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'Continuing Education'
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Posted by pawleyscruser z8 SC (My Page) on Tue, Aug 31, 04 at 17:09
| OK, "groupies", chime in on this one: 1) What are the continuing education (hereafter, CE) requirements (meaning # of hours per year, and subject matter) for your area, and 2) who provides such educations, and 3) What SHOULD the CE requirements for MGs be?
Now, friends, PLEASE stay ON TOPIC and address yourselves only to the subject amtter (CE) of this thread; if you would like to post on "fingerprints", "DNA" or whatever, please find another thread. Thank you in advance for your participation! |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: 'Continuing Education'
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| CEU here is 6 hours per year. Subject can be any topic, but must be approved by agent. We can get hours attending yearly conference, auditing classes for new trainees, or by attending any of the various seminars available throughout the year. Although I did not recieve any CEU, I did teach 2 workshops this past year to MG's on propagation, and those attending recieved CEU's. Janie |
RE: 'Continuing Education'
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| CE requirement here is 10 hours/year. We often get these from the speakers at our monthly meetings, along with the seminars, etc. mentioned above. |
RE: 'Continuing Education'
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| OOPS! I just checked and our CE requirement is 8 hours/year, not 10. |
RE: 'Continuing Education'
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| Here's a "follow-on" question (meaning I forgot to ask it at the outset): What are the consequences of failing to take the required CE courses? |
RE: 'Continuing Education'
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| CE requirements here are 6 hours per year. They can be gotten from speakers at our monthly meetings, special classes offered specifically for CE, or from other sources if approved. |
RE: 'Continuing Education' - again
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| I forgot to add that with all those choices, it's hard to NOT get 6 hours per year, lol. Even less active members shouldn't have any trouble finding something that fits their schedule. |
RE: 'Continuing Education'
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| We need 5 hrs of CE. Speakers at our monthly MG meetings count as an hour each. Classes are put on by the Leila Arboretum Society along with the Community College that count towards are time usually 2 hrs each. Of course the yearly conference at MSU would give you all your hours plus plus plus. Sharon |
RE: 'Continuing Education'
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| If you don't get CE, you don't get re-certified, which is so silly, because it is hard to not get them. The opportunities are just about everywhere. Janie |
RE: 'Continuing Education'
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- Posted by Rosa 4-ish (My Page) on
Wed, Sep 1, 04 at 8:23
| Here it is 12 hours and it you don't, you don't get recertified. 6 of those hours must official classes given by Extension agents or profs from the Ag. college. Otherwise it's up the Extension agent to decide if the class/lecture, etc..qualifies for CE. For instance, obtaining my pesticide applicators license counted as did a 2 day weed conference, a 2 day conference of assessing the condition of ranglands given by NRCS (that our org hosted), a conference given by the Native Plant Society and survey work for mountain pine beetle from heliocopter. All of this is what I do in my work anyway. It is not always easy to get the other 6 credits if the official credits (classes) are a one way trip of 50-150 miles. Some of out members are older, some are single parents. It does not diminish their ability to serve and should not be a burden. As I've said in another post the other 6 "official" credits are ones the volunteers have to pay for...The program should not be tailored to only those who do not work or are retired, etc... The CE credits should be determined by the extension agent for the county. That is...what will be of benefit for the county you volunteer in and the Extension agent for that county. |
RE: 'Continuing Education'
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| We need 10 hours. In the winter our county sets up a series of 6 or 7 two hour free classes. Topics vary.... everything from ponds, greenhouses, native plants, landscaping under trees, planting for fall color, and even one on snakes of our state. Speakers come from all over the state. It is an afternoon class but then it is repeated in a nearby county in the evening. With a one week break in between we can then go to another nearby county for another series of 6 classes. So we have at least 12 classes to choose from. It is super easy to get those hours. I have been going for years as these are open to the public not just MG. Often the local garden club will sponsor coffee and cookies for break time and you can visit with the speaker and others attending. I always look forward to these classes. |
RE: 'Continuing Education'
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| We are fortunate here in California to be invited as Master Gardeners to attend the University seminars sponsored yearly by the California Certified Nurserymen to keep their members up to speed. It is a full day at a state agricultural college. In northern California at Davis. Al |
RE: 'Continuing Education'
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| The MG's in our county sponsor a Symposium in March which is also attended by the general public. That counts as 5 hours of CE right off the bat. So it's really not difficult to get the 8 hrs total for the year. Plus, I helped set up for it which added a couple of hours to my volunteer commitment. |
