Educators within agricultural and natural resource disciplines are tasked with educating students to critically engage with and problem-solve complex issues. As society's relationship with science and technology changes, coupled with an information-dense environment, strategies for sustainably addressing complex issues are needed. One potential…

In 2015, the United States Department of Agriculture reported that agriculture baccalaureate graduates were only expected to fill two-thirds of the available job openings. To address this need, it has become critical for colleges of agriculture to retain high-quality students. In response, universities have attempted to determine the practices to…

Simulator technologies have become more prominent in many educational contexts in recent years. Simulator technologies such as virtual reality (VR) exist in many forms and can be used for different purposes, including weld process training. University-level course students have previously reported using VR technology can positively contribute to a…

Metacognition is an important skill required for improving students' reading comprehension ability. Studies have reported effectiveness of metacognitive reading strategies to increase reading comprehension and information retention. However, there is limited research utilizing eye-tracking technology to explore the effectiveness of metacognitive…

Despite agricultural education's prioritized efforts to increase diversity, people of color remain minimally represented. The overwhelming majority of all School-Based Agricultural Education (SBAE) teachers are White, non-Hispanic. The limitations of SBAE teachers' prior experiences or knowledge base of ethnic and racial diversity could lead to…

Agriculture teachers are responsible for the education of a mixed ability classroom, in which there may be students identified as gifted. It is unclear how much preservice preparation agriculture teachers receive in order to challenge this population of students or what inservice teacher professional development needs exist. This study aimed to…

A profound need currently exists in the United States for increased student interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) -based careers. Our study focused on how students conceptualized their motivation to learn contextualized science via agricultural science while viewed through the lens of both social cognitive theory…

The Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) program is a valuable component of school-based agricultural education (SBAE). SAE component outcomes consist of real-world career exposure and skill development through experiential learning. Unfortunately, the SAE program is often the weakest component of SBAE in local programs. As such, SBAE teachers…

The history of professional organizations for teacher educators in agriculture is long and diverse. As formal vocational agriculture programs were established in the early 1900s it became evident that there was a need for professionally trained vocational agriculture teachers. This demand for agriculture teachers resulted in the new profession of…

As classrooms become more diverse, having multicultural intelligence, or the ability to relate to diverse student populations, is imperative to be an effective classroom teacher (Conner & Roberts, 2013). To build cultural intelligence in a stand-alone course, examining self-perception and cultural engagement, as well as studying one's own…

The mission of Land Grant Institutions (LGIs) and Cooperative Extension has always included the concepts of educational access and inclusion, but not all communities have equitable access to Extension programs. Specifically, Extension is currently only serving about 10% of Indigenous communities. Given the complicated history of Indigenous land…

Dr. Tracy Kitchel presented the 2020 AAAE Distinguished Lecture as an online presentation that included break-out room discussions during the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Agricultural Education (AAAE) hosted virtually in May 2021. The 2020 Annual Meeting of AAAE moved to a virtual format and was modified shortly after the…

The student teaching experience is one of the most impactful and formative experiences of any preservice teachers' career. Student teaching provides preservice teachers with the professional knowledge and skills needed to be successful teachers through concrete experiences, which formalize professional behaviors. This longitudinal linear mixed…

In this case study, we explored an innovative Professional Development (PD) approach where teachers were positioned as experts and drivers of change. Simplified as Participatory PD, Michigan State University Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources (AFNR) Education faculty constructed an experience for Michigan AFNR Educators following the…

This exploratory study assessed the perceived levels of importance and competence of student teachers in agricultural education regarding their ability to teach across the National Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources (AFNR) Career Pathways. Using a congruent, parallel mixed-methods design, data were collected from 16 student teachers through…