Teaching, Learning, and Communications Section (TLC)

The TLC is an active group of AAEA members interested in the theory, scholarship and practice of learning, teaching, and communication. Given that a large majority of AAEA members have responsibilities in these three areas, the TLC’s activities are developed to enhance members’ skills in the on-campus classroom, off-campus workshop, and in a presentation to a community group. Activities include:

• Pre-conference workshops on teaching strategies, learning styles, and teaching technologies and innovations.  
• Track sessions where practitioners share their knowledge, frustrations, and successes.
• Annual meetings that facilitate idea exchange and dialogue.
• Networking opportunities for scholarly collaboration.
• TLC’s programs are designed for undergraduate, graduate, and life-long learning environments. The TLC encourages AAEA members to transform their interest in teaching into a passion for excellence in pedagogy.

Graduate Student Teaching Award - Deadline Extended to March 15!

The TLC is an active group of AAEA members interested in the theory, scholarship and practice of learning, teaching, and communication. Given that a large majority of AAEA members have responsibilities in these three areas, the TLC’s activities are developed to enhance members’ skills in the on-campus classroom, off-campus workshop, and in a presentation to a community group.

As graduate students are our teachers of tomorrow the TLC has chosen to sponsor this award to recognize and encourage graduate students who excel in teaching agricultural or applied economics courses.

Nominations may be submitted by any member(s) of the AAEA and selection is made on the basis of nominating materials. Re-nominations are encouraged, providing materials are updated and resubmitted. Graduate Student Teaching Award is a criterion-based award and is reviewed by a committee of TLC members.

Please see the full call for submissions or the PDF flyer for details on nomination packets. The deadline to submit a nomination has been extended to March 15.

2011 Section Report from Chair Sterns

Several ideas for potential TLC-organized activities were discussed at the 2010 AAEA meetings in Denver.  These included,

• Organizing a set of track sessions for the 2011 AAEA meeting in Pittsburgh
• Organizing a teaching/learning focused pre- or post-conference workshop at the 2011 AAEA meetings
• Creating a digital/web-based archive of course syllabi for members

Of these, only a set of the track sessions (see below) has been implemented during the past 11 months.  A call for proposals, suggested themes, or content-specific suggestions for a pre- or post-conference workshop was distributed by email to the TLC membership last Fall.  No proposals were submitted in response to that call.  Given that result (along with a general trend downward in participation in workshops over the past several years), we decided, as your Section leaders, to take a one-year hiatus from our general practice of offering a workshop at the AAEA meetings.  A brief history of our section’s past efforts at organizing workshops is attached as a Word document.  Please review this document, and consider options for potential workshops in the future, particularly for the 2012 AAEA meetings in Seattle.  Similarly, several email messages were distributed last Fall to TLC members concerning the development of a course syllabi archive.  Member support for this idea was quite tentative, and fewer than ten members expressed an interest in contributing syllabi to this effort.  Given this limited interest, we decided to postpone indefinitely any additional development of this idea.

Overall, the TLC remains uniquely positioned to offer high quality content related to teaching and learning within the AAEA.  Our efforts historically have been focused on providing that content during the AAEA annual meeting.  Please continue to support these efforts.  Your membership in the section, your attendance at TLC events, and your thoughtful suggestions via email and the telephone are most sincerely appreciated.  There is genuine interest in our efforts, particularly within the most critically important demographic of the AAEA’s general membership.  As noted below, 60 percent of our section’s members are “student members”, the very future of AAEA.  Let all of us acknowledge the importance of meeting these members’ needs as we look  to advance teaching and learning within our discipline and organization. 

Sincerely,
James A. Sterns
TLC Chair, 2010-2011