Progress 05/01/22 to 04/30/23
Outputs
Target Audience:The Farm to Classroom program targeted both current and future educators, of all grade levels and subject areas, who are seeking to increase their own agricultural literacy and develop skills in agricultural literacy teaching methods. Both pre-service and in-service teachers were encouraged to participate in the program to increase their awareness of the need for agricultural literacy in the school systems and to build their confidence in incorporating agriculture topics into the curriculum oftheir core subject areas. The pre-service teachers were targeted within the College of Education and Curriculum at Mississippi State University, and the targeted in-service teachers were within the state of Mississippi as well as nearby states. Teachers of various ages, race, gender, ethnicity, experience, background, and content areawere encouraged to participate in the Farm to Classroom program. In-service teachers were recruited to participate in the online workshopportion of the program. Advertisement for this program included announcements and notifications on multiple Farm to Classroom social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. A seperate page on the Farm to Classroom website was dedicated to the description of the workshop with the incentive of 2 free CEUs, to encourage participation, as well as an access to a registration form. Every K-12 school district superintendent was contacted via email with a description of the workshop, a digital flyer, and an access to a registration form. The superintendents were encouraged to distribute the email to their teachers. Out of the 93 in-service teachers who registered for the workshop, 57 participants completed the online professional development workshop and were able to recieve their certification as an Agricultural Literacy Ambassador. Pre-service teacher preparing to teach grades K-12 in various core curriculums (english/language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies) were targeted through the Mississippi in Excellence Teaching Program scholars in both the fall and spring semesters. Through their program coordinator, these students were encouraged to participate in multiple agriculture literacy activities that they could potentially use in their future classes to increase agricultural literacy awareness. In the fall semester, 82 students participated in the actvities, and 51 students were scheduled to participate in the spring semester. Changes/Problems:Due to the large increase of applicants for the Farm to Classroom Professional Development Training workshop, we had trouble with the Canvas software crashing and not allowing participants into the system. Also because of the large amount of participants, mass amounts of emails had to be sent which concluded in some email systems crashing and becoming blocked. However, this issue was quickly solved with allowing new access to the systems and will be prepared for during the next workshop. Several participants had trouble with recieving their free CEU's. This could be linked to poor communication on how to access the system and apply to recieve them. For next year, we will provide more clear instructions and trouble shooting ideas to prepare for these problems. In regards to the pre-service teaching Agricultural Literacy seminars, we had trouble with the distribution of evaluation surveys. To resolve this for future seminars, we will have the participants complete the surveys during the seminar to encourage responses. We will also include mutliple forms to access the survey to account for other issues. We were also inconsistant with following up with the pre-service teachers after their student teaching expereince, so we will create a timeline and pre-made survey to prepare for the spring 2023 seminar and following seminars. Creating regular content for the program's social media platforms has also proved to be a struggle. Currently, we are tryingto alleviate this problem by pre-making posts through the Canvas Pro platform. We are also discussing creating "how to" videos and short agricultural literacy lessons. We will also create a timeline for content to be more consistent with our posts. Change: Ohio State should be removed as a collaborating partner. We have never worked with Ohio State. Change: Co-PI Julie White's home department should be changed from political science to School of Human Sciences. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The Agricultural Literacy Professional Development Training workshop was offered to in-service K-12 teachers and educators in October 2022. This workshop was structured for a four week term through the online Canvas platform. The online set up of the workshop allowed for more educators to participate from throughout Mississippi, as well as from outside of the state. The workshop was also self-paced which allowed for flexibility that worked with the participants' schedules. During the workshop, participants were given the opportunity to increase their own agricultural literacy as well as develop their skills in bringing agricultural literacy into their classrooms. The Professional Development Training workshop allowed participants to gain more information on agricultural literacy, disciplinary literacy, content area literacy, Mississippi agriculture commodities, and the National Agricultural Literacy Outcomes (NALO). Throughout the course, participants were able to access websites, articles, and additional readings that were related to the previously mentioned topics. The goal of of these resources is that the participants will be able to take what they learned from them and apply it to their classroom curriculum and teaching styles. Participants were able to explore agricultural education pedagogy and how they can use that as an example for how they can incorporate agricultural literacy into their classrooms. Finally, at the end of the course, participants were challenged to incorporate what they learned into creating a lesson plan. The lesson plan had to incorporate one of the four core subject areas, include a Mississippi agriculture commodity, incorporate the NALOs,and be relevant to the grade level that they teach. This allowed for participants to apply their knowledge in creating a useful curriculum, as well as give participants confidence in teaching agricultural literacy topics. At completion ofthe course, participants had the opportunity to express if they would recommend the workshop to some of their peers. Below are some of the participant's comments as to why they responded with "yes": "This course provided clarifying definitions of agricultural concepts and provided viable resources to make ag integration effortless". "I would recommend Farm to Classroom to a colleague becuase I know it will make them a better teacher". "I feel like this is one of the more practically useful PDs I have done in recent years, and we have a lot of students who raise livestock and are involved in ag & FFA at our school". "It definitely makes you think about how your classroom is set up and how you can implement this new strategy and