Transmuting Pedagogies

Some classes are didactic, while others rely on clinical, experiential, practical, even performance art to explain and educate. With every type of classroom, around the globe, from K-12 to Post Doc, all forced to operate via Zoom during this pandemic, what are the ramifications for the future of education?

At the 2021 Hawaiʻi International Conference on Education – held virtually this year, of course – Kauahi Perez and Kent Kobayashi of the Dept. of Tropical Plant and Soil Sciences shared their cross-disciplinary interests, knowledge, and perspectives related to education. To academics and other professionals from around the world, Kauahi and Kent presented wrote three conference proceedings articles:

• “Tomorrow is Yesterday—Transmuting a Tropical Crop Production Course Due to COVID-19,” which described how TPSS 300 Tropical Production Systems was modified from an in-person course to an online course due to COVID-19
• “Attending an Inaugural Virtual Horticulture Conference: Experiences and Lessons Learned,” which described the experience of attending a national horticulture conference virtually last summer, from several viewpoints, and lessons learned.
• “Planting the Seeds: Recruiting Strategies for Agricultural Students of the 21st Century,” they shared their experiences of the strategies employed to recruit graduate and undergraduate students into a TPSS major.

“I could step outside my horticultural bubble, share my interests in higher education, and interact with other professionals from outside the horticultural realm,” says Kauahi. “Sometimes I get fresh ideas from listening to other talks, as well!”

“The event enabled me to meet and network with Dr. David De Jong, U. of South Dakota, and Dr. Jafeth Sanchez, U. of Nevada-Reno, on using telepresence robots to improve attendance in PreK-20 education,” says Kent. “This led to a post-conference opportunity to virtually drive the telepresence robot at the U. of South Dakota from Hawaiʻi. How cool is that!”