Progress 06/15/20 to 12/14/21
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience of this grant project includedSBAE teachers in Louisiana, pre-service teachers in Louisiana and high school students participating in the Agritech credential coursework. The project "STEAMing Up Agricultural and Environmental Literacy Education: Using Louisiana's Coastal Challenges as a Context to Facilitate Innovative Professional Development, Experiential Learning, and Global Engagement Opportunities" is a funded project [award no. 2020-67037-31046] of the RFA of 2020-2021 fiscal year under the Education and Workforce Development Program of the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Competitive Grants Program (AFRI) of the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. This project focused on the AFRI Farm Bill priority area of Bioenergy, Natural Systems, and the Environment by seeking to provide school-based, agricultural education (SBAE) teachers with intensive professional development to increase the number of agricultural and environmentally literate citizens in Louisiana. In 2017, a new Industry-Based Credential, called Agritechnology (Agritech), was introduced to ensure that Louisiana students become literate in more areas of agriculture. As an illustration, the Agritech credential requires that students receive instruction in the following areas: (a) environmental and natural resources, (b) plant science, (c) animal science, (d) agricultural business, (e) mechanics, (f) leadership, and (g) employability skill development. However, this curriculum was introduced with only a basic set of curriculum standards and, as a result, teachers are often not able to successfully certify students in Agritech. Against this backdrop, national education and policy discourse in SBAE has called for more integration of STEM concepts in agriculture (National Research Council, 2009) to develop students' problem-solving abilities and employability skills. Therefore, a problem exists in regard to ensuring that Louisiana teachers have the resources needed to successfully prepare students to become certified while also ensuring they are agriculture and STEM literate (APLU, 2009). Starting in the spring of 2019, the Department of Agricultural and Extension Education and Evaluation (AEEE) at Louisiana State University (LSU) has been developing an expansion to the Agritech curriculum that would provide an expanded content outline in addition to the curriculum's objectives. With this expansion, more content is provided to help teachers more successfully implement the content into their courses. However, teachers are still unsure about how to include STEM content into this curriculum and are in need of professional development to assist with implementation. The purpose of this project was to develop laboratory activities and intensive professional development opportunities for Louisiana teachers focused on the Agritech curriculum with special emphasis on the integration of STEM concepts. The National Research Council (2009) has recommended a more integrated approach to agricultural education by which educators emphasize the teaching and learning of any two or more STEM subjects in agriculture to better foster students' critical thinking, transdisciplinary understandings, and problem-solving abilities. Further, they called for the STEM acronym to be expanded to include an A, i.e., STEAM, to reflect the importance of agriculture in solving the world's global challenges (National Research Council, 2009). To emphasize a STEAM approach, the following two objectives were used to conceptualize and guide the project. ?Project Objectives: Objective #1 - Development of an Innovative Instructional Delivery System: Create laboratory activities and professional development training for Louisiana SBAE teachers, using the train-the-trainer approach, so they can effectively use the Agritech curriculum and facilitate hands-on, STEAM-based laboratory experiences that support the curriculum. By providing professional development to SBAE teachers, they will gain a better understanding of the new curriculum and facilitate quality learning for their students. The project planned to accomplish this objective by selecting 10 Agritech Teacher Ambassadors, two from each of five Louisiana Agriscience Education Teachers Association (LATA) regions, who will engage in intensive professional development training and will then diffuse the curriculum and instructional approaches throughout the state by serving as peer-trainers for other SBAE teachers. The trained 10 Agritech Teacher Ambassadors (after completing their planned professional development program) are expected to lead two professional development events for SBAE teachers in each of five LATA regions and educate 100 SBAE teachers. Objective #2 - Providing a Global Engagement Opportunity: Create an international experience to Costa Rica for 10 Agritech Teacher Ambassadors to help expand their international understandings of STEM concepts and views on environmental issues such as coastal loss