PSIA Education Leadership Council's Progress On Key Initiatives For Instructors.

The PSIA-AASI Education Leadership Council (ELC) recently concluded its annual meeting at the PSIA-AASI national office in Lakewood, CO, where they continued to focus on improving the association’s 3 C’s (Communication, Collaboration, and Consolidation) for the benefit of the members and divisions.

While the ELC is in constant communication throughout the year, its annual meeting allows the team’s educational leaders and divisional representatives to check-in on how well they achieved their goals from the previous year, and to set new initiatives for the years to come.

According to PSIA-AASI Education Development Specialist Aleisha Padilla Seubert, there were two central topics heading into this year’s meeting. One was a comprehensive review of the collaborative relationship with the Penn State Department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Management to develop curriculum that would align transferable skills to gain credits for courses taken at a university level. The other was the creation of the ELC 5-year plan, including specific goals and initiatives for the group moving forward.

Some highlights from the new initiative include:

• Continuing the work with Penn State on learning outcomes, which includes working on constancy and collaboration between all divisions.
• Developing a process for the examiner exchange for 2018-19 season
• Providing additional training materials to members and member schools through e-learning and partnerships with other associations/companies. This initiative aims to provide members with other areas of continued professional development. 

Why is this new initiative so important?
Aleisha Padilla Seubert: As we continue to work together as a council, we thought it was important to establish goals for the council to work through over the next five years. This group has been charged as leaders on all educational topics. It was important to address specific topics through discussion and establish small work groups so the ELC can provide a recommendation on these topics.  

How will this benefit members?
APS: This has a direct benefit to members as we are now simply talking more among divisions. As an association, this results in us being less siloed, while making it easier to encourage the spread of knowledge and education. As the ELC works on specific topics such as the examiner exchange, we continue to provide those folks within each division the opportunity to travel and understand how other divisions work, thus continuing to share best practices and feedback between divisions on processes etc

Seubert added that the ELC will expand the work on these topics at Fall Conference, and also with the specific discipline taskforces, while also planning for an examiner exchange next season.

PSIA-AASI Team Manager and ELC member Jeb Boyd said the overall goal is for members and divisions to become increasingly aligned. “Our members are getting more mobile, moving more often across the country and spending more time in different divisions. We want them to be able to enjoy a more consistent experience anywhere they are.”

One of the key goals of the PSIA-AASI/PSU collaboration is to create more transparency in the process of certification. As Boyd said, “So that the member and the examiner are always working off the same information.”

“We’re learning from higher education, where when you sign up for a class you know exactly what the class is going to cover, and also what you will be tested on,” Boyd said. “Once we get to that point where certification really is standardized, so that members who go from division to division have a similar experience -- much like you do studying a specific subject at Penn State or New Mexico State -- then we can start to align what we do with what you would expect from a college program.”

There will be more information on the ELC meeting the Fall 2018 issue of 32 Degrees magazine. You can also listen to the First Chair Podcast with Director of Education Dave Schuiling on the subject right here.