Source: SOUTH DAKOTA STATE UNIVERSITY submitted to NRP
LAUNCH FELLOWSHIP: EMPOWERING RURAL SCHOOL COUNSELORS TO SUPPORT THE AGRICULTURAL WORKFORCE
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
ACTIVE
Funding Source
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1032380
Grant No.
2024-67038-42606
Cumulative Award Amt.
$500,000.00
Proposal No.
2023-09830
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Project Start Date
Jul 1, 2024
Project End Date
Jun 30, 2027
Grant Year
2024
Program Code
[A7501]- Professional Development for Agricultural Literacy
Recipient Organization
SOUTH DAKOTA STATE UNIVERSITY
PO BOX 2275A
BROOKINGS,SD 57007
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
The impact of aging in the agricultural workforce has been an ongoing concern in rural communities. Without a new generation of employees prepared to take over, rural communities face economic declines and decreased quality of life. Middle school counselors are responsible for a significant amount of career-based guidance. However, they receive minimal formal training in career development or pedagogy, and few have knowledge of agriculture. Rural school counselors often serve multiple schools or in K-12 settings leaving limited time for career research or classroom preparation. To support career development and improve knowledge of careers in food and agriculture, the current project proposes an experiential mentorship program.Rural, middle school counselors will be selected from a national pool and partnered with a mentor experienced in career development to complete an 6-month mentorship program culminating in a week-long immersion experience. Mentors and mentees will meet twice a month. School counselors (i.e., mentees) will set goals, explore food and agricultural careers, participate in online trainings on career theory and pedagogy, and network with Extension. School counselors will develop classroom activities that will be shared publicly. The immersion week will involve travel to university labs and businesses in the agricultural industry. Participants will gain knowledge of agricultural careers that will increase their interest and self-efficacy in describing these careers to students. Program outcomes will be evaluated through pre- and post-tests collected during the mentorship program. Improving agricultural literacy among school counselors promotes a new generation of professionals and contributes to a healthy agricultural workforce.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
80260103020100%
Knowledge Area
802 - Human Development and Family Well-Being;

Subject Of Investigation
6010 - Individuals;