to help globalize the curriculum through the development of case studies. Agritech Teacher Ambassadors who engage in an international experience to Costa Rica, a country impacted by coastal loss, will develop a more broad understanding of agricultural and environmental issues by interacting with scientists and leaders in coastal loss. Moreover, this global perspective will ultimately help SBAE teachers create 21st Century leaders prepared to solve complex problems across cultures. The Agritech Teacher Ambassadors will also use this experience to collect data in Costa Rica to assist in the development of four case studies used to help globalize the curriculum. It is important to note this objective of global engagement directly aligns with Feed the Future's global food security indicator CC-IR-6 Improved Human, Organizational, and System Performance. The project planned to accomplish the second objective by providing Agritech Ambassadors a seven-day global engagement experience to Costa Rica. The project team planned to provide this global experience with Lorenzo Arevalo from Go Abroad International© to facilitate key interactions between the ambassadors and coastal loss leaders, relevant STEAM-based sites, and cultural experiences to collect data to develop case studies to globalize the Agritech curriculum. Examples of relevant data the Agritech Teacher Ambassadors will collect for case study development include (1) photographs, (2) videos, (3) documents, and (4) audio responses. Participants were expected to collect the data such as (1) photographs, (2) video, (3) documents, and (4) audio responses from STEAM-based site visits to La Paz Nature Park, Starbucks Hacienda Alsacia Coffee Research Farm, E.A.R.T.H. University (Escuela de Agricultura de la Region Tropical Humeda) and CATIE University, with each focus on environmental issues such as coastal loss in Costa Rica. The aim of these educational and cultural experiences was to broaden the global perspective of the ambassadors. So that they can use broaden perspectives to mentor 21st Century leaders prepared to solve complex problems across cultures. Changes/Problems:The original grant timeline called Agritech ambassadors to be selected and trained immediately in the first year of funding with an international trip to Costa Rica to be used as part of initial training. It was also intended that the selected Agritech Ambassadors would begin their own training from February through June of 2020 and continue as needed through 2021. This timeline was initially revised when grant funding was awarded later than expected with activities set to begin in March of 2020. However, in February of 2020, Louisiana began to experience a high volume of COVID-19 cases with schools and universities shut down across the state by March. This resulted in an essential shut down of the grant project until the number of COVID-19 cases decreased, and in-person activities were allowed to resume. In addition to the 2020 pandemic, Louisiana experienced multiple hurricanes, flooding events, and a winter storm. These natural disasters affected several of the selected Agritech ambassadors in a variety of ways with some of them receiving damage to their classrooms and laboratory spaces as well as damage to their personal homes. We also had difficulty initiallyrecruiting a doctoral student for the project as planned. However, Abigail Greer, a Master's student, was recruited on assistantship to help provide support for the funded project in January of 2021. In Fall of 2020, the Agritech Ambassador program information was distributed through the Louisiana Agriscience Teacher Association (LATA) website and Facebook page as well as through the LATA email list. Despite advertisement efforts, only 11 applications were received for the program representing the LATA regions 2, 3, and 4 with no applications for region 1 with 10 applicants selected. The planned 3-day training and the 7-day study abroad program was delayed until 2021 and flexible options were provided to participate in the training with some Agritech ambassadors participated in-person, some virtually, and some participated in a hybrid format. Each of the trained Agritech ambassadors was expected to conduct two training programs within the state. However, the reduced timeline for the grant as well as ongoing complications related to COVID-19 made the number of planned training difficult to deliver. Additionally, two Agritech Ambassadors withdrew from the program after their initial training but before they could provide any training themselves. Of the eight remaining Agritech Ambassadors, four completed all of the requirements for the grant project. The combination of COVID-19 challenges, natural disasters and the dropout rate for ambassador participation, made it difficult to accomplish all targets specified in the proposal. The planned target was to impact 2,200 agriculture students in Louisiana schools through the improved Agritech curriculum. Despite the many challenges, the remaining and committed Agritech ambassadors were able to