Created Equal: How Class Matters in Our Lives is a handout from the Social Equity Leadership Conference 2016, held on Thursday, June 2, 2016.  The facilitator was Shane Lloyd who received his Bachelors of Science degree in Behavioral Neuroscience from Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. He completed his Master of Public Health degree at the Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University.

The University of Maryland Institute of Applied Agriculture (UM IAA) Internship Agreement is a contract between the student, the farm where they will be interning, and the internship coordinator. This template format includes contact information, job description, learning objectives, and evaluation plan, and can be applied generally for any combination of a mentor, mentee, and mentoring organization.

The DISC Personality Assessment, created by Sage Strategies, tests provides a questionnaire to figure out which of four different types of behavior is most prominent within the test taker, and gives descriptions and insights into that personality.

They also host a free personality test on the Sage Strategies website.

The Feedback and Assessment sheet compiled from various resources by Julie Sullivan, NAP Founding Mentor of the Quivira Coaltion, gives tools and tips for how and when to provide feedback, and various information regarding what is good feedback, and what to expect when giving feedback.

The Emotional Intelligence Exercises prepared by Positive Psychology provide worksheets and space for folks to improve their emotional intelligence. These exercises include increasing emotional awareness, and critically analyzing beliefs behind emotions.

These skills sheets are used at San Juan Ranch to conduct periodic skills assessments with their interns and apprentices to assess learning and mastery of the various skills taught on the ranch.  These are used in conversation with each apprentice to assess and celebrate learning and identify areas for further improvement.

When delivered in a timely, thoughtful and skillful manner, feedback can be one of the most effective tools for both professional development and trust building between learner and mentor. This short guide offers several constructive approaches for mentors to provide feedback and evaluation to ag apprentices. This short guide, adapted from the Ag Apprentice Toolkit, is intended for existing and aspiring mentor farmers and ag apprentice programs. 

Join Laura Paine from Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship (DGA) to hear about DGA’s work on understanding and working with adult learners in an agricultural setting. DGA is a federally registered apprenticeship program with 150 approved farms across 11 states providing on-farm mentorship. Laura will share materials that DGA has been working on for professional development of ag apprenticeship masters/mentors.

Presenters: Abby Sadauckas, farmer and the project manager for the grant; Leslie Forstadt, Human Development Specialist at the University of Maine Cooperative Extension.

You may have found yourself asking: “Why is it so hard to manage the people on my farm?” or “Why do apprentices take so much time?” or “How can I be a better mentor?” or “What’s the best approach for curriculum design for apprenticeship programs?”

Webinar recording: This online event launched the Ag Apprenticeship Toolkit and offered a briefing on the power of networks by Andrew Crosson of Rural Support Partners. This event included a tour of the Ag Apprenticeship Toolkit, the capstone resource from Year 1 of the National Ag Apprenticeship Learning Network, and detailed how participation in networks can strengthen local, regional and national food systems work.