device". "More teachers need to incorporate some type of agriculture so students will have a better understanding of the importance". Agricultrual Literacy seminars wereoffered to the Mississippi Excellence in Teaching Program undergraduate students in September 2022 and March 2023. The September 2022 seminar was divided between two days, and they each lasted for four hours. A total of 82 pre-service teaching students participated in this seminar. The March 2023 seminar lasted for only one day and consisted of four hours. A total of 51 students participated in this seminar. Both seminars began with an introduction of the Farm to Classroom program with an explanation of Agricultural Literacy and its importance in the education system. They were also introduced to the Mississippi agriculture commodities that are recognized by the state.Afterwards, the participants were given an example of an English Language Arts Agriclutral Literacy lesson, featuring Dr. Temple Grandin and one of her books. This read aloud example gave the participants the opportunity the understand that ages of students can be read to and then effectively discuss the information.The participants then engaged in several Agricultural Literacy lessons and activities featuring curriculum that could be found through the Farm to Classroom website and through the Mississippi Farm Bureau Ag in the Classroom platform. These activities were meant to show the participants how easily agricultural literacy can be incorportated into core curriculum lessons. After experiencing these examples, they were able to create and discuss how they could incorporate the Mississippi agriculture commodities into their future core areas of teaching. At the end of the seminar, the participants were asked to complete a Qualitive evaluation survey. When asked how informative the seminar was, all of the participants ranked the seminar as "quite a bit informative" or "extremely informative". When asked how entertaining the seminar activities were, the majority of participants ranked the activities as "quite a bit entertaining" and "extremely entertaining". How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The Farm to Classroom team has created a website and multiple social media platforms in order to engage with our target audiences and interested parties. After registration forthe Professional Development Training workshop was closed, the number of applicants was announced on the Professional Development page of the website. Once the participants became certified Agricultural Literacy Ambassadors, those who were willing were asked to submit a picture of themselves, a short biography, and a statement about agricultural literacy to be featured on the Farm To Classroom social media page. This will hopefully draw attention to our program and allow interested audiences to contact past participants. During the pre-service teacher Agricultural Literacy seminars, social media posts were made featuring the participants and the agricultural literacy activities. At the conclusion of the seminars, selected participants were asked to be highlighted in a video. These videos showcased the participant, what they learned from the seminar, and what their favorite actviity was. These videos were featured on social media in the weeks after the seminar took place as a review. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Goal 1: K-12 teachers will embed agricultural literacy instruction into core subjects (English Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies). Objective 1A: Teachers will improve their awareness and knowledge of agriculture and make connections to their appropriategrade level subject curriculum. Objective 1B: Teachers will increasingly implement agricultural literacy to effectively teach towards the Mississippi Stateacademic standards. Objective 1C: Teachers will increasingly implement strategies to help students effectively communicate about agricultureconcepts. To continue to achieve success within goal 1 and its objectives, the Farm to Classroom team will reach out to the Professional Development Training participants who agreed to be active Agricultural Literacy Ambassadors. The team will strengthen the connection with these ambassadors and assess the agricultural literacy impact that they have in their classrooms and school systems. We will also continue to host the Farm to Classroom Professional Development Training workshop, and we will continue to host it via the Canvas platform and keep it self-paced. The team will also continue to keep the Farm to Classroom website updated with information and resources that educators can access and utilize in their classrooms. Goal 2: K-12 pre-service teachers will increase collaboration with in-service teachers across disciplines while student teaching. Objective 2A: Pre-service agriculture teachers will demonstrate appropriate collaboration with in-service core subject teachers toembed concepts within coursework to enhance the student learning experience. Objective 2B: Pre-service College of Education teachers will demonstrate appropriate collaboration with in-service teachers toembed agriculture concepts within coursework to enhance the student learning experience. To reach goal 2 and its objectives, the Farm to Classroom team will continue to collaborate with the Mississippi Excellence in Teaching Program to host the Agricultural Literacy seminar for pre-service teachers. We will also be more consistent in following up with an evaluation survey of the seminar, as well as follow up with the participants after their student teaching expereince to determine relevance of the seminar. Goal 3: Educators will access multiple forms of agricultural literacy resources, programming, and curriculum all in one use-friendly web-based interface. To acheive success in goal 3, the Farm to Classroom team will continue to update the program website and regular post information on social media platforms. The current website resources will continue to be updated, and other resources will be added to the website for variety in agricultural literacy tools. Agricultural literacy tools and resources will also be highlighted on the social media platforms.We will strive to reach more people through our social media posts and gain a stronger following that will hopefully lead to more activity on the program website.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