deliver training programs to many SBAE teachers at the state FFA Convention and the Louisiana ATA Conference as well as through individuals trainings held within the state. The program was able to potentially serve 4,989 students through 83 trained teachers. Overall, the project was able to accomplish all planned outcomes with slight drawbacks. Recommendations for Agritech Training Improvement: First, Agritech ambassadors were asked to specify what they like the least about this Agritech Curriculum training program and received the following responses about the Agritech training: The bubble gum scientific method lab The potential to have to teach teachers virtually how to use the curriculum Due to COVID, I could not attend all the days, I wish that a make-up day would have been offered or different times. It is hard to make up activities such as the greenhouse tour and some of the other activities needed to be changed because of directions being wrong. I wish we had looked a little deeper into planning our training. I like that we have some creative freedom. Second, Agritech ambassadors were asked to make suggestions for further improvement of Agritech training program and received the following suggestions: A better outline of what the big picture is Food calorimetry lab - I think it will be better when we are more familiar with the process and know the "tricks" to make it go smoothly. Fewer labs per day I think just diving further into the specifics of delivering training and logistics. I am still a little nervous about that. I think clearly labeling the labs as beginner, intermediate, or advanced will help align them into the curriculum and year to be taught. Having a category or unit that the labs could be most commonly used in Having a central location to search for learning materials/labs (I know it is a goal so it is in progress) I know that a lot of older Ag teachers will be taking these things, it is important that we have clear directions for the actual labs for them to follow with their students. Suggestions to Improve Global Experience Program in Costa Rica Provide time to process and internalize the learning experience. Keep break time without using that time for any other thing going overtime to avoid tiring mentally. Visiting country culture may not follow punctuality. Therefore, it is important to be prepared for delays and overtime when scheduling programs in an international setting to avoid putting too many agenda items in the program and overstressing participants. Make sure lectures are not too long, too low, or too high to be useful. It is important to add hands-on practical applications for making the program interesting and useful instead of long lectures. A little snippet of what speakers of the visiting country are going to talk about would have been beneficial for understanding the contents of their lectures because of their accent and newness to the context. Lectures can be arranged to deliver through zoom prior to commencing the international trip. So that much of the time can be spent in the field for getting practical experience in the visiting country. Lessons Learned While several challenges experiences during this grant were unavoidable due to the pandemic, there were several lessons that were learned by the grant team: 1. If a similar grant is written, more teacher trainers should be recruited. The drop-out rate was unexpected and had a very large impact on the curriculum goals not being met completely. This would also have the added benefit of requiring less from each ambassador, and in the result of drop-outs, grant goals will still be sustainable. 2. Ensure that funding plans as written in the grant application will be honored by LSU before proceeding with training. The change made to stipends after teacher training caused significant confusion for the Agritech Ambassadors and the process was difficult to implement. 3. Large incentives such as international trips should be used at the end of the grant cycles for teachers who complete all requirements, rather than at the beginning of the grant process. We saw many of our drop-outs happen after the trip and believe that using the trip as an incentive would have been helpful in retaining teachers. 4. It is important that necessary deliverables and evaluation tools be collected in person whenever possible. For example, during the study abroad trip, case studies were initially outlined, and then teachers were asked to submit their completed case studies after the trip. In retrospect, even though the teachers were experiencing long days, it would have been better to complete the requirements while we were able to meet with them in person. