Source: University of Maryland Eastern Shore submitted to
MELDING UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH INTERNSHIPS, MENTORSHIPS AND TUTORSHIPS TO INCREASE STUDENT PROGRESSION TO GRADUATION IN AGRICULTURE
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
COMPLETE
Funding Source
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1012116
Grant No.
2017-38821-26402
Cumulative Award Amt.
$297,479.00
Proposal No.
2016-06474
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Project Start Date
May 1, 2017
Project End Date
Apr 30, 2022
Grant Year
2017
Program Code
[EP]- Teaching Project
Project Director
Marsh, L. E.
Recipient Organization
University of Maryland Eastern Shore
11868 College Backborne Road
Princess Anne,MD 21853
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Low levels of undergraduate retention, and consequently, students' slow progression to graduation is a major challenge of many educational institutions today, including the University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES). While this challenge is exacerbated by under- preparation of some recruited students, it also presents the opportunity and necessity to design innovative means to prepare students from a range of competency levels, and enable them to attain proficiency in their disciplinary and soft skills, achieve their career goals and also fulfill the mission of the educational institution.One such approach is to develop and adopt actions to enable high retention rates of students at each stage of their study from freshman to the senior years. Thus, the overall goal of this project is to use an integrated approach of research internships, mentorships, and student service activities to increase undergraduate retention and progression to graduation. This proposal will provide research internships to selected sophomores, juniors, and seniors who will also serve as peer mentors and tutors for freshmen students. The cadre of post freshman students/interns, under the guidance of UMES faculty mentors and Agriculture Research Service (ARS) researchers, will gain research and soft skills experience. These interns will also serve as role models using their leadership experiences to provide mentoring and tutoring to freshman in entry level agriculture courses which they have already mastered. The outcome of this project will be more students retained, graduated, and prepared to meet the workforce needs in food and agriculture.
Animal Health Component
34%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
33%
Applied
34%
Developmental
33%
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
1020199302060%
7110320105040%
Goals / Objectives
The overall goal of this project is to use an integrated approach of research internships, mentorship, and student service activities to increase undergraduate retention and progression to graduation. The specific objectives are:To enhance research internship opportunities and experiential curricular offerings to strengthen student's disciplinary and soft skills and success to graduation.To engage post freshman undergraduate research students in peer mentoring and tutoring of freshmen.
Project Methods
Objective 1- To enhance research internship opportunities and experiential curricular offerings to strengthen student's disciplinary and soft skills and success to graduation. (a) Research InternshipsSeventeen agriculture seniors, juniors and sophomores will be recruited as paid research interns. The project director will advertise the internships on campus and work with the CO-PDs and collaborators torecruit them for the research experiences. The criteria for selection will be at least a C grade in previous academic work, an essay discussing the students desire to engage in an agriculture research project, two letters of recommendation from two teachers or other individuals who have academically interacted with potential scholars, and an interview. Interns will have one of three options for their work experience: (1) 20-hours/week for two 14-week semesters on campus or, (2) 20-hours/week for a semester and 40 hours per week for eight-week summer on campus or, (3) a 20-hours/week semester on campus and a 40 hours per week summer with one of two USDA-Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) laboratories in Beltsville, MD.Each intern will be paired with a research mentor to help him/her hone disciplinary and soft skills, while gaining research experience. The activities will include various agriculture projects, e.g., food safety and biosecurity organic farming, small-scale agriculture, and water quality/nutrient management.The PD will procure instruments and materials to update the labs or practical sites in animal science, microbiology, food safety, plant science, and soil science. The PD, CO-PDs, and collaborators will use these materials and instruments to complement existing equipment in their laboratories to support student research in animal science, water quality, food safety, and organic agriculture; and supervised, individualized, experiential courses. Investigators will conduct orientation meetings for all interns and research mentors at the beginning of the semester or summer of the students' research experience with a progress meeting at the end of each semester/summer. Interns will attend the project meetings of the mentor's research team, as well as one-on-one meetings with the mentor twice each semester or summer period. Faculty mentors will use formative and summative