RAPID ROLLOUT OF 8 NATIONAL STANDARDS-BASED RIGOROUS AND REMOTE AFNR COURSES FOR UNDERSERVED COLLEGE-BOUND STUDENTS

• Sponsoring Institution: National Institute of Food and Agriculture
• Project Status: COMPLETE
• Funding Source: AFRI COMPETITIVE GRANT
• Reporting Frequency: Annual
• Accession No.: 1024895
• Grant No.: 2021-67038-33381
• Cumulative Award Amt.: $1,000,000.00
• Proposal No.: 2020-09639
• Project Start Date: Nov 1, 2020
• Project End Date: Oct 31, 2023
• Grant Year: 2021
• Program Code: [A7701]- SARS-COV-2 Digital Learning Resources

Recipient Organization
TENNESSEE STATE UNIVERSITY
3500 JOHN A. MERRITT BLVD
NASHVILLE,TN 37209

Performing Department
Ag & Env Science

Non Technical Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced many challenges for teachers and created a plethora of learning limitations for students. These challenges are exacerbated among underserved populations. Seemingly, distance education is the answer. However, teachers aren't equipped, online materials are stagnant, and the resources that are available do not include the critical STEM topics of food and agriculture. This project will Rapidly deliver 8 engaging, and standards-based courses (120 modules) in Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources for high school students needing online/digital learning options; Establish dual credit options for completers of the online/digital microadaptive learning courses through university/college-level faculty courses review and an innovative course sharing platform; Market and disseminate courses to underserved populations; and Conduct national qualitative and quantitative research with students, parents, high school teachers, and college faculty to determine perceptions and impact of the courses/modules. We will recruit high school teachers that can document they have content and activities for a course tied to one of the National AFNR Pathway areas through min-grant process. Selected teachers will work with CogBooks planners, instructional designers, and micro-adaptive course developers to rollout 8 courses in just three months. Faculty mentors will assist with content contribution and dually vet the courses for use at the college level, ensuring the courses developed in this grant can help students achieve academically at the high school and college level. The eight courses will be loaded onto a national course sharing platform (Quottly) so that students can use them at any institution where agreements have been reached.

Animal Health Component

50%

Research Effort Categories

Basic

0%

Applied

50%

Developmental

50%

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
903	6010	3020	100%

Knowledge Area
903 - Communication, Education, and Information Delivery;

Subject Of Investigation
6010 - Individuals;

Field Of Science
3020 - Education;

Keywords

agricultural education

distance learning

micro-adaptive learning

remote learning

standards

Goals / Objectives
1. Develop 8 sustainable, engaging, and standards-based micro-adaptive learning courses (120 modules) in Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources for high school aged students needing online/digital learning options in a time of social distancing.2. Establish dual credit matriculation options for completers of the online/digital microadaptive learning courses through university/college-level faculty and administrator courses review and an innovative course sharing platform.3. Market and disseminate courses to underserved populations.4. Conduct national qualitative and quantitative research with students, parents, high school teachers, and college faculty to determine perceptions and impact of the courses/modules.