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided??Summary of Planned vs. Actual Deliverables Number of Curriculum and Materials Developed 1 expanded Agritech curriculum 1 completed 40 global case studies 25 completed 40 STEAM laboratories 20 completed 20 supporting resource materials 21 Facebook posts and support resources made Number of Recruitment Programs 1 SBAE teacher recruitment program for Agritech Teacher Ambassadors 1 completed 20 SBAE teacher recruitment programs, i.e., two per ambassador, for professional development for Louisiana SBAE teachers facilitated by Agritech Teacher Ambassadors 7 completed 1 Graduate assistant recruitment program for social media mentoring to support curriculum adoption 1 completed 4 SBAE teacher professional development sessions led by LSU AEEE faculty for SBAE teachers Planned starting Summer 2022 Number of Experiential Learning Opportunities 1 professional development session for Agritech Teacher Ambassadors 1 completed 1 global engagement opportunity to Costa Rica for Agritech Teacher Ambassadors 1 completed 2 case study development sessions for Agritech Teacher Ambassadors 2 completed 20 professional development training sessions for Louisiana SBAE teachers led by Agritech Teacher Ambassadors 7 completed 52 mentoring sessions through social media over a two-year period 31 completed (21 Facebook posts to the Louisiana Agriculture Teacher Learning Curve Facebook Page and 10 Ambassador mentoring sessions) 4 SBAE teacher professional development sessions led by LSU AEEE faculty for SBAE teachers Planned starting Summer 2022 Number of SBAE teachers supported by this grant for professional development during the grant period 10 Agritech Teacher Ambassadors 8 ambassadors completed the program with 4 of them completing 100% of the requirements 100 Louisiana SBAE teachers 75 teachers served, 83 directly impacted by the project Number of students who will indirectly benefit from the products produced from the grant during the grant period 110 educators x 20 Agritech students per educator Approximately 2,200 students served through the grant 4,989 students (1,322 students by Agritech Ambassadors and 3,667 students by trained SBAE teachers) will be served by the Agritech curriculum trained 83 SBAE The project leadership team coordinated delivered the three-day training for the selected 10 Agritech Ambassadors on January 20, 21, and 22, 2021. During this training, the selected SBAE teachers received lab equipment and materials to conduct their own training and were provided with a lab manual, lesson plans, and all other resources they would need for their workshops. Teachers were also shown the evaluation tools for the workshop outcome assessment and were trained on how to administer the evaluation tools for assessing their training. During the 3-day training, needed collaborative support and resources were received from the LSUCoastal Roots© Program and the Lynda Danos, the Louisiana Farm Bureau© State Agriculture in the Classroom Coordinator. During the three-day training session, some ambassadors participated completely in-person (as shown in figure 1), some virtually, and some participated in a hybrid format with some days on campus and some virtually. Agritech ambassadors received hands-on learning to engage with STEM concepts as shown in Figure 2. One Ambassador had to leave the training a day early and did not complete the last day of training or the post-training evaluation. For the grant, all ambassadors were tasked with the following initiatives: Teach the newly developed Agritech curriculum content in their classes Conduct two professional development workshops alone or with a partner (20 programs completed in total). Complete four social media posts for Learning Curve, the Louisiana Agriscience teacher Facebook Group. At least two of these should be labs or activities using a specific template to allow for the labs to be included in the Agritech Lab Manuel. Post three labs/activities to the Louisiana Learning Curve Facebook Page File Resources. Travel to Costa Rica July 10 - 16 Develop four case studies while in Costa Rica (40 total for program) Participate in evaluation related to the grant project and training Participate in virtual teacher training/outreach The project leadership team collaborated with Lorenzo Arevalo ofGo Abroad International©to facilitate the planned 7-day study international experience program for the 10 selected Agritech ambassadors in Costa Rica during July 10-16, 2021. However, only eight Agritech ambassadors participated in the program. Two had to drop the program due to personal tragedies associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and Hurricanes Laura and Marco. This international trip facilitated interactions between the Agritech ambassadors and coastal loss leaders, relevant STEAM-based sites, and cultural experiences to collect data to develop case studies for globalizing the Agritech curriculum. The Agritech Teacher Ambassadors were able to collect (1) photographs, (2) videos, (3) documents, and (4) audio responses to enrich the Agritech curriculum. Participants collected these materials from STEAM-based site visits to La Paz Nature Park, Starbucks Hacienda Alsacia Coffee Research Farm, E.A.R.T.H. University and CATIE University, with each focus on environmental issues such as coastal loss in Costa Rica. The reduced timeline for the grant as well as ongoing challenges related to COVID-19 made the