Developing Technical Agriculture Skills Through Laboratory Instruction in School-Based Agricultural Education

Introduction

The agricultural industry faces an assortment of challenges as we move deeper into the 21^st century. One such challenge is the development of appropriate human capital capable of tackling the issues, ideas, and struggles that the agricultural industry will encounter in the coming years (Stripling & Ricketts, 2016). Part of the solution to human capital development needs lies within school-based agricultural education (SBAE) programming. SBAE programs have historically been used to engage students with a wide range of technical agriculture subject matter, such as agricultural mechanics, animal science, plant science, and natural resources. Congruent with this variety, instruction in technical agriculture subject matter likewise occurs in numerous settings, such as row crop fields, livestock barns, forestry plots, and agricultural mechanics facilities, consequently exposing students to numerous agricultural settings (Phipps et al., 2008; Shoulders & Myers, 2012; Twenter & Edwards, 2017). This diversity lends itself well to providing opportunities for agriculture teachers to engage students in numerous aspects of the agricultural industry (Phipps et al., 2008). However, regarding the preparation of pre-service agriculture teachers to teach technical agriculture subject matter appropriately and competently while simultaneously managing instructional laboratories, challenges remain.

Agricultural teacher education programs include various components that support the development of competent, prepared agriculture teachers. Such components include early field experiences, pedagogical courses, and technical agriculture courses and are intended to prepare pre-service agriculture teachers for the realities of their future profession. Regarding their preparation to teach technical agriculture subject matter, pre-service agriculture teachers are immersed in a variety of courses and experiences, such as plant science and agricultural mechanics, that are designed to expose them to various aspects of agriculture (Whittington, 2005). Despite this immersion, however, pre-service agriculture teachers often feel ill-prepared to teach hands-on, laboratory-based activities that require a certain degree of technical knowledge and skills to successfully lead (Granberry et al., 2022; Tummons et al., 2017). Pre-service agriculture teachers need a range of technical agriculture skills as they transition into the early years of their teaching careers (Albritton & Roberts, 2020; Wells et al., 2021). From the perspective of attracting and retaining early-career agriculture teachers, teachers’ self-confidence in teaching their students and believing that they adequately deliver their curricula influence their decisions to remain in the profession (Solomonson et al., 2021). Consequently, fostering the development of pre-service agriculture teachers’ technical agriculture skills is paramount to helping steer them toward early-career success.

Beyond agricultural teacher education programming, in-service agriculture teachers must be capable of competently teaching technical agriculture subject matter (Granberry et al., 2023; Swafford & Hagler, 2018; Wells & Hainline, 2021; Wells et al., 2023). Moreover, to be considered effective in their classroom and laboratory instruction, in-service agriculture teachers must be current and proficient in their agricultural subject matter knowledge (Eck et al., 2019). Developing in-service agriculture teachers’ technical agriculture subject matter knowledge and skills can take a variety of forms, such as: (1) engaging in formal professional development workshops, (2) working with more knowledgeable, experienced in-service agriculture teachers, (3) informal experiences working with local agricultural industry partners, and (4) accruing additional experience preparing for (and sometimes during) actual classroom and laboratory instruction (Solomonson et al., 2022; Wells et al., 2021). Regardless of the approach used by individual in-service agriculture teachers, such experiences would, over time, provide gains in their confidence and competence to teach technical agriculture subject matter.