Board 19: The Impact of a Research Experiences for Teachers Program in Precision Agriculture and Sustainability for Rural STEM Educators

Bowen, Bradley; Kallmeyer, Alan R.; Erickson, H. Lynn

doi:10.18260/1-2--32290

Cited by 6 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…They expressed an increased commitment to granting students more responsibility for navigating their way through the process and providing additional time to struggle with the iterative nature of designing. This outcome supports existing research reporting that teachers are significantly more motivated to integrate the EDP into their classroom practices after participating in an authentic engineering-focused RET program (Bowen et al, , 2019(Bowen et al, , 2021DeJong et al, 2016;Yelamarthi et al, 2013). Teachers in this study also expressed ownership and buy-in for implementing the EDP due to increased familiarity with the nature of the EDP and readiness to translate it from an engineering research setting into a classroom setting.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 83%

“…Integrating engineering or scientific research into teacher professional development has shown to increase teachers' awareness of the need to incorporate authentic learning activities into their classroom practices regularly (Barrett et al, 2015;Barrett & Usselman, 2005Basalari et al, 2017;Bowen et al, , 2019Bowen et al, , 2021Farrell, 1992;Kantrov, 2014;Silverstein et al, 2002Silverstein et al, , 2009. Teachers have reported a shift in their pedagogical approach to incorporate the use of more workforce skills in the classroom as a result of participating in targeted professional development (Bowen & Shume, 2018Darling-Hammond & Baratz-Snowden, 2005;Stewart, 2014;Webb, 2015).…”

Section: Professional Development In Stem Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Through such pedagogical approaches, teachers provide opportunities for their students to engage in authentic 21st century learning (Landis et al, 2011). Comprehensive programs designed to target these pedagogical shifts, such as the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Research ss for Teachers (RET) Program, can provide highly effective professional development for teachers (Bowen et al, , 2019(Bowen et al, , 2021DeJong et al, 2016).…”

Section: Professional Development In Stem Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Rural secondary STEM teachers’ understanding of the engineering design process

Shume

Bowen

Altimus

et al. 2022

tpre

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Though STEM teacher professional development is known to be beneficial, it is not available equally to educators in all geographic regions. Rural educators face unique challenges not often experienced by their urban and suburban counterparts. This study investigates the impacts of a Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) program on rural math, science, and technology education teachers’ perspectives on how these experiences changed their understanding of the engineering design process (EDP). From 2016 to 2019, eleven rural secondary STEM teachers engaged in a six-week professional development experience focused on research and implementing the EDP. These teachers were rural “solitary” STEM teachers, which meant they were the only teacher of their subject in their school building. This qualitative study used a thematic analysis approach to code and analyze individual and focus group interview transcripts. The results were analyzed to determine how the RET experiences impacted the teachers’ perception of how the EDP is used in problem-solving activities and how it could be integrated into their classroom practices. Results from this study show that the teachers developed a more authentic conceptual understanding of the EDP, which led to increased insightfulness on how to engage students in authentic engineering design activities that strengthen future workforce skills. This study demonstrated that an authentic engineering-based RET program can increase rural teachers’ commitment and readiness to incorporate the EDP into regular classroom practices. Further, this program resulted in teachers gaining a much more nuanced understanding of how the EDP’s non-linear steps and iterative nature contribute to creating authentic problem-solving challenges for students. In particular, the teachers realized the necessity of creating less prescribed challenges that require students to draw upon the constellation of skills necessary to design optimal solutions, resulting in higher-caliber opportunities to develop future workforce skills. These findings emphasize the critical need to design professional development experiences that target the unique needs of rural STEM teachers. Additional research is needed to tease out the extent to which teachers’ increased commitment to using the EPD and a more nuanced understanding of the EDP translate into sustained changes to classroom practice.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 83%

Section: Professional Development In Stem Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Professional Development In Stem Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Rural secondary STEM teachers’ understanding of the engineering design process

Shume

Bowen

Altimus

et al. 2022

tpre

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Although RETs that focused more pointedly on teacher practice was more successful in shaping teachers' beliefs and practices, teachers still need to have explicit help in translating scientific inquiry into their teaching knowledge and practice (Roseler, et al, 2012). In addition, RET programs improve teachers' functionality as scientists (Faber et al, 2014), increase their understanding of design-based learning, workforce skills (i.e., 21st century skills), and the engineering design process skills (Bowen et al, 2021), improve teachers' confidence and growth in their understanding of STEM curriculum (Schneider et al, 2020) and their inquiry conceptions and lesson design (Blanchard & Sampson, 2018), and increase STEM awareness teaching practices potentially contribute to preparing more students for STEM careers (Pinnell et al, 2018).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experiencing Tightly and Loosely Structured Research Groups: The Influence on Preservice Science Teachers’ Abilities to Engage in Science Practices

