-literate farmers nationally. These resources were available to the project Developers in May and finished folders were gradually sent out to all project partners throughout the summer. The plan is to upload them onto the NIFTI website and available to a broader audience on ready. Objective 3. Instructional Skills: Strengthen instructional and curriculum development skills directed at pre-literate / very low-literate audiences. Initial plans to hire an instructional specialist for initial training was expanded to bring on this person as regular project staff. This evolved because the candidate had unique skills and interest that matched this project's objectives. During this first year, the Educational Specialist developed overall plans for project resources development and delivery that expanded beyond the original specifications. These included: Conceptual design to help development partners produce resources for sharing and adaptation by other projects, not just for their own audiences as previously carried out. Designing new resources that incorporated not just the instructional content for refugee audiences, but also guidance for instructors in any project as to how to best apply and/or adapt these for their own T&TA. Designing a new Training of Trainers approach to provide skills development around pedagogy / instruction techniques for adult learners. ToT literature: Several articles were circulated that focused on aspects of pedagogy. The summer readings aimed to increase the skills and knowledge of the T&TA providers at the RFIPs Objective 4: Develop new and adapted curricula and instructional methods for RFIPs. Developers met together twice to review assessment results and plan curricula. Resources that might be good for adaptation for pre-literate audiences were flagged between these meetings. Preferences for development were reported in the baseline and development started winter 2015. The areas being targeted for winter 2015 development are broken down into tools and workshops for farmers and tools and TA for the staff working with farmers. The group comprised project directors from a dozen RFIPs, three representatives from IRC's New Roots, one from New Entry as well as the ISED project staff. At the fall meeting, after a review of existing resources and priorities, developers established a dozen sub-teams, each taking on a specific T&TA topic, and established development responsibilities and schedules. Development categories were developed for new and/or adapted resources for identified audiences include: Bringing RFIP developers together twice a year, and including RFIPs doing evaluation or testing of new resources at one of these meetings. These are critical events that build familiarity, facilitate collaboration, and share ideas and experiences. They also connect the staff to all the partners around the country doing development and testing. Inviting testers-only RFIPs to join at least one of the meetings per year. Encourage interim connections via WebEx and conference call sessions, attended typically by 15-20+ participants. Share resources and readings to build similar skills among all testers and developers. Put out a bi-monthly newsletter for all participants in the project to update them on our progress. Development of education or training materials (hard copy or AV) for providers or instructors, called 'Training of Trainers' or ToT. Development of materials (hard copy or for AV use) for instruction / delivery to farmers, or for some of them to access use on their own. Similarly, development of technical assistance resoruces or strategies for use by trainers in working with refugee farmer audiences. Each module was conceived as the equivalent of a class or workshop in scope. Development for target audiences often will combine the above elements. The content of modules addresses the resource development targets and categories in the proposal: Major curricula - new content (combines multiple individual modules). Single workshop or class content modules - new materials. Convert content or instructional tools already developed for regular or low-literacy audiences to pre-literate levels. Similarly, convert already-developed instructional methods and tools (e.g., creating an active classroom or field-based session) for pre-literate audiences. Objective 5: Pilot test resources and instructional methods: RFIPs use these tools and resources to train farmers and to provide feedback to the Development Team. This is not a Year 1 activity - requires the completion of beta versions of modules. However, to prepare the testers, we provided two types of orientation: Calls and webinars: We held conference and one-one calls to provide background and updates. Webinars: Three webinars reviewed above included testers to provide skill building in pedagogy and in instructional frameworks for preparing and delivering T&TA. Meetings: Testers participated in both national meetings to get to know developers, learn about the resource development, build skills, share experiences, and get progress updates. Objective 6: Support a Community of Practice (CoP) Approach: Engage partners in peer- to-peer learning and sharing to strengthen their programs and deliver more effective T&TA. The design of activities is meant to facilitate CoP in the following ways: Objective 7: Dissemination: Assist all beginning farmer and rancher training programs by collaborating with the BFRDP Clearinghouse, other BFRDP projects, and diverse beginning farmer service providers across the landscape. There are two or three phases to the dissemination, depending on the audience. For project partners who are developing and/or evaluating the resources, access is provided at varying stages of development. Once the resources are fully reviewed they are made available to all partners to use in their projects. Finally, the resources will go onto the website of our major partner New Entry / NIFTI, to be made available to much wider audiences, and then shared with farmanswers.org and other websites. To accomplish this phase, the website is being reconfigured to have a specific section for refugee resources. At the same time, new, existing, and updated refugee resources are being compiled and entered onto the website in anticipation of a full 'launch' once the reconfiguration is completed and a significant number of resources are uploaded. NOTE:As an EE, we do not focus on direct delivery to farmers, so have no data for Year 1 in these categories. As partners use the resources we will have data moving forward.

