Fundamentally, agricultural teacher education programs and their faculty are tasked with preparing competent teachers capable of teaching students enrolled in public schools. As part of their design, an important facet of these programs is ensuring pre-service teachers are ready to provide educational opportunities in aspects of school-based…

Agricultural teacher education programs are designed to prepare competent teachers who are ready to teach students in public schools. One aspect of agricultural teacher education is ensuring teachers are ready to lead instruction in various aspects of school-based agricultural education (SBAE), such as teaching students various technical…

The purpose of this research was to describe the factors that motivate high school agriculture teachers to teach. The motivation to teach included intrinsic motivations, extrinsic motivations, and altruistic motivations. This was a census study using an online questionnaire that was sent to all (N = 252) high school agriculture teachers in Iowa.…

Across the nation, there is a large shortage of teachers in several subject areas (Daniel, 2015; Milliard, 2015; Sutcher, Darling-Hammond, & Carver-Thomas, 2016). In agricultural education, many teachers are leaving the profession within the first five years of beginning their teaching careers (Tippens, Ricketts, Morgan, Navaro, &…

Transfer students from the College of Agriculture (COA) at Iowa State University graduate at a higher rate than their university peers (non-COA). Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine if differences exist between COA and non-COA transfer students in their pre- and post- transfer experiences. A survey instrument was developed, and…

Reflection is a useful tool which improves teaching approaches; however, many first-year teachers do not appear to reflect upon their instructional plans (McAlpine & Weston, 2000). Prior research has indicated preservice teachers are not utilizing the acquired reflective approaches learned throughout the teacher preparation program (Hatton…

Agriculture's negative effect on water quality has become increasingly well documented. Farmers have a range of conservation practices available, yet rate of adoption is not optimal. Extension and other agricultural stakeholders play a key role in promotion of conservation practice adoption. We used survey data to examine relationships between…

Planning theories suggest a stepwise structure for organizing programs; evaluate current status with a needs assessment, identify strengths, weaknesses or gaps, use tools such as a logic model to plan, then implement and evaluate programming (Kettner et al., 2017). The National Agriculture in the Classroom organization and its state affiliates…

State crop scouting competitions (CSCs) promote agriculture by introducing youths in Indiana, Iowa, and Nebraska to various agricultural disciplines while focusing on integrated pest management (IPM). High school students compete as teams to address crop management issues at various stations. Each station is led by university representatives. Two…

With the growth of biorenewable energy, biomass production has become an important segment in the agriculture industry (Iowa Energy Center, 2013). A great workforce will be needed for this burgeoning biomass energy industry (Iowa Workforce Development, n. d.). Instructional topics in agricultural education should take the form of problems and…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine the amount of preparation Iowa inservice secondary agricultural education teachers received in agricultural mechanics at the university level. Secondary School Based Agricultural Education instructors attending the Iowa Association of Agricultural Educators' summer conference were given a…

A comparative study was conducted to explore faculty perceptions regarding the infusion of global perspectives into the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) curriculum at Iowa State University. King (1991) provided the original base for the study which enabled a comparison with data recently collected. This study may fill a void in the…

We surveyed the perspectives of farmers, crop professionals, and Extension agents and found that they have positive perspectives concerning multifunctional agriculture, including a positive effect of a nearby prairie to cropland productivity. The survey was conducted in central Iowa and included individuals predominantly from Iowa involved in…

Flipped learning is an innovative approach to teaching at the post-secondary level. Traditional methods of initial delivery of curricular content occur before a face-to-face class session. Students must prepare before attending class, as the majority of face-to-face class sessions are utilized for applying curricular content to complex problems. A…

A historical portion of many school-based agricultural education (SBAE) programs, agricultural mechanics remains popular in schools across the nation. As such, pre-service and in-service teachers should be prepared to effectively deliver agricultural mechanics instruction (Burris, Robinson, & Terry, 2005). Agricultural education researchers…