Progress 04/15/19 to 09/14/23
Outputs
Target Audience:This program targets local area teachers at regional school districts, who serve approximately 250,000 students, including more than 70,000 local area high school students. Collaborating districts have agreed to disseminate RFA to all high school teachers in various disciplines in STEM. These school districts have been selected based on previous participation in similar teacher development programs, and all have working relationships with co-PI Sears through his faculty and university field supervisor roles in the UTeach RGV Program at UTRGV. We gave priority to applicants from the school districts that signed support letters included in the proposal. Changes/Problems:Given restrictions due to COVID in previous years (including in 2020 when APDI was paused), a new protocol for offering workshops include a heightened focus on out-of-doors experiences, as well as venues that accomodate social distancing. At the time of the June 2021 APDI, we closely followed CDC and State of Texas guidance for masking and social distancing. The previous offering (2019) was offered over 4 Fridays in June, but instead we concentrated the workshop to 4 consecutive days (Mon-Thurs). We also changed the co-mentorship part of the project, given COVID related limitations to collaborate with the UTRGV High Scholars Program, which would have involved close contact with students in indoor settings. Instead, we advertise and recruited (4) APDI alumni to participate as co-mentors in the APDI itself, where they were asked to help mentor current participants, while developing skills in leadership, networking, and grantsmanship. Mentorship to them was provided by PI's (Racelis, Sears). THis model was implemented the last two years of the project (2022 and 2023). What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The entireprogram focusedon professional development for local area teachers. The intention here wasto expose these teachers to the regional assets and immediate relevance of food and agricultural to this region, and to demonstrate opportunities for modifying teaching pedagogies to include agricultural-relevant topics or themes into STEM related courses. Teacher participants were awarded continuing education credits (32 hrs) through a partnership with UTRGV's Professional Education and Workforce Development Office and the College of Education. Co-mentors recieved additional training in leadership, grantsmanship, and pedagogy, provided by PI's Racelis and Sears. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We advertised opportunties to communities of interest through the extensive teacher network of UTeach (Mr. Sears, co-PI). We have also updated our webpage www.utrgv.edu/agroecology and www.utrgv.edu/SARA. UTRGV Center for Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Advancement included our APDI in a semi-annual report published on their website. The APDI was also featured in the UTRGV website, and was circulated across the social media accounts of the UTRGV SARA and Agroecology Program. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Over the*four*project years (2019, 2021, 2022, 2023), we successfullyoffered the Agroecology Professional Development Institute to a total of 81local area high school teachers (exceeding our expectation of 75 participants). For each of the participants, we sucessfully offered total of 32 contact hours over a four day period. Each day included a morning field trip to a local farm, food related facility, or ag-related research or teaching facility, and in the afternoon workshops on curriculum development around agricultural relevant themes. All participants were issued a certificate for Continuing Education units (32) by the UTRGV Office for PRofessional Education and Workforce Development (2019, 21, 22) or the UTRGV College of Education (2023). In 2022 and 2023we modified the co-mentorship part of the project (under item #2) because giverestrictions due to COVID, we were not able to cooperate with the UTRGV High Scholar Program, and instead offered the co-mentorship program in conjuction with the APDI. An additional 8co-mentors were selected in 2022 and 2023. Co-mentors worked closelywith PI's to develop skills in leadership, grantmanship, and networking, and will be expected to share their expertise with the APDI participants.
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Progress 04/15/23 to 09/14/23
Outputs
Target Audience:This program targets local area teachers at regional school districts, who serve approximately 250,000 students, including more than 70,000 local area high school students. Collaborating districts have agreed to disseminate RFA to all high school teachers in various disciplines in STEM. These school districts have been selected based on previous participation in similar teacher development programs, and all have working relationships with co-PI Sears through his faculty and university field supervisor roles in the UTeach RGV Program at UTRGV Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The entire proposed program focuses on professional development for local area teachers. The intention here is to expose these teachers to the regional assets and immediate relevance of food and agricultural to this region, and to demonstrate opportunities for modifying teaching pedagogies to include agricultural-relevant topics or themes into STEM related courses. Teacher participants were awarded continuing education credits (32 hrs) through a partnership with UTRGV's Professional Education and Workforce Development Office. We also offered additional training to the co-mentors for advanced skills in pedagogy, leadership, grantsmanship, and collaboration. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We advertised opportunties to communities of interest through the extensive teacher network of UTeach (Mr. Sears, co-PI). We have also updated our webpage www.utrgv.edu/agroecology and www.utrgv.edu/SARA. UTRGV Center for Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Advancement included our APDI in a semi-annual report published on their website, and we also was able to advertise throught social media accounts for both SARA and the Agroecology Program (Instagram, Facebook). 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 June 2023we offered the Agroecology Professional Development Institute to 20local area high school teachers. Over a total of 32 contact hours with participants, we designed the institute over a four day period. Each day included a morning field trip to a local farm, food related facility, or ag-related research or teaching facility, and in the afternoon workshops on curriculum development around agricultural relevant themes. Based on changes from the previous project year where we modified the co-mentorship part of the project (under item #2), an additional 4 co-mentors were selected for this project period.