number of SBAE teacher training difficult to plan and manage. Additionally, two Agritech Ambassadors withdrew from the program after their initial training but before they could provide any training to SBAE teachers. Of the eight remaining Agritech Ambassadors, four completed all of the expectations (completion of the 3-day training, 7-day international experience, development of 4 case studies, present 2 training workshops for SBAE teachers, and purchasing laboratory equipment) of the grant project. The trained Agritech Ambassadors conducted 6 training sessions on various occasions such as the State FFA Convention and the Louisiana Agriscience Teacher Association conference educating 75 SBAE teachers. The combination of COVID-19, as well as the dropout rate for ambassador participation made it extremely challenging to achieve the full goals of the grant project. Despite all the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, the project team was able to lead the project to accomplish most of the major targets How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Some deliverables have already been disseminated to teachers who have participated in the professional development training sessions. Now that all materials are developed, the new curriculum guide with the developed case studies as well as the lab guide with activities developed by the Agritech Ambassadors will be formally distributed Summer 2022 at the Louisiana Agriscience Teachers Association Annual Summer Conference. During this time, trainings will also be held to highlight labs found within the curriculum and train teachers how to use the materials. Additionally, the curriculum guide as well as the lab guide will be posted online on the Louisiana FFA webpage with other state curriculum resources so they can be accessed by all teachers in the state. Lastly, initial results from this study have been presented at the Southern Region meeting of the American Association for Agricultural Education Southern Region meeting. Additional articles are in development for future conferences and journal articles are expected to begin to be developed this year for submission to the Journal of Agricultural Education in 2023. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Objective #1 - Innovative Instructional Delivery System Pre and post-evaluation tools were used for collecting data which included levels of satisfaction, knowledge, skills, and level of aspirations. In addition to these scales, open-ended questions were used to determine the program impacts on agriculture teachers and suggestions for improvement. Agritech Ambassador 3-day Training Evaluation Eight Agritech Ambassadors completed evaluations. Participants' years of experience ranged from 2 to 25 with a mean of 12.8 (SD = 8.2). All participants were satisfied or very satisfied with the overall training they gained from the program and all teachers reported meeting their learning expectations. Knowledge was recorded on a 5-point Likert scale before and after completion and paired sample t-test were used to compare their pre and post-test means. Participants' knowledge related to each of the eight curricular areas (knowledge of the Agritech curriculum standards, inquiry-based instruction, four question research design, application of the scientific method, Louisiana Farm Bureau and AITC resources, locating the Agritech curriculum resources, using case studies and globalizing the SBAE program) significantly improved. Knowledge improvement was assessed by summing the scores of eight items in the scale and comparing the summated pre and post-test scores using paired sample t-tests. The overall knowledge score on this 8-item scale ranged from 8 (very low) to 40 (very high) and participants were able to improve their teaching knowledge significantly from a pre-test mean of 22 to a post test mean of 30.0 (t = 7, p<.01). Skill development was recorded by their confidence to carry out eight instructional tasks on a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = not confident to 5 = very confident and paired sample t-test were used to analyze the data. Participants' instructional skills improved significantly in all areas except delivering inquiry based instruction. Overall skill was assessed by summing the scores of the scale items and comparing the summated pre and post-test scores with paired sample t-test. The overall skill test score on this 8-item scale ranged from 8 (very low) to 40 (very high). Findings indicate that participants were able to improve their instructional skills significantly from 22.8 to 31.3 (t = 7, p<.01). Findings further indicated that all the participants gained skills related to instructional development and a vast majority of participants (75%) indicated that they intend to apply STEM content in their programs after training. In addition to the pre and post-tests, two focus groups were conducted to determine the outcomes of the 3-day training. Participants were pleased with training and said that they plan to use the lab activities. For instance, one