Xplana: Informal Learning: Tailgating

Also available at thexplanation, this is the first blog post I created for my internship!

The blog is also pasted below- enjoy!

(Julia Shuck is a student intern at The Xplanation, writing a regular column on education and working behind the scenes in our research department.)

Informal learning. It’s something I do as a university student everyday but never imagined it had an actual name until I heard Michael Feldstein, member of the Sakai Foundation, speak at our annual Xplana event. Feldstein’s presentation focused on the importance of informal learning at the secondary education level and the need for these institutions to tap into informal learning opportunities. The problem is that there aren’t many examples of how to blend the two and universities don’t know where to start. So, I’m going to do it; I’m going to be the snitch that talks about how college students learn informally. (No worries, I’m the youngest child so I’m good at snitching.)

Before embarking, I think it’s best to make sure we’re on the same page. According towww.mariaconner.com, learning happens on a spectrum with four areas:

• Formal learning- taking classes or attending work meetings
• Intentional learning- reading, studying
• Unexpected learning- social media, internet surfing
• Informal learning- from friends and family, joining a sports team

The universities have formal and intentional learning figured out, but there’s a disconnect when it comes to unexpected and informal learning. How, where and what do we, as college students, learn outside of the lecture hall?

Use Case #1: Tailgating

Saturday was my last football home game. As the last home game of my undergraduate career, tailgating was not an option. After arriving to our end destination, the pirate flag, we started to mix and mingle. In the midst of the chatter, I met someone in my college and it was instant bonding. There are some things you can’t explain, you just have to experience it and a college with a small town atmosphere is no different. While I didn’t intend to, I was learning more about another degree in my college and as an ambassador, it’s my job to recruit high school students and be informed about our different degree programs. I learned more about the Parks, Recreation and Tourism (PRT) degree during half time of the football game than I had the previous four years. And it was more fun and memorable learning about the degree this way as opposed to reading the PRT info sheet.

Once the cold became too much to handle we headed downtown to watch the game on TV. We bumped into another group of long lost friends. While texting a roommate I was asked which photography professor I knew- Katie is taking a photo class next semester. Lo and behold, Joe will be Katie’s professor next semester. Being friends with Joe instead of a student, I started to tell her what makes him tick. I didn’t tell her what it was like to be his student, I told her what it was like for him to teach a class of students that are constantly texting and think this is going to be an easy class so they don’t put forth much effort. While the cell phone comment gave her a stunned look, she was ready to give it her all and explain to him that she was in this for the long haul. Not only did she get “backstage” information but on the spot she determined how she would handle the situations as they came her way.

Could attending game day be a more informal way of learning? Better yet, could it be a more unexpected? The day ended at a bar where everyone had their game players and bounced back and forth between trivia on the big screen and word games on the handheld devices. Who is Ronny Cox anyways? (He’s an actor, singer-songwriter, thank you smartphone!)

Xplana: Next is Now

Check out this youtube video: Next is Now.

This was my first project at my internship with MSB Textbooks, the largest buy back and resale textbook company in the U.S. based in Columbia, Mo. I helped to conceive the idea of what the video would look like and then researched statistics to include in the video.

Personal inspirations for the video: girleffect.org

Geared toward higher education institutions and their administrators, this was a great chance to target an audience I've never thought to target.

I hope you enjoy!

Getting to Samara, Costa Rica...

Arriving in Liberia, Costa Rica was very interesting! The “airport” was comparable to the sheep pavilion at the Missouri State Fair. There was no wall between the tarmac and the pavilion where customs was. There were walls on the sides and a large exit at the doorway. The top few feet around the building had openings for a breeze. There was a small conveyor belt for luggage to the right and a information desk and restroom to the left.

I grabbed a taxi and began the 2+ hour drive to Playa Samara. I was a little nervous driving through the medium and small sized towns, but had a great chance to speak Spanish with my taxi driver for the first time in more than a year. He got me to feel more comfortable about my Spanish and would correct me every now and then.

We got to town and by then I was more excited than nervous, I think the few hour ride and Hubert really helped. I was just going to have him drop me off in town, but he was very adamant about making sure I made it to where I was staying. He let me use his phone and I called Barbara to get directions. It took a little bit of calling back and forth but he finally got me to where I was staying and he was very excited for me because it ended up being on a farm. JWe had a lot to talk about because I like seeing how agriculture varies from country to country and Costa Rica’s is quite different from the U.S.. Also, the taxi driver, Hubert, and I were both raised on farms so we had stories and words to share. (Finca is Spanish for Farm). We got along really well and he was great! I was taking pictures with my Nikon and he would slow down or pull over whenever he saw me taking photos, which wasn’t necessary but nice. It was really neat because an hour into the drive he pulled over on a really pretty landscape and we got out and took some good photos, which was fun. A few times we got out to look at the wild monkeys! He also stopped in Nacoya, the largest town on the way to Samara to help me find a SIM card for my cell phone, he asked around and we went to a few stores, but all were closed so he told me when I could get them in Samara.

Hubert gave me his number and told me to call him a day in advance when I was ready to go back to the airport and he could pick me up from wherever because he enjoyed driving me to Samara.