Publications
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Progress 04/15/22 to 04/14/23
Outputs
Target Audience:This program targets local area teachers at regional school districts, who serve approximately 250,000 students, including more than 70,000 local area high school students. Collaborating districts have agreed to disseminate RFA to all high school teachers in various disciplines in STEM. Changes/Problems:We requested a change to the co-mentorship part of the project, given COVID related limitations to collaborate with the UTRGV High Scholars Program, which would have involved close contact with students in indoor settings. Instead, we advertised and recruited (4) APDI alumni to participate as co-mentors in the APDI, where they were asked to help mentor current participants, while developing skills in leadership, networking, and grantsmanship. Mentorship to them was provided by PI's (Racelis, Sears). What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?We successfully offered 32 hours for training over 4 days in June 2022.Teacher participants were awarded continuing education credits (32 hrs) through a partnership with UTRGV's Professional Education and Workforce Development Office 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?We plan to repeat our offering of APDI and the co-mentorship program in Spring-summer 2023. This includes recruitment of participants and co-mentors in April 2023, selection of participants May 2023, and the APDI workshop in June 2023.We plan to offer the final year of our project as part of a no-cost extension year to meet our expected participant goal.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
During this project period, we successfully recruited 20 teacher participants and 4 teacher mentors. Therequest for applications for both teacher participant slots and teacher mentorscame out in April 2022, and by the closing date in May 2022 we had more than 160 applications from nearly 25 different school districts. From this pool, we picked 20 applicants based on their interest and future endeavors to improve agriculture related pedagogy in their class rooms, and their committment to attending all the dates for the workshop. We also prioritized applicants from the school districts who signed a letter of support for the project. Though our original plan was for 25 per year, we only recruited 20 to make sure that we could keep safer distances from each other and to manage a more reasonable sized cohort (incuding the 4 co-mentors, selected from a pool ofprevious participants to join cohort foradditional training for mentorship, leadership, and improved pedagogy.)
Publications
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Progress 04/15/21 to 04/14/22
Outputs
Target Audience:This program targets local area teachers at regional school districts, who serve approximately 250,000 students, including more than 70,000 local area high school students. Collaborating districts have agreed to disseminate RFA to all high school teachers in various disciplines in STEM. These school districts have been selected based on previous participation in similar teacher development programs, and all have working relationships with co-PI Sears through his faculty and university field supervisor roles in the UTeach RGV Program at UTRGV. Changes/Problems:Given restrictions due to COVID in previous years (including in 2020 when APDI was paused), a new protocol for offering workshops include a heightened focus onout-of-doors experiences, as well as venues that accomodate social distancing. At the time of the June 2021 APDI, we closely followed CDC and State of Texas guidance for masking and social distancing. The previous offering (2019) was offered over 4 Fridays in June, but instead we concentrated the workshop to 4 consecutive days (Mon-Thurs). We also changed the co-mentorship part of the project, givenCOVID relatedlimitations to collaborate with the UTRGV High Scholars Program, which would have involved close contact with students in indoor settings. Instead, we advertise and recruited (4) APDI alumni to participate as co-mentors in the APDI itself, where theywere asked to help mentor current participants, while developing skills in leadership, networking, and grantsmanship. Mentorship to them was provided by PI's (Racelis, Sears). What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The entire proposed program focuses on professional development for local area teachers. The intention here is to expose these teachers to the regional assets and immediate relevance of food and agricultural to this region, and to demonstrate opportunities for modifying teaching pedagogies to include agricultural-relevant topics or themes into STEM related courses. Teacher participants were awarded continuing education credits (32 hrs) through a partnership with UTRGV's Professional Education and Workforce Development Office. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We advertised opportunties to communities of interest through the extensive teacher network of UTeach (Mr. Sears, co-PI). We have also updated our webpage www.utrgv.edu/agroecology and www.utrgv.edu/SARA. UTRGV Center for Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Advancement included our APDI in a semi-annual report published on their website. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We plan to repeat our offering of APDI and the co-mentorship program in Spring-summer 2022. This includes recruitment of participants and co-mentors in April 2022, selection of participants May 2022, and the APDI workshop in June 2022.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
