This document is used by Quivira Coalition's New Agrarian Program to interview their apprentices and mentors to solicit feedback on their experience in the NAP program. 

The Active Listening Tips Sheets created by BFRN, Northeast SARE, the University of Maine - Cooperative Extension provide prompts to help actively listen, tips to encourage sharing from the other party involved, words and phrases to avoid in a conversation, and phrases to use during evaluations.

The Northeast Organic Farming Association - New York (NOFA-NY) skills guide is a template where mentors and mentees can track progress of various skills across farming, including specific knowledge related to livestock, business, fruit, dairy, produce, and repair. The guide also includes a template for periodic evaluations.

The University of Maine - Cooperative Extension, funded through a Northeast Extension Risk Management Education Farm Coaching Project, created The Ladder of Inference to show how we convert observations into our beliefs and actions, and can be used in instances of conflict resolution and communication to separate the objective from the subjective.

The DISC Personality Assessment, created by Sage Strategies, tests provides a questionnaire to figure out which of four different types of behavior is most prominent within the test taker, and gives descriptions and insights into that personality.

They also host a free personality test on the Sage Strategies website.

The Feedback and Assessment sheet compiled from various resources by Julie Sullivan, NAP Founding Mentor of the Quivira Coaltion, gives tools and tips for how and when to provide feedback, and various information regarding what is good feedback, and what to expect when giving feedback.

Northeast Organic Farming Association - New York designed this “On Farm Skills Development Guide”

The NOFA-NY skills guide is a template where mentors and mentees can track progress of various skills across farming, including specific knowledge related to livestock, business, fruit, dairy, produce, and repair. The guide also includes a template for periodic evaluations.

These skills sheets are used at San Juan Ranch to conduct periodic skills assessments with their interns and apprentices to assess learning and mastery of the various skills taught on the ranch.  These are used in conversation with each apprentice to assess and celebrate learning and identify areas for further improvement.

When delivered in a timely, thoughtful and skillful manner, feedback can be one of the most effective tools for both professional development and trust building between learner and mentor. This short guide offers several constructive approaches for mentors to provide feedback and evaluation to ag apprentices. This short guide, adapted from the Ag Apprentice Toolkit, is intended for existing and aspiring mentor farmers and ag apprentice programs. 

Webinar recording: This online event launched the Ag Apprenticeship Toolkit and offered a briefing on the power of networks by Andrew Crosson of Rural Support Partners. This event included a tour of the Ag Apprenticeship Toolkit, the capstone resource from Year 1 of the National Ag Apprenticeship Learning Network, and detailed how participation in networks can strengthen local, regional and national food systems work.