Episode 39:
Jane Mangold & Nicole Fleming
On the 39th episode, hosts Jay Whetter and Toban Dyck explore “Training from the Back of the Room” (TBR) with guests Jane Mangold, professor and extension specialist at Montana State University, and Nicole Fleming, director of the TBR Community.
Listen here:
Transcript
Toban Dyck 00:00
Hi, this is The Extensionists. Conversations with great thinkers in agriculture. I’m Toban Dyck,
Jay Whetter 00:08
and I’m Jay Whetter.
Toban Dyck 00:14
Hey, Toban. Hey, Jay. So, before I go on, before we start in any sort of formal way, my grain truck is running right now. It is waiting for me to be done this recording, and then I am jumping into that truck,
Toban Dyck 00:28
Running out the door.
Toban Dyck 00:29
And picking up seed, because my dad is out there seating right now, and he’s gonna need more very soon.
Jay Whetter 00:34
And I’m gonna run amok in your house and look at all your cupboards.
Toban Dyck 00:37
Do it, do inventory right away. Let us know what we have, please.
Jay Whetter 00:42
What are you? What are you planning today? What are you seeding today?
Toban Dyck 00:45
Seeding soybeans today. And we actually, all things being equal, we might, we might finish later tonight, for sure. I shouldn’t say for sure, that’s a terrible thing to say as a farmer. Hopefully, if not tonight, tomorrow. And then I just have a parcel of canola to seed, and then racing right on, because you are
Speaker 1 01:05
Canola, yeah.
Toban Dyck 01:06
Oh, good, good, you’re growing canola, yeah.
Jay Whetter 01:12
How are the seeding conditions this year?
Toban Dyck 01:14
Good, good, typical, typical spring in Manitoba, it’s windy, as you know, as all get out,
Jay Whetter 01:22
As all get out, is that the word you actually wanted to
Toban Dyck 01:24
No.
Jay Whetter 01:25
Yeah,
Toban Dyck 01:26
No, I was gonna swear.
Jay Whetter 01:26
Yeah, so today we’re chatting with a couple of people from the United States, which I think are our first American guests.
Toban Dyck 01:37
You mentioned that earlier. That kind of surprises.
Jay Whetter 01:41
oh, Frank Cara, no, not was it Frank from Hawaii?
Toban Dyck 01:47
Yes, that’s right. Yes,
Jay Whetter 01:48
Yes. Thanks Abby. So this, these are our second and third guests from the states, but
Toban Dyck 01:53
Yes.
Jay Whetter 01:54
But Jane is with Montana State University Extension, and mean that the way they do extension in the United States, I just.. I’m kind of curious, where this conversation goes to see if it’s different, or whether even we even get there, but.. but I.. but it is good to check in with those, the extension practices in the states, and see how something we might learn from them.
Toban Dyck 02:15
I feel like I feel like that connection to the states isn’t.. I mean, to say it’s important, is not really getting at what I’m trying to say. Of course, it’s important, but I think it’s there’s something, there’s something, there’s something kind of mystical about the US, like, and how it does things, that it’s, and it’s also fun to connect her with real people, because, yeah, we’re so used to talking about the US as the US, and when you connect with individuals in the US, it’s always a very different, very most of the times, meaningful, impactful connection, and I’m very much looking forward to that.
Jay Whetter 02:51
I used to do back in my journalism days, I would get to go in these junkets to Europe, say, sometimes around the states, and that kind of thing, and I’d met a lot of the farm writers from from the US, and to a person, they were so fun, so warm, like you just.. you.. I don’t know, I just.. I really enjoy that perspective, and and and spending time with them. So, I think it’s kind of like you said, it’s kind of surprising that we haven’t tapped into that, that relationship that Canada has with the United States, as much as we, as much as we might. Yeah,
Toban Dyck 03:26
Like it may sound strange, but I feel like I feel like honoured that we get to speak to people that we get to meet. For most of our guests, I would say all of our guys, I feel honoured like that they’re taking the time to like to speak to us, and actually excited to talk to us, I feel like these kinds of things are just so.. I don’t know, I get all like, you know, get teary, but I’m not
Jay Whetter 03:47
We’re not paying them. They actually are just..
Toban Dyck 03:50
Tell the world that we’re not paying them.
Jay Whetter 03:53
I don’t know.
Toban Dyck 03:55
So, listeners, we do not pay our guests. In schwag.
Toban Dyck 04:00
We pay them
Jay Whetter 04:01
In hoodies.
Jay Whetter 04:02
Respect and admiration.
Toban Dyck 04:04
Respect and admiration. That’s right, that’s right. Our producer, Abby, is nodding her head, yes, that
Jay Whetter 04:06
That’s how, incidentally, that’s also how we pay Abby. That’s right, that’s right. Yeah,
Toban Dyck 04:18
She just got a raise, she now gets, she gets paid in respect and adoration,
Jay Whetter 04:23
And one other thing. What’s that? Praise,
Toban Dyck 04:26
Praise, oh yeah.
Jay Whetter 04:27
Praise.
Toban Dyck 04:27
Praise. That’s right, yeah. Great job, yeah. Increased responsibilities
Abby Wall 04:33
And mocking, apparently.
Toban Dyck 04:34
And some mockery. That’s right. It’s a form of what?
Jay Whetter 04:38
Okay, you got to go
Toban Dyck 04:40
I have to go pick up seed.
Jay Whetter 04:41
Seeding duties?
Toban Dyck 04:41
Yes,
Jay Whetter 04:41
Yeah, all right. It’s on with the show. Do you like what you’re hearing and want to support The Extensionists? If you are an agriculture company or association looking for a powerful way to get your message in front of Canadian farmers, then partner with us. Our listeners are farmers from coast to coast.
Toban Dyck 05:00
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Jay Whetter 05:12
Whether you’re looking for a 60-second ad somewhere throughout the podcast or even an exclusive episode sponsorship, we have options that will work for you.
Toban Dyck 05:21
So, if you’re ready to get your message out there and connect with farmers across Canada, let’s talk. Visit theextensionists.com for more information.
Jay Whetter 05:37
Alright, welcome to the podcast. We’ve got two guests today, which is something new for us.
Toban Dyck 05:41
Brand new for us.
Jay Whetter 05:42
Yeah, so we have Jane Mangold, and Jane is Professor in Land Resources and Earth Sciences at Montana State University, and is also an extension specialist, which fits with our Extensionists theme. And then we have Nicole Fleming, who’s the director and owner of Training from the Back of the room, TBR, TBR community, and so this is, this is, this is where it all started. Is, in fact, one of our previous guests, Brianne Tideman, she used to work for Agriculture and Agri Food Canada in Alberta, and is now is just moving to Norway, which is kind of exciting. Jane, I’m not sure whether you had that news about Brianne, but
Jane Mangold 06:19
I did not know yet.