RE: 'Continuing Education'
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| We need 12 Ce's/year to ger re-certified. We get 1 CE for each MG meeting with a speaker, the annual rose seminar is worth 3 CE's as is the Spring Garden symposium & the Fall Gardening conference. Plus there are a bunch of other opportunities that come up throughout the year where you can get CE's. It's not a hard requirement to meet. |
RE: 'Continuing Education'
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| It's a pet peeve of mine to try to find advanced training opportunities in our county. We usually end up going out of county to get our hours. Who counts education hours anyway? I think it's something like 6 hrs. but I go way over that line marker and way over with volunteer hours for re-certification too. I think they ought to have an advanced training program put in place for certified mg's after the first couple of years as a volunteer. Some states already do, but unfortunately not Ohio. We beg borrow and steal for our education any way we can get it. We travel all over Ohio for educational classes. With gas prices as they are around here, it's requiring us to carpool to go to some of these things - where there's a will, there's a way. |
RE: 'Continuing Education'
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| We need 5 hours. There is so many places to get them. Local nurserys put on seminars, different extention offices and other places offers seminars & classes, confrences at MSU in the summer like smhoopy_MI. Theres no real reason why people shouldn't be able to get hours in Michigan. |
RE: 'Continuing Education'
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| We must have 12 hours per year, and noncompliance means noncertification. Our county has one hour per month of expert speakers after each general meeting, and we are allowed to count some seminars by the California Rare Fruit Growers and the local botanical garden. We may use a limited number of hours from local collage classes, too. Also, we have video-taped sessions from Univesity of California Davis classes. It's not hard to get them with so many choices. I think most of us go beyond the 12 hours because our education committee is on the ball with good classes. |
RE: 'Continuing Education'
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We need 8 hours of "advanced training" every year here in Virginia. In my area we have monthly library programs that are usually approved for advanced hours-depends on the topic and speaker, speakers at our MG meetings, special classes and can even get credit for sitting in on some Intern training, again depending on topic and speaker. All of this is free.
People who attend MG college each summer can also get credit. There is also a yearly regional advanced training program,it's hosted by a different Mg group each time and travels around the region. You'd have to actively not participate to not receive your hours.
If you don't get your hours in you're not in "good standing" and eventually can be removed from the MG roster. But as you have a grace period (I think it's a year)to submit your hours after notification, it's a bit of a joke. And how many people put "hours" on their hours sheet just to get credit whether or not they actually attended or participated? There's not an accurate way of tracking participation. Annoying.........
I like the term "continuing education" much better than "advanced training", I like the emphasis on education . |
RE: 'Continuing Education'
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| I wonder if university science courses in relevant subjects (e.g. Plant Physiology, Soils, Wetlands Ecology, Botany) would be applicable. Of course, a semester course generally runs to 45 hours of course time unless it's a lab course in which case it's more. I'm a hopeless science nerd. I majored in biology and chemistry. I work in life science research. I'm always up to take more "real science" coursework :-) That said, I just can't seem to get off my duff to get certified as a Master Gardener here in Nevada. I received my training and was active in Kansas. Lisa |
RE: 'Continuing Education'
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12, I think, and whatever's approved.
Various instructors and agencies.
No opinion. No, I take that back. All MG programs in the country should institute these two classes: "How to Fingerprint the Thugs in Your Garden," and
"Accurate DNA Testing for Higher Explusion Rates of Invasive Aliens" |
RE: 'Continuing Education'
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In our county as far as I know, there are no continuing education requirements. To be certified we must have a minimum of 25 volunteer hours each year. We DO have advanced Master Gardener Training, a statewide program which is run by one of the Master Gardeners. It is not a requirement and one must complete a certain number of these classes before they reach Advanced Master Gardener status and can wear a different badge but since I already have a drawer full of badges dating from 1980 and have a Lifetime Master Gardener badge due to being old I don't need another badge.
Uhoh leavswave, you broke the strict rules decreed by the original postee. You're in deep compost now. |
RE: 'Continuing Education'
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| Good--ya can never have too much compost, right?!? ;-) |
RE: 'Continuing Education'
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| In Illinois it is 10 hours. Most county and state Extension and Master Gardener seminars list how many hours one can count as CE. Some counties are fairly strict, but mine is extremely lax. Some in my group count trips we take to nurseries as a group toward CE if someone from the nursery gives us a talk. |
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