It is important for the general population to be agriculturally literate because it allows for them to be well-rounded consumers. However, with the younger generations being at least three generations removed from the farm, students lack inunderstanding the production of food and agriculture. Therefore, the goal of the Farm to Classroom Professional Development Program is to strenghten the teaching of agricultural literacy in K-12 classrooms. Throughout the year, the Farm to Classroom program has givenin-service and pre-service teachers the opportunity to increase their agriculture awareness and provide them tools, education, and resources to help them incorporate agricultural literacy into their classrooms through core topics. Goal 1: K-12 teachers will embed agricultural literacy instruction into core subjects (English Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies). Objective 1A: Teachers will improve their awareness and knowledge of agriculture and make connections to their appropriategrade level subject curriculum. Objective 1A was acheived through participation and completion of the October 2022 Professional Development Training workshop. In-service teachers were encouraged to participate in this workshop that was designed to educate them on the importance of agricultural literacy and provide them with knowledge and resources that they could incorporate into their classrooms. In the October 2022 Professional Development Training workshop, 93 in-service teachers and educators registered for the workshop. Of those 93 who were registered, 57 in-service teachers and educators participated in and completed the workshop. At completion of the workshop, the 57 participants were certified as agricultural literacy ambassadors, and they each received two free CEU's. The final assignment that the participants were asked to complete involved a lesson plan/curriculum that they needed to create. The participants were asked to create a lesson plan relevanto the grade level and subject that they currently teach. They also had to incorporate an Mississippi agriculture commodity to prove that they could make a connection between their lessons and agriculture. Also at the end of the 2022 Professional Development Training workshop, the participants were given the opportunity to complete a Qualtrics evaluation survey and provide feedback regarding the workshop. Participants were able to share what information they gained from the workshop that they determined to be the most valuable. After reviewing their responses, the most common themes found were (1) learning how easy it is to incorporate agriculture into a lesson, (2) understanding the importance of agricultural literacy, (3) and increasing awareness of Mississippi's agriculture commoditys. Below is some of the responses we received regarding these themes: "I learned how simple it is to write lesson plans to share Farm to Classroom to our students. Another bit of information that intrigued me was knowing how many different crops Mississippi grows, harvests, and contributes to our economy. I am super excited to begin teaching this information to my students". "The most valuable information is learning what agriculture education is and what it means to be agriculturally literate. I learned how easily it would be in incorporate agriculture education in my class using the resources in this course". "I learned what Agricultural Literacy was. I have learned the importance of incorporating agriculture in our other subjects. Agriculture is easy to include in lessons for any grade level. I didn't realize all of the exports that our state offers". Objective 1B: Teachers will increasingly implement agricultural literacy to effectively teach towards theMississippi Stateacademic standards. Objective 1C: Teachers will increasingly implement strategies to help students effectively communicate about agricultureconcepts. Objectives 1B and 1C were accomplished after educatorsparticipatedinthe Fall 2022 Farm to Classroom Professional Development Training, and within their individual teaching environment. After completing the the Professional Development Training, participants were given 6 months to implement the content and information, that they had gained from the workshop, into their classrooms. At the end of the 6 month period, the participants who agreed to be contacted after finishing the training, were sent an email asking them to participate in a phone call interview. The email consisted of information regarding the need for the interview as well as details about the interview. Out of the 33 participants who were contacted, only 3 participants agreed to be interviewed. From the interviews, we found 3 major themes. (1) The participants found the information and resources offered through Farm to Classroom to be helpful in their daily classes. (2) Students were able to apply what they learned to real life. (3) Students were excited and engaged in their classes. Below are some of the comments throughout those interviews: "Anything that they can see in real life is eye opening to them (the students) and causes them to be engaged and involved in their class. It is life changing!" "I really enjoyed it (the training) and thought it was super interesting and learned a lot." "I used an exports lesson to show life skills to students. I didn't realize all of the different exports we (Mississippi) had and showed students all of the jobs they could have." "The program was a good way for teachers to learn. I found a lot of activities to use in my classroom." Goal 2: K-12 pre-service teachers will increase collaboration with in-service teachers across disciplines while student teaching. Objective 2A: Pre-service agriculture teachers will demonstrate appropriate collaboration with in-service core subject teachers toembed concepts within coursework to enhance the student learning experience. Objective 2B: Pre-service College of Education teachers will demonstrate appropriate collaboration with in-service teachers toembed agriculture concepts within coursework to enhance the student learning experience. Objectives 2A and 2B were addressed through the fall 2022 and spring 2023 pre-service Farm to Classroom seminars. From both of the seminars, a total of 133 students from the Mississippi Teaching in Exellence Program attended the workshops to increase their awareness of agricultural literacy and how they can incorporate it into their future classrooms and curriculum. The participants were given the opportunity to share how they might could incorporate agricultural literacy into their future classrooms, and they were also able to participate in agricultural literacy activities geared towards different grade levels. Participants were given a Qualtrics evaluation survey to provide feedback about the seminar. When asked how likely the participants were to include agriculture literacy in their future classroom insturction, the majority of the 53 respondents responded with "likely" or "very likely". Goal 3: Educators will access multiple forms of agricultural literacy resources, programming, and curriculum all in one use-friendly web-based interface. Goal 3 was acheived through the Farm to Classroom website by providing users with information about the program. By accessing the website, users will gain information regarding the Farm to Classroom team, social media platforms, professional development opportunities,curriculum and field trip resources. In the last 180 days (about 6 months) the Farm to Classroom website has recieved 283 total visitors. Of those visitors, 88.2% were new visitors and 11.8% were returning, 81.3% came directly to the website and 18.8% found the website organically. We believe these numbers can be reflected from our increase in social media presence, pre-service teacher seminars, and agriculture literacy ambassadors.
