Preparing Pre-service Educators to Overcome Personal and Professional Barriers: a Case Study in Elementary Agricultural Education (1:00-1:15pm)
Maria Helm
University of Georgia

Although barriers facing agricultural educators have been well-studied at the middle and high school-levels, they are equally important for elementary teachers and elementary agricultural education is quite new nationally. The purpose of this study was to better understand how elementary agricultural education (EAE) teachers in [State] overcome personal and professional barriers. Agricultural education at the elementary-level provides students with experiential learning opportunities to provide foundational knowledge of the link between plants, animals, and society. The population was chosen from 26 pioneering EAE schools in [State]. Purposive sampling was used and four EAE teachers engaged in in-depth interviews. Once data saturation occurred, qualitative content analysis detected emergent themes across the dataset. Personal and professional barriers included lack of financial support, a shorter class time schedule at the elementary-level, and student behavioral issues which prevented safe, hands-on learning activities for younger learners that would normally occur for older students. Participants overcame these barriers by collaborating and communicating with other teachers using various teaching strategies and seeking support from the community and administrators. However, participants indicated a need for training in agricultural mechanics as repairing and maintaining teaching equipment was a reoccurring issue. Pre-service teacher education programs at the college-level that focus in EAE should continue to include teaching strategies classes focusing on experiential learning and effective classroom management, but reinforce positive behavioral intervention and support for younger learners. While elementary students will not be engaging with agricultural mechanics like more mature students, pre-service EAE teachers should still be trained in this area.

Balancing Act: Investigating Quality Instructional Design Needs for  Hybrid Agricultural Courses (1:30-1:45pm)
Shannon Norris
New Mexico State University

The COVID-19 pandemic swiftly disrupted the educational system and teaching expectations. Today's course delivery requires teachers to be ready to convert courses to hybrid formats without much guidance on maintaining quality engagement and interactions in both online and face-to-face scenarios. As a result, investigating student perceptions of quality instruction can help shape inform instructional needs for faculty in colleges of agriculture, food, and natural resources. The purpose of this study was to investigate students' perceptions of their online or hybrid experiences based on the quality course teaching and instructional practice (QCTIP) scorecard. We surveyed participants' (N = 135) in an oral communication and leadership course (n = 72) at [University] and an agricultural business communication course (n = 63) at [University] in Spring 2021. Each course was purposively selected for the broad range of majors in the colleges of agriculture. Using QCTIP, students rated their hybrid instructional experiences using a 3-point Likert scale (1-emerging; 2-accomplished; 3-exemplary). Students rated their overall hybrid instructional experience as accomplished (M = 2.08). Using the QCTIP scorecard, students rated key areas of a quality instructional experiences, including course design (M = 2.05); accessibility, ADA compliance, and universal design (M = 2.17); course learning outcomes (M = 2.11); course content (M = 2.01); assignments (M = 2.04); instructor role (M = 2.13); class discussion and engagement (M = 2.06); building community (M = 2.09); communication (M = 2.12); and continuous course improvement (M = 2.01). While 'accomplished" likely still represents a positive hybrid experience for students, faculty should investigate strategies to move each QCTIP section into the exemplary range. Maintaining engaging and accessible hybrid courses requires faculty to be proficient in both in-person and online delivery formats, which warrants a need for investigating teaching resources and guidelines to support faculty when delivering quality, robust programs.

Impacts of a Professional Development Program Designed to Help Faculty in Technical Subjects Integrate Leadership Concepts in Their Courses (1:45-2:00pm)
T. Grady Roberts
University of Florida

Agricultural and natural resource organizations are particularly susceptible to negative impacts from weather-related disasters including, drought, fires, flooding, freezes, tornadoes, and hurricanes. Climate change is causing these severe weather events to occur in increasing frequency. Colleges of agriculture and related sciences are tasked with preparing students to enter the workforce in these organizations and research has verified the importance of these students having leadership skills. Consequently, tomorrow's graduates need to be prepared to deal with weather-related disasters and demonstrate leadership skills. This abstract highlights a professional development program funded through a USDA/NIFA Higher Education Challenge Grant which include an online academy focused on helping agricultural faculty learn about leadership, change management, and team building skills. The project provided a field experience to visit organizations impacted by weather-related disasters to provide contextual examples with real people impacted by hurricanes. Faculty then created case studies to share their experiences with their students. The purpose of this study was to understand the impacts on faculty because of these transformational learning experiences. A qualitative and exploratory approach was used to investigate, if and how, hearing first-person accounts of the impacts of hurricanes impacted the attitudes of faculty participants about their professional development field experiences and their intentions to teach leadership content to their students. Results revealed that these experiences impacted faculty participants' perspectives on disasters, their confidence in teaching leadership, and their general teaching confidence. Based on the results of this study, we recommend that future faculty development experiences look for ways to provide transformational learning experiences which integrate technical and social sciences. We also recommend that facilitators of similar professional development programs build in opportunities for critical reflection to allow participants to fully process the experience.