Additional Resources

This week we are wrapping up the first course theme: Education as Innovation, where we explored the notions of diffusion, the effects of education, and the special contribution of agriculture to development.  We'll be moving into Access to Education and Employment, which focuses on the barriers to accessing quality education and employment.

Have lingering questions about poverty, education and agricultural development?  Want to learn more about diffusion of innovations?  Curious to learn more about the barriers to education and employment?

I encourage you to spend some time with the books from which we pulled our select class readings.  These resources address other facets of poverty and development that are outside the purview of this course.  Additionally, seriously consider reading Rogers' entire Diffusion of Innovations and spend some time looking at current and historical studies that have utilized this model.

• Banerjee, A. V., Benabou, R., Mookherjee, D., & Case, A. (2006). Understanding poverty. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN: 9780195305203. 

• Banerjee, A. V., & Duflo, E. (2011). Poor economics: a radical rethinking of the way to fight global poverty. New York: PublicAffairs. ISBN: 9781586487980.

• Rogers, E. M. (2003). Diffusion of innovations 5th ed. New York: Free Press. Chapter one available on ANGEL.

 I also recommend the work of Amartya Sen, a Nobel Prize winner who writes about famine, poverty, health and education in the developing world from a very unique viewpoint.

Also, an alternative way of learning more about these issues is to look at the open course (MOOC) offered by MIT on global poverty.  It's just like attending a class - you get a syllabus, the required readings, assignments and exams and then you can watch videos of the course lectures.  The course I've linked to is actually taught by Banerjee and Duflo, two of the authors from our course readings and who are also world-renown development economists.  MIT also offers several other open courses that you might be interested in such as sustainable development, food security and development policy.  

Finally, challenge yourself to connect with at least three organizations or key individuals that are working within these subject areas.  Visit their websites, learn about their strategies, identify their sources of funding, and stay updated on their activities via social media or newsletter updates.

Session #4 Education as Innovation Ticket out Responses

What are you curious about?

1. The best way to evaluate the quality/impact of an education and why is it important?

• Refer reading #1 and #2 and you can look at this [Article]

2. Is there an accepted definition for education?

• Refer reading #1

3. Do we have to pay to send letters to our pen pals?

• You will exchange emails with your pen pals.

4. Mexico's Progresa Program mention in the reading

• Check out Progress against poverty : sustaining Mexico's Progresa-Oportunidades program Book  available at PSU [ Library]

5. Factor affecting education progressing

• We will keep this question as our lingering questions.

7. I would like to learn more about health & fertility and education roles

• Refer reading #1

8. Are other nations or developing nations welcome our help? is it our place to step in?

• Bill Gates' 2014 open [LETTER] 

9. Education (Agriculture education) in other developing countries

• You will get the chance to talk to our guest speakers and also exchange stories with your Pen Pals. 

10.How does government funding towards education effect the education system of a particular country?

• This is good question to ask our guest speakers.

11.Since education is hard to quantify how do researchers that study it go about their work

• Excellent question. you might be interested to read this Book :
  Challenges for educational research,  edited by Jean Rudduck and Donald McIntyre

What did you learn?

1.The factors of education (income, health and fertility) affect education and are affected by it, and affect each other
2. The effect of education and fertility
3.Factor involved in developing education systems
4.People's view points on education
5.Income, Education, Fertility
6. How education can impact health and fertility
7.That I am grateful to have had CED classes in the past to integrate into this course material
8. About Education impact on the world
9.Many variables inhibit the study of achieving universal education
10. Everyone defines education and being educated differently making researching education hard


What do you want to learn more about
1. What other aspect of human such as capital/health contributes to success

• Almost everything!

2. How school should decide how to use their resources to best meet the need of their children esp if they have very limited resources.

• This is another good question to ask our guest speakers.

3.How the UN plan on implementing their MDG of universal education goal

• MDG Action [Plan]

5. How do researchers identify and isolate factor that effect education.

• In an educational research there is a process called Identifying Research Problem. Read More [Here]

Session # 3 Education as Innovation Ticket Out Responses

**Note: due to many "Ticket Out" responses focused on "Three Cups of Tea" and "Diffusion of Innovations" there will be separate blog entries addressing those topics.

What are you curious about?

1. The journal entries?

•  The journal entries are for you to write about your thoughts and feelings regarding the class and course readings. You will keep your journal for yourself and only turn it in when journal checks are noted in the syllabus.

2.  Official definition of diffusion  of innovation

• Refer to reading # 9

3. Who I will become pen pals with and how difficult it will be to make a podcast?

• It could be a peace corps volunteer or an agriculture student in a developing country.  We will connect you with a pen pal, if you choose one of these assignments for your "Pick One".
• This is  a video [LINK] for how to create a podcast.

4. Listening to ''This I Believe''

• You can listen to some example of this is believe podcast here [LINK] 

5. How many people go out and try still try to introduce new things? Is there a certain program

• There are a lot of great individuals or organizations who goes out helping  and making other people's lives better. During the course of the semester we will be taking a look at many different types of organizations focused on agricultural education as a vehicle for diffusing new innovations.  Many of the guest speakers in this course represent or have participated in these programs.

6. Do we need to force changes in places that we perceive to be under-developed?

•  This is a debate when considering the idea of "development".  What does "developed" mean?  Does it mean that countries will be regarded as "undeveloped" until they look like the so-called "developed" countries?  Or is there a new pathway forward?  This is a broader debate that you can explore by taking more classes on this topic.  We'll take a look at this issue regarding agricultural education in this class.

What did you learn?

1. The innovation is all about perception

2. Not all innovation are as highly valued in some cultures as we may expect

4. Education can tie into the diffusion of innovation because it id both affected by it and is a form of diffusion

5.








6. Innovation depends on perspective

7. How to present ideas in our new classroom

8. Roger's Diffusion of innovation chart

9. The diffusion model

10. Innovation and Diffusion

11.The World is a Challenging Place



What do you want to learn more about?

1. How to conduct a case study

• You can talk more about this with your instructors.

2. How the model connects with everything that we find innovative in today's world

• I encourage you to continue reading Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations available at PSU [LIBRARY].  Each element of diffusion is discussed in detail, along with many examples.

3. Interested in reading more of the story

• Three Cups of Tea book is available at PSU [LIBRARY]

4.   The solid definition of diffusion

• Refer to reading #9

5. Who the peace corp volunteers are

• Learn more about the volunteers here [LINK]

6. Factor behind accepting agriculture innovation/ ideas in developing countries

• In general- Relative advantage, Compatibility, Complexity, Trialability, and Observability. Refer to reading #9

7. The DIY project oppurtunity

• Talk to the instructors

8. The Mortenson story 

• Find more story about Mortenson story here [LINK]