Jay Whetter 06:20
So, Brianne was telling us, oh, you really need to talk to Jane Mangold about moving away from sage on the stage to training from the back of the room, right? And I just saw, okay, well, that is, that is so compelling, we definitely have to talk to Jane. And then Jane thought, well, you know what, Jane is again, I’m putting words in your mouth, we’ll get to all of this, and this is the world’s longest introduction. I’m sorry, yeah, geez, but did you not be just tell you to be quick anyway? Go on, yeah, it’s my.. what is it? Defiance, oppositional defiance. My brother’s wife tells me that I have that sometimes, so someone tells me to do something, and then I said, well, screw you, I’m going to do the opposite. So, yes, here, this is me being quick, so Jane thought Nicole, who is the owner, like I said, of training from the back of the room, should be here to make sure we get the full gist of the training from the back of the room experience. Anyway, Jane, you are from a small town called Riceville, Iowa, and I said to look that up. 800 people, so I suspect you two are both Jane or Nicole. You’re also from a small town near Lansing, Michigan, so you’re both small town people. I grew up in the countryside. My hometown had 500 people, so I, we all, we’re all kind of kindred spirits here. Toban’s hometown is huge by comparison. Winkler is about 10,000
Toban Dyck 07:43
Probably 13 13, kind of town that would probably correct you, right? Oh, no, no, we’re at least 14,000
Jay Whetter 07:54
So, Riceville, Iowa, part of the culture is Mennonite and Amish, which is kind of interesting, because Winkler is also a large Mennonite community. If I can say that, Toban,
Toban Dyck 08:07
it’s..
Toban Dyck 08:08
Can I say that?
Toban Dyck 08:08
Is an uncontroversial comment.
Jay Whetter 08:12
All right, but my favorite…my favorite thing, Jane is.. so this website was talking about attractions in Riceville, and you’re probably going to start rolling your eyes at this. You’re a long way removed from Riceville, Iowa. You’re way over in Montana now, but the number one attraction is a curtain. Yeah, they’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel. So, do you have any idea? I’m gonna.. I know what it means. Do you have any? Do you have a guess what that might know?
Jane Mangold 08:44
I, this is going to be a learning experience for me.
Jay Whetter 08:49
It would have been there when you were there. And Ken, this is so.. it’s one of five curtains left from the Brown Opera House. This may be American folk history, that I have no idea what this means, and it’s in the library in Riceville on display for everyone to see, and it’s some painted curtain that used to be in some vaudeville theater. Well, this brown is that ringing a bell. Wow, you don’t even.. in
Jane Mangold 09:18
In all honesty, not really.
Jay Whetter 09:21
You’re saying I shouldn’t drive to Riceville to see the curtain.
Jane Mangold 09:25
I could tell you other things to drive to Riceville.
Jay Whetter 09:27
Oh, okay. Well
Jane Mangold 09:28
I mean, you should see the curtain, I guess, if you’re there. We have to now. There are other attractions, okay?
Jay Whetter 09:35
What are the other attractions in Riceville?
Jane Mangold 09:38
Well, one of my favorite things about Riceville is it has a great rails to trail, or yeah, rails to trail bike trail that actually runs from Iowa into Minnesota. There’s a connection there,
Jay Whetter 09:51
Annd it used to be a rail line. There’s that way..
Jane Mangold 09:54
It was a rail line, I think it was the Northern Great Wapsie Pinnacan rail.
Jay Whetter 10:00
And really rolls of the tongue,
Jane Mangold 10:01
Yeah, it’s a beautiful trail. It most of it actually is developed since I graduated and left Riceville. There’s a really nice county park there, Lake Hendricks, and it’s just a really nice, nice little farming community.
Toban Dyck 10:21
Oh, that’s that’s that’s awesome.
Jay Whetter 10:23
Nicole, is there anything? So, you’ll have to name your actual little small town now, and tell me, what’s the most exciting? Why should I drive to visit your little town?
Nicole Fleming 10:34
I grew up in Charlotte, Michigan, and that is spelled like Charlotte, but pronounced Charlotte, for whatever reaso. You know, I can’t come up with one reason why you should go visit Charlotte, Michigan, to be honest, and that is probably why I am no longer there. Okay, here’s, here’s one thing, so I’m a rock climber, and the only rock climbing outdoor rock climbing in the lower part of Michigan is about 15 minutes from where I grew up in Grand Ledge.
Jay Whetter 11:12
Okay, that’s where the rock climbing is in Grand Ledge. What about Winkler? What, why should people go to Winkler Toban?
Toban Dyck 11:19
For the, for the rock climbing, obviously. No, there’s no rock climbing.
Jay Whetter 11:22
World’s flat, so it’s as flat as Iowa.
Toban Dyck 11:24
So, like, like Nicole, like when I was 18, I left Winkler. I was like, there’s no way I’m not, I’m not coming back. I went to the city university, and then, then Toronto for a bit, and, and, but then I came back, and I’m now taking over the family family farm, so that’s that’s why that’s what brought me back, but yeah, no, I have a, I have a complicated relationship with the town that I farm nearby, near, so yeah, I understand, but I do want to, I want to talk, so Jane hiking and biking, I understand, and Nicole rock climbing, so this is this is interesting,
Jay Whetter 12:00
So you’re not gonna ask me about the derelict to empty buildings in downtown Hartney.
Toban Dyck 12:06
I, you know, what I just don’t care, and I’m just kidding, just kidding.
Jay Whetter 12:11
Nicole, Nicole, what some of these other things? Nicole and I have been invited to be part of our hometown economic development boards, I Okay. Yes. Continue
Toban Dyck 12:25
Hiking and biking. So I know this is unrelated, but my wife, my wife, and I just.. we, Jay gets tired of this because we just got to.. we just got into running, so like you know, I’m gonna run my first marathon soon. I did a half last year, and as we’ve been watching a lot of running videos on YouTube, so we watched this, this, this live stream of the Coca Dona 250 in Arizona, which is a 250 mile running race that happens for it, takes Black Canyon, it starts and ends up in Flagstaff, Arizona, just, just an incredible, incredible thing. So, I mean, I’m not going to ask you if you’re ultra-marathoners, but, but I do, I do like the physical activity, the hiking and biking, and and rock climbing. I think I think that’s great, and I think the U.S. is such a fantastic place for, for stuff like that,
Jay Whetter 13:19
Except for, you know that one person.
Toban Dyck 13:22
What’s that?
Jay Whetter 13:24
No, I’m not. Oh, yeah. Okay, moving right along. So, okay, what was that? What was that phrase in Jane’s bio, that that strange word for land that needs help, abused, abused land rehabilitation, so we got a lot of saline soil on the Canadian prairies, and you, I guess you could say that’s abused from, from, you know, farming management practices over the years, but what, so what is, is that still a big part of your, your working life, Jane? Is this abused land rehabilitation, and what is that exactly?
Jane Mangold 14:02
Yeah, so I got a master’s degree from Montana State before I got my PhD here, and it was in abused land rehabilitation, that was mostly, I mean, saline soils could be part of that, but it was mostly working with mine tailings, so
Jay Whetter 14:19
Not necessarily agricultural..
Jane Mangold 14:21
drastically disturbed. I don’t work in mine settings for the most part anymore, but I do work with invasive plants, which are can be a cause or a symptom of abused land, and trying to restore that land to bring it back to some level of productivity. I’m doing a little bit of work on coal mine reclamation, because a lot of that reclamation happens, but it seeding occurs, but a lot of weeds tend to move in after the disturbance instead of the species that we seed, so we’re trying. To find ways to control the weeds and reestablish desirable vegetation.
Jay Whetter 15:07
And you work with farmers as well.
Jane Mangold 15:10
I work well, I work more with ranchers than farmers, so livestock producers. Some of them will have mixed operations where they’re farming and have livestock and hay production. I tend to work more in perennial plant systems, so range lands, prairie grasslands. Yep, and I also work a lot with the like managers of public lands, so our state and federal public lands.
