Let’s Review: Types of Feedback Given in an Agricultural Writing Intensive Course

Our study sought to describe the types of feedback (affective, cognitive, and metacognitive) used by students of senior standing in a Writing Intensive Course within an undergraduate Agricultural Sciences degree. This study quantified a change in peer-review feedback over the course of an academic term. Students used each type of feedback throughout the duration of the course, but relied heavily on affective and cognitive feedback (63% and 80% of combined feedback between both categories in initial and final feedback, respectively). Further efforts are necessary to provide direction and rigorous evaluation in the writing intensive course. Continued research is necessary to examine instructional strategies in place and to provide a more thorough evaluation of the peer feedback structures in place. Efforts to understand the benefits of quality peer feedback as a critical component of the revision process should facilitate effective practice in writing courses within agriculture and agricultural education across the country

What Moves You? How SBAE Teachers Navigate Program Migration

Little data exists to examine the stigmatized phenomenon of program mobility within agricultural education. Our research starts the conversation through interviews with eight School-Based Agricultural Education (SBAE) teachers across the United States, using qualitative phenomenology, to provide a unique perspective of retention through migration. We define teacher migration as a program move while choosing to remain in SBAE. Utilizing the theoretical lens of expansive learning through activity systems (Engeström, 2009), we present teacher migration as a means to learn and grow in the craft of teaching within SBAE, particularly among teachers with more than eight years of experience. Although additional efforts are needed to quantify migration within SBAE, and to examine the common narrative, our research reveals program migration to be a relational issue. In our study, participants expressed community, opportunity to learn, and time as functions of support through a career transition. They identified resources and expectations as challenges faced in the migration process. Our research provides a starting place for conversations around teacher migration through a focus on the assets of experience, viewing migration as a means of retention rather than as a function toward attrition

Conditions for Competition: Assessing the Competitive Dynamics of US Counties

Research in public policy examines specific theories that drive policy adoption among jurisdictions. One of these theories, referred to in the economics literature as economic competition (or strategic competition), posits that local governments may engage in competition with one another because of the potential interjurisdictional economic spillover effects of certain fiscal policies. In this article, sales tax rates, a common, yet overlooked, policy instrument in the policy literature is examined to determine if sales tax rates drive competition among counties. Testing several hypotheses, this study finds that sales tax rate increases can exacerbate competition among counties. However, this relationship is conditional on the per capita county income; more specifically, poorer counties are more vulnerable to the effects of economic competition than wealthier counties. Furthermore, many other processes influence sales tax increases, depending on how the process is modeled. Thus, economic competition is a multidimensional process shaped by a multitude of factors

Then What? Quantifying SBAE Teacher Career-Decisions Post-Migration

Complex career decisions, such as teacher mobility, are often reduced to stigmatizing labels that do little to account for the state of teaching as a profession or credit those engaging in migratory decisions as making healthy career choices. Through our study, we focused on understanding workforce mobility, teaching as an unstaged profession, and the current quantifications existing around SBAE teacher migration. We drew on over 100 years of data from California as we quantitatively explored and synthesized the career decisions of migrating SBAE teachers. This snapshot offers a means of understanding the Teacher Career Cycle (Fessler & Christensen, 1992) in light of the implications for the teaching career as a series of choices rather than a stretch of time at an individual school. Implications of this conceptualization of migration stretch beyond SBAE to administration and those tasked with supporting the career trajectory of SBAE teachers across the United States

Will the First Through Fifth Years Please Stand Up? Quantifying National SBAE Teacher Experience

Research often references years of experience specific to participants, yet no compiled report exists for secondary school-based agricultural education (SBAE) to holistically quantify years of teaching experience. In addition, definitions accounting for experience fall short of capturing the myriad ways experience counts in the broader teaching profession. Our study addresses this missing piece of the teacher retention puzzle. Using Quiñones, Ford, and Teachout’s (1994) conceptual framework for work experience measures, our study quantified teacher experience in the National Association for Agricultural Education (NAAE). We analyzed National SBAE teacher experience through descriptive statistics, compared experience by region using an ANOVA model, and compared SBAE to the national teaching profession. We found practical significance in the difference between SBAE’s population of 1-3 year teachers and 10-19 year teachers compared to the national teacher average. We pose questions around teacher recruitment and retention relative to the specific experience demographic of SBAE and the generational trends accompanying such demographics

Adjusting, Appeasing, and Rearranging: How Agriculture Teachers Reconcile the Demands of the Profession

A teacher shortage continues to plague the SBAE profession. While this shortage has been quantified and explored from the perspective of individual teachers, little research has taken a systemic approach to the problem of the SBAE teacher shortage. We posit the teacher shortage problem as inextricably linked to a convoluted job description and growing list of competencies required to be a successful agriculture teacher. The teachers in this qualitative study shared their navigation of the process of reconciliation within their landscapes of practice and regimes of competence. Using hermeneutic phenomenology, themes of adjusting, rearranging, and appeasing emerged as the key ways in which SBAE teachers reconciled the competing demands of the profession. We discuss these findings specific to these participants, but also in terms of implications and recommendations for the broader profession, administrators, alumni groups, researchers, and teacher educators, noting especially the need for change at the professional level to reduce the reconciliation load on practicing SBAE teachers