Project Methods
We will begin our project with a two-week call for applications for a $10,000 teacher grant in exchange for course content and 10 hours of work per week for three months with the instructional designers from CogBooks and the faculty mentors. Winners will be chosen from high school agriculture teachers across the United States. We will use the National Association of Agricultural Educators (NAAE) database of educators from 50 states, Puerto Rico and Guam. A link to a Qualtrics application will be emailed to every teacher. Teachers will be asked to submit lesson plan and assessment samples and to provide letters of support from a student, a colleague, and an administrator to document they have content and activities ready to go for a course they teach at the junior or senior level in one of the AFNR Pathways that teaches AFNR Standards. One teacher will be selected for each AFNR pathwa. Grant winners will work alongside our CogBooks partner and in consultation with faculty mentors for all phases of the micro-adaptive course development process. We will host a virtual project kick off and training for teachers, instructional designers, and faculty mentors (1-2 days). During the kickoff CogBooks will conduct a preliminary analysis of content and technical requirements and provide methodology training for teachers, faculty mentors, and the graduate student. In the course of the meeting, technical integration and technical user support will be discussed and planned. Next, course objectives and project scope will be defined. An analysis of the overall adaptive structure of the course is also carried out. If the existing content is not already in a digital format it will be converted by the teacher and Cogbooks. This stage includes the creation of a knowledge map by the teacher/faculty mentor supported by CogBooks. After the initial creation of this map, CogBooks will conduct a learning relationship gap analysis, to identify additional content required to create an adaptive experience. The partners will also make a decision on sourcing of content, e.g. existing content, teacher creates new content, faculty mentor has content to contribute, external sources.Next will be the upload of digitalized content into the CogBooks platform. CogBooks can assist in bulk upload or will provide automated upload if the current content can be rendered in a suitable format. In case additional content is required, the sourcing or creation will be undertaken in this stage. Once the bulk upload is complete, teachers will consult faculty mentors and modify content directly and add assessments, text fields, HTML interactives or videos in the platform and/or request additional assistance. Next the development team will integrate thumbnail images, brief summary text, and self-assessment questions etc. Through the course build, the development team will test course structure/content against specs. Then the developed course will be integrated into the D2L Learning Management System at TSU. The integration will be tested by faculty and teacher participants.Following approval by the PI, the course will be officially launched and can be used by students and instructors. While the process of marketing and adoption is taking place for nation-wide dissemination, school-based agriculture student teachers at participating universities will pilot new courses in their respective high schools for initial data collection. For the duration of this two-year project, random students who complete the courses will be contacted to participate in virtual focus groups and online survey. Performance data will also be collected. This process will start during the initial/pilot student teacher roll out of the courses.Courses will be built in a manner that allows them to graduate from high school on-time and also to get a head start in college. If students choose, they will be able to receive college credit for the remote courses developed in this project. In addition to providing content support for course developments, faculty participants will work to ensure courses meet the standards for an introductory level course at the college level. The PI will make sure TSU has an introductory college level course approved for each course developed and work with community colleges and Quottly to ensure courses are transferable.Quottly will create a searchable platform that allows high school students to search, save, and register for developed courses (referred to as Ag Online or "AOL" courses). The "AOL" courses will be offered each student with college level credit from TSU that could then be transferred to another institution as part of their degree plan (if desired). The Quottly platform will be designed to integrate directly with TSU's SIS platform (Banner). This level of integration will provide students with access to the unique "One-Click" solution which allows for immediate registration and inclusion into TSU's credential model, ensuring (upon completion w/a passing grade) that each student will be recognized as receiving college level credit(s) from TSU. Additionally, TSU will receive direct monetary compensation for each "AOL" course taken through the Quottly platform. For those students taking an "AOL" course but choosing to pursue a degree from an institution other than TSU, this integrated system will ensure all students will be able to transfer their "AOL" credit to their home college (assuming their home college recognizes the course(s) as transferrable).The course will be marketed with the help of a digital marketing firm. Products will be marketed to youth through partnerships and participation in national youth organizations such as National 4-H, National FFA and Junior MANRRS. In addition to digital marketing, participation in national meetings of these organizations (face-to-face or virtual) will be another way the micro-adaptive courses are disseminated. Student scholarships for the $39.95 micro-adaptive remote courses that can be used for high school and college courses will be granted to underserved students that most need these high-quality courses. A demographic questionnaire will be part of course registration, and 5,000 students meeting certain parameters will be able to take the courses for free.NAAE will be a key resource in disseminating information via listservs and state level contacts. The digital marketing firm will help reach out to teachers and extension agents. State education leaders will be contacted, and mutually agreed upon strategies will be developed and deployed for making sure teachers and parents know about materials. The PI will provide face-to-face demonstrations at the NAAE Conference in Year 2.Resources will be accessible multiple places, but a project website will serve as the primary hub of information for marketing and dissemination. It will not only direct students to the courses and articulation options at post-secondary institutions across the country, it will also collect important data allowing further project dissemination and improvements. Conduct national qualitative and quantitative research with students, parents, high school teachers, and college faculty to determine perceptions and impact of the courses/modules. The PI will lead a national quantitative study in cooperation with the graduate assistant assigned to this project to determine students', teachers', education administrators', and parents' perceptions of the micro-adaptive courses. A randomized group of participants completing each of the eight courses will be selected and compared against a group of students using other forms of learning in the same 8 courses. Qualitative research studying one student and one teacher from each state who used each micro-adaptive course will be interviewed through Zoom. The interviews will be recorded and analyzed Zoom's automated transcripts for themes helping us understand the efficacy of the courses.