assessments to evaluate their intern's progress as they conduct research and disseminate their finding. Each interns will complete a self evaluation using a rubric adapted from a research internship assessment instrument developed by the investigators and used by them for interns' evaluations. The faculty member will review and give feedback for use in reaching their goals. The skills evaluated will include the scholar's punctuality, willingness to learn and accept change, dependability and initiative, responsibility and professionalism, writing ability, oral communication ability, problem solving ability/critical thinking, ability to work with others, and areas requiring greater attention or improvement. To assess communication and critical thinking skills, a second assessment toolfrom the investigators ongoing work with interns will be adapted and used.The interns will acquire hands-on experience on the researchers' projects as well as conduct their own scientific research projects. Faculty mentors will guide the interns in: identifying specific research projects; conducting literature searches; collecting and analyzing data; writing research papers; and preparing undergraduate poster and oral presentations of their research for field days, workshops, professional conferences, and meetings. All research interns and students enrolled in the supervised, individualized, experiential courses will make on- campus presentations on their research each semester. They will receive feedback through a seminar evaluation sheet that will be completed by the faculty, staff and other students who attend. They will also have the opportunity to present their research at the annual UMES Graduate Symposium.b) Curricular Experiential ActivitiesThe agriculture curriculum provides post freshman students with the opportunity to enroll in the following supervised, individualized, experiential courses; Practicum in Animal and Poultry Science (ANPT 202), Special Topics in Agriculture (AGRI 499), Independent Study in Plant and Soil Science (AGRN 499) and Internship in Agriculture and Natural Resources (PLSC 484). These enrolled students, although not paid on this grant, will have similar research opportunities to use the updated equipment and supplies on this grant to conduct agriculture research with the faculty investigators as they fulfill the requirements of the course. They will also attend the orientation meetings and some of the other research meetings as applicable, but their research will end at the end of the semester when course grades will be due. Formative and summative assessments of their performance will be done using the instrument developed for the paid research interns. Another expectation of each of the unpaid students receiving course credits will be weekly journal writings of their hands-on activities, a final report that includes disciplinary content and reflection of the experiences acquired and a seminar presentation on their project. We anticipate that 15 students per year will be served and gain benefits from these hands-on trainings/internships.Objective 2: To engage post freshman undergraduate research interns in tutoring and peer mentoring and of freshmenProviding access to suitable options for students to use and master course materials is vital for freshman success. Although the university has a structured tutoring program, the student tutors are not always agriculture majors, and so they lack knowledge of the introductory agriculture courses for which freshman seek help. Therefore, we will develop and implement an Undergraduate Learning Assistants (ULA) program for undergraduate labs and a tutoring program for freshman lecture courses with the paid research interns serving in this role. The ULA will assist the faculty in labs and provide tutoring to those students requiring tutoring through a planned schedule.Student success and retention are linked to personal satisfaction and feeling of connection in and outside of the learning environment. Therefore, the mentoring aspect of this project is to help students connect with the people in the program and outside. First year students will be grouped/clustered with selected research interns who will serve as mentors. Each student mentor will assist his/her first year cluster by sharing information about personal campus experiences and campus opportunities and activities to provide academic, social, and personal support for them. These student mentors will receive training on Freshmen Mentoring from the resources of the UMES Center for Access and Academic Success.A one-credit course, First Year Experience Seminar (AGNR 111), is required of all agriculture majors at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. It is designed to assist all new students with their pursuit of academic excellence and successful social and academic transition into the university, and is taught by the CO-PD (Marsh).Selected modules of this course, particularly the sections on campus life will involve the post freshman student sharing their experiences with the class through presentations that will include information on departmental clubs, honor society expectations and successful graduation progression habits. The course is offered in the fall semester of every academic year. We anticipate that 40 freshmen per year will be impacted through the mentoring and tutoring program. Research interns will also assist in the planning of one social activity to orient freshman to their home department.

