Recipient Organization
MICHIGAN STATE UNIV
(N/A)
EAST LANSING,MI 48824
Performing Department
COMMUNITY SUSTAIN
Non Technical Summary
This three-year integrated project, titled Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources Educator Skill and Knowledge Immersion to Lead Learning Success (AFNRE-SKILLS), includes the creation and assessment of needs-based professional development for Michigan Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources (AFNR) teachers. Addressing the Farm Bill priority area of agricultural economics and rural communities, AFNRE-SKILLS will enhance AFNR education in Michigan rural communities by (a) identifying the professional development needs of Michigan AFNR teachers related to new and emerging AFNR technologies, (b) providing three four-day professional development sessions on new and emerging technology areas of high need, and (c) evaluating the impact of the professional development on teacher inclusion of new and emerging technologies and leadership within their curriculum as well as student awareness and competence related to new and emerging AFNR technologies, interest in AFNR careers, and leadership self-efficacy. Professional development sessions will take place on farms and in labs at Michigan State University, which also serves as the submitting organization. The professional development sessions will be hands-on and problem-based and include 25 Michigan AFNR teachers per year, taught by five AFNR education faculty and one technical expert (4.17 teacher/facilitator ratio). AFNRE-SKILLS is expected to shift the culture within Michigan AFNR education toward new and emerging AFNR technologies and leadership and serve as a model for developing teacher and student competence related to new and emerging AFNR technologies via professional development
Animal Health Component
80%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
10%
Applied
80%
Developmental
10%
Goals / Objectives
Research-Based Objective: Identify areas of high professional development need perceived among Michigan AFNR educators related to current and emerging AFNR technologies (e.g., drones, coding, biotechnology, big data analysis).Education-Based Objective: Over the course of three years, work with topic-area experts to facilitate three immersive professional development sessions which target identified need areas.Research-Based Objective: Evaluate the relationship between teachers engaging in the professional development sessions, teacher implementation of new technologies within their curriculum, and student outcomes related to new and emerging AFNR technologies.
Project Methods
For each experience, participants will engage in a four-day professional development focused on a high need area theme. Onday one, participants will arrive at MSU and will engage in a networking dinner and introduction to the experience. Onday two, participants will travel to selected farms and/or labs for immersive trainings, facilitated by members of the PD team and an identified expert within the new and emerging technologies. Individual trainings, recorded using 360-degree video, will include (a) an introduction to the purpose of the technology, (b) an explanation of how the technology works, (c) an opportunity for teachers to operate the technology, and (d) an interactive discussion of how the technology could be implemented within a Michigan AFNR education program using principles of problem-based and hands-on learning. Three to four individual trainings, clustered by professional development theme area, will be offered during the second day of each training. Duringday three, participants will be broken into three to four groups tasked with creating an implementation plan/curriculum to facilitate student learning of a technology assigned from day two. Day three will include opportunities for each team to practice their planned learning experiences with their peers, again at the appropriate MSU farm or lab, for feedback and refinement. Day three will conclude with training from the PD team on strategies for obtaining funding to purchase and implement the new technologies within the teachers' programs.Day fourwill build upon the focus of new and emerging technologies to empower educators to create learning spaces that balance technical skill development with leadership skill development. Learning environments which combine technical skill development with leadership capacity building address the critical need for professionals who combine technical know-how with the ability to influence positive change within a system (McKim, Pauley, Velez, & Sorensen, 2017; National Association of Colleges and Employers, 2014). Empowering teachers to facilitate learning experiences combining new and emerging technologies with leadership skill development will be done by providing teachers with established curriculum, developed by PD McKim, on personal leadership development, team leadership development, change, sustainability, and communications. In addition to exploring existing curricular resources, teachers will have the opportunity to collaboratively integrate leadership content within their plan/curriculum for teaching the new and emerging technologies.There are three categories of intended outcomes to be evaluated within the proposed project. First, associated with project objective one, the PD team will identify the professional development needs of Michigan AFNR educators regarding new and emerging technologies within AFNR. The list of new and emerging technologies to be evaluated includes, among other technologies, precision agricultural sensors, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), closed ecological systems, in-vitro meat, satellite imaging, rapid iteration selective breeding, and synthetic biology. Evaluation of professional development needs will be completed using the Borich (1980) method. Specifically, for each new and emerging technology, teachers will rate the importance of that technology within AFNR curriculum as well as their competence. For each item, the average discrepancy between importance and competence, multiplied by weighted importance, yields a mean weighted discrepancy score (MWDS). The higher the MWDS, the more professional development is needed related to that new or emerging technology (Borich, 1980). While needs assessments are common in AFNR education research (e.g., Garton & Chung, 1997; Sorensen, Lambert, & McKim, 2014), this is the first known evaluation of professional development needs related specifically to new and emerging technologies in AFNR, providing a model and method for future states to identify the professional development needs of AFNR educators related to new and emerging technologies.The second intended outcome to be evaluated, related to project objectives two and three, is the impact of the immersive professional development on AFNR educators; specifically, their implementation of new and emerging technologies and leadership within AFNR curriculum. To evaluate impact and implementation, qualitative interviews will be conducted annually with a random sample of eight participants of each professional development workshop, exploring use of new and emerging technologies and leadership within their curriculum. In addition, four AFNR educators in Michigan who did not participate in the professional development will be randomly selected and interviewed annually, as a comparison group, to evaluate use of new and emerging technologies and leadership. Importantly, interviews will be conducted in December of each year of the project, providing (a) formative data regarding the impact of, and potential improvements to, the professional development session in future years and (b) longitudinal data to evaluate the impact of the professional development sessions.The third intended outcome to be evaluated is student outcomes associated with teacher engagement in the professional development sessions. Student outcomes will be measured via an annual, online, quantitative survey of all students enrolled in courses taught by teachers who engaged in the professional development, who are still teaching, as well as a random sample of students in courses taught by 10 Michigan AFNR educators who did not engage in the professional development sessions. The survey will include four constructs measuring (a) awareness of each new and emerging technology listed in the teacher needs assessment, (b) perceived competence using new and emerging technologies, (c) motivation to engage in AFNR careers which utilize the new and emerging technologies, and (d) leadership self-efficacy. Longitudinal data will be collected to evaluate identified student outcomes, with students receiving the survey every December. Importantly, results from the first and second year of data collection will be used to inform teachers in the remaining years of the immersive professional development (i.e., results from year one will inform years two and three and results from year two will also inform year three).In addition to the proposed evaluation plan occurring during project implementation, the PD team sees value in tracking students beyond the project timeline to evaluate the impact on students who engaged in courses with teachers who participated in the professional development. Therefore, three and five years following completion of the grant, members of the PD team will work with eight randomly selected teachers from each group of participants in the immersive professional development to conduct qualitative interviews of former students to identify vocational and avocational pursuits. Data collected from these interviews will contribute to current knowledge regarding the sustained impact of teacher professional development on students.