Performing Department
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Non Technical Summary
The impact of aging in the agricultural workforce has been an ongoing concern in rural communities. Without a new generation of employees prepared to take over, rural communities face economic declines and decreased quality of life. Middle school counselors are responsible for a significant amount of career-based guidance. However, they receive minimal formal training in career development or pedagogy, and few have knowledge of agriculture. Rural school counselors often serve multiple schools or in K-12 settings leaving limited time for career research or classroom preparation. To support career development and improve knowledge of careers in food and agriculture, the current project proposes an experiential mentorship program.Rural, middle school counselors will be selected from a national pool and partnered with a mentor experienced in career development to complete an 6-month mentorship program culminating in a week-long immersion experience. Mentors and mentees will meet twice a month. School counselors (i.e., mentees) will set goals, explore food and agricultural careers, participate in online trainings on career theory and pedagogy, and network with Extension. School counselors will develop classroom activities that will be shared publicly. The immersion week will involve travel to university labs and businesses in the agricultural industry. Participants will gain knowledge of agricultural careers that will increase their interest and self-efficacy in describing these careers to students. Program outcomes will be evaluated through pre- and post-tests collected during the mentorship program. Improving agricultural literacy among school counselors promotes a new generation of professionals and contributes to a healthy agricultural workforce.
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
Goal 1: Provide rural school counselors with tools and resources to integrate SCCT and kinesthetic pedagogy in middle school career-based guidance.Objective 1a: Facilitate 4 professional development trainings in SCCT and kinesthetic pedagogy for each of 2 cohorts.Objective 2a: Each school counselor cohort will collaborate to create and disseminate 6 (12 total) kinesthetic, social-emotional learning (SEL) career lessons by the end of their mentorship experience.Objective 3a: Facilitate 2 opportunities to connect school counselors with Extension professionals during small and large group mentoring sessions.Objective 4a: Develop a digital repository of lessons publicly accessible on a project website that will be updated following each cohort.Goal 2: Facilitate an experiential mentorship program to support increased interest in food and agricultural careers among rural, middle school counselors.Objective 1b: Recruit a total of 24 rural, middle school counselors and 4 career development mentors by the end of the project period.Objective 2b: Implement a 6-month, experiential mentorship program for 2 cohorts of rural, middle school counselors.Objective 3b: Organize a week-long, immersive career exploration experience focusing on food and agricultural sciences for 1 cohort in each of Years 1 and 2.Objective 4b: Increase reported self-efficacy among school counselors to incorporate careers in food and agriculture during classroom guidance on career exploration.Goal 3: Develop a manualized model of experiential mentorship in career-based guidance for school counselors.Objective 1c: Develop a mentorship workbook to be completed by mentors and mentees during the 6-month program.Objective 2c: Develop a formal manual by the end of the project period to guide replication of the program model.
Project Methods
MethodologyThe proposed 6-month mentoring program will culminate in a week-long, immersive educational experience. Mentors and mentees (school counselors) will participate in hands-on activities related to multiple careers in food and agricultural sciences. During the week, they will focus on how to apply this new knowledge in the classroom, as well as how to make the content accessible for students. Emphasis will be placed on providing exposure to lesser-known food and agriculture careers such as agritourism, viniculture, and food safety. Further, there will be opportunities for participants to engage with industry, research labs, and Extension professionals to further highlight pathways to careers in the food and agricultural sciences. Finally, by exposing them to hands-on learning activities, it is expected that school counselors will more effectively translate their knowledge to K-14 students.Using a mentoring mosaic (Mullen, 2009), participants will work with a mentor and five other school counselors in their cohort to research the agricultural workforce. Mentees within the group will be paired to complete activities, resulting in 3 dyads per group. Mentors and mentees will meet twice a month in small and large groups. Mentoring cohorts will meet monthly to complete activities outlined in the mentorship workbook. A first step will be for counselors to set personal goals for skill development and the student outcomes they identify as most critical in their current roles. Participants will also complete an ecosystem map in which they must investigate the agricultural workforce in their community. The project team will utilize this information to guide the professional development being offered during the monthly large group sessions attended by all mentors and mentees. The early large group sessions will focus on kinesthetic (i.e., experiential) pedagogy and SCCT. The goal of these sessions is to connect program participants with content experts and introduce novel learning and teaching strategies for the classroom. Paired school counselors will utilize the professional development received to develop a hands-on learning activity that promotes an SEL skill associated with a specific agricultural career. Funding is included to support the purchase of activity-related materials to increase accessibility and feasibility of implementing the activities in their classrooms following the program. Pairs will share their activities with other members of the cohort during the immersion week. This approach will enable participants to apply their learning, while also producing a practical deliverable resulting from their participation.At the end of the mentorship period (January-May), participants will attend a week-long, immersive experience in June to explore careers in food and agricultural sciences. The advisory board will provide feedback and recommendations on areas of workforce development that should be considered. Further, participants will connect with Extension professionals specializing in food and agriculture to learn about career pathways, opportunities for collaboration, as well as how the mission of Extension can support workforce development in their own communities. Participants will engage in kinesthetic activities during visits to research labs and businesses with the intention of utilizing similar approaches in their classroom. Mentors will focus on fostering discussions that promote connection of the experiences to the personal goals and student outcomes identified at the outset of the program. Finally, during days 2 through 6, mentee partners will present the SEL lesson they developed during the first part of the program to the other mentee pairs. Presenting their lessons is another opportunity to develop self-efficacy in describing a career development lesson.EvaluationWe will conduct formative and summative evaluation of attitude and behavior changes before, during, and after participation in the mentorship program. Formative data will be collected from mentors and school counselors to ensure fidelity to the proposed activities. We will also continuously track outputs to assess progress toward the desired outcomes. Summative data will be used to determine change in self-efficacy among school counselors, change in food and agricultural career-based guidance, and change in school counselor community/network engagement. Program success will be indicated by an increase in school counselor self-efficacy, an increase in the number of career exploration lessons involving agriculture during classroom guidance, and an increase in the number of professional and industry contacts in the mentee's network.Prior to beginning the program, school counselors will complete a baseline questionnaire assessing their current level of self-efficacy in implementing agriculture career development with their students. They will also report on the number of food and agriculture career activities they have facilitated in the previous semester, as well as the number and type of professional contacts (e.g., other school counselors, Extension, industry) in their current network.During the mentoring program, school counselors will complete monthly logs to reflect on their experiences during the mentoring component of the program. Responses to logs will be reviewed by the project team and used as formative data for making revisions to the next trainings. Responses will also be reviewed over time to assess emerging themes of interest in food and agriculture careers. Finally, the responses will also inform the development of the final mentoring manual. It is expected that interest in agriculture career development will increase during the programming.School counselors will complete two follow-up questionnaires; one immediately following the end of the mentoring program, and one at 6-months following program completion. At both follow-up points, school counselors will report on their self-efficacy, the number/type of individuals in their professional network, and the number of food and agriculture career activities facilitated in the previous semester. The number of students who participated in the food and agriculture career activities will be assessed at the 6-month follow-up. It is expected that self-efficacy, professional networks, and number of agriculture career activities will increase from baseline.