Jay Whetter 15:41
Okay, I just, for some reason, I just thought of the word sage because we were talking of sage on the stage, and, oh yeah, I grew up in a part of southwest Manitoba that has a lot of native prairie grasslands kind of areas, and also tame pastures and perennial feed lands, but yeah, there’s a lot of wild sage, but we’ll get to sage in a stage in a second.
Jane Mangold 16:05
Yeah, that’s that’s the type of system I work in. Yeah,
Jay Whetter 16:09
okay. And are there challenges with regard to communications to the farmers? Like, what are the, what are the challenges, and what do you like? What, what started you on this training from the back of the room journey, like, did you recognize a need in, or a gap in communication?
Jane Mangold 16:28
Yeah, well, so I’ve been an extension specialist for almost 18 years now, and I think one of the things that I’ve always struggled with is, as a subject matter expert, I have a lot of knowledge and information about the topic that I’m asked to give presentations on to farmers, ranchers, land managers, and you know, I’m really interested in that and fascinated by that, but in a lot of cases it’s too much for my audience, they maybe don’t want all those nitty gritty details, right? They want very practical, applicable information. So I did often. I often find myself being the sage on the stage. It’s a very common practice that I would be asked to come give a presentation to a group of producers, and I show up with my 45 PowerPoint slides, and I work through the slides, and maybe take some questions at the end, and then I sit down, and then another expert comes up and does the same thing for their topic, right.
Jay Whetter 17:42
That’s pretty much the formula, though, isn’t it? That’s the formula.
Toban Dyck 17:45
Yeah.
Jane Mangold 17:45
Yeah. And I just, you know, I just feel like we can do better. We can do better for our, our audiences, our clients, our stakeholders, and I think for, for us as extension professionals like it’s more interesting to do things in a different way as well, and you know the longer I’m in my career, the more I want to do things differently to keep it fresh and to try to improve.
Jay Whetter 18:16
What was the moment, if you can recall, when you thought
Toban Dyck 18:20
something would change exactly
Jay Whetter 18:22
When, when we need
Toban Dyck 18:23
The eureka moment, yeah.
Jay Whetter 18:25
Was it a particular event, or was it just like us, like, yeah? What? Tell us about that time.
Jane Mangold 18:31
Um, I think it’s been a, you know, it’s slowly evolved over time, like doing it for so long, and then also like watching my colleagues do the same thing, and you know, I might be sitting, sitting in the audience, listening to my colleagues, and no offense to my colleagues, but it’s like, wow, like I can really only listen to what they’re saying for about 15 minutes, and then I start checking out, yeah, yeah, yeah, so,
Jay Whetter 19:01
So you have a, you have a short attention span. So, now
Jane Mangold 19:05
I think Nicole, Nicole will tell you otherwise, that the brain science behind training from the back of the room suggests that all humans have an attention span that’s, I don’t want to call it short, but it’s not 45 minutes long to listen to the same person go through a bunch of slides. It’s
Jay Whetter 19:27
Probably about half that for me, or not half of 45 half of 15. Yeah,
Jane Mangold 19:33
Right, right.
Jay Whetter 19:33
And even now it’s probably getting shorter and shorter with people. I mean, although maybe that’s not actually true, but we hear that the attention spans are getting shorter and shorter with our social media training and our constant flipping and that kind of thing. Maybe Nicole, have you, is that in fact true, or what? What are your thoughts on attention spans and limiting the time length of presentations?
Nicole Fleming 19:55
My research about shortening attention spans finds that it’s at. Actually, not true, we just have more distractions nowadays. I think is really the cause of it, but it’s a really good incentive to do something different to mix it up, because our brains can really only take in, you know, information for a short period of time. We need a break, or we need, you know, a change to be able to process that information.
Jay Whetter 20:26
That’s really interesting. Yeah, so, so our ability to focus actually hasn’t, hasn’t changed over time, or like, what can you, can you unpack that a little bit more?
Nicole Fleming 20:39
Yeah, it’s not changed significantly over time. Evolution takes a little bit more time than that, and so, yeah, I think you know the consensus is that we just have more distractions that are, you know, breaking up our ability to focus.
Jay Whetter 20:58
That makes sense.
Toban Dyck 20:59
Yeah, that’s, yeah, that’s, yeah, that’s interesting.
Jay Whetter 21:02
Is so, is there an ideal length of time? I think, is it Carmen Gallo? Is that the Talk Like Ted person uses 18 minutes as a.. and so, does that sound like in the ballpark, Nicole? Or what do you have a length of time before you for the for the sage on the stage, kind of like, okay, that’s enough. Then we’re going now, we’re going to move on to some training from the back of the room.
Nicole Fleming 21:27
We really suggest like 10 to 15 minutes, so if you’re talking longer than 10 to 15 minutes, that information is just going to be overload to your learner. Yeah, so every 10 to 15 minutes it’s time to, you know, allow your learners to do something with what they’ve heard, allow them to write or talk or do an activity that reinforces the content.
Jay Whetter 21:54
Jane, do you so tell me about that time when you first heard Nicole, was it was it light bulbs going off moment, or what was that day like?
Jane Mangold 22:03
Yeah, well, it goes back a little bit further than Nicole. In, I think it was 2012 I was like four years into this job, and I actually had an opportunity to go to a training from the back of the room workshop that Sharon Bowman, who was the founder of Training from the Back of the room did here in Great Falls, Montana, so I did that program, and some of the concepts really resonated with me, and I did implement some of them, but, but I didn’t give it a lot of thought, and then in 2023 I was awarded sabbatical, and I wanted to spend my sabbatical time learning how to teach better and how to be a better extension professional. So I looked into seeing the training from the back of the room was still around, and it was, and Nicole was leading the program at that time. So yeah, two years ago I, I took the two day practitioner course from Nicole. Love the way she teaches. I love her approach. And yes, light bulbs were going off, and I stayed on an additional day with Nicole to do the certification to teach the two day practitioner course, and that was in May of 2024 and since that time I’ve been trying to implement strategies and ideas into my own programming, and then I’ve also, with Nicole’s help, held two trainings for extension special extension professionals here in Montana, one in November of 2025 and then one this past April.
Toban Dyck 23:48
That’s fantastic. Yeah, so you know, you talk about like the 45 minute presentation and the big slide deck, and you know, or maybe it was 45 slides, I’m not sure. So, how has that changed for you? Can you kind of, okay, can you kind of walk us through what, what, what you, what you do now that really, that really resonates with, with your audience?
Jay Whetter 24:07
Yeah,
Jane Mangold 24:08
Yeah. Well, again, I’m still practicing, and, like I said before, we started this show, yeah, you know, there’s six principles that training from the back of the room operates on one of them is shorter over longer, so I, and that gets back to this idea of delivering content in 10 to 15 minute increments, so I try to break my content up into 10 to 15 minute segments, and then have the audience do something, you know, it may only be one or two minutes that they spend doing something, but I try to break it up, maybe it’s even as simple as giving the audience a chance to ask questions during that time, so that’s one of. Things I’ve been doing, another, another of the principles is movement, that the importance of movement, and movement over sitting. So, having audience members be, you know, they’re either getting up and moving to look at something, maybe they’re passing samples, you know, down the line, samples of invasive plants to look at, maybe they’re working with some cards, they’re doing a matching game, so I’ve just been trying to integrate more activities that that range in time from one minute to do them to maybe 10 to 12 minutes to do them and break the content up and give the learners a chance to interact with the content before we move on to a new piece of content,
Toban Dyck 25:54
Yeah. Have you found, since you’ve been using them, like have you found like a significant like uptick in engagement, and yeah, attention, I guess.