Publications
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Progress 05/01/21 to 04/30/22
Outputs
Target Audience:Target Audience: The Farm to Classroom program targeted educators who are seeking to increase their agricultural literacy and create new teaching methods regarding agricultural literacy. Farm to classroom targeted In-service and pre-service teachers in the state of Mississippi to participate in the Farm to Classroom Professional Development opportunities. These audiences were targeted to increase their awareness of agricultural literacy and show them how they can incorporate it into their classrooms and curriculum. Teachers of various ages, gender, ethnicity, race, content area, and years of service were encouraged to participate in the Farm to Classroom professional development opportunities. Efforts: In-service teachers teaching grades K-12 core curriculum (English/language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies) were targeted through social media advertising on the platforms Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. 23 in-service teachers registered toparticipate in the October 2021 Farm to Classroom Professional Development training. Out of those 23 teachers, 11 participated and completed the professional development. Allowing them to become certified agricultural literacy ambassadors and receive two CEU's. Pre-service teachers preparing to teach grades K-12 in the core curriculum (English/language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies). These students were invited to participate in agricultural literacy through the contact of their program coordinator. 86students attended the workshops to increase their awareness of agricultural literacy and how they can incorporate it into their future classrooms and curriculum. Changes/Problems:Due to the ease of the first professional development being conducted online and the lingering impacts of the COVID pandemic, the Farm to Classroom professional development training was conducted via canvas. Canvas is a learning management system that Mississippi State University utilizes for course work. Using Canvas, allowed participants to access the course anytime convenient to them. Given the current circumstances and the busy schedules of teachers, this seems to be the most relevant form of professional development at this time.Although this does take away from the face-to-face value of networking, participants were able to discuss ideas and content within the discussion boards on canvas. Multiple participants utilized this opportunity and shared valuable information with others, allowing for successful online networking. Change: Ohio State should be removed as a collaborating partner. We have never worked with Ohio State. Change: Co-PI Julie White's home department should be changed from political science to School of Human Sciences. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Agricultural literacy professional development training was offered to in-service k-12 teachers in October 2020. This professional development training was offered for four weeks via the platform Canvas. Participants were given the opportunity to explore information about agricultural literacy, content area literacy, disciplinary literacy, Mississippi agricultural commodities, and the National Agricultural Literacy Outcomes (NALO). Websites, articles, and additional readings were available for participants to deepen their understanding of these topics before being able to apply them to teaching styles and methods. Participants then explored agricultural education pedagogy and how to incorporate agricultural literacy into their classrooms. Lastly, participants were challenged to create a lesson plan they could use within one of the four core subject areas, while incorporating agricultural literacy, NALOs, and one of the other literacies discussed in the content. Thus, allowing participants to apply their new knowledge to create a product useful for their curriculum. Throughout the training, participants had the opportunity to discuss what they have learned and network with other participants. Below, are some of the comments made throughout those discussions: "Another takeaway was realizing how many crops MS actually produces and how many farms we have in our state.I had no idea our state produces such a variety of crops, such as rice!Just the fact that we have 34,700 farms is unbelievable to me.I had no idea that MS had so much farmland. I am definitely interested in learning where a lot of these farms are located and which crops each one produces." "After reading the research on agricultural literacy, I realize that I am not as familiar with Mississippi agriculture as I perceived myself to be. I definitely need to become more agriculturally literate so that I can engage in an intelligent conversation and feel confident enough to share my knowledge and understanding of Mississippi agriculture and all of its intertwining relationships." "The Pillars of Agricultural Literacy. These pillars explain the relationship between agriculture and the environment, food, fiber, energy, animals, lifestyles, technology, and the economy. I definitely have a long way to go before I will be able to consider myself agriculturally literate." "Before I started this Farm to Classroom Professional Development I had an idea of what agriculture literacy meant. As I read through the lessons, I realized that it entailed a lot more than just knowing about agriculture." "While my master's is in agricultural education, I don't remember ever having learned about the 5 Pillars of Agricultural Literacy, but it seems like they would be critical to know when teaching agriculture. The pillars are useful for teachers in the classroom, as well as building industry connections and probably helping students kick off their careers. The third takeaway is that the foundational understanding of agriculture for average Americans can come from the 5 Pillars." "In Module 3, one big takeaway I got was learning that agriculture can be taught at any grade level... k-college! It was interesting to learn that agriculture could be as simple as teaching nutrition to a kindergartener or as perplex as teaching landscaping to a college student! Another interesting fact was learning the different styles of teaching agriculture. It was nice to read the similarities and differences between my subject area and agriculture. The different principles of teaching and learning were also very informative. Most of those definitely can be used in any content area." "In this module, I learned that agriculture has many different parts that go into it than I originally thought. Of course I thought about food production and methods of farming however, as I read I realized it can also be connected to engineering and mathematics with building facilities and machines. Agricultural instruction is also a good opportunity to bring in people from the community and have them explain their jobs to the students. It could even lead to taking the students on field trips to see them at work and to see if any students would be interested in that field of study in the future." "The biggest takeaway I got from this module was that in order to prepare our students for college and career, we are going to have to teach with a multi-layered approach. As the articles discuss, layering basic, intermediate and disciplinary instruction throughout a student's K-12 career is important to their being able to interact successfully in their future careers. What we teach shouldn't be considered a linear set of skills to be taught, as mentioned in one of the articles. It is important to continue to revisit the many facets of learning - content and disciplinary - throughout the student's time in school in order to effectively instruct them and guide them into being lifelong learners. Once they have these sets of strategies, there should be no end to what the student should be able to learn and accomplish in any and all disciplines. I am excited to see this type of approach and to see the research behind it." "My big takeaways from this module are that I now see how we must start a lot earlier to establishment the core terminology and then build on it as they move through the different grade levels. Establishing a foundation in the kindergarten and 1st grade level is important to "plant the seed". Goal setting and reflection