A Talk with Marine Biologist

Hello!

In this blog post, I'm going to discuss a Zoom call I had with Bart, my colleague from the Provincial Instructor Diploma Program. Yes, he's the marine biologist from the title! 😄

Our call was initiated by one of the assignments for our course, Foundations of Adult Learning. The assignment required us to discuss and cover two main questions:

• What are some trends in your field?
• What are some trends in adult education?

We had two calls; the first one was just to get to know each other and share our career and life journeys, while the second was specifically for the assignment's discussion.

Firstly, I'd like to express how happy I am to have had the chance to meet Bart. I feel very lucky to have been assigned a learning partner like him. In my opinion, Bart is a very well-spoken, educated, organized, and responsible person. There were no delays or misunderstandings in our communication regarding the assignments. Now, that either means we both understood the assignment or we're both going to fail it. I hope it's the former! 😄

So, let us start with the first question: What are some trends in your field?

Bart's field belongs to environmental management, and he shared a couple of trends in his field.

One of them was the modernization of environmental policies. He shared how he sees the need for this modernization, emphasizing the inclusion of Indigenous knowledge from the early stages in legislation and requirements. This inclusion ensures that any necessary changes can be made from the outset of a project. Additionally, incorporating Indigenous knowledge allows stakeholders (such as investors, the government, and the public) to engage early and engage properly.

Next, we discussed the effect of the consolidation of the consulting industry. This trend suggests that companies should merge, allowing them to have a global footprint and access to a more qualified workforce. Moreover, there is a demand for workforce knowledge transfer, and we explored various methods by which this transfer can be facilitated.

What are some trends in adult education?

One of the main topics we covered was the trends in adult education. He shared that there is a lot of focus put on awareness about cybersecurity, safety classes, and schooling that will be taught outside of the classroom. We discussed different formats of classes and learning that are offered nowadays, and it was interesting to note that he lives in Northern BC. Due to this format of online meetings, we are able to collaborate. A fun fact is that the distance between his city and Vancouver is around the same as the distance between Vancouver and Los Angeles.

What left the most impression on me is that he mentioned they are having a lot of training and workshops regularly, like Seasonal Awareness - they have the Winter Edition, then Seasonal Awareness Spring Edition, etc. Additionally, adult education covers diversity and inclusion training. We both agreed that soft skills are important. He also mentioned the need for sharing the knowledge of senior positions with less experienced workers.

It was interesting to hear from someone in the environmental management branch. Honestly, I'm not sure if I've ever had a chance to talk to someone from this branch before. I'm very happy to hear the thoughts of my peer who is keeping our environment safe and invested in delivering the best decisions about managing it.

So, yeah, that's it. Now, one last thing, I would like to share a disclaimer that these thoughts are my views on our conversation, and I apologize if I misinterpreted anything.

Hasta la vista!

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