Jane Mangold 26:05
Well, I mean, I haven’t done formal evaluations, you know, before and after, like trying one way versus the other. I feel like we all have more fun, yeah, while we’re together, and you know, I get a lot of thank yous and compliments after the program is over. What for the extension educators that have come to the well, the training that happened in November, I have done some post, I did like a six months after that workshop, I reached out to them again and had them take a survey to ask them, you know, how much interactive hands-on programming are you doing. We, I’ve seen a 10 point increase in the amount of hands-on interactive program programming that they’re doing, coming into the workshop, they were doing about 48% They estimated they did about 48% of their training, kind of interactive and hands on. That’s up to 58% now. Now that’s the, that’s the extension professionals. What we don’t have yet is to see if those programs are being more effective for our audiences.
Toban Dyck 27:26
right. Right, it’s really hard to track. Yeah, Nicole, maybe, maybe to you. Like, how do you.. you know, Jay and I have kind of.. we’ve talked to groups too about extension, and then some of that stuff. It’s really hard to.. they all want, at the end of the day, at the end of whatever we talk about, to kind of be armed with how do we measure the success of what we’re doing now? Like, if we take, you know, we go to our grower groups or our farmer audiences, and we, you know, we do the things that you’re talking about, how do we really kind of, how do you know if it’s, if it’s working right? I don’t know. Do you have a comment on that, Nicole.
Nicole Fleming 28:02
That is really hard. I, as a consultant, I go in and work with organizations, and then I’m not there to see, you know, the impacts later, and so it’s kind of word of mouth on how things are implemented and how it’s going. I do hear a lot of good feedback, the trainers, and even the teachers who use our techniques, they find that it’s a little bit more work upfront, but when they’re delivering content, it’s easier on them. So we hear things like that, we do hear how their students love the movement and are so much more engaged with some of the techniques, but we don’t have those hard numbers. That’s something we need to start doing, is following up more after the fact and trying to put that together.
Toban Dyck 28:53
Yeah, I mean, you, yeah, you would be both figured out something, let me know, and I’ll do, I’ll do the same. But,
Nicole Fleming 29:00
Great, thank you.
Jay Whetter 29:02
Well, I mean, just the movement thing, which kind of is right up my alley, because I, I mean, even like when I just saw her, this presentation about educating little educating boys, and our school systems are in some ways failing boys, or not not connecting with boys, and and recess, and getting up and moving is so critical, and I think the same applies to men, and I don’t know whether women feel the same way, but often in farming, I mean, the audience, I mean, it’s changing, but traditionally it’s been predominantly men, and the idea of getting up and moving and doing something interactive, I think probably really resonates.
Toban Dyck 29:36
Well, you and I have talked about that too, just like the role of, like, you know, even, even say you’re in a, you’re at a field day, you’re an extension event, and you’re talking about, let’s say, you know, nodulation on routes to actually have, you know, like, whether you do use a 3D printer or something, and like, get, like, print something that shows this, and, like, you know, have a very, very tactile element to what. Talking about, I think, I think, I think there’s a, there’s a, there’s a, there’s a role for stuff like that. Go ahead,
Jay Whetter 30:06
We’re just gonna, so training from the back of the room. So,
Toban Dyck 30:10
Jane’s just gonna say something.
Jay Whetter 30:12
Sorry.
Jane Mangold 30:13
Oh, well, before we leave that idea, you know, Jay, your comment about, like, it’s not just boys, it’s men, like I think that adults want to learn in the same ways that kids want to learn, and unfortunately, as we go through our educational system, we become more and more sedentary, so that by the time we’re young adults in college, we mostly get lectured to again from the sage on the stage, and one of the things that’s been interesting to me implementing TBR is that some of these old crusty guys in the audience are enjoying this, and like they’re embracing the activity, and I’ve also heard from one of our extension educators who has come to the workshop, that he, he tended to do hands-on activities with his 4-H kids, the youth development programs that he does, but he’s like, I never thought about actually integrating some of these similar concepts into my adult education, and he’s doing that now, and you know it’s being met with it’s been, it’s well received. I think adults want to have fun as much as kids do. Yeah.
Toban Dyck 31:34
Yeah. I couldn’t agree more. Absolutely, yeah,
Jay Whetter 31:38
That’s perfect. Well, thanks, Jane. I thought Toban was gonna say J, but J and Jane start off the same, so I’m sorry,
Toban Dyck 31:44
His attention spans not even five seconds long. He cut off before the word I’ve only got Jane, only good
Jay Whetter 31:52
Three-letter words. Okay, but Nicole, so Jane, a few minutes ago, set up the six learning principles of TBR nicely with the reference to shorter, but can you, can you talk about the the training from the back of the room, the six guess the so the principles of TBR are these six learning principles, and then the 4c framework. I think we need a little definition. Yeah, walk us through this.
Nicole Fleming 32:25
The six learning principles are all about engagement and attention, and I think Jane mentioned most of them. I can run through them again, so they’re movement, writing, and this is from the learner perspective, so your learners should be moving, they should be writing, they should be interacting with images, they should be experiencing different activities, different ways to approach the information, and then shorter, so as a five foot tall person, you know that that is obviously my favorite. Is shorter. Yeah, exactly. That’s really a reminder for us to, you know, keep it short and involve our learners regularly. And then talking, so our learners should be talking, and we sometimes get some pushback about that, but the key here is talking about the topic.
Jay Whetter 33:30
What’s the pushback on talking? I thought that would be the most obvious.
Toban Dyck 33:33
Not everybody wants to talk. Well, you know, it’s the teachers. Yeah,
Nicole Fleming 33:39
the teachers, they’re like, wait, my students should talk, and that’s how they’re going to learn, but yes, students getting them talking about the topic, yes, yeah.
Toban Dyck 33:49
Yeah, that’s,
Jay Whetter 33:51
I get it now. Sometimes Toban needs to pull me along, so yeah, I was thinking these are these are the rules for the presenter, but no, this is just the whole package. This is the whole room, so everybody should be talking and participating. Okay, I get it now.
Toban Dyck 34:06
How have you found, like, with this kind of train the trainer model, like, is that work? Does that work well for the program?
Nicole Fleming 34:19
It works really well. So I’m a shy introvert, and training people is not something I ever thought I would do, and I would not do it if it weren’t for techniques like this, this type of, you know, I don’t know, this type of training where you’re not expected to be the sage on the stage. This is what I enjoy, because you are more on the side guiding your learners through the experience, and our goal is to make sure that our learners know that they are the experts, they come with a lot of knowledge and. And they probably know a good amount about what we’re going to share, and so creating the space for our learners to share that information with each other really shows them that they bring valuable knowledge to the experience, and that is, that’s another, you know, big key to training from the back of the room.
Toban Dyck 35:20
Yeah. I think it’s interesting, like we’ve certainly heard from a lot of extension specialists here in Canada, anyway, that they’re really excited for a different way of, like, Jane, you, you mentioned this too, a different way of doing things, and there seems to be like this, this hunger for wanting to do something different, and they’re, and a very kind of open acknowledgement of, hey, I was trained to do things a certain way throughout university, and it’s kind of a very formulaic approach to to extension and to communication, and there seems to be, at least I’ve found, like a lot of desire for, or like an acknowledgement of, like, there’s got to be more, and a desire to, to learn different, different ways of doing things, and I think I’m hearing from, from you guys that it’s similar, similar out your way, and I think I don’t know, like, you is the, is the, is the, is it similar in universities as well, where you don’t get much of that, you don’t get much of that kind of creative approach to communication throughout your, your university.