Field Of Science
3020 - Education;
Goals / Objectives
Goal 1: Provide rural school counselors with tools and resources to integrate SCCT and kinesthetic pedagogy in middle school career-based guidance.Objective 1a: Facilitate 4 professional development trainings in SCCT and kinesthetic pedagogy for each of 2 cohorts.Objective 2a: Each school counselor cohort will collaborate to create and disseminate 6 (12 total) kinesthetic, social-emotional learning (SEL) career lessons by the end of their mentorship experience.Objective 3a: Facilitate 2 opportunities to connect school counselors with Extension professionals during small and large group mentoring sessions.Objective 4a: Develop a digital repository of lessons publicly accessible on a project website that will be updated following each cohort.Goal 2: Facilitate an experiential mentorship program to support increased interest in food and agricultural careers among rural, middle school counselors.Objective 1b: Recruit a total of 24 rural, middle school counselors and 4 career development mentors by the end of the project period.Objective 2b: Implement a 6-month, experiential mentorship program for 2 cohorts of rural, middle school counselors.Objective 3b: Organize a week-long, immersive career exploration experience focusing on food and agricultural sciences for 1 cohort in each of Years 1 and 2.Objective 4b: Increase reported self-efficacy among school counselors to incorporate careers in food and agriculture during classroom guidance on career exploration.Goal 3: Develop a manualized model of experiential mentorship in career-based guidance for school counselors.Objective 1c: Develop a mentorship workbook to be completed by mentors and mentees during the 6-month program.Objective 2c: Develop a formal manual by the end of the project period to guide replication of the program model.
Project Methods
MethodologyThe proposed 6-month mentoring program will culminate in a week-long, immersive educational experience. Mentors and mentees (school counselors) will participate in hands-on activities related to multiple careers in food and agricultural sciences. During the week, they will focus on how to apply this new knowledge in the classroom, as well as how to make the content accessible for students. Emphasis will be placed on providing exposure to lesser-known food and agriculture careers such as agritourism, viniculture, and food safety. Further, there will be opportunities for participants to engage with industry, research labs, and Extension professionals to further highlight pathways to careers in the food and agricultural sciences. Finally, by exposing them to hands-on learning activities, it is expected that school counselors will more effectively translate their knowledge to K-14 students.Using a mentoring mosaic (Mullen, 2009), participants will work with a mentor and five other school counselors in their cohort to research the agricultural workforce. Mentees within the group will be paired to complete activities, resulting in 3 dyads per group. Mentors and mentees will meet twice a month in small and large groups. Mentoring cohorts will meet monthly to complete activities outlined in the mentorship workbook. A first step will be for counselors to set personal goals for skill development and the student outcomes they identify as most critical in their current roles. Participants will also complete an ecosystem map in which they must investigate the agricultural workforce in their community. The project team will utilize this information to guide the professional development being offered during the monthly large group sessions attended by all mentors and mentees. The early large group sessions will focus on kinesthetic (i.e., experiential) pedagogy and SCCT. The goal of these sessions is to connect program participants with content experts and introduce novel learning and teaching strategies for the classroom. Paired school counselors will utilize the professional development received to develop a hands-on learning activity that promotes an SEL skill associated with a specific agricultural career. Funding is included to support the purchase of activity-related materials to increase accessibility and feasibility of implementing the activities in their classrooms following the program. Pairs will share their activities with other members of the cohort during the immersion week. This approach will enable participants to apply their learning, while also producing a practical deliverable resulting from their participation.At the end of the mentorship period (January-May), participants will attend a week-long, immersive experience in June to explore careers in food and agricultural sciences. The advisory board will provide feedback and recommendations on areas of workforce development that should be considered. Further, participants will connect with Extension professionals specializing in food and agriculture to learn about career pathways, opportunities for collaboration, as well as how the mission of Extension can support workforce development in their own communities. Participants will engage in kinesthetic activities during visits to research labs and businesses with the intention of utilizing similar approaches in their classroom. Mentors will focus on fostering discussions that promote connection of the experiences to the personal goals and student outcomes identified at the outset of the program. Finally, during days 2 through 6, mentee partners will present the SEL lesson they developed during the first part of the program to the other mentee pairs. Presenting their lessons is another opportunity to develop self-efficacy in describing a career development lesson.EvaluationWe will conduct formative and summative evaluation of attitude and behavior changes before, during, and after participation in the mentorship program. Formative data will be collected from mentors and school counselors to ensure fidelity to the proposed activities. We will also continuously track outputs to assess progress toward the desired outcomes. Summative data will be used to determine change in self-efficacy among school counselors, change in food and agricultural career-based guidance, and change in school counselor community/network engagement. Program success will be indicated by an increase in school counselor self-efficacy, an increase in the number of career exploration lessons involving agriculture during classroom guidance, and an increase in the number of professional and industry contacts in the mentee's network.Prior to beginning the program, school counselors will complete a baseline questionnaire assessing their current level of self-efficacy in implementing agriculture career development with their students. They will also report on the number of food and agriculture career activities they have facilitated in the previous semester, as well as the number and type of professional contacts (e.g., other school counselors, Extension, industry) in their current network.During the mentoring program, school counselors will complete monthly logs to reflect on their experiences during the mentoring component of the program. Responses to logs will be reviewed by the project team and used as formative data for making revisions to the next trainings. Responses will also be reviewed over time to assess emerging themes of interest in food and agriculture careers. Finally, the responses will also inform the development of the final mentoring manual. It is expected that interest in agriculture career development will increase during the programming.School counselors will complete two follow-up questionnaires; one immediately following the end of the mentoring program, and one at 6-months following program completion. At both follow-up points, school counselors will report on their self-efficacy, the number/type of individuals in their professional network, and the number of food and agriculture career activities facilitated in the previous semester. The number of students who participated in the food and agriculture career activities will be assessed at the 6-month follow-up. It is expected that self-efficacy, professional networks, and number of agriculture career activities will increase from baseline.