Progress 11/01/20 to 10/31/23

Outputs
Target Audience:Target users include students and teachers in secondary agricultural education, but in the past year, we have also shared the innovations withhigher education institutions as we established and sought to grow the Ag Network that was developed as part of the project. We also worked with higher eduation officials at TSU to expand the network into dual enrollment. Additinoally, students and teachers from from underserved populations have free access to developed courses. Expert educators from across the US in secondary education, higher education, and the private sector worked together to rapidly develop state-of-the-art, high-impact, and academic skill level-appropriate digital courses in food and agricultural sciences. Standards-based courses were vetted by higher education experts for appropriate content and articulation in higher education. Target audiences include anyone who are using or may be interested in using the materials, whether they are school-based, homeschooled, or 4-H students. School systems are are also a new target because we are working to get them to see the benefit of the dual enrollment courses we developed. Community members are also target audiences and we plan to disseminate grant products through the use of an enhanced mobile agricultural eduation laboratory. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Ricketts, J. C., VanDenand, A., & Wilson, A. (2023). Course sharing and dual enrollment at UTM through the Quottly software platform: A university and college orientation. Martin, TN. Ricketts, J. C., VanDenand, A., & Wilson, A. (2023). Course sharing and dual enrollment at TSU through the Quottly software platform: A university and college orientation. Nashville, TN. Ricketts, J. C. Course sharing and dual enrollment update from TSU. Tennessee Associaton of Agricultural Educators, Murfreesboro, TN. Ricketts, J. C. (2023). TSU Agriculture programs demonstration. TN State FFA Convention, Gatlinburg, TN. Ricketts, J. C., Stripling, C., & Granberry, T. (2023). Knowledge on College. TN State FFA Convention, Gatlinburg, TN. The project has lead to an additioanl $18M project where course sharing and dual enrollment of our modules will be expanded to FVSU, Alcorn, and MTSU. The project also lead to a Capacity Building Grant where courses in Agricultural Communication will be shared with UTM. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Results have been disseminated various high schools and community colleges, and now with the help of the aforementioned grants, the modules will be dissmeminated across 3 new institutions and the high schools they interact with. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? The six fully online micro-adaptive learning dual enrollment courses that were developed by the PI, Co-PIs, faculty experts, and current and/or former secondary school-based agricultural educators have begun to be delivered. The completed digital courses now include 1) Natural Resources, 2) Plant Science, 3) Agribusiness, 4) Power, Structural and Technical Systems, 5) Food Products and Processing, 6) Biotechnology Systems, 7) Animal Science, and 8) Environmental Systems. The Food Products and Processing Systems course and the Plant Science course were taught as a dual enrollment course to students at Bolton High School in Shelby County/Memphis. The Agribusiness course was used to help a college student who had fallen behind. Exams for each of the courses was developed in the past year. The Biotech digital course was again used in the Intro to Biotech course. The Ag Network in partnership with UTM has been getting off the ground. Some students have taken advantage of the courses sharing, but we expext more will in the future. The course sharing concept was built into a proposal for a USDA NIFA proposal, which we secured. The course sharing and the Ag Network created by this grant will be expanded to Fort Valley State University, Alcorn State University, and Middle Tennessee State University, giving our students even more opportunities through course sharing. We also worked to establish dual enrollment as part of Quottly, which is not Parchment. This will allow us to make our modules more accessible to high school students through dual enrollment. It will help us sustain the platform beyone the life of the grant. We also reinforced our mobile agricultual education lab as a way to market and dissemiante the innovations.

