Many agricultural educators fail to integrate core subject concepts into their classrooms. Current research addresses the perceptions of agricultural educators regarding core subject integration, but little research notes the barriers that are identified in the perception studies and the action of agricultural educators needed to overcome those barriers. The purpose of this study was to identify the path progressive agricultural educators, who are successful in integrating core subject concepts, particularly STEM, in their classroom followed. Additionally, to determine the tools and resources the progressive agricultural educators believe other agricultural educators need in order to follow a similar path. Overall the participants in the study all followed similar paths to become progressive in academic integration. All participants appeared to be highly self-motivated individuals because they seek out professional development opportunities in order to continuously improve the teaching in their classrooms and increase rigor within their curriculum. Collaboration between agricultural educators and core subject educators is crucial to increasing rigor in the agricultural education classroom (Myers & Thompson, 2008). Administrators at the participating schools were supportive of the idea of academic integration in the agricultural science classroom. According to the participants, longer professional development workshops are needed for teachers to successfully advance in the area of academic integration along with resource sharing opportunities between other agricultural educators and potentially core subject teachers. The participants all possess adequate facilities to conduct academic integration and believe available facilities and budgets affect the success of academic integration, because without proper facilities and supplies it is difficult for teachers to incorporate inquiry based instruction. According to the participants budgets also are a constraint for teachers when attempting to advance. If the teacher’s budget does not allow for extra purchases, then the teacher should take it upon themselves to seek out additional fiscal support to assist in classroom instruction, by writing grants or asking the local community for support.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2011-05-9504 |
| Date | 2011 May 1900 |
| Creators | Gill, Bart Eugene |
| Contributors | Murphy, Timothy H. |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
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