Progress 07/01/24 to 06/30/25

Outputs
Target Audience:Target Audience: The primary target population is middle school counselors who serve youth in rural communities. Given the virtual nature of the mentoring program, participants will be selected from a national pool of school counselors. Emphasis will be placed on selecting mentees from a variety of backgrounds to ensure a wide reach of programming, promoting careers in food and agriculture. A secondary audience who will be indirectly impacted by the project is the middle school youth served by the school counselor participants. School counselors will develop lesson plans during the mentorship program that can be used during their classroom guidance. Counselors will also be provided with a stipend for purchasing necessary materials to fully implement the lessons. Thus, middle school students will also benefit from a product (i.e., lessons plans) resulting from the project. Efforts: In Year 1, a mentorship workbook was developed to guide mentors and mentees through the monthly mentorship meetings. A nationwide call for applicants to the mentorship program was completed resulting in the selection of 12 rural, middle school counselors for the first cohort of mentees. Mentees met virtually with their mentor each month beginning in March to complete activities provided in the workbook. The week-long immersion event was planned and will be completed at the end of June. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Training. The 12 mentees recruited for the first cohort of fellows are receiving monthly training from 2 mentors with experience as school counselors. Each mentor is paired with 6 mentees, allowing for the mentorship training to include opportunities for individual sharing and small group discussion. One mentor has been leading agricultural career development in the classroom for 5 years. The other mentor has served as part of a consortium of Career and Technical Educators in her state and has earned an additional credential in career development. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Nothing Reported What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Goal 1: Provide rural school counselors with tools and resources to integrate SCCT and kinesthetic pedagogy in middle school career-based guidance. In Year two, the first round of career lessons will be posted to the lesson repository available on a project website. Mentees from Cohort one will have access to their allotted funding for educational materials that will allow them to purchase the needed supplies for these lessons as well as other career development resources. Participants in Cohort 2 of the mentorship program will be provided with a new series of webinars with topics yet to be determined. They will also have access to the webinars from Year one. Cohort Two will prepare their own career lessons which will be added to the repository at the end of Year two. Data from Cohort 1 will be ready for analysis in Year two. Specifically, the team will evaluate for a change in career self-efficacy among participants, track the number of food and agriculture lessons provided during classroom guidance, and explore themes that emerged from participant reflections during the mentorship period. Goal 2: Facilitate an experiential mentorship program to support increased interest in food and agricultural careers among rural, middle school counselors. Participants in Cohort one will be asked to attend a virtual "open house" in which they describe their experiences during the mentorship program. The purpose of the meeting is to recruit participants for Cohort Two. Another nationwide call for applications will be distributed in the fall of Year two. An additional 12 mentees will be selected for Cohort two, and the current 2 mentors will continue to serve in their roles. Mentorship meetings are expected to begin in February of Year two, with the immersion-week experience planned for June. The anticipated location for the immersion experience for Cohort 2 is the Burlington, VT, area. Participants will engage in tours and experiential learning activities related to food and agriculture. Planning for the week-long event will begin in the fall of Year two. Goal 3: Develop a manualized model of experiential mentorship in career-based guidance for school counselors. The current version of the mentorship workbook will be revised as needed based on the feedback collected from Cohort one. The revised version will be used to guide Cohort 2 through the mentorship experience, and additional feedback from this group will be solicited in Year two. Work on the final manual will begin in Year two including an outline of content and overall formatting of the manual.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Goal 1: Provide rural school counselors with tools and resources to integrate SCCT and kinesthetic pedagogy in middle school career-based guidance. 10% accomplished Participants in Cohort one of the mentorship programs have been provided with three professional development webinars on using creative methods for engaging youth, and methods for improving communication with youth. Due to the busy schedules of the participants', recorded webinars were preferred by the group to allow for greater flexibility and engagement. Recorded webinars also allow participants to re-watch portions of the presentations that are most relevant to their needs. Participants will begin working on their lesson plans following the completion of the full mentorship program. Lessons will then be posted on a project webpage. Goal 2: Facilitate an experiential mentorship program to support increased interest in food and agricultural careers among rural, middle school counselors. 40% accomplished A nationwide call for applications was posted in December resulting in a total of 47 applicants. The project team reviewed applications and selected participants based on a combination of factors including number of years in the field, geographic location, and level of experience with food and agriculture careers. From the applicants, 12 mentees and two mentors were selected for Cohort one. Mentees and mentors represented 9 states: AR, FL, MS, ND, NM, PA, SD, SC, and UT. Participants began meeting monthly in groups of six in March. Topics for monthly meetings included setting goals, doing a community inventory of food and agricultural businesses, conducting a personal SWOT analysis, and reflecting on their career interest and exploration. The immersion experience for Cohort one involves a week-long, interactive experience in Ithaca, NY, and the surrounding areas. During the event, participants will tour labs in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University, tour a series of local farms including a farm-based high school, and learn about vino-culture in an area the supports Agri-tourism. Participants are expected to use these hands-on experiences to develop career lessons for their students to be used during classroom guidance. Goal 3: Develop a manualized model of experiential mentorship in career-based guidance for school counselors. 25% accomplished The first version of the mentorship workbook was completed in Year one. Feedback from Cohort one will be solicited following the completion of their full mentorship experience. Revisions will be documented to be included in the final manualized version of the program which will be completed in Year three.

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