Publications

• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Ricketts, J. C. & Ballard, J. (2023). Online, micro-adaptive, and dual enrollment course sharing: A Recruitment and Retention Model. Proceedings of the 69th Annual NACTA Conference. LasCruces, NM. [poster]

Progress 11/01/21 to 10/31/22

Outputs
Target Audience:Target users include students and teachers in secondary agricultural education, but in the past year, we have also shared the innovations with community college and higher education institutions as we established and sought to grow the Ag Network that was developed as part of the project. Additinoally, students and teachers from from underserved populations have free access to developed courses. Expert educators from across the US in secondary education, higher education, and the private sector worked together to rapidly develop state-of-the-art, high-impact, and academic skill level-appropriate digital courses in food and agricultural sciences. Standards-based courses were vetted by higher education experts for appropriate content and articulation in higher education. Target audiences include anyone who are using or may be interested in using the materials, whether they are school-based, homeschooled, or 4-H students. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?See the products section How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?These products have been disseminated widely. Perhaps most importantly, underserved students at Bolton High School and Glencliff High School are not only taking full advantage of the products, but starting to look at TSU and agriculture as important opportunities. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the final year of this project, we plan to extend the Ag Network to high school students, community college students, and potentially even home-school students for dual enrollment through our partnership with Quottly and UT-Martin. We also aim to digitize additional courses (in addition to the 8 courses developed on the project) for the Ag Network and create attractive programmatic routes that will attract more students to agriculture and the products of the project. We will also finalize research on the products' efficacy by hiring a competent research assistant or student.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? The six fully online micro-adaptive learning dual enrollment courses that were developed by the PI, Co-PIs, faculty experts, and current and/or former secondary school-based agricultural educators have begun to be delivered. The completed digital courses now include 1) Natural Resources, 2) Plant Science, 3) Agribusiness, 4) Power, Structural and Technical Systems, 5) Food Products and Processing, 6) Biotechnology Systems, 7) Animal Science, and 8) Environmental Systems. The Food Products and Processing Systems course and the Plant Science course were taught as a dual enrollment course to students at Bolton High School in Shelby County/Memphis. Exams for each of the courses was developed in the past year. The Biotech digital course was again used in the Intro to Biotech course. A qualitative research study was done with students who completed the Foods course at Bolton. The AgNetwork created through the grant-funded Quottly software platform was established and a partnership was formed with the University of Tennessee-Martin to share courses between institutions. Quottly is a course discovery, registration, and equivalency platform. They combine system-wide class schedules and transfer rules with proven SIS integration and one-click registration. Efforts are underway to market the opportunity to students at respective institutions. A consultant was hired to provide a more attractive and contextualized version of the marketing plan that was developed last year. The courses and the platform were/will be shared and disseminated to students, teachers, and faculty at various events throughout the year.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Lalitha, A., Ricketts, J. C., Ballard, J. & Purnima, K. S. (2023). Perception of agriculture extension staff of TSU about IOT applications. Annals of Biology, 39 (1).
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Ricketts, J. C. & Cambridge Staff. (2023). Tackling the Enrollment Challenge: How Tennessee State University Designed their Courses for an Online Degree Program to Support a Culturally Diverse Population. Proceedings of the OLC Innovate Conference, Nashville, TN.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2023 Citation: Ricketts, J. C. (2023). Microadaptive Learning Innovations for Global Place-bound Secondary and Post-Secondary Agriculture Students: A USDA NIFA AFRI Rapid Response to Novel Coronavirus Project. Proceedings of the 2023 AIAEE Conference, Guelph, Canada
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Submitted Year Published: 2023 Citation: Ricketts, J. C. & Ballard, J. (submitted). Career Decision Making Self-efficacy of HBCU 1890 Land-grant Agriculture Students. Proceedings of the 69th Annual NACTA Conference. LasCruces, NM.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Submitted Year Published: 2023 Citation: Ricketts, J. C. & Ballard, J. (submitted). Online, Micro-adaptive, and Dual Enrollment Course Sharing: A Recruitment and Retention Model. Proceedings of the 69th Annual NACTA Conference. LasCruces, NM.
• Type: Websites Status: Published Year Published: 2022 Citation: College of Ag & Life Sciences Course Sharing Network, https://agriculture.quottlyinc.com
• Type: Other Status: Other Year Published: 2022 Citation: Dual Credit, Glencliff High School, Plant Science & Biotechnology, 36 students
• Type: Other Status: Other Year Published: 2022 Citation: Dual Enrollment/Online Course Completions, TSU and Bolton High School, Intro to Plant Science, Intro to Food Science, Intro to Agribusiness, Intro to Biotechnology