In June 2021 we offered the Agroecology Professional Development Institute to 21 local area high school teachers. Over a total of 32 contact hours with participants, we designed the institute over a four day period. Each day includeda morning field trip to a local farm, food related facility, or ag-related research or teaching facility, and in the afternoon workshops on curriculum development around agricultural relevant themes. We modified the co-mentorship part of the project (under item #2). Given restrictions due to COVID, we were not able to cooperate with the UTRGV High Scholar Program, and instead offered the co-mentorship program in conjuction with the APDI. An additional 4 co-mentors were selected for this project period. Co-mentors will work with PI's to develop skills in leadership, grantmanship, and networking, and will be expected to share their expertise with the APDI participants.
Publications
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Progress 04/15/20 to 04/14/21
Outputs
Target Audience:This program targets local area teachers at regional school districts, who serve approximately 250,000 students, including more than 70,000 local area high school students. Collaborating districts have agreed to disseminate RFA to all high school teachers in various disciplines in STEM. These school districts have been selected based on previous participation in similar teacher development programs, and all have working relationships with co-PI Sears through his faculty and university field supervisor roles in the UTeach RGV Program at UTRGV. Changes/Problems: All activities were paused due to comply with requirements and recommendations from the US CDC, the State of Texas, and local/regional officials. APDI and other activities planned for summer 2020 were cancelled. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?
Nothing Reported
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? We will pursue our goals in accordance to recommendations from the CDC, the State of Texas,and local county and/or municipal officials. All activities will meet these recommendations.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Unfortunately, all planning and planned activities were abruptly cancelled because of restrictions due to COVID-19, effective March 20, 2020.
Publications
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Progress 04/15/19 to 04/14/20
Outputs
Target Audience:This program targets local area teachers at regional school districts, whoserve approximately 250,000 students, including more than 70,000 local area high school students. Collaborating districts have agreed to disseminate RFA to all high school teachers in various disciplines in STEM. These school districts have been selected based on previous participation in similar teacher development programs, and all have working relationships with co-PI Sears through his faculty and university field supervisor roles in the UTeach RGV Program at UTRGV. Changes/Problems: The award was fully executed on April 4 2019, about onemonths later than expected. (The grant proposal included a tentative start date of March 1, 2019). Unfortunately, the delay cause us not to be able to execute one significant portion of the grant, which was the coordination with UTRGV High Scholar Program, which was planned almost entirely before the official start of the grant. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? As part of this program, a four day (28 contact hours) professional development workshop was coordinated and offered to the participants. The professional development workshop (which we call the Agroecology Professional Development Institute), combines field visits to collaborating insitutions, including USDA-APHIS and USDA-ARS Facilities, local area farms, Texas A&M Agrilife, and UTRGV laboratories to introduce teachers to different locally relevant opportunities for career training and career options in food, agriculture, and natural resources sciences. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Updates have been provided and posted to UTRGV website, www.utrgv.edu/agroecology, and at UTRGV's Center for Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Advancement (www.utrgv.edu/SARA). UTRGV media also did a piece on it, which was shared throughout the University community.The Newsroom - UTRGV creates Agroecology Professional Development Institute What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Continue with the protocol of recruitment and selection of teacher participants Liaise more closely with UTRGV Math and Science Academy to set up participation in the UTRGV High Scholars Program
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Successfully recruited teacher participants through email, disseminated through local area school districts. Atotal of 112 teachers submitted applications through an on-line portal 26 teachers were selected based on relevant criteria, and a committment to participate in all four days of the workshop. (A total of 24 teachers completed all four days of workshops). PI Racelis and Sears collaborated with Dr. Dan Plas (consultant) to design APDI.
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