Publications

Progress 12/15/14 to 12/14/15

Outputs
Target Audience:4). TARGET AUDIENCES: The constituencies and partners for this initiative represent 24 refugee-serving farming programs and the 1200+ refugee beginning farmers who participate in them. Additional immigrant-serving projects also will be encouraged to participate, as well as any other BFRDP grantees (current or former) that see value in the proposed products and services we will develop. Many resources developed and/or disseminated will be of value and made available to any program serving all categories of socially disadvantaged beginning farmers, particularly those with limited language and literacy. But refugee-serving projects and their farmers, with the fewest existing resources, will benefit the most. The refugees represent at least 35 nationalities and ethnicities. Constituencies include Bhutanese, Burmese, Somali, Burundian, Kenyan, Sudanese, and many other recently arrived refugee nationalities. The refugee farmers are of all ages, with both genders well represented. Characteristics of most include limited language, literacy and education; limited resources. Most have an agrarian background and are anxious to return to food production in their new homeland. The core project partners (RFIPs) are primarily urban land-based multi-farmer training initiatives, supported by ORR and USDA funds, foundations, local businesses and volunteers. Many are led by refugee-serving social service agencies, voluntary resettlement agencies, and other community-based organizations (CBOs) that specialize in refugee and immigrant services. To build farming T&TA capacity, they link up with local providers such as universities, Extension, experienced farmers, municipal and county agencies, and other community groups and networks. In aggregate, the 24 RFIPs involved had over 1250 enrolled participants in 2013 (based on ISED and NIFTI surveys). While somewhat specialized, all the resources will be available to any interested refugee or immigrant serving projects nationally and all other beginning farmer programs, via active outreach and dissemination strategies. Changes/Problems:Initial plans to hire an instructional specialist for initial training was expanded to bring on this person as regular project staff. This evolved because the candidate had unique skills and interest that matched this project's objectives. During this first year, the Educational Specialist developed overall plans for project resources development and delivery that expanded beyond the original specifications. These included: Conceptual design to help development partners produce resources for sharing and adaptation by other projects, not just for their own audiences as previously carried out. Designing new resources that incorporated not just the instructional content for refugee audiences, but also guidance for instructors in any project as to how to best apply and/or adapt these for their own T&TA. Designing a new Training of Trainers approach to provide skills development around pedagogy / instruction techniques for adult learners. In combination, this approach reflected a transformational approach to new and adapted resource design and development - from the initial idea of producing and sharing audience-focused resources with generic or adaptable content, to a more comprehensive approach to T&TA for adult audiences, reinforced for the specific linguistic, educational, literacy, and cultural dynamics for instruction of recently-settled refugees What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?See above detailed description How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Nothing Reported What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Continue to develop project as proposed in 7 major objectives as delineated in the funded proposal.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Objective 1: Coordination: Establish EE teams to work with staff to coordinate all project planning and implementation steps. 1.Project staffing and contracts: Hired project Coordinator to combine original manager and administrative assistant as a 75% position. Also, we hired an Education Specialist as a consultant to focus on development and testing of resources, and on Training of Trainers (ToT) skills development. 2.Financial: Prepared sub-contracts and consulting agreements/MOUs with all development and testing partners, including roles, support, and financial details. 3.Steering Committee - This committee was not formed as it proved redundant with roles and managing of three other teams. 4.Development Team - This comprised project directors from eight independent RFIPs, 2 IRC RFIPs and the IRC New Roots director, the New Entry NFTI coordinator, and ISED BRFDP core staff. 5.Pilot-testing team: This started with 18 refugee incubators, including development team members will use and evaluate these resources. Two of these ended up not formally participating. 6.Advisory Committee: This comprises six members, primarily NGO & government representatives with significant refugee-related experience. 