Progress 11/01/20 to 10/31/21

Outputs
Target Audience:Target users include students and teachers in secondary agricultural education. However, students and teachers from from underserved populations have free access to developed courses. Expert educators from across the US in secondary education, higher education, and the private sector worked together to rapidly develop state-of-the-art, high-impact, and academic skill level-appropriate digital courses in food and agricultural sciences. Standards-based courses were vetted by higher education experts for appropriate content and articulation in higher education. Changes/Problems:Development of the courses has taken longer than we expected, and therefore exposure of the courses to students has been slow. Our PhD program in Agricultural Sciences was also delayed, and therefore we have not been able to have the graduate assistant we planned for yet. It is approved for the fall though. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?These were reported in the Products section. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?See the products section. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the next reporting period the last two courses will be finalized. We plan to continue rolling out the courses to as many as possible, and to collect data on course effectiveness. To collect this data we need to find a PhD graduate assistant willing to assist. We also plan to grow our course sharing network with additional universities. We also aim to finalize the marketing plan and begin actual marketing of the courses through a website, social media outlets, and at respective agricultural educator meetings. Articulation agreements with community colleges and technical colleges are being sought.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Six fully online micro-adaptive learning dual enrollment courses have been developed by the PI, Co-PIs, faculty experts, and current and/or former secondary school-based agricultural educators. The completed courses are 1) Natural Resources, 2) Plant Science, 3) Agribusiness, 4) Power, Structural and Technical Systems, 5) Food Products and Processing, and 6) Biotechnology Systems. Two additional courses (Animal Science, Environmental Systems) have undergone the same development process, but they are not scheduled to be completed unti May of 2022. The Food Products and Processing Systems course and the Plant Science course were taught as a dual enrollment course to students at Bolton High School in Shelby County/Memphis. The Plant Science course is also being taught at Sycamore High School and with individual students who are remote and uncomfortable attending in person because of COVID. The Biotech course was used in the Intro to Biotech course last fall as well. A qualitative research study was done with students who completed the Foods course last fall, and data analysis is underway. Each online course is able to be plugged into our course management system, Desire2Learn. It is formatted to connect with other platforms as well (i.e. Canvas). PDF versions of assessments and the actual course were developed for situations where bandwidth will not allow students or teachers to use the digital materials. A mini-grant program was established to select high school educators who would serve as curriculum writers for respective courses. CogBooks worked with the high school teachers, faculty experts listed on the project, and the PI to make sure the content was appropriate, that the online teaching methods were appropriate, and that the students would ultimately be engaged by the courses and retain the information. We have also been working to establish course sharing functionality at TSU through the Quottly platform. Quottly is a course discovery, registration, and equivalency platform. They combine system-wide class schedules and transfer rules with proven SIS integration and one-click registration. Many meetings with high level university administrators and technical experts with TSU and Quotty were facilitated to implement the system at TSU. In addition, the PI and Quottly representatives worked to develop a course sharing network for online agriculture courses. So far the University of Tennessee at Martin has joined our network, and other universities have been apprised of the software and the network. Specific course sections were developed for Quottly online courses. We have had TSU students take advantage of the Q99 sections, but we have also established the systems and protocols for students at other institutions to also take our courses where the grant-developed resources are available. A marketing firm was consulted for a detailed marketing plan. The courses were demonstrated at the Tennessee Agricutural Educators meeting, the Memphis Agriculture Club and the National FFA Convention.

