Professional Development

ʻIke Wai Workforce Professional Development

Program Goals and Details

The major goals of the ‘Ike Wai workforce development effort is to contribute to statewide strength and competitiveness in hydrology and data science, while pursuing education and diversity efforts.

All graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty will participate in a series of professional development training activities as a cohort to ensure everyone attains at least a basic mastery of fundamental skills. The goal is to increase awareness among these groups of effective teaching and learning methods, tools and approaches for increasing student engagement, and increased leadership and communication skills.

These activities fall into three broad categories:

1) Pedagogy training is based on the model of the Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative (CWSEI), which involves backward lesson design, rigorous evaluation, and active learning. Workshops have included topics such as Metacognition and Teaching & Learning fundamentals.

2) Proposal-Writing training will include submitting a proposal for internal seed funds. Proposers will receive feedback from review panelists and have the opportunity to revise and resubmit their proposal within a single funding cycle.

3) Leadership training will be offered by professional facilitators from the Council of Academic Chemists (COACh), who specialize in training for women and underrepresented minorities. Workshops have been given in Team Science, Strategic Persuasion and Leadership, Successful Mentoring, Launching a Successful Career in Science, the Art of Effective Negotiation, and Women in Academic Leadership.