Nicole Fleming 36:27
I can share my experience. So, I have a degree in microbiology, and my classes were very lecture-heavy, except for the labs, you know, the organic chemistry labs. Those were my favorite classes, because you actually got to get in, you know, doing different things, but the organic chemistry lectures, you know, that was in a giant lecture hall of, I don’t know, 200 students, and it was, it was really boring, and I don’t remember anything from that, so you know, I think in some universities they’re using the more interactive techniques, but that’s not what I experienced as a student, and that was, you know, that was quite some time ago. But Jane, what do you see at the university there?
Jane Mangold 37:17
Yeah, I think it’s still, you know, lecture format is still the most common approach, you know, you have the exceptions, the professors that are do way more interactive, hands on, or kind of the flipped classroom, where when you’re together in the classroom, you’re doing prop, you know, you’re problem solving, you’re working on hands-on things, but then your homework is more like listening to a lecture, so there is that flipped classroom ideas out there, but I would say, you know, for the most part it’s still predominantly lecture, and you know one thing I think is interesting, and this applies both for the university setting and for extension educators, is we tend to be subject matter experts. We are trained in our subject matter expertise.
Jay Whetter 38:11
Yeah.
Jane Mangold 38:11
We are not trained how to teach.
Toban Dyck 38:15
Yeah, yeah, right.
Jane Mangold 38:17
And one thing I think is been one reason I think TBR is really appealing to extension, what we’ve seen so far in the feedback that Nicole and I have received is it’s actually, it’s actually providing people with the tools to be a good teacher, so yes, you’re still a subject matter expert, but now you’re placing that expertise within this design model, the 4c map, that it’s, it’s like you’re writing a lesson plan in a way, and you have a learning outcome and a learning objective, so that it’s much, it’s much more like an elementary teacher or a secondary teacher who has been trained in how to be an educator. It’s, it’s formulated more like that, instead of just standing up and and sharing your expert knowledge on a topic.
Toban Dyck 39:19
Yeah, yeah, I like that.
Jay Whetter 39:21
I’m just envisioning people hearing this, and being a little bit reluctant, yeah, just because, so you know, the subject matter expert creating your 45 minute slide deck, and then just talking to your slides, I mean, you, so you’ve taken an hour or whatever it is to prepare your PowerPoint, and then you just go to every little town around Montana or Michigan or Kentucky or Manitoba, and just like say the same thing over and over and over again, and that’s it’s easy, you know, but what you’re saying. Jane sounds sounds hard, is it?
Jane Mangold 40:05
It is hard. It takes time, and in fact, one of the questions I’ve asked the people that have come to the workshop in November, and then more recently in April, is I asked people to to indicate things that limit their ability to deliver hands-on interactive programming, and time,
Toban Dyck 40:27
Yeah,
Jane Mangold 40:27
Time is the number one, like,
Toban Dyck 40:30
Yeah, I believe that
Jane Mangold 40:31
70 about 78 to 80% of the the respondents to that survey question are indicating time as, as being the number one challenge, and, and I agree with that, like Nicole said earlier, there it does take more time to prepare when you’re getting ready to deliver the program, and it’s a lot of, I don’t want to say it’s a lot of work, but it’s more work than just putting a PowerPoint slide together. But when you are delivering it, it’s so much more rewarding, and actually the learners have to work if you’ve done it correctly.
Toban Dyck 41:16
Yeah,
Jane Mangold 41:17
When you’re out delivering the program, the learners are working, and you’re just walking around as the guide on the side helping them work through the new information,
Toban Dyck 41:28
Yeah. Sage on the stage, guide on the side. I like, I like, yeah. I think we had a guest on one point, and she, she had mentioned, like, this approach of the answers in the room, right? I mean, so, so we, you know, we, when we facilitate Jay and I, we often kind of use that model as well, where it’s like we’re not there to tell you, we’re almost here, whereas here is facilitators, right, and we’ll get you guys to come up with the answer, and of course, we always come up out of a day learning just as much as they did, if not more, about kind of what you know, what kind of solutions they’re, they’re, they’re, they’re pitching, but I, I sometimes feel when, when we give, or when we’ve talked to extension specialists, and going to give them the license to be creative and to think differently about how they’re communicating to their audience, that there’s almost like a relief valve that goes, they’re like, “Oh, good, I am allowed to be creative. I can, I can do things differently. I don’t have to do it. I don’t have to have, like, a poster presentation, you know, under a tent every time. I can do something different, like that’s.. that’s.. that’s.. I find there’s a huge appetite for it. Have you found the same,
Jane Mangold 42:42
Yeah, and I think the neat, again, the neat one of the ways TBR is so I think relevant for extension is because you go away from that two day practitioner workshop with dozens of ideas to make learning more interactive, so another, another limiting factor for extension educators, another limiting factor to delivering interactive and hands-on is they don’t have tools and ideas for doing it.
Toban Dyck 43:15
Right.
Jane Mangold 43:15
And this practitioner course gives you those tools, and in fact, and Nicole can talk about this too, but the whole course demonstrates the tools and ideas as they’re being taught to the participants, so they see them in action as they’re learning about them.
Toban Dyck 43:36
Yeah, that’s fascinating. Could you talk a little bit about some of those tools, Nicole?
Nicole Fleming 43:41
I think one of the most exciting things that Jane and her group has run with is the, is the card game for the, you know, you’re using the cards to name the different weed species, it’s so simple, you know, but so effective, so that is one of them. And we have, so I think you’re using dot voting as well in some of your classes, Jane.
Jane Mangold 44:12
Yeah, yeah.
Nicole Fleming 44:13
And
Jay Whetter 44:14
What is that? Yeah, dot wedding,
Nicole Fleming 44:19
What do you.. what is the what is the activity where you’re dot voting on? I’m sorry, I can’t remember.
Jane Mangold 44:25
Well, dot voting, so you might use a flip chart, you might have some words on a flip chart, and then everyone in the audience gets a couple colored dot stickers, you know, like you see it. I don’t know if you use in Canada, we use them at garage sales to like the colored stickers, the little round circles to like price items, but anyway, it’s called dot voting, and everyone in the, all the learners in the classroom get a couple sticker dots, and then like they go up to the flip chart. Art, and they vote for this. Is what I want to hear about. So, so I have a program where I talk about native plants that look like non-native invasive plants, and you know, we don’t want them to be mistakenly managed and controlled when we’re trying to control weeds, and we can’t get through all of the species pairs in the hour that we have together, so I put those species pairs on a flip chart, and then everybody gets to come up and vote for the two pairs that they want to hear about most, and then I take that information, and then, and then we, we work through the material together, going through, you know, those five or six species pairs that we have time to do.
Toban Dyck 45:47
Oh, that’s great.
Jane Mangold 45:47
Yeah, so it’s just it’s one example of a dot voting, but you could apply it to so many different topics.
Jay Whetter 45:56
When Toban and I, we just did a presentation for Manitoba Agriculture extension staff, and one person said that it kind of reminded me of their concern, and it goes back to like going town to town to town, saying the same thing over and over again. You get bored with your own presentation, and then, so then this, he kind of, as he was talking, came up with this idea of, so maybe I have six parts, and then I asked the audience, okay, which, which three do you want me to talk about? So it’s exactly what you’re doing. I just like the, but yeah, but I don’t think he thought along the lines of putting it on a on a on a flip chart and getting people to vote with their dots, but I really like that. Yeah, yeah.