Progress 05/01/17 to 04/30/22

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience is undergraduate students majoring in agriculture. These include paid and unpaid research interns and students enrolled in agriculture classes. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? All interns were trained and mentored by agriculture faculty and other researchers to enhance their technical skills in agriculture, their research and soft skills. Some interns participated in a workshop to assist them in the peer mentoring experience. Tutors shadowed the instructors in the courses for which they provided tutoring. One intern attended and presented a poster at the 2020 International Poultry Scientific Forum. Three interns attended workshops on professional networking, internship opportunities, and soil health and food safety at the national meetings they attended. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Interns made research poster presentations at the 19th Biennial Research Symposium Association of Research Directors Jacksonville, FL., the National Goat conference, Montgomery, AL ., and the 2020 International Poultry Scientific Forum. The PI did a project poster presentation at the June 2019 NACTA meeting. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? In fulfillment of Objective 1, twenty juniors and seniors served as paid research interns between fall 2017 and March 2022, under the guidance of ten faculty on campus and one researcher at ARS. They participated in summative assessments of their soft and disciplinary skills with their mentors and completed surveys on the research program and experiential activities in which they participated. Three of their research projects were presented at meetings with one winning a poster presentation award. In fulfillment of Objective 2, twelve paid interns plus one upper class volunteer provided tutoring service to three cohorts of agriculture freshman class. The tutoring was available for two freshman classes, Introduction to Plant Science and Introduction to Animal Science. Thirteen research interns plus three upper class agriculture volunteer interns served as peer mentors for 62 freshmen during the first two years of this reporting period. Each freshman was paired with a mentor who also participated in scheduled group discussions of the class, First Year Experience Seminar. Both the interns and the mentored /tutored students completed surveys at the end of the semester to assess their perception of the mentoring and tutoring activities. Mentors also assisted with the planning of social activity for other students in the department. Dissemination of project information has been done at national meetings. Of the 22 interns served by this project, 18 have graduated and are either in professional school or employed. The remaining four are successfully progressing in their studies. Assessment tools were adapted from previous instruments developed by the PI's and used to measure the effectiveness of the student internships. These tools included rubrics to measure the students' critical thinking, communication and soft skill and a survey to measure student perceptions of the program. Assessment instruments to gauge the effectiveness of the mentoring and tutoring were developed by the PI and Co-PIs and approved by IRB. UMES faculty members, Lurline Marsh, Fawzy Hashem, Byungrok Min, Simon Zebelo, Nelson Escobar, Corrie Cotton, Kimberly Braxton, Benham Khatabi and Sang Oh, Sadanand Dhekney, and ARS scientist, Patricia Millner served as mentors for the undergraduate interns.

Publications


    Progress 05/01/20 to 04/30/21

    Outputs
    Target Audience:The target audience is undergraduate students majoring in agriculture. These include paid and unpaid research interns and students enrolled in agriculture classes. Changes/Problems:For fall 2021 and lifting of the COVID restrictions, the experiential activities will be resumed for the final grant period What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?None due to COVID 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?Plans are to recruit more interns and facilitate their experiential training, and to continue to use responses from surveys to make any necessary changes in the tutoring and mentoring or internship experience.

    Impacts
    What was accomplished under these goals? Due to COVID 19 shutdown of on-campus activities for students, followed by limited person to person contact, there were no experiential activities for the two objectives during this reporting period.

    Publications


      Progress 05/01/19 to 04/30/20

      Outputs
      Target Audience:The target audience is undergraduate students majoring in agriculture. These included paid and unpaid research interns and students enrolled in agriculture classes. Changes/Problems:Due to COVID 19 shutdown of on-campus activities for students, experiential activities were halted for spring 2020. Plans for fall 2020 are tentative pending the pandemic situation and accommodations for student safety. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?All interns were trained and mentored by agriculture faculty and other researchers to enhance their research and soft skills. Some interns participated in a workshop to assist them in the peer mentoring experience. Tutors shadowed the instructors in the courses for which they provided tutoring. One intern attended and presented a poster the 2020 International Poultry Scientific Forum. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Interns made a poster presentation at the 2020 International Poultry Scientific Forum.The PI did a project poster presentation at the June 2019 NACTA meeting. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Plans are to recruit more interns and facilitate their training, support current ones in completing their research experience, including presentations at professional meetings, and to continue to use responses from surveys to make any necessary changes in the tutoring and mentoring or internship experience.

      Impacts
      What was accomplished under these goals? In fulfillment of Objective 1, six juniors and seniors served as paid research interns between spring semester 2019 and spring 2020 semesters, under the guidance of five faculty. Some conducted research, others did animal care under the guidance of the university's veterinarian. They participated in summative assessments of their soft and disciplinary skills with their mentors and completed surveys on the research program and experiential activities in which they participated. One research poster was presented at the 2020 International Poultry Scientific Forum held in Atlanta, GA. In fulfillment of Objective 2, five paid interns plus four additional unpaid volunteers from agriculture provided mentoring to the 2019 freshman class of 30. Each freshman was paired with a mentor who also participated in scheduled group discussions of the class, First year experience seminar. The tutoring was provided by five paid interns for two freshman classes, Introduction to plant science and Introduction to animal science; Both the interns and the mentored /tutored students completed surveys at the end of the semester to assess their perception of the mentoring and tutoring activities.