participant said, "I really hope to do more labs this semester and that's why I'm really excited to be here so I can bring these back." The participants acknowledged the thoroughness of the expanded Curriculum as one participant described, "a lot of the things that we're learning here is something we can teach a kid in every aspect of agriculture." However, they also recognized challenges when managing the class time for using labs including the lack of needed laboratory facilities and resources. Evaluation of the Outcomes of SBAE Teacher Training Delivered by Agritech Ambassadors: Teachers who participated in the Agritech curriculum training session hosted by the Ambassadors ranged from student teachers with no experience to 33 years of experience with a mean of 10.7 (SD = 9.4). Of the teachers who completed the training, 93% were satisfied or very satisfied with the overall training they gained from the program and fifty-eight teachers said that they met their learning expectations. Participant knowledge was recorded on a 5-point Likert scale using a retrospective pre and post-test survey. Paired sample t-test was used to compare their pre and posttest means. Participants' knowledge related to each of the eight curricular areas (Knowledge of the Agritech curriculum standards, inquiry-based instruction, four question research design, application of the scientific method, Louisiana Farm Bureau and AITC resources, locating the Agritech curriculum resources, using case studies and globalizing the SBAE program) significantly improved (p<.01). The overall knowledge improvement was assessed by summing the scores of six items in the scale and comparing the summated pre and post-test scores using the paired sample t-test. The overall knowledge score on this 6-item scale ranged from 6 (very low) to 30 (very high). Findings indicate that participants improved their overall knowledge of the Agritech curriculum and instructional methods from 14.6 to 23.0 (t = 12, p<.01). Participants' skill development analyzed by their confidence to carry out the select eight instructional tasks on a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = not confident to 5 = very confident using retrospective pre and post-test surveys with paired sample t-test scored used to analyze the data. Participants' instructional skills improved significantly in all areas except delivering inquiry-based instruction. Overall skill development was assessed by summing the scores of six items in the scale from 6 (very low) to 30 (very high) and comparing the summated pre and post-test scores using the paired sample t-test. Findings indicate that participants were able to improve their instructional skills significantly and that all the participants gained skills related to the Agritech curriculum with a pre-test mean of 14.6 to a posttest mean of 22.7 (t = 7.1, p<.01). Lastly, a majority of participants (68%) indicated that they intended to apply the Agritech instructional strategies and curricular materials in their programs. Objective #2 - Global Engagement Evaluation of the 7-Day Global Experience in Cost Rica: A focus group interview and participant reflection journals were used to assess the outcomes of the 7-day program in Costa Rica. Focus Group findings: For some of the Agritech ambassadors, this was their first international trip. When the participants were asked to share their biggest takeaways one participant said, "I've been blown away with all of the different diversity of plants, animals, everywhere you look... that's just so different from what we see at home." When asked how this experience will help them broaden their students' understanding of agriculture, one participant said, "when, I teach about things and try to bring in the global mindset to take agriculture out of our community, out of our state, out of our country and make it more global. Now that I've had an opportunity to travel, I can't wait to mix that into my discussion in the way I communicate with my students." Some of the participants said that they plan to incorporate integrated farming practices into their programs. As one participant said, "we're going to build an elevatedgoat penand collect the methane. We want to bring those practices back and broaden our students' horizons.". In describing how they would share their experiences, one participant said, "I've already had a number of teacher friends and community members that are following me on social media saying, "I can't wait to hear all about this." So I think that sharing our experience, even though the pictures on social media is going to open the eyes of a lot of people." When participants were asked their plan to use coastal conservation and sustainability experience, one participant responded that, "we've been involved with the coastal restoration and some different things like that so putting [students] in a position to be advocates for our coastline or our environment. Yeah, I think it's the best thing we can do as teachers for our students"
Publications
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