I spent the rest of the day meeting my roommates and relaxing and getting some to-go food from a local restaurant. It was a very calm night, which was very nice!

Jean, Lolita and Beans!

Sunday June 13

I woke up on my first Sunday around 8:30 a.m and when I left my room, I met Jean who moved in earlier that morning and was doing the TEFL course too! We went grocery shopping at The Iguana. We then came back and tried to make rice and beans. Lesson of the day: you’re supposed to soak your beans for a day or two before trying to cook them. You live and learn! They never did get that soft but were still okay.

We ended up having rice and beans, and I made way too much rice so it’s possibly enough to last me another week!

Also while we were trying to cook, Lolita, a parrot kept bothering us. We had been told my the other girls staying in our house that she would bite your toes so we were kind of afraid of her. We kept trying to shoo her away but she was pretty adamant about hanging around. Eventually, Cristina gave us a broom and Lolita really hates the broom.

The Cristina’s son, Estaphon, drove us to the beach, which was really nice. We walked around the beach for a bit. We saw our roommates and I got a surrong to use as a beach towel since I

only brought one towel with me. We went to an internet café for a bit and checked e-mails and then sat on the beach and chatted for awhile. We went in the ocean and played in the waves, which was a lot of fun.

Sitting on the beach we saw other girls that Jean had met that were also taking the TEFL course. We made plans and met up with the girls to go out for dinner. We went to a restaurant on the beach and it was amazing!

I ended up getting a cheeseburger because I had a headache and wasn’t hungry but knew I needed to eat something and it was fantastic! The flavor of the cheese exploded in my mouth and was so good. We then stopped at Super Samara, the grocery store and went back to the girl’s house and chatted for the rest of the evening. Jean and I left around 11 p.m. We were really tired early since the sun goes down at 6:30 p.m. but were determined not to go to bed at 9 p.m.!

DHA link

I am preparing to post some of my school work in the evenings during my internship but I didn't want to wait to post this website.

I am currently working on writing an informative article on DHA (it's an Omega-3 fatty acid) and its importance to human health. I was looking through the information I was given and ran across this website: http://www.lifesdha.com/brainindex/Default.aspx
and found it to be pretty interesting and I enjoyed the brain quiz as well. I thought I would pass it along so you could test your brain health too! :)

Thanks and Have Fun!

A little info on DHA. There are 3 main Omega-3 fatty acids: DHA, ALA and EPA. They all help your heart and ALA and EPA do some with anti-inflamatory but DHA is the main one that helps brain and eye tisssue and also helps you lose weight because it gives you a full feeling! Some of the foods we eat have ALA or EPA but then in our body they convert to DHA and it much smaller quantities so if you can get fish or foods fortified with DHA then you get more DHA, which is really what your body is after all along. I know I kept this short- I am still figuring out exactly how it works but hopefully by the end of the week I will be a DHA expert! :)

Figuring it out, one conversation at a time

So it happened again...

When I was a freshman in high school I came to Mizzou during FFA Week and job shadowed Greg Horstmeier, an agricultural journalist at the time. I was given the grand tour around campus and even got to sit in on a class. It was a gorgeous fall day and I fell in love with Mizzou and knew where I was going after high school. Catch-22, I was ready to be in college, right then and there- it made the next three and half years a bit of a struggle because I knew I was just doing what I had to in order to get through high school and make it to where I really wanted to be, college. I was ready to be in classes that I enrolled it, with professors who loved their topics and others who were in class because they wanted to be, not because the law makes them. 

This past January, I went on a trip to Brussels, Belgium to study the European Union and the Common Agriculture Policy. Myself along with another undergraduate student went on the trip with seven graduate students earning their master's degrees in public policy and agricultural economics. It was an intense four day trip bouncing from one EU building to another listening to speakers. I was really able to learn more opportunities for international agriculture and had a great international experience. 

This evening, we met for the second time since returning. The firs time we got together and chatted over Shakespeare's pizza. This time we discussed our trip and the one-page papers we typed up for each place we visited in Brussels. We were there for three and a half hours, having a great conversation on the EU, what happened while we were there, projects and papers we have been working on upon returning, and hypothesis of the EU now and in the future. Just like a freshman in high school when it hit me that I was meant to go to MU and I had the desire and ambition to do whatever it would take to get there, I got that same feeling after having hours of conversation about the EU trip and what we learned and took from the trip. I rarely, if ever, get to have such an in depth, serious and intelligent conversation in my undergraduate classes, but talking with the group of graduate students and ag economist professor, I now know exactly where I'm supposed to be after my undergrad. 

I don't just plan on going to grad school but I WANT to go. I want to be surrounded by others who are studying something they feel passionately about, something they want to do for the rest of their lives. I have been sparked again with that passion and ambition to know where I am and where I want to go. It's a really good feeling to know where I am headed and that it's something that I truly want deep down inside with no hesitations or reservations. It's always a relief to know where I am heading in life- especially when it comes to the end of  the school year! :)

Dinner with Leonard Gianessi

I don't want to bog this down with introduction information but at the end of this post, I have pasted Mr. Gianessi's profile he sends out and offers the information I knew about him before supper this evening. 