7.Communications and dissemination: ISED Solutions, New Entry/NIFTI and IRC planned collaborations to post resources and promoting their availability and use as an ongoing activity. Objective 2: Assessment: Identify and review existing curricula and gaps in the education, training and mentoring of refugee and immigrant beginning farmers and ranchers. Aggregate existing refugee T&TA resources. Resources currently developed by RFIPs across the country were requested and then centralized in a Google drive folder. The resources are categorized by title, source, format, farmer knowledge level, English level, region, keywords and adaptability to pre-literate farmers nationally. These resources were available to the project Developers in May and finished folders were gradually sent out to all project partners throughout the summer. The plan is to upload them onto the NIFTI website and available to a broader audience on ready. Get input to development plans from multiple sources: As part of a baseline survey sent out to all partner RFIPs, we incorporated the following input: Rating of instructional needs / priorities of refugee farmers along a development continuum: aspiring farmer - market-gardener - incubator farmer - independent producer. Rating of priorities within a beginning refugee/ immigrant farmer development framework, developed for RAPP strategic planning Rating of perceived content / instructional resource gaps and severity of deficits and need. We also reviewed other data that ISED had collected from before this grant from many RFIPs, along with resources collected from our partners before the BFRDP grant got underway. Objective 3. Instructional Skills: Strengthen instructional and curriculum development skills directed at pre-literate / very low-literate audiences. Initial plans to hire an instructional specialist for initial training was expanded to bring on this person as regular project staff. This evolved because the candidate had unique skills and interest that matched this project's objectives. During this first year, the Educational Specialist developed overall plans for project resources development and delivery that expanded beyond the original specifications. These included: Conceptual design to help development partners produce resources for sharing and adaptation by other projects, not just for their own audiences as previously carried out. Designing new resources that incorporated not just the instructional content for refugee audiences, but also guidance for instructors in any project as to how to best apply and/or adapt these for their own T&TA. Designing a new Training of Trainers approach to provide skills development around pedagogy / instruction techniques for adult learners. In combination, this approach reflected a transformational approach to new and adapted resource design and development - from the initial idea of producing and sharing audience-focused resources with generic or adaptable content, to a more comprehensive approach to T&TA for adult audiences, reinforced for the specific linguistic, educational, literacy, and cultural dynamics for instruction of recently-settled refugees. Objective 4: Develop new and adapted curricula and instructional methods for RFIPs. Developers met together twice to review assessment results and plan curricula. Resources that might be good for adaptation for pre-literate audiences were flagged between these meetings. Preferences for development were reported in the baseline and development started winter 2015. The areas being targeted for winter 2015 development are broken down into tools and workshops for farmers and tools and TA for the staff working with farmers. The group comprised project directors from a dozen RFIPs, three representatives from IRC's New Roots, one from New Entry as well as the ISED project staff. At the fall meeting, after a review of existing resources and priorities, developers established a dozen sub-teams, each taking on a specific T&TA topic, and established development responsibilities and schedules. Objective 5: Pilot test resources and instructional methods: RFIPs use these tools and resources to train farmers and to provide feedback to the Development Team. This is not a Year 1 activity - requires the completion of beta versions of modules. However, to prepare the testers, we provided two types of orientation: Calls and webinars: We held conference and one-one calls to provide background and updates. Webinars: Three webinars reviewed above included testers to provide skill building in pedagogy and in instructional frameworks for preparing and delivering T&TA. Meetings: Testers participated in both national meetings to get to know developers, learn about the resource development, build skills, share experiences, and get progress updates. Objective 6: Support a Community of Practice (CoP) Approach: Engage partners in peer- to-peer learning and sharing to strengthen their programs and deliver more effective T&TA. The design of activities is meant to facilitate CoP in the following ways: Bringing RFIP developers together twice a year, and including RFIPs doing evaluation or testing of new resources at one of these meetings. These are critical events that build familiarity, facilitate collaboration, and share ideas and experiences. They also connect the staff to all the partners around the country doing development and testing. Inviting testers-only RFIPs to join at least one of the meetings per year. Encourage interim connections via WebEx and conference call sessions, attended typically by 15-20+ participants. Share resources and readings to build similar skills among all testers and developers. Put out a bi-monthly newsletter for all participants in the project to update them on our progress. Objective 7: Dissemination: Assist all beginning farmer and rancher training programs by collaborating with the BFRDP Clearinghouse, other BFRDP projects, and diverse beginning farmer service providers across the landscape. There are two or three phases to the dissemination, depending on the audience. For project partners who are developing and/or evaluating the resources, access is provided at varying stages of development. Once the resources are fully reviewed they are made available to all partners to use in their projects.

Publications