The epidemiology and clinical features of rickettsial diseases in North Queensland, Australia: implications for patient identification and management

Background: Rickettsial infections are a common cause of hospitalization in tropical settings, although early diagnosis is challenging in the rural locations where these infections are usually seen. Methods: This retrospective, clinical audit of microbiologically-confirmed cases of scrub typhus or spotted fever group (SFG) rickettsial infection between 1997 and 2016 was performed a tertiary referral hospital in tropical Australia. Clinical, laboratory and radiological findings at presentation were correlated with the patients’ subsequent clinical course. Results: There were 135 locally-acquired cases (95 scrub typhus, 37 SFG, 3 undifferentiated). There were nine hospitalizations during the first 5 years of the study period and 81 in the last 5 years (p for trend = 0.003). Eighteen (13%) of the 135 cases required ICU admission, all of whom were adults. A greater proportion of patients with SFG infection required ICU support (8/37 (22%) compared with 10/95 (11%) scrub typhus cases), although this difference did not reach statistical significance (p = 0.10). Three (8%) of the 37 patients with SFG infection had severe disease (1 died, 2 developed permanent disability) versus 0/95 scrub typhus patients (p = 0.02). Adults with a high admission qSOFA score (≥2) had an odds ratio (OR) of 19 (95% CI:4.8–74.5) for subsequent ICU admission (p<0.001); adults with a high NEWS2 score (≥7) had an OR of 14.3 (95% CI:4.5–45.32) for ICU admission (p<0.001). A patient’s respiratory rate at presentation had strong prognostic utility: if an adult had an admission respiratory rate <22 breaths/minute, the negative predictive value for subsequent ICU admission was 95% (95% CI 88–99). Conclusions: In the well-resourced Australian health system outcomes are excellent, but the local burden of rickettsial disease appears to be increasing and the clinical phenotype of SFG infections may be more severe than previously believed. Simple, clinical assessment on admission has prognostic utility and may be used to guide management

Tephra clean-up after the 2015 eruption of Calbuco volcano, Chile: A quantitative geospatial assessment in four communities

Reliable methods for volcanic impact and risk assessments are essential. They provide constructive information to emergency and disaster managers, critical infrastructure providers, the insurance industry, and wider society. Posteruption clean-up of tephra deposits is a prevalent and expensive (time and resource) activity which is often not planned for. Here, we present an overview of the clean-up efforts undertaken in four communities after the VEI 4 eruption of Calbuco volcano in 2015. We narratively reconstruct clean-up efforts in Ensenada (Chile), Junín de los Andes (Argentina), San Martín de los Andes (Argentina), and Villa La Angostura (Argentina) using semi-structured interviews, syn- and post-deposition photographs, pre- and post-event visual spectrum satellite imagery, and media reports. We compare these reconstructions with estimates based on a geospatial modelling approach adapted from Hayes et al. (Journal of Applied Volcanology 6:1; 2017). Specifically, we compare reported and geospatially derived estimates for volume of tephra removed, and clean-up operation duration. Our modelling approach performed well for Junín de los Andes but did not adequately capture volume and clean-up operation duration for the three remaining case study locations. We discuss several sources of uncertainty (including observational errors and natural variance of tephra deposit thickness), reported tephra removal volume estimates, clean-up methods, land use, and temporal evolution of clean-up operation demand. Our work demonstrates the utility of using simple geospatial data to develop assessments for tephra clean-up for use in response and recovery planning, and quantitative volcanic impact and risk assessments.Fil: Hayes, Josh. University of Canterbury; Nueva ZelandaFil: Wilson, Thomas M.. University of Canterbury; Nueva ZelandaFil: Stewart, Carol. Massey University Wellington; Nueva ZelandaFil: Villarosa, Gustavo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte. Instituto Andino Patagónico de Tecnologías Biológicas y Geoambientales. Universidad Nacional del Comahue. Instituto Andino Patagónico de Tecnologías Biológicas y Geoambientales; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Comahue. Centro Regional Universitario Bariloche; ArgentinaFil: Salgado, Pablo Agustín. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte. Instituto Andino Patagónico de Tecnologías Biológicas y Geoambientales. Universidad Nacional del Comahue. Instituto Andino Patagónico de Tecnologías Biológicas y Geoambientales; ArgentinaFil: Beigt, Debora. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte. Instituto Andino Patagónico de Tecnologías Biológicas y Geoambientales. Universidad Nacional del Comahue. Instituto Andino Patagónico de Tecnologías Biológicas y Geoambientales; ArgentinaFil: Outes, Ana Valeria. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte. Instituto Andino Patagónico de Tecnologías Biológicas y Geoambientales. Universidad Nacional del Comahue. Instituto Andino Patagónico de Tecnologías Biológicas y Geoambientales; ArgentinaFil: Deligne, Natalia I.. GNS Science; Nueva ZelandaFil: Leonard, Graham S.. GNS Science; Nueva Zeland