Student Engagement in a Team-Based Capstone Course: A Comparison of What Students Do and What Instructors Value

Student engagement is an important consideration across all levels of education. The adoption of student-centered teaching methods is an effective way to increase student engagement. Student engagement is at risk when instructor expectations and student participation in purposeful engagement activities are not aligned. Traditionally, student engagement is measured at the institutional level, which proves less than useful to instructors who wish to gauge engagement in specific courses in higher education. In this study, we sought to determine classroom level engagement in a capstone farm management course recently converted to the team-based learning format by comparing student perceptions regarding participation in engagement-specific activities with the instructors’ perceived importance of those same activities. The Classroom-Level Survey of Student Engagement (CLASSE) was utilized to collect student participation and instructor importance data. Data were examined utilizing a 2x2 quadrant analysis. Congruence between student participation frequency and instructor importance was found between 73.7% of the educational activities, while discrepancies were found on 26.3% of educational activities. Overall, students who completed the team-based learning-structured farm management course were physically and psychologically engaged in the learning environment. It is recommended that team-based learning be implemented in other courses within agricultural education to examine its utility in other contexts

Supervisory practices in non-formal educational settings as perceived by agricultural education teachers: A national study

Student achievement in the United States is receiving increased scrutiny, placing higher levels of accountability upon the classroom teacher. Instructional supervisors responsible for the supervision of teachers have also felt added pressure to maintain student achievement at levels consistent with state and national mandates. Instructional supervisors use formalized supervision of instruction in traditional classroom settings to guide teachers in increasing student achievement. High school agricultural education utilizes a three-pronged model for program implementation that includes SAE and FFA. Agricultural education teachers should initiate activities that encourage collaborative supervision in the non-formal components of the program to help improve student achievement. This descriptive study determined the relative importance of ten general instructional supervision beliefs, the importance of 28 selected supervisory practices, and the frequency in which the 28 selected supervisory practices were experienced by teachers in the non-formal educational settings of the agricultural education program. A disproportionate stratified random sample of 700 agricultural education teachers was drawn from state groupings stratified by FFA membership. An electronic questionnaire was used to collect the data through Survey Monkey. Findings were obtained from the responses of 234 agricultural education teachers from 17 states. Independent samples t-tests and analysis of variance were used to determine differences in perceptions based upon demographic characteristics. The average respondent was male, 42 years of age, held a bachelor\u27s degree and had taught nearly 15 years. Respondents believed that supervision is more art than science, should be collaborative, and used in all teachable moments for the improvement of student learning. They also believed that their high school principals should support and provide resources for their work in non-formal educational settings. Of the 28 selected supervision practices, agricultural education teachers perceived experiencing 14 items as occurring sometimes, 13 rarely, and one item as never experienced. No items were perceived as being experienced often or always. It was recommended that teachers initiate key activities that influence their principal to develop collaborative instructional supervision in non-formal educational settings. Based on the findings of this study, a framework to enhance instructional supervision in the non-formal educational settings of the agricultural education program was proposed

Simulation of the low earth orbital atomic oxygen interaction with materials by means of an oxygen ion beam

Atomic oxygen is the predominant species in low-Earth orbit between the altitudes of 180 and 650 km. These highly reactive atoms are a result of photodissociation of diatomic oxygen molecules from solar photons having a wavelength less than or equal to 2430A. Spacecraft in low-Earth orbit collide with atomic oxygen in the 3P ground state at impact energies of approximately 4.2 to 4.5 eV. As a consequence, organic materials previously used for high altitude geosynchronous spacecraft are severely oxidized in the low-Earth orbital environment. The evaluation of materials durability to atomic oxygen requires ground simulation of this environment to cost effectively screen materials for durability. Directed broad beam oxygen sources are necessary to evaluate potential spacecraft materials performance before and after exposure to the simulated low-Earth orbital environment. This paper presents a description of a low energy, broad oxygen ion beam source used to simulate the low-Earth orbital atomic oxygen environment. The results of materials interaction with this beam and comparison with actual in-space tests of the same meterials will be discussed. Resulting surface morphologies appear to closely replicate those observed in space tests