is important also as to help the students to keep focus and inspiration. Helping them question what they know and want to learn will help them see the importance the need for basic literacy so they can build it for future learning." Agricultural literacy workshops were offered for preservice teachers in Fall2021 and Spring 2022. A total of 86students participated in the workshops. The workshop introduced participants to the Farm to Classroom program and the concept of agricultural literacy. The workshop provided information about the types of literacies, types of text, agriculture education, Temple Grandin, Mississippi agricultural commodities, and how agriculture can be incorporated into the core curriculum. A read-aloud session was used to show students that people of all ages can be read to and can effectively discuss information. Students were then given the opportunity to participate in three different agricultural lessons which included a soils lesson, a strawberry DNA lesson, and an ice cream making lesson. Throughout these activities, students discussed ways to incorporate these lessons into their future classrooms and how they relate to the core subjects (ELA, Math, Science, and Social Studies). How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The Farm to Classroom team has utilized thewebsite and social media platforms created last year to increase outreach and audience engagement. The user-friendly website is available for past future participants, as well as the general public. The website provides information on the Farm to Classroom Program, introduces the Farm to Classroom team, displays additional information about upcoming professional development opportunities, and provides a database of agricultural-related resources for educators to access. The social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are used to disseminate agricultural literacy information, updated Farm to Classroom information, and other opportunities and resources for teachers.Furthermore, the Farm to Classroom team has used the data generated from the first professional development to create research conference presentations and papers. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Goal 1: K-12 teachers will embed agricultural literacy instruction into core subjects (English Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies). Objective 1A: Teachers will improve their awareness and knowledge of agriculture and make connections to their appropriate grade level subject curriculum. Objective 1B: Teachers will increasingly implement agricultural literacy to effectively teach toward the Mississippi State academic standards. Objective 1C: Teachers will increasingly implement strategies to help students effectively communicate about agriculture concepts. To continue to establish a foundation of goal 1 and its objectives, the Farm to Classroom team will reach out to past participants and those who accepted to be agricultural literacy ambassadors to assess the impact of agricultural literacy in their classrooms. We will assist those who reach out for help and continue to provide resources through our website and social media platforms. Goal 2: K-12 pre-service teachers will increase collaboration with in-service teachers across disciplines while student teaching. Objective 2A: Pre-service agriculture teachers will demonstrate appropriate collaboration with in-service core subject teachers to embed concepts within coursework to enhance the student learning experience. Objective 2B: Pre-service College of Education teachers will demonstrate appropriate collaboration with in-service teachers to embed agriculture concepts within coursework to enhance the student learning experience. To reach goal 2 and its objectives, the Farm to Classroom team will reach out to the participants of the workshops to assess if they have collaborated with in-service teachers to build their agricultural literacy. If those participants have not, we will try to assist them in finding an in-service teacher to collaborate with to continue creating a foundation for agricultural literacy within their future classrooms. However, in the past year, this has been difficult due to the COVID 19 and getting people to engage with us after the workshop due to the hectic schedules of teaching. Goal 3: Educators will access multiple forms of agricultural literacy resources, programming, and curriculum all in one user-friendly web-based interface. To reach goal 3, the Farm to Classroom team will continue to update our website and social media platforms. The resource database will be updated as needed to provide our audience with the latest agricultural literacy tools for their classrooms. We strive to reach more people through our website and gain a stronger following on our social media platforms by posting at least twice a week and interacting with our audiences. We hope to continue to gain a stronger social media presence. We strive to reach 300 followers Facebook followers, 200 Instagram followers, and 100 Twitter followers.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
The goal of the Farm to Classroom Professional Development Program is to strengthen the teaching of agricultural literacy in K-12 classrooms. Agricultural literacy is vitally important to our society when youth are three to four generations removed from the farm and lack an understanding of the importance of agriculture. Therefore, it is important the state of Mississippi works to fix this knowledge gap. Throughout the past year, the Farm to Classroom Professional Development Program has provided in-service and pre-service teachers the opportunity to increase their agricultural literacy and the tools to incorporate agricultural literacy into their classrooms. Goal 1: K-12 teachers will embed agricultural literacy instruction into core subjects (English Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies). Objective 1A: Teachers will improve their awareness and knowledge of agriculture and make connections to their appropriate grade level subject curriculum. Objective 1A was reached through the October 2021Professional Development Training. In-service teachers were given the opportunity to participate in the 2021Farm to Classroom Professional Development in October. 23 in-servic teachers registered to participate in the October 2020 Farm to Classroom Professional Development training. Out of those 23 teachers, 12participated and completed the professional development. Allowing them to become certified agricultural literacy ambassadors and receive two CEU's. At the end of the 2021Professional Development, participants were given the opportunity to provide feedback through a Qualtrics survey evaluation. 11of the 12participants completed this survey and we found three themes within the responses - Various Resources/Resource Availability,Incorporation of Agriculture into Curriculum/Lessons, and Real Life Connections/Impacts of Agriculture.Below, issome of the feedback we received: "I found the availability of resources that are out there is vast. I enjoyed looking at the different sites and reading the information about the importance and practicality of implementation of agriculture literacy in the classroom." "I learned about many more agriculture resources out there for my classroom. So many more websites available with lesson plans that I will be taking advantage of in the future... " "I truly learned a lot. I think the most valuable information I will take away will be how to incorporate agricultural into my ELA lesson plans." "Since I am now a part of our school's new curriculum team, I hope that I can encourage my team to incorporate agricultural ideals into our curriculum." "The most valuable thing I learned was ways to explain to other teachers how to incorporate ag literacy into their classrooms by reading articles that are agriculture based and explaining the jobs that are out there and the importance of agriculture in their everyday classrooms." "I think it will get students more interested and keep them engaged when they are learning about real-world information and situations. It will also keep them engaged to know how it all effects their personal lives." "I felt it was eye opening in some ways as to how simple it could be to incorporate this knowledge into my lessons. It is also very important that students learn the importance of agriculture in our daily lives and in the world."