Özalp

Feldman

2022

INTERDISCIP J ENV SCI ED

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There have been recent calls for students to not only learn the content of science, but also its practices. If teachers are to teach their students how to engage in those practice, then they need to have at least had some experience engaging in them. The US NSF research experiences for the teachers (RET) programs provide opportunities for the teachers to engage in those practices. In those programs, the teachers work in research groups that vary in the ways in which they are structured. This suggests they might gain different experiences depending on their research groups even if the teachers participate in the same program. Because of this reason, in this study we aimed to find out how participating in differently structured research groups influence preservice teachers' abilities to engage in science practices. By using a comparative case study approach, we compared two preservice science teachers' experiences and abilities in an RET program that required teachers to engage in research projects. Analysis of data from preservice teacher and graduate student mentor surveys and interviews, and observation notes indicated that the preservice teacher who participated in a loosely structured research group did not have the opportunity to improve in most of the practices and left the program as a novice researcher. On the other hand, the preservice teacher who participated in a tightly structured research group improved in most of the practices and to being a proficient technician.

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“…Before this review paper discusses the above topic of concern in Section 5 , the basic understanding of the agroecosystem [ 165 , 166 , 167 , 168 ], I4 for PA [ 90 , 91 , 92 , 93 , 94 , 95 , 96 , 97 , 98 , 99 , 100 , 101 , 102 , 103 , 104 , 105 , 106 , 107 , 108 , 109 , 110 , 111 , 112 , 113 , 114 , 115 , 116 , 117 , 118 , 119 , 120 , 121 , 122 , 123 , 124 , 125 , 126 , 127 , 128 , 129 , 130 , 131 , 132 , 133 , 134 , 135 , 136 , 137 , 138 , 139 , 140 , 141 ...…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Conceptual Model Relationship between Industry 4.0—Food-Agriculture Nexus and Agroecosystem: A Literature Review and Knowledge Gaps

Yap,

Al-Mutairi

2024

Foods

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With the expected colonization of human daily life by artificial intelligence, including in industry productivity, the deployment of Industry 4.0 (I4) in the food agriculture industry (FAI) is expected to revolutionize and galvanize food production to increase the efficiency of the industry’s production and to match, in tandem, a country’s gross domestic productivity. Based on a literature review, there have been almost no direct relationships between the I4—Food-Agriculture (I4FA) Nexus and the agroecosystem. This study aimed to evaluate the state-of-the-art relationships between the I4FA Nexus and the agroecosystem and to discuss the challenges in the sustainable FAI that can be assisted by the I4 technologies. This objective was fulfilled by (a) reviewing all the relevant publications and (b) drawing a conceptual relationship between the I4FA Nexus and the agroecosystem, in which the I4FA Nexus is categorized into socio-economic and environmental (SEE) perspectives. Four points are highlighted in the present review. First, I4 technology is projected to grow in the agricultural and food sectors today and in the future. Second, food agriculture output may benefit from I4 by considering the SEE benefits. Third, implementing I4 is a challenging journey for the sustainable FAI, especially for the small to medium enterprises (SMEs). Fourth, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles can help to manage I4’s implementation in agriculture and food. The advantages of I4 deployment include (a) social benefits like increased occupational safety, workers’ health, and food quality, security, and safety; (b) economic benefits, like using sensors to reduce agricultural food production costs, and the food supply chain; and (c) environmental benefits like reducing chemical leaching and fertilizer use. However, more studies are needed to address social adaptability, trust, privacy, and economic income uncertainty, especially in SMEs or in businesses or nations with lower resources; this will require time for adaptation to make the transition away from human ecology. For agriculture to be ESG-sustainable, the deployment of I4FA could be an answer with the support of an open-minded dialogue platform with ESG-minded leaders to complement sustainable agroecosystems on a global scale.

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Board 19: The Impact of a Research Experiences for Teachers Program in Precision Agriculture and Sustainability for Rural STEM Educators

Cited by 6 publications

References 5 publications

Rural secondary STEM teachers’ understanding of the engineering design process

Rural secondary STEM teachers’ understanding of the engineering design process

Experiencing Tightly and Loosely Structured Research Groups: The Influence on Preservice Science Teachers’ Abilities to Engage in Science Practices

A Conceptual Model Relationship between Industry 4.0—Food-Agriculture Nexus and Agroecosystem: A Literature Review and Knowledge Gaps

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