This chapter explores the phenomena of an immersion professional development institute in which urban teachers traveled for the first time to Midwest farms and operations. Through direct, first-hand experiences, teachers formed understandings about the identity, roles, and tools used in rural agriculture. The study focuses on how language, interactions, and objects were used in the settings, and their significance to teacher perceptions and later use with students in classrooms. The study presents nine implications for classroom teachers working with learners, who potentially have limited prior knowledge, in bridging the omissions in understanding.
TopIntroduction And Need Of The Study
Imagine being a teacher in a heavily populated city with no personal experience and only second- or third-hand experience with rural regions or rural agriculture. Imagine how a teacher’s ideas and understandings may be set, although based on dated social information and misconceptions. While agricultural is present in both rural areas and urban areas, the nature of rural agriculture is distinctly less familiar in urban populations. Newer generations of educators are, therefore, more likely to not have the benefit of first-hand stories and experiences working the land. However, educators of all ages and grade levels are faced with conversation exchanges, topics, and daily decisions that weigh on their understanding of agricultural literacy (Frick et al., 1991). The need for this study is based upon the necessity to better understand how learning is supported and continued when limited prior knowledge exists.
In this study, inner-city teachers elected to participate in an Agriculture in the Classroom (AITC) professional development immersion workshop. The teachers packed their bags and traveled by school bus through rural regions of the Midwest to visit 12 unique agribusinesses over the course of one week. The teachers’ perceptions, some rooted in years of their own belief systems, began to shift as they talked, participated in, and shared their experiences. This chapter looks at how the teachers’ experiences led to new perspectives. The need for this study is based upon the need for understanding how those with little prior experience, such as urban teachers on farms, can be supported in their learning. The study explores the experiences of PreK through 12th-grade urban teachers’ visits to Midwestern farms and operations to provide insight into the relationships among scaffolds and the development of teacher understanding of rural agriculture.
Theoretical Framework
This study is situated in a theoretical framework of Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory (Vygotsky & Cole, 1978). Vygotskian theory is at the core of my personal lens as an early childhood teacher educator with a history that includes both agriculture and early childhood teaching. Central to this theory is the significance of interaction that occurs between an individual and the individual’s environment and culture. As a teacher and learner engage with language, social interactions, and materials, a learner’s capability can increase, and with close observation of this, the teacher responds by adjusting the assistance given, scaffolding the learner (Bodrova & Leong, 2006; Wood et al., 1976). Vygotsky identifies the interaction space, or zone of proximal development, as the cognitive area that begins with what an individual can do independently and extends to what the individual can do as the result of an interaction (Vygotsky & Cole, 1978). New learning occurs through “relating new knowledge both to previously learned knowledge and to experimental phenomena, so the student can build a consistent picture of the real world” (Hart et al., 1997, p. 79) A student now has foundational tools to use to continue their learning in a new setting. An educator’s role is in participating in change with the learner or learners they work with.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this qualitative instrumental case study is to explore the relationships among language, interactions, and objects and rural agriculture. In this study, rural agricultural presents an area in which there is a recognize need for awareness, as well as ideal phenomenon for urban teachers with little prior knowledge. The intensity and breadth of an immersion teacher education experience provided a multitude of data from which to draw upon. There is potential value in understanding the roles of language, interactions, and objects in the development teacher understanding of rural agricultural. Rural agriculture presents a cultural and social context with which urban teachers have little to no prior experience. For the purposes of this study, pre-k through 12-grade teachers were generally defined as teachers. The agricultural venues on the institute itinerary were generally referred to as farms or operations. The owner or manager of farms or operations were generally referred to as farmers.