Publications

• Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Stimmell, J. & Ricketts, J. C. (n.d.). Food products and processing micro-adaptive online dual enrollment course. CogBooks (ISBN: 978-1-913014-67-4) https://www.cogbooks.com
• Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Cardwell, H. & Ricketts, J. C. (n.d.). Biotechnology systems micro-adaptive online dual enrollment course. CogBooks (ISBN: 978-1-913014-66-7) https://www.cogbooks.com
• Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Dado, E., Ladsten, S., & Ricketts, J. C. (n.d.). Plant science: Micro-adaptive online dual enrollment course. CogBooks (ISBN: 978-1-913014-71-1) https://www.cogbooks.com
• Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2022 Citation: Stimmell, J. & Ricketts, J. C. (n.d.). Natural resources: Micro-adaptive online dual enrollment course. CogBooks (ISBN: 978-1-913014-68-1) https://www.cogbooks.com
• Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2022 Citation: Nilsen, R., Stimmell, J. & Ricketts, J. C. (n.d.). Agribusiness: Micro-adaptive online dual enrollment course. CogBooks (ISBN: 978-1-913014-65-0) https://www.cogbooks.com
• Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2022 Citation: Denney, A. & Ricketts, J. C. (n.d.). Power, structural, and technical systems: Micro-adaptive online dual enrollment course. CogBooks (ISBN: 978-1-913014-72-8) https://www.cogbooks.com
• Type: Other Status: Under Review Year Published: 2022 Citation: Marsh, B., Denney, A.., & Ricketts, J. C. (n.d.). Environmental service: Micro-adaptive online dual enrollment course. CogBooks (ISBN: 978-1-913014-70-4) https://www.cogbooks.com
• Type: Other Status: Under Review Year Published: 2022 Citation: Pigg, J., Denney, A.., Stimmell, J., Ricketts, J. C., & Segers, J. (n.d.). Animal science: Micro-adaptive online dual enrollment course. CogBooks (ISBN: 978-1-913014-69-8) https://www.cogbooks.com
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2022 Citation: Ricketts, J. C. (2022). Microadaptive Learning Innovations for Global Place-bound Secondary and Post-Secondary Agriculture Students: A USDA NIFA AFRI Rapid Response to Novel Coronavirus Project. Proceedings of the 2022 AIAEE Conference, Thessaloniki, Greece.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2021 Citation: Ricketts, J. (2021). Online Ag Courses to Keep Students On Track. Proceedings of the 2021 Tennessee Association of Agricultural Educators (TAAE) Convention, Murfreesboro, TN.
• Type: Other Status: Accepted Year Published: 2021 Citation: Ricketts, J. C. (2021). Enhancing Agricultural Workforce Development through an Agricultural Education Pipeline and Online Learning. Memphis Agricultural Club, Invited Lecture.
• Type: Other Status: Accepted Year Published: 2022 Citation: Ricketts, J. C. (2021). Eight Online Dual Enrollment Micro-adaptive Learning Courses. National FFA Career Show, Indianapolis, IN.