      Publications

      • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Brown, D., M. OH and S.-H. OH. 2020. Systematic review of the different causes and effects of the wooden breast condition in poultry production. International Poultry Scientific Forum. p. 66. Atlanta, GA. https://www.ippexpo.org/ipsf/docs/2020-IPSF-Abstract-Book.pdf. Accessed July 7, 2020.


      Progress 05/01/18 to 04/30/19

      Outputs
      Target Audience:The target audience is undergraduate students majoring in agriculture. These included paid and unpaid research interns and students enrolled in agriculture classes. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?All interns were trained and mentored by agriculture faculty and other researchers to enhance their research and soft skills. Some interns participated in a workshop to assist them in the peer mentoring experience. Tutors shadowed the instructors in the courses for which they provided tutoring. Three interns attended workshops on professional networking, internship opportunities, soil health and food safety at the national meetings they attended. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Interns made research poster presentations at the 19th Biennial Research Symposium Association of Research Directors Jacksonville, FL. and the National Goat conference, Montgomery, AL . The PI did a project poster presentation at the 2019 NACTA meeting. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Plans are to recruit more interns and facilitate their training, support current ones in completing their research experience, including presentations at professional meetings, and to continue to use responses from surveys to make any necessary changes in the tutoring and mentoring or internship experience.

      Impacts
      What was accomplished under these goals? In fulfillment of Objective 1, ten juniors and seniors served as paid research interns between summer 2018 and spring 2019 semesters, under the guidance of six faculty. They participated in summative assessments of their soft and disciplinary skills with their mentors and completed surveys on the research program and experiential activities in which they participated. Two of their research projects were presented at meetings with one winning a poster presentation award. In fulfillment of Objective 2, eight paid interns plus three additional unpaid volunteers provided mentoring and tutoring service to the freshman class. The tutoring was available for two freshman classes, Introduction to plant science and Introduction to animal science. Each freshman was paired with a mentor who also participated in scheduled group discussions of the class, First year experience seminar. Both the interns and the mentored /tutored students completed surveys at the end of the semester to assess their perception of the mentoring and tutoring activities. Mentors also assisted with the planning of social activity for other students in the department.

      Publications

      • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Marsh, L., F. M. Hashem, E. N. Escobar, K. Braxton, C. Cotton, P. Millner and E. Codling 2019. Undergraduate Internship Melds Soft Skills, STEM and Service to Peers. NACTA Journal, Vol. 63, Supplement 1. Madison, J., A. Kenney, B. Smith, L. Marsh, and F. Hashem. 2019. Survival of Escherichia coli in Raw Manure-amended Organically-Managed Soils. 19th Biennial Research Symposium Association of Research Directors Jacksonville, FL. 2018. pg. 230. Abst. Cephas, T., S. Lofton, A. Doon and E.N. Escobar. 2018. A Case Study: Goat Out-of-Season Breeding (June 2017) at the UMES Small Ruminant Farm. Presented at National Goat conference, Montgomery, AL , September 2018.


      Progress 05/01/17 to 04/30/18

      Outputs
      Target Audience:The target audience is undergraduate students majoring in agriculture. These included paid and unpaid research interns and students enrolled in agriculture classes. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?All interns were trained and mentored by agriculture faculty and other researchers to enhance their research and soft skills. Some interns participated in a workshop to assist them in the peer mentoring experience. Tutors shadowed the instructors in the courses for which they provided tutoring. Two interns gained food safety experience in an ARS lab and two attended a national food safety meeting. 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?Plans are to recruit more interns and facilitate their training, support current ones in completing their research experience, including presentations at professional meetings, and to use responses from surveys to make any necessary changes in the tutoring and mentoring or internship experience.

      Impacts
      What was accomplished under these goals? In fulfillment of Objective 1, a total of eight juniors and seniors served as paid research interns in fall 2017 and spring 2018 semesters, under the guidance of five faculty on campus and one researcher at ARS. They participated in summative assessments of their soft and disciplinary skills with their mentors and completed surveys on the research program. Some of their research projects are planned for presentation at upcoming meetings. In fulfillment of Objective 2, the four interns in fall 2017 plus two additional unpaid volunteers provided mentoring and tutoring service to the the freshman class. The tutoring was available for two freshman classes, Introduction to plant science and Introduction to animal science. Each freshman was paired with a mentor who also participated in scheduled group discussions of a class, First year experience seminar. Both the interns and the mentored /tutored students completed surveys at the end of the semester to assess their perception of the mentoring and tutoring activities. Mentors also assisted with the planning of social activity for other students in the department.

      Publications