I was invited to dinner this evening by the CAFNR Career Services Director Stephanie Chipman because of my strong interest in international agriculture and how they relates to the articles Mr. Gianessi has published. I had no idea what I was getting into but it was a great experience!

When I said yes I thought I was signing up for a simple meal (take out from Olive Garden maybe) in a room with a handful of other undergraduate students. I found out in a confirmation e-mail that the meal was at the Reynolds Alumni Center on campus- which is a very nice restaurant I had never been to before but walked passed on several occasions. I also noticed that I was the only undergraduate student, the rest attending were administration, campus researchers/professors and doctorate students. There were only eight people (counting myself) at the dinner table. 

By the end of the night I had experienced a spectacular five-course meal and three solid hours of discussion on topics ranging anywhere from Mr. Gianessi's topic of increasing herbicide use to educating the general public on why agriculture is the way that it is to talking about hometowns and personal histories. 

I really liked how Mr. Gianessi described himself, I feel we have much in common in this area. He works with scientists and researchers in the crop production field (entomologists, weed scientists, soil scientists, etc) and they are 1 inch wide but 5 miles deep- they generally have a very focused knowledge base, but they know their topic very in-depth. Mr. Gianessi sees himself as being 1 inch deep but 5 miles wide. He knows about a lot of different areas in agriculture and understands the lingo used in the different fields of study, but he also understands that he doesn't know nearly as much about any given topic than those who are chest deep. 

This reminded me of growing up and running anything I heard by mom because she went to college. I thought that when you went to college you gained an infinite amount of knowledge and thus knew everything! Imagine how I felt when I found out that you don't get to learn about EVERYTHING but only a lot about a certain topic! I had aspired to be a walking encyclopedia- my dreams were crushed! But with that, I stumbled across my passions in life- who would have thought a farm girl from a town of 668 people would fall in love with international agriculture? I am still trying to figure out what general path I want to take to be involved in that area. While I still try to go to various lectures and events to expand that encyclopedia in my mind, I find that I am strongly drawn to international agriculture topics and even when I am listening to a lecture or seminar on some very different topic, I find myself wondering what their ag situation is like and how this all connects to information I have gained from others and if the opinions are different because of the angles each are coming at, and so on and so forth. In high school, I would role my eyes at the thought of a "theory." Now, theories make it all possible to comprehend a certain idea and use it in different areas. I know this may seem obvious, but to truly appreciate something for what it is instead of just accepting it and taking it as it is given to you, but adding personal meaning and significance to an area, really makes it that much more exciting. (I promise I had decaf coffee with dessert!)

Coming back around, ;), I had a great evening. The best part was being able to feel comfortable in the group and easily add to the conversation, even though I was truly the youngest. I never felt inadequate, even when there were conversations about spores and arachnids going on with lingo I had never heard before.  Even though I didn't know exactly what they were discussing, I've received enough science in high school and college to follow the conversation and understand the bigger meaning. Now I could not write an article on the conversation based solely on what I heard, I would need much more clarification for that, but I could certainly blog about the experience. :) 

I was thoroughly engaged throughout the evening and was surprised when I got up to go to the restroom how stiff my legs and muscles were. I had not realized that I had been sitting there for over two and a half hours. You know the conversation is good and interesting if you don't feel your legs getting stiff. The people I met were fantastic and practically did the networking for me. I received a handful of invitations to various lectures and networking events that I never expected so that was a pleasant surprise as well. 

This is getting lengthy (typical Julia) so I will finish with the information Mr. Gianessi has provided for his lecture I will be attending Friday and/or Saturday. It should be very interesting- he was quite an insightful man who should have a great perspective to offer. 

Leonard Gianessi 

Director, Crop Protection Research Institute 

CropLife Foundation 

  

Food production problems in Africa are once again front page news. African crop yields average one-third that of the rest of the world’s harvest. As food shortages loom, public institutions, developmental groups, and government agencies are assessing technologies and policies that have the potential to significantly increase food production in Africa. 

 

One of the most serious threats to African food production- the problem of weeds competing with crops-is not being addressed in the ongoing assessments. And yet, solving the weed problem in Africa is critical if farmers are to attain optimal yields and gain the full value of additional use of fertilizer, irrigation and improved seeds. Currently, African farmers lose 20-100% of their potential crop production due to uncontrolled 

weeds. The primary method of weed control by smallholder farmers in Africa is hand weeding with short-handled tools. Weeding is backbreaking work done primarily by women. Because of labor cost and shortage and other demands on farmers time, not enough weeding is being done or is being done too late to prevent serious yield losses. Farmers are reluctant to apply fertilizer because weeds would be further stimulated and even more hand weeding would be required.  

 

In this presentation, Leonard Gianessi makes the case for increased use of herbicides by smallholder farmers as a solution for Africa’s weed control problems. Research has shown that, if smallholders used herbicides, hand weeding time could be virtually eliminated. Farmers would have significant time availability to plant additional crops, apply fertilizers, and harvest more crops.