Jane Mangold 46:35
Well, the neat, the neat thing about doing that is it gets people up and out of their seat, right? So it’s it’s movement,
Toban Dyck 46:42
Yeah.
Jane Mangold 46:42
and they are visually looking at, okay, here’s the potential content that we’re going to talk about while Jane is presenting, so they’re thinking about it at that level, they’re also thinking about it internally, like, what’s most relevant to me,
Jay Whetter 47:00
Yeah.
Jane Mangold 47:00
What do I want to know about? They’re physically putting their sticker, and then they’re also seeing, like, what do my peers, what do other people in the room want to hear about?
Toban Dyck 47:12
Yeah, yeah, right.
Jane Mangold 47:14
So, they’re connecting with the material, and they’re connecting with their peers on a lot of different levels, and, and I think that that makes the material more relevant for them.
Toban Dyck 47:27
Yeah, well, just thinking about this now, like, you know, you should listen to our podcast, but there’s lots of – we’ve interviewed lots of people, extension specialists in Canada and abroad, who have really interesting approaches to, to that could maybe, you know, either help TBR, or you know, vice versa, or whatever, but one of the things that we’ve used, the thing that you heard from somebody is at the end of a presentation, if we give one, is that we have these speech bubble whiteboards, and so we, we get them to write one thing that they want to work on as a communicator, as an or as an extension specialist, and then we take their picture, and then we’re holding the speech bubble, and then we kind of, we follow up in a couple weeks and ask them how it’s going, right, and I think that’s a kind of a fun, it’s kind of a fun thing that we’ve continued to do. It’s a neat, a neat approach, but I love, I love these, these techniques. That’s so great. So, is your card game? Do you have, like, a TBR branded deck of cards that you, that you send out to practitioners?
Jay Whetter 48:37
Great idea.
Nicole Fleming 48:39
We don’t, we should, we in the class, we do, we teach the 4c with a card game, and so that’s how we demonstrate that.
Jay Whetter 48:50
Tell us about the 4cs
Nicole Fleming 48:51
Just to, we just to share in in class, we do, you know, how many times you go to a session and you read all of these learning outcomes. Here’s what we’re going to cover today, and it’s a bunch of text on a slide, and it’s very dry and boring. Well, in the training from the back of the room class, we actually have people read over the learning outcomes, decide on the two that they’re the most interested in and then they dot vote on a poster on those learning outcomes and just as Jane said, it allows the participants to see, you know, how are how am I similar to the class group? Do we have the same interests? Do we have, you know, some different interests, so in the class that I did last week, there were a couple learning outcomes that only had like one or two dots, and so you might think that people are like, “Oh, I doubt voted on that, but everybody else is interested in these other things, but the people who didn’t doubt vote on those. Is they’re like, oh, what are those? Why is that person interested in that? Cool, yeah, you know, so yeah, it’s a great way to get people to read that type of information and do something with it, and you know, it’s just a very different way to do things, so we do, we go through all of the class content using the tools that we’re teaching them to use, so they learn how to facilitate them, you know, and all of these tools are content independent, so they can be used to teach about noxious weeds or how to teach second graders how to do their math, so it’s a great variety.
Toban Dyck 50:43
My wife’s a grae four teacher, and she’s struggling to teach her kids math right now, so it resonates. Yeah.
Jay Whetter 50:49
I just wanted to make sure that we list the 4c’s Yes, since Nicole, you brought them up. So, what are they?
Nicole Fleming 50:55
Yeah, the first one is connections, and with that we’re looking to connect learners to each other and learners to the content, the second one is concepts, and that is the new information we’re sharing with our learners, and the goal is to keep it short and interactive, and then the third C is concrete practice, this is usually where we complete our learning outcome. We want to see our learners doing something with the content, so we know that they’ve learned what we’ve intended them to learn. And then the last one is conclusions, and that is about allowing our learners to summarize, evaluate, celebrate the learning, and then create a plan to use it.
Jay Whetter 51:46
Have you taken TBR to Canada yet? Have you come north of the border?
Nicole Fleming 51:52
I have not. We do have some trainers in Canada, but you know, if there’s an opportunity, I would love to come to Canada.
Toban Dyck 52:00
Awesome.
Jay Whetter 52:01
But it’s not Egypt, but we’re close. You’re saying you were just in Egypt, which is very impressive.
Toban Dyck 52:08
So, you were doing TBR in Egypt, is that? Yes, yeah, that’s that’s with it. With was it ag-related?
Nicole Fleming 52:19
It was not. We had some teachers, we had some professional trainers in various industries. Honestly, training from the back of the room really grew quickly in the project management community, and we’re looking to kind of, you know, get into universities and some other, you know, some other groups, other than project management, and the funny thing is these techniques. Sharon Bowman was a second-grade teacher, and she started going to these education conferences, and the sessions were really boring, very lecture-based, and so she wrote the books and developed these classes, you know, to share what she was using in the second grade classroom with adult learners, and it was just, you know, is really successful in these pocketed communities, but really has wide applications.
Toban Dyck 53:24
Yeah, I could. Yeah, again, my wife’s a grade four teacher, and she’s doing her master’s right now. And yeah, I could. I could see her. Maybe we should, yeah, she should not be a teacher anymore, and can work, work for us. I’ll pitch it to her. Said I had that conversation. I have not had that conversation yet.
Jay Whetter 53:45
Jane and Nicole here first, and then yeah, Jamie will hear second.
Toban Dyck 53:49
Yeah, that’s awesome.
Jay Whetter 53:51
So Nicole, when you agreed to come on this podcast and have this opportunity to talk about TBR as an extension tool or a training, but was there something you really wanted to make sure our audience heard?
Nicole Fleming 54:09
I mean, I, I’m very passionate about the outdoors, and you know some of the things that Jane is also interested in, so I just really want the audience to know that, you know these techniques are great for sharing the types of things that you’re sharing, and you know I’d love to just chat or help if there is any interest in picking up some of these interactive techniques, you know, I know that it takes a little bit more time on the front end, but it really is so much more rewarding to see your learners interacting with these techniques, and knowing that these these ways are more successful than lecture for getting your point across and getting. Learners to be able to take this information back and actually use it.
Jay Whetter 55:04
Yeah, that’s.. I think that’s.. and maybe mean the four of us are quite interested in, you know, effective communication and getting our points across. Like, do you feel like most people just are going through the motions and they just.. I got an hour to fail, I’m going to fill it and move on. Like, I just.. is there.. is there a laziness within the communications world?
Toban Dyck 55:24
Maybe we’ll throw this one to you, Jane. Yeah,
Jane Mangold 55:29
I feel like I don’t really want to call it a laziness, but I feel like it’s.. it’s.. I think you’ve both of you have used the term formulaic. It’s like we’ve been trained to teach and to learn in this way, that’s very, very much the teacher standing at the front of the room, and we are fairly docile, you know, we’re just receivers of the information and not necessarily engaging with the information, so I think it’s more, it’s just it’s what’s comfortable for us, and, and not necessarily like we’re just too lazy to implement it, it’s just the way we do things, it’s it’s the culture, and you know, we have to start changing that culture for the benefit of our stakeholders, when we think about extension, right, and you know you want to extend that even further, like for the betterment of our agriculture and natural resource systems.