? Objective 1B: Teachers will increasingly implement agricultural literacy to effectively teach towards the Mississippi State academic standards. Objective 1C: Teachers will increasingly implement strategies to help students effectively communicate about agriculture concepts. Objectives 1B and 1C were reached through the 2021Farm to Classroom Professional Development Training as well as outside factors of each individual's environment. Participants were given the opportunity to complete a prettiest-posttest survey. Within this survey, participants were asked to rate their level of agreement with statements on a 5-point scale from "definitely not" to "definitely yes." Participants were provided with the following five statements for both the pretest and posttest: I consider myselfagriculturally aware. I consider myself agriculturally literate. I amconfident in incorporating agricultural topics into my subject area. I can incorporate content literacy and agricultural literacy into a lesson with little difficulty. I can identify and incorporate the Mississippi commodities into my subject area. Results of the preteststatements showed a mean between 3.00 -3.75, except for statement 4 which showed a mean of 2.91. Therefore the majority of participants indicated they might or might not agree with statements 1, 2, 3, and 5. However, the majority of participants indicated their level of agreement as probably not for statement 4. Results of the postteststatements showed a mean between 4.27 - 4.36 for all five statements. The majority of participants indicated their level of agreement as "probably yes" for all five statements. After completing the Farm to Classroom Professional Development, participants were given 6 months to implement and experiment with the content and information provided to them throughout the training. Participants were contacted and asked to participate in an interviewto provide feedback on theprofessional development.One of the 11 participants volunteered to participate in the interview this year. Below, are some of the comments made throughout the interview: "I really like the Mississippi Commoditieis. Because when my kids first come into the classroom that's one of the first things we go over. Like what is a commodity and we learn more about that. So I took something out of that and those resources. And the literacy, I really liked those because that was a way for me to explain to my officers how and why this is important." "I know I used the National Ag. in the Classroom. I use that one a lot. I use the forestry stuff. And then I think it is the American Farm Bureau. There's one I had never been on the website before and I was like oh my goodness there's some good resources on here. So I started using those." Goal 2: K-12 pre-service teachers will increase collaboration with in-service teachers across disciplines while student teaching. Objective 2A: Pre-service agriculture teachers will demonstrate appropriate collaboration with in-service core subject teachers to embed concepts within coursework to enhance the student learning experience. Objective 2B: Pre-service College of Education teachers will demonstrate appropriate collaboration with in-service teachers to embed agriculture concepts within coursework to enhance the student learning experience. Objectives 2A and 2B were addressed by the 2021 pre-service Farm to Classroom workshops. 86students attended the workshops to increase their awareness of agricultural literacy and how they can incorporate it into their future classrooms and curriculum. Goal 3: Educators will access multiple forms of agricultural literacy resources, programming, and curriculum all in one user-friendly web-based interface. Goal 3 was reached through our website and social media platforms we created the first year. From May 22, 2021, to April 25, 2022, we have had 392 new website users with 559 sessions and 3,323 page views. 90.7% of users were new while 9.3% were returning users. Of those use The channels our users have used to reach our website have been direct (56.5%), social (34.9%), organic search (7.8%), and referral (0.8%). Our social media presence has grown significantly in the past year. Our Facebook page has 260-page followers. Our Instagram account has a total of 132 followers. Our Twitter account only has 27 followers at this time. We reached our goal of having 100 followers on all platforms except Twitter. However, twitter seems to have much less engagement even though the same content is posted.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Allen, S. K., Moss, C. M., Morrison, C. C., & Lemley, S. M. Perceptions of an agricultural literacy professional development program. Southern Association of Agricultural Scientists Agricultural Education Section, New Orleans, LA, February 13-15, 2022.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Morrison, C. C., Allen, S. K., Lemley, S. M. Farm to Classroom: Making agriculture accessible to K-12 educators. North American Colleges and Teachers of Agriculture Conference, Wooster, OH, June 20-24, 2022
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Progress 05/01/20 to 04/30/21
Outputs
Target Audience:The Farm to Classroom program targeted educators who are seeking to increase their agricultural literacy and create new teaching methods regarding agricultural literacy. Farm to classroom targeted In-service and pre-service teachers in the state of Mississippito participate in the Farm to Classroom Professional Development opportunities. These audiences were targeted to increase their awareness of agricultural literacy and show them how they can incorporate it into their classrooms and curriculum. Teachers of various ages, gender, ethnicity, race, content area,and years of service were encouraged to participate in the Farm to Classroom professional development opportunities. In-service teachers teaching grades K-12 core curriculum (English/language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies) were targeted through social media advertising on the platform Facebook. 43 in-service teachers registered to participate in the October 2020 Farm to Classroom Professional Development training. Out of those 43 teachers, 18 participated and completedthe professional development. Allowing them to become certified agricultural literacy ambassadors and receive two CEU's. Pre-service teachers preparing to teach grades K-12 in the core curriculum (English/language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies) were targeted through the Mississippi in Excellence Teaching Programscholars. These students were invited to participate in agricultural literacy through the contact of their program coordinator. 68 students attended theworkshops to increase their awareness of agricultural literacy and how they can incorporate it into their future classrooms and curriculum. Changes/Problems:Due to the impact of the COVID pandemic, the Farm to Classroom professional development training was conducted via canvas. Canvas is a learning management system that Mississippi State University utilizes for course work. Since there was a lack of traveling, funds were directed to updating faculty and staff equipment to reach the needs of online professional development training. Networking was a bit more difficult in this setting, but participants were able to discuss ideas and content within the discussion boards on canvas. Multiple participants utilized this opportunity and shared valuable information with others, allowing for successful online networking. At the start of the program, we did not have a website or social media platforms, so outreach was limited and our following was small to none. The first people to participate were reached through the program team's personal Facebook. The recently created social media platforms will allow us to increase our following and awareness of the Farm to Classroom professional development opportunities. Change: Ohio State should be removed as a collaborating partner. We have never worked with Ohio State. Change: Co-PI Julie White's home department should be changed from political science to School of Human Sciences. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Agricultural literacy professional development training was offered to in-service k-12 teachers in October 2020. This professional development training was offered for four weeks via the platform Canvas. Participants were given the opportunity to explore information about agricultural literacy, content area literacy, disciplinary literacy,Mississippi agricultural commodities, and the National Agricultural Literacy Outcomes (NALO). Websites, articles, and additional readings were available for participants to deepen their understandings of these topics before being able to apply them to teaching styles and methods. Participants then explored agricultural education pedagogy and how to incorporate agricultural literacy into their classrooms. Lastly, participants were challenged to create a lesson plan they could use within one of the four core subject areas, while incorporating agricultural literacy, NALOs, and one of the other literacies discussed in the content.Thus, allowing participants to apply their new knowledge to create a product useful for their curriculum. Throughout the training, participants had the opportunity to discuss what they have learned and network with other participants. Below, are some of the comments made throughout those discussions: "Our future holds a definite place for agricultural literacy. As an educator, it is easy for me to see the impact, instruction, and intellectual conversations that are taking place surrounding this topic. I look forward to learning more, and researching, and sharing with my colleagues and students. Agricultural literacy has captured the attention of America. " "Another big takeaway is that in order to be more effective, disciplinary literacy must begin in kindergarten and continue into high school. When the skills are "layered" at every grade level, they become like building blocks for students as they move from one level to the next. This layering also makes it easier to develop useful habits early in their education. By allowing students to collaborate, talk, and write about a given topic, even as early as kindergarten, students will become more curious and learn to ask meaningful questions. As a teacher, I strive to find ways to help students developa deeper understandingof material being taught, and the Grade Level benchmarks from NALO would enhance what we are already learning in our Science curriculum. In other words, I don't feel that it's extra material, but it adds "layers" and makes the information more meaningful by letting them know what agriculture means for their lives." "I learned that I need to be teaching more agricultural topics in my chemistry classroom. I am always looking for ways to introduce real-world topics into my class, but I try to pull from my background in biochemistry. I have been neglecting the wealth of topics available in agriculture. Moving forward I will be using more agriculture topics as real world examples... I learned I need to bring my friend that teaches Ag to my class to share his wealth of knowledge about the topic with my students from time-to-time, or at least combine classes to get an overlap of information. We are always sharing ideas about class, but we have never collaborated in class and I think that is something that would benefit both of us and the students." Agricultural literacy workshops were offered for the Mississippi Excellence in Teaching Program undergraduate students in March 2021. Two hour and a half long workshops were offered to the students, due to the size of the group willing to participate and COVID guidelines. A total of 68 students participated in the workshops. The workshop introduced participants to the Farm to Classroom program and the concept of agricultural literacy. The workshop providedinformation about the types of literacies, types of text,agriculture education, Temple Grandin, Mississippi agricultural commodities, and how agriculture can be incorporated into the core curriculum. A read-aloud session was used to show students that people of all ages can be read to and can effectively discuss information. Students were then given the opportunity to create and share ideas on lessons they would create to incorporate agricultural literacy using a specific standard from their content area and a Mississippi commodity. At the end of the workshops, participants were asked to participate in a 3-2-1 evaluation. They were to provide 3 things they learned, 2 things they connected to their content area, and 1 thing they still had a question about. We received a lot of insightful feedback. Below, are a few of the comments students provided: "Agricultural literacy is highly important and under-taught. Students need real-life connections to what they are learning. " "I learned about the different types of literacies and how broad it really is. I also learned that literacy doesn't just apply to reading and writing. I learned about how important it is to tie agriculture into learning, for there are quite a few students that could be from an agricultural background." "I learned that it is important to help students, especially here in Mississippi, to grow in their knowledge of agriculture because it is something that directly affects them." "I can incorporate agriculture into every subject area in my classroom in accordance to the standards I am teaching. I also learned that no student is too early to be making those connections between agriculture and other subject areas." How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The Farm to Classroom team has created a website and social media platforms to increase outreach and audience engagement. The user-friendly website is available for past participants, future participants, and the public to utilize. The website provides information on the Farm to Classroom Program, introduces the Farm to Classroom team, displays additional information about upcoming professional development opportunities, and provides a database of agricultural-related resources for educators to access. The social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter were created to engage with our targeted audience and the general public. These platforms are used to share information about Farm to Classroom events and professional development opportunities. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Goal 1: K-12 teachers will embed agricultural literacy instruction into core subjects (English Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies). Objective 1A: Teachers will improve their awareness and knowledge of agriculture and make connections to their appropriate grade level subject curriculum. Objective 1B: Teachers will increasingly implement agricultural literacy to effectively teach towards the Mississippi State academic standards. Objective 1C: Teachers will increasingly implement strategies to help students effectively communicate about agriculture concepts. To continue to establish a foundation of goal 1 and its objectives, the Farm to Classroom team will reach out to past participants and those who accepted to be agricultural literacy ambassadors to assess the impact of agricultural literacy in their classroom. We will assist those who reach out for help and continue to provide resources through our website and social media platforms. Goal 2: K-12 pre-service teachers will increase collaboration with in-service teachers across disciplines while student teaching. Objective 2A: Pre-service agriculture teachers will demonstrate appropriate collaboration with in-service core subject teachers to embed concepts within coursework to enhance the student learning experience. Objective 2B: Pre-service College of Education teachers will demonstrate appropriate collaboration with in-service teachers to embed agriculture concepts within coursework to enhance the student learning experience. To reach goal 2 and its objectives, the Farm to Classroom team will reach out to the participants of the workshops to assess if they have collaborated with in-service teachers to build their agricultural literacy. If those participants have not, we will try to assist them in finding an in-service teacher to collaborate with to continue creating a foundation for agricultural literacy within their future classrooms. Goal 3: Educators will access multiple forms of agricultural literacy resources, programming, and curriculum all in one use-friendly web-based interface. To reach goal 3, the Farm to Classroom team will continue to update our website and social media platforms. The resource database will be updated as need to provide our audience with the latest agricultural literacy tools for their classrooms. We strive to reach more people through our website and gain a stronger following on our social media platforms by posting at least twice a week and interacting with our audiences. We hope to have a strong social media presence and reach 100 followers for each social media platform by this time next year.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
