Performing Department
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Non Technical Summary
This project will provide a three-year CASE AgXplore professional development institute and CASE curriculum certification program in agricultural science education for 100 middle school agriculture teachers. CASE has been shown to be a highly effective curriculum that can improve agriculture teachers' personal science teaching efficacy and science teaching outcome expectancy (Velez et. al, 2013). It has also been shown to positively impact student outcomes in math and science (Smith, 2019). However, research has demonstrated there are barriers that prevent some teachers from implementing the curriculum. Witte et. al, (2021) identified 1) time for training, 2) cost of training, and 3) access to equipment and supplies as the greatest barriers to the implementation of CASE. Additionally, Bird and Rice (2021) found that some teachers need additional support and an opportunity to ask questions about scheduling and teaching the curriculum after attending CASE training to implement it with increased frequency and fidelity. This project is designed to mitigate the common barriers to implementation for middle school agriculture education teachers by providing training, certification, classroom materials for teachers, lodging, transportation and virtual ongoing support.The goals of this project are to (1) enhance the middle school student educational experience by improving instructional practices and relevant curricula, (2) increase teachers' ability to integrate science and experiential learning into the middle school agriculture curriculum, and (3) boost teachers' self-efficacy.
Animal Health Component
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Research Effort Categories
Basic
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Applied
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Developmental
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Goals / Objectives
The goal of this project is to provide a three-year CASE AgXplore professional development institute and CASE curriculum certification program in agricultural science education for 100 middle school agriculture teachers. The objectives of this project are to (1) enhance the middle school student educational experience by improving instructional practices and relevant curricula, (2) increase teachers' ability to integrate science and experiential learning into the middle school agriculture curriculum, and (3) boost teachers' self-efficacy.
Project Methods
The project team will be responsible for organizing the five AgX professional development institutes, purchasing and disseminating essential equipment necessary to teach the curriculum, providing ongoing support, and evaluating the effectiveness of the program for both students and teachers. MTSU's Center of Methodology, Evaluation, and Applied Statistics for University Research and Education (C-MEASURE) will create evaluation tools during the first half of year 1. The project team will conduct an evaluation of (a) the training, and (b) the implementation of the curriculum. The project team will use the second half of year 1 to pilot test thetrainingevaluation. Modifications will be made to thetrainingevaluation tools at the end of year 1, if needed, and revised instruments will be used to evaluate trainings conducted in years 2 and 3. C-MEASURE will analyze evaluation data for the project team. Three virtual community of practice sessions will be conducted by the project team with workshop participants in the immediate three months following the institutes to help facilitate implementation. The project team will use the first half of year 2 to pilot test tools designed to evaluate theimplementation of the curriculumfor students and teachers. Modifications will be made to tools designed to evaluate theimplementation of the curriculum, if needed,and revised instruments will be used to evaluate implementation of the curriculum conducted in the second half of year 2 and in year 3. Results will be disseminated in year 3 by the project team.C-MEASURE will use both formative and summative evaluation plans and will evaluate the training as well as student and teacher outcomes. Formative evaluation for the students will assess their experience with the AgX curriculum while in the course. Summative evaluation for students will focus on evaluating the students' experience at the completion of the course as well as the students' intent to enroll in a high school agricultural education course. To formatively evaluate the implementation of training received, wewillconduct multiple one-on-one, semi-structured interviews with 20% of participants from each AgX training (N = 4 per training; N = 20 total) at different parts of their respective academic years. Thisapproach is similar to methods employed by Wells et al. (2021) in afield test of the CASE Mechanical Systems in Agriculture Curriculum.Summative evaluation for the teachers will evaluate the influence of AgX training on teachers' pedagogical content knowledge in agricultural science, intent to continue implementing the AgX curriculum, and their own self-efficacy.