Jay Whetter 56:33
Right? Yeah, if your objective is to make agriculture better or resource systems better, then that should be the incentive to figure out ways to communicate in, in using methods that actually increase the uptake. Gene, just, yeah, did you? I just wanted to make sure that Jane had a chance to answer that same question about, you know, coming on the podcast.
Toban Dyck 56:55
Go ahead, but then I have more questions. Do you? Yeah, I do.
Jay Whetter 56:59
Okay.
Jane Mangold 56:59
Oh, yeah. Remind me, what the question
Jay Whetter 57:02
Just about when you’re, you know, offered to come on this podcast, and was there something that you really wanted to get across to people?
Jane Mangold 57:14
Yeah, for me it is kind of thinking as an extension educator, can we encouraging people to think about doing it differently, and that training from the back of the room has a place in extension systems. I strongly believe that when I took the workshop from Nicole, I thought I need to take this back to my colleagues, so we can do our jobs better.Ihave brought it back to my colleagues. We’ve had two practitioner workshops now. They’ve been super well received. I’ve received comments like every extension professional should take this course, so so I just can’t emphasize enough, like, how let’s think about doing things differently for the benefit of our stakeholders and the things that we care and value, right? If you think about extension educators, we’re all very passionate about the work that we do, and we’re trying to better people’s lives by taking research-based information out to people that can put it into practice for the betterment of their lives, and we should be striving to do that in the most effective way, so that they can retain that information, and they have, they have the motivation to, to put that information into practice.
Toban Dyck 58:50
I like that. Well, well put, that was, that was great. Yeah, so my thanks for that. My concluding questions are more about, I want to know about hiking and biking, I saw your water bottle, Jane, and it was full of stickers, and I think some of them were biking related. So,
Jane Mangold 59:06
Oh, I think you saw Bike Walk Montana.
Toban Dyck 59:09
Yes, I did.
Jane Mangold 59:09
That was the one you probably.. wow, you’re very observant
Jay Whetter 59:14
Science.
Toban Dyck 59:16
What role does biking and hiking play in your, in your life?
Jane Mangold 59:20
Well, well, in this, this actually is related to training from the back of the room and brain science, I think, is I just love like getting out and moving through nature, and I think it’s good for my brain, like when you can get on a trail, whether you’re hiking or you’re on a bike, and just move, you know, movement, and just let your brain kind of decompress and let it go where it wants to go in a creative way, like, and be in touch with nature. That sounds kind of corny, but, like, I love just hearing the birds. Saying, hearing the wind blow through the trees, you know, feeling the sunshine on your skin, like just.. it’s very.. like all of your senses are involved in that, and I think that’s good for the brain, right?
Toban Dyck 1:00:15
Yeah, there’s something about that that we don’t talk about a lot, like certainly on the podcast, and just in general, is like there is a connection there, right? I mean, you don’t want to go, and you don’t want to tell everybody that they have to go exercise or let go outside all the time, and but there is a strong connection between.. I agree with you, I enjoy the same, the same things, being outside and physical activity, and Nicole, you got the rock climbing like these, they’re not, they’re not separate, right, and we don’t, we don’t, we don’t, we make loose connections, but I think this is for another podcast episode entirely, but I think I think there is a stronger, there’s a strong case there, there’s a strong connection between that kind of stuff and being good at the other stuff that we do, right, and I, because, like, I think I do my best thinking when I’m running, like, I 100% and if I didn’t do that, then I notice, I, yeah, I notice that it’s those days are different, right, and no, I like that. So, what kind of biking do you do? Is it mountain biking, road biking?
Jane Mangold 1:01:22
Oh, I like to get on my road bike, or like, I don’t do a lot of, I don’t do like single track mountain biking, but I like getting on like gravel roads, secondary roads,
Toban Dyck 1:01:33
Yeah.
Jane Mangold 1:01:33
And, or on my road bike, yeah, I’m not like a hardcore bike rider, you don’t have like the time
Toban Dyck 1:01:41
Trial bike with the space helmet, and
Jane Mangold 1:01:45
Well, I have done a time trial like in a different part of my life, so when I was way more competitive, so now I now I exercise more just to get out versus compete, but
Toban Dyck 1:01:58
Yeah.
Jay Whetter 1:01:59
I like that, the idea of movement as a, as a learning principle, I think we, that’s, I mean, I think there’s a, if there’s an underlying message in this whole conversation, it’s a one of them is that it’s movement can be an effective learning principle, but so I want to, I wanted to, I wanted activities,
Toban Dyck 1:02:16
Yeah, well, that’s gonna go there, but rock climbing, yeah, exactly, the analogy is called
Jane Mangold 1:02:22
Nicole runs a little bit too, right?
Nicole Fleming 1:02:24
Nicole, I have – I have competed in five half marathons.
Toban Dyck 1:02:29
Good for you. We won’t, we won’t talk times and splits right now, but maybe for episode two
Jay Whetter 1:02:37
Splits, that’d be me if I was running America. So, but rock climbing, and, and you’re saying that near Charlotte, in that place that’s 15 minutes away. How, and, but Kentucky must have a lot of decent rock climbing, does it?
Nicole Fleming 1:02:52
Yes, so I started rock climbing. Oh gosh, I think it was 20 – 21 years ago, and basically, since I started climbing, every life decision has been based on rock climbing. So, the reason that my husband and I live in Kentucky is because we have a world-class climbing destination an hour away, and every time we go climb there, we meet somebody who has traveled from somewhere else in the world to come just to small town Eastern Kentucky and climb at the Red River Gorge.
Toban Dyck 1:03:30
Wow, that’s that’s incredible. That’s incredible. So, how often do you go then? Do you go?
Nicole Fleming 1:03:38
Well, not quite enough. We have been building a house for the last six years, and then, of course, taking over the training from the back of the room to be our community has been a lot of work, so not as often as we would like, but we’re trying to get back into that. I had the opportunity to also travel to Thailand and run a TBR camp for our trainers, and that was my first time climbing outside in about six years, but I spent an extra week climbing in Thailand, and it was, it was absolutely amazing,
Toban Dyck 1:04:18
Fun, fun, rock climbing is something I have never done, apart from like in school or whatever. You have the little things, I.. it’s yeah, I love watching the YouTube videos, and yeah,
Nicole Fleming 1:04:31
you do have a lot of climbing in Canada. I’ve climbed at Lion’s Head, Ontario. I know there’s climbing in Squamish, and I know there are other areas as well.
Toban Dyck 1:04:43
For sure, for sure. Yeah, that’s that’s awesome. That is awesome.
Jay Whetter 1:04:48
Well, you too. Thank you so much. We learned a lot about training from the back of the room, and the moving away from the sage on the stage, and what was that person from the side?
Toban Dyck 1:04:58
Yes. Oh, sorry. Me, What is it?
Jay Whetter 1:05:03
Yeah.
Toban Dyck 1:05:03
Yeah, right on.
Jay Whetter 1:05:04
All these positions that we could teach them.
Toban Dyck 1:05:07
Yeah, yeah,
Toban Dyck 1:05:09
yeah. Thanks so much for taking the time. We could have, yeah, this could have gone on forever, but yeah, we really appreciated this conversation.
Jay Whetter 1:05:15
Yeah, right on. Thanks to both of you.
Jane Mangold 1:05:17
Yeah, you’re welcome. Thank you so much for having us.
