Extension resources to help better understand approaches

Extension resources to help better understand approaches

by Celeste Carmichael -
Number of replies: 0

Dan, Mallory, Lisa, Liza, Chelsea, RJ, Isaac, Frank, Meghan, Ryan, and Melissa -

Hi all - hope you are doing well - 


I can see from Moodle that folks are plugging away in the topics - wonderful!  The discussion has been fruitful - thank you for participating.  One comment that comes up a lot is a desire to not "reinvent the wheel".  It can be tricky sometimes to know where to find the wheels though, no?!  As you have heard me share - dialogue, googling, surveying...great ways to better understand needs.  I want to point you also to some dedicated Extension journals - these are great places to see what has been documented about approaches, researched methods of doing our work, and evaluation strategies.  Journal of Extension is often my first go-to.

I think about these sources a lot - as a Ph.D. student, I'm always looking for documentation.  And as an Extension professional, I'm still lost sometimes because we do things in so many ways.  I find it helpful to remind myself that Extension has been around for 100+ years - and the land grant university system is vibrant.  It isn't necessary to do things the way they have been done before, but I do think it is helpful to have a context of what has been done before :).  

Ryan wrote this week about 4-H SPIN projects (special interest clubs).  It occurred to me that I've been hearing staff talk about SPIN clubs for a long time, yet not sure myself what common practices are (Ryan you will be landing on some important information to share!).  There is some written in the journals, but more could be documented for sure - for us and for the future.

I hope this is helpful.

Look for my check-in form in your e-mail on Monday :) - oh and Mallory was the selected coffee card winner this week - woo hoo!  Keep doing great things!!

Celeste