The goal of the Farm to Classroom Professional Development Program is to strengthen the teaching of agricultural literacy inK-12 classrooms.Agricultural literacy is vitally important to our society when youth are three to four generations removed from the farm and lackanunderstanding of the importance of agriculture. Therefore, it is important the state of Mississippi works to fix this knowledge gap.Throughout the past year, theFarm to Classroom Professional Development Program has providedin-service and pre-service teachers the opportunity to increase their agricultural literacy and the tools to incorporate agricultural literacy into their classrooms. Goal 1: K-12 teachers will embed agricultural literacy instruction into core subjects (English Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies). Objective 1A: Teachers will improve their awareness and knowledge of agriculture and make connections to their appropriate grade level subject curriculum. Objective 1A was reached through the October 2020 Professional Development Training. In-service teachers were given the opportunity to participate in the 2020Farm to Classroom Professional Development in October.43 in-service teachers registered to participate in the October 2020 Farm to Classroom Professional Development training. Out of those 43 teachers, 18 participated and completedthe professional development. Allowing them to become certified agricultural literacy ambassadors and receive two CEU's. At the end of the 2020 Professional Development, participants were given the opportunity to provide feedback through a Qualtrics survey evaluation. 14 of the 18 participants completed this survey and we found three themes within the responses - Teacher preparedness and teaching methods,connections to agriculture, and the use of resources and literacies. Below, is some of the feedback we received: "Agriculture is woven into almost every aspect of life and when students have an appreciation for it at an early age, they may have endless opportunities open to them in the future." "Teaching is best described as directing and guiding students on the learning process so that they are able to gain new information and skills, even attitudes. Cross curriculum enthusiasm for learning should come with teaching any topic or subject. Agricultural education not only affects those interested in the development of their skills as a farmer or a student of agriculture, but the information that is gained through using education about agriculture impacts us all." "I was introduced to so many new resources during the duration of this class. I would recommend this course to anyone else, not just agriculture specific teachers. I think ag education should be a much larger part of our students regular curriculum. I feel that teachers may integrate ag education into their lessons more, if they only knew where to begin or had guidelines/standards to help guide them. This course does exactly that and would be beneficial to educators of all subjects and grades." Objective 1B: Teachers will increasingly implement agricultural literacy to effectively teach towards the Mississippi State academic standards. Objective 1C: Teachers will increasingly implement strategies to help students effectively communicate about agriculture concepts. Objectives 1B and 1C were reached through the 2020 Farm to Classroom Professional Development Training as well as outside factors of each individual's environment. After completing the Farm to Classroom Professional Development, participants were given 6 months to implement and experiment withthe content and information provided to them throughout the training. Participants were contacted and asked to participate in a post-interview to provide feedback and information regarding their experience since completing the training. 3 of the 18 participants agreed to participate in the interview. We found three themes within these interviews - hands-on/real-world connections in the classroom, implementation of lesson planningand agricultural activities, and networking with in-service and pre-service teachers.Below, are some of the comments made throughout those interviews: "I mean it's just I feel like we were not as hands on as we once were as a society and getting back in touch with agriculture will help a lot." "I have used some of the lesson plan resources. Uhm they come in handy for the actual planning stage but we started a school garden as a result of some of this we got a grant after we did the program to actually start a school garden and we have been working with that and using that as a teaching tool." "We've been doing some genetics modeling (inaudible) cattle like it's a great modeling tool like if you're trying to breed specific types of cattle you need to know what you are breeding for and how you go about doing it so it's great for teaching genetics." "I think the actual hands-on experience the, the our instructor has and being able to get that information to students like an actual real world scenario versus textbook scenario it makes it a whole lot more relatable." "I always try to in any any position I've ever held I like to use uhm common every-day examples to relate to because if you don't put something out there for people to relate to they don't understand it... So you know that farming is a big part of, of the community in general and so most of them can relate to you know anything that is going on with the crop or you know farming machinery or something like that so you know uhm I think it is important to, to give them something real world instead of something theoretical." Goal 2: K-12 pre-service teachers will increase collaboration with in-service teachers across disciplines while student teaching. Objective 2A: Pre-service agriculture teachers will demonstrate appropriate collaboration with in-service core subject teachers to embed concepts within coursework to enhance the student learning experience. Objective 2B: Pre-service College of Education teachers will demonstrate appropriate collaboration with in-service teachers to embed agriculture concepts within coursework to enhance the student learning experience. Objectives 2A and 2B were addressed by the 2021 pres-service Farm to Classroom workshops.68 students from the Mississippi Teaching in Excellence Programattended theworkshops to increase their awareness of agricultural literacy and how they can incorporate it into their future classrooms and curriculum. Due to COVID restrictions, the connection between in-service and pre-service teachers was limited and will beassessed in the future to reach the full potential of Goal 2 objectives. Participants were given the opportunity to create a foundation of agricultural literacy and how to incorporate it within future classrooms. Goal 3: Educators will access multiple forms of agricultural literacy resources, programming, and curriculum all in one user-friendly web-based interface. Goal 3 was reached througha websiteprovidinginformation about the program including, information about the team, usable resources, and professional development opportunities. The Farm to Classroom team created the Farm to Classroom website and the social media sites Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. From April 1, 2021 to May 17, 2021 we have had 42 new website users with 97 sessions and 1,371 page views. The average session time per user was 7 minutes and 40 seconds. 54.15% of our audience has been male and 33.50% of our audience has been between the ages of 25 and 34. The channels our users have used to reach our website have been direct (86%), social (11.6%), and organic search (1%). Our social media sites are fairly new but have started a following. Our Facebook page has 18-pagefollowersand a total of 16post likes. Our Instagram account has a total of 49followers. Our Twitter account only has 2 followers at this time, due to smaller postings on this account.
Publications
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