Toban Dyck 1:05:20
Course, of course. Yeah,
Nicole Fleming 1:05:21
definitely. Thank you for having us.
Toban Dyck 1:05:23
Our pleasure. Have a great day.
Jay Whetter 1:05:26
Hey there, listeners. If you’re enjoying the conversations here on The Extensionists, you will probably love to get our newsletter.
Toban Dyck 1:05:32
Yeah, it’s the best way to stay connected with us, with Jay and myself. Yours truly. I’m excited about the newsletter, to be honest with you, because I think, why you’re excited. Well, so many of our guests have, so
Jay Whetter 1:05:44
Why are you excited about?
Toban Dyck 1:05:45
Say that differently, Jay. So many of our guests are, they say so many things of interest, right? And I feel like the newsletter be a great, will be a great way to share that with our listeners.
Jay Whetter 1:05:58
Like quick take homes, yeah, summary, yeah.
Toban Dyck 1:06:01
Absolutely.
Jay Whetter 1:06:01
One liners.
Toban Dyck 1:06:02
Absolutely. Absolutely. I think about each, each guest. We could probably write a whole bunch of articles in each of our guests, right? So, to give our our newsletter subscribers like summaries of, you know, the key takeaways of these things, plus plus information on upcoming guests, all they got to do, all listeners have to do is go to theextensionists.com and follow the prompts to sign up with the newsletter. I think it’ll be, I think it’ll be great.
Jay Whetter 1:06:33
Well, that was a lot of information, very interesting conversation. I like their energy.
Toban Dyck 1:06:38
So, it’s also interesting doing four, having four people on the podcast, right, so this new kind of how to moderate, and, and, but, but content wise, yeah, very, very fascinating, yeah, yeah
Jay Whetter 1:06:54
To make sure both guests get ample time to answer questions, yes, and when I’m looking at Nicole, and you’re telling me that Jane wanted to say something, so people can’t receive it, but our interface is on a screen, yeah, they’re two faces, yeah, so it is, it is a little bit of a different dynamic, but I think it worked, okay.
Toban Dyck 1:07:10
Oh no, I think it was, I think it was great, it was like probably about halfway through the, the episode, I realized that this is this is an episode for extension practitioners, yeah, right. And so, and not that, that’s that’s not profound, but it could help me. I’m like, okay, I’m gonna lean, let’s just lean into that, right? Like, because it’s not gonna, yeah, I think that that’s there’ll be a lot of value for people who, who are in that space, and to hear, to hear some of their, their approaches to things.
Nicole Fleming 1:07:43
Is there anything you’re going to try differently next time you do a presentation?
Toban Dyck 1:07:48
I don’t know. I mean, I like the, like, the voting on learning outcomes is an interesting one. I love, I like that. I like, I like approaches that allow you to tailor what you’re going to do, like, for the remainder of your time based on who’s in the room. I think are valuable, right?
Jay Whetter 1:08:10
Yeah.
Toban Dyck 1:08:11
It’s like, no. Okay, then I can cut that, or like, I’m not going to, not going to focus on that. This is what this group wants to hear about, mostly. I like, I like that, and I would like to think that I’m agile enough that I can make those.
Jay Whetter 1:08:25
Yeah, one, and there’s the movement, and they even if it’s just passing something,
Toban Dyck 1:08:29
Yeah,
Jay Whetter 1:08:30
That sounds intuitive in some ways, but I really like that you, you know, consciously working that into every presentation is some sort of movement.
Toban Dyck 1:08:38
Getting people out of their chairs, and, and, and talking.
Jay Whetter 1:08:43
And we know what we often talk about, like writing at a grade five level.
Toban Dyck 1:08:46
Yes.
Jay Whetter 1:08:47
But teaching at a grade two level. I think there’s something to be said.
Jane Mangold 1:08:50
Well, no, I mean, I’m not, like, I know, and I think about, you know, the kind of work Jamie’s doing in education, and like, there are like, just, there’s so many analogies, yeah, and lesson plan, I think Jane talked about it, or maybe Nicole, like lesson plan development, right? Like it’s something you and I don’t really talk about in the, in the program, right? Like, how to, like, how to think about, like, how to, like, you go into a field day, you’re presenting at Crop Crop Connect, develop it like, what, what’s your, what do you want, what’s your main message? And we do, but we, I guess we’re not so explicit about developing a plan, but
Jay Whetter 1:09:35
Yeah, well, taking time to prepare ahead of time, which we, I would say, you and I do.
Toban Dyck 1:09:41
We do.
Jay Whetter 1:09:41
But, but how important that is. I asked Nicole at the end about where to find more information on training from the back of the room, so it’s TBR community.com Okay, anybody wanted to know more about that, TBRcommunity.com
Toban Dyck 1:09:58
Awesome, awesome. No, I. Great, great, great conversation, wonderful guests. Yeah, yeah, they, yeah, I like to, I like the connection of, like, you know, Jane, you know, she bikes, she hikes, she’s like, loves the outdoors, clearly, right? And that, that kind of thin is zest and zeal, like, kind of came out right, and I mean, you, yeah.
Jay Whetter 1:10:26
Yeah, and Nicole, and her rock climbing, so both, both outdoorsy people, and I mean, for that’s really important to you, and I mean, I walk, I don’t like, you are too, I don’t climb rocks, but I mean, I like paddling, and that kind of thing, but I do think that that connection with the outside air and nature and trees and, and farmers, I mean, that’s a big part of their lives, obviously, but yeah, for the rest of us, well, you’re farmer, yeah, for me keeping grounded in that way.
Toban Dyck 1:10:55
Yeah.
Jay Whetter 1:10:55
Is really important, just to life in general.
Toban Dyck 1:10:57
Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, but there’s these, these qualities, these characteristics of, of, of people, like, you know, you and I talk about this too, and we’re, when we’re doing our training, and we talk about, you know, how to, you know, how to create effective, you know, presentations, and blah blah blah. There is, there’s always like that je ne sais quality that you, that you can’t teach, right? It’s like you, you know, you got to be, you should be somewhat charismatic, right? You need to be an interesting person, right? But you don’t, you don’t say that in your, in your, and you know, like you don’t, you don’t say, “Well, you should, you should enjoy the outdoors, you should get, you should get outside as a person, develop that part of you, and then you’ll be able to teach better, right? You know, like those kinds of things, but there’s.. there are those things that play always in..
Jay Whetter 1:11:51
Yeah, your personality or your.. your interests can come out in other ways. It doesn’t have to be all outdoor related,
Toban Dyck 1:11:57
But yeah, that’s right. Yeah, but it’s just
Jay Whetter 1:12:01
About like connecting or sharing a bit about yourself or connecting with your audience.
Toban Dyck 1:12:06
Yeah, anyway,
Jay Whetter 1:12:08
I think we should wrap it.
Toban Dyck 1:12:09
Let’s do it.
Jay Whetter 1:12:09
This has been the Extensionists Podcast. I’m Jay Whetter
Toban Dyck 1:12:13
and I’m Toban Dyck.
Jay Whetter 1:12:14
Until next time, this has been a Burr Forest Group production.
Toban Dyck 1:12:20
Jay, did you know that the podcast couldn’t happen with the hard work of the people behind the scenes.
Toban Dyck 1:12:26
And I’ve got their names right here. They are Abby Wall, producer and editor, Ashley Robinson, researcher, and Michelle McMullen, marketer.