Teaching Economics to K-12 Teachers by Examining Issues in the Five NIFA Priority Areas Through an Economic Lens

<p>NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY: <br/>The project involves the design, implementation and evaluation of a distance education based professional development program for K-12 teachers in Minnesota and nearby states, focusing on addressing economic issues surrounding the five NIFA Priority Areas, including food security and hunger, climate change, sustainable energy, childhood obesity, and food safety. Developing curricula to demonstrate the role of economics in the five NIFA priority areas will show the relevancy of economics, as well as highlight important social and scientific issues in the areas. To address the 21st Century societal challenges in food, environment, energy and health, USDA-NIFA has in recent years redirected agricultural sciences research, education and extension programs toward addressing issues in the identified five Priority Areas. A focus of NIFA-administered
programs has since been to increase the number of students who will pursue and complete a two-year, four-year, and master-level postsecondary degree in the food and agricultural sciences in areas that contribute to the above five priority areas (e.g., USDA-NIFA SPECA; USDA-NIFA HEC). The proposed project seeks to heighten K-12 students' interests in the five NIFA priority areas. Meanwhile, as the world becomes more complex and integrated the importance of economics literacy grows, and so does the social cost of not having our citizens attain that literacy. To adequately prepare our students for current and future national food and agricultural sciences workplace, the quality of economics education, both at the secondary and post-secondary levels, is critical. The proposed project seeks to heighten K-12 student's economics literacy. Research indicates that an essential key to
increasing student understanding of economics is a well-trained teacher (Allgood and Walstad; Becker, Green, and Rosen; Bosshardt and Watts; Highsmith and Baumol; Lynch; Rowe; Walstad; Wetzel and O'Toole). A prevailing problem in economics education in the K-12 system in Minnesota (and other states) is that most teachers have little prior training in economics. For example, secondary social studies teachers in Minnesota are required to have only one college-level economics course for teaching licensure, and elementary teachers, who must help their students meet state standards in economics at each grade level, have no economics coursework requirement. While it is understandable that K-12 teachers need to be versatile in the subjects they can teach, the lack of depth in economics for many teachers suggests that it is important for them to be continually engaged in professional
development activities to gain competency. Without additional professional development, most Minnesota K-12 teachers are simply not prepared to effectively teach economics as stipulated by the state standards and as expected by the public. Now, the success of a teacher professional development program ultimately must be evaluated in terms of how much the program enhances the learning of its teachers' intended students. To that end, it is important at the outset to be mindful of the educational needs of students, who are the beneficiaries of the program, and their various learning styles. In order to be prepared to enter the workforce or pursue a higher degree, a secondary school student must achieve two things: 'know' and 'can do'. To 'know' is to learn the content knowledge at an appropriate level, while 'can do' pertains to the ability to apply this
acquired knowledge in a meaningful way. Since young people learn best when knowledge is presented in context, the attainment of 'know' and 'can do' is greatly facilitated if the learner understands the importance of learning the matter at hand. A teacher thus needs to not only be well-versed in pedagogy and content knowledge, but also understand the relevancy of the subject matter and be fluent in imparting that real-world pertinence to students. The proposed approach of advancing economics content knowledge through examining issues surrounding the five NIFA Priority Areas provides teachers a path toward gaining that sense of relevancy. A key collaborator of the proposed project is the Minnesota Council on Economic Education (MCEE), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization housed in the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. MCEE
fulfills its mission of providing Minnesotans with the economic and financial understanding required to function successfully in a growingly complex global economy, primarily, through offering professional development programs in economics to Minnesota K-12 teachers. For example, over the past 10 years, 6,085 K-12 teachers have participated in MCEE's programs, affecting the learning of 585,000 students. In 2012 alone, MCEE trained 613 teachers in 21 workshops and courses.[1] While MCEE successfully reaches educators through its current offerings, it only reaches a fraction of the teachers that could benefit from its services. According to the Minnesota Department of Education, over 3,500 educators currently teach social studies, business, or family and consumer science in the state. There are also over 14,000 general elementary educators in the state. Barriers to participation
include lack of time and distance to travel to participate (the majority of MCEE's programming takes place in the Twin Cities). One way to expand MCEE's program reach is to leverage technology and think beyond the physical classroom. The time to expand MCEE's program reach via Internet technology and distance education is now. The demand for MCEE programming will grow enormously with the adoption of new Minnesota State Academic Standards for Economics and Personal Finance. These standards have recently been approved and will go into effect for the 2013-14 school year. These new standards are grade-specific for elementary and middle-school grades, and at high school as a semester-long course in economics. Thus, thousands of teachers who have never before been responsible for teaching economics will soon be seeking curriculum and professional development support. Despite the
increased demand, the barriers to participation explained above will remain, and MCEE needs to find an innovative way to bridge this participation gap and get teachers the economics professional development they sorely need. [1] As pointed out by one reviewer, an additional resource of collaboration is the SLEDS. The Minnesota State is building the Statewide Longitudinal Education Data System (SLEDS) with funds from 'Race to the top'. The system tracks Minnesota students from pre-K, to K-12, to college and to the workforce. Collaborating with SLEDS can facilitate data collection such as providing test score, college and employment histories of students who took courses from teachers trained by MCEE.
<p>APPROACH: <br/>The procedure for accomplishing Objective 1 includes the following steps. Identify the available K-12 economics professional development curricula that address issues related to the five NIFA Priority Areas (food security and hunger, climate change, sustainable energy, childhood obesity, and food safety). Identify major economic issues in the five NIFA Priority Areas and, from which, identify the most pressing curriculum topics for teachers in the three grade cohorts: high school, middle school, and elementary school. Assess available curricula relevant to the identified curriculum topics to determine gaps. Bridge the curriculum gap between what is available and what is needed by collaborating with MCEE to developed additional curricula for teachers in the three grade cohorts. For pragmatic reasons, the curriculum for the high school cohort will be
developed first. The procedure for accomplishing Objective 2 includes the following steps. Explore key mechanisms for curriculum delivery across geographical regions as well as their pedagogical effectiveness. Assess the technology needed for the identified delivery mechanisms and the available IT support that can be secured at a reasonable cost and on a sustainable basis. Identify the optimal mechanism (hybrid if appropriate) which is both pedagogically sound and cost-effective. Develop the identified curriculum delivery mechanism, collaborating with MCEE and consulting with the IT support at the University of Minnesota. The procedure for accomplishing Objective 3 includes the following steps. Conduct a pilot project to implement the professional development curriculum for the high school cohort developed under Objective (1), using the delivery mechanism developed under Objective
(2).[1] Assess the effectiveness of the pilot program, and identify shortcomings of the curriculum and the delivery mechanism via surveying participating teachers and program implementers. Revise the curriculum and the delivery mechanism as appropriate. Expand the implementation of the curricula to other grade cohorts (elementary school and middle school) by embarking on similar pilot projects and evaluation processes. The procedure for accomplishing Objective 4 includes the following steps. A control group will be established for the purpose of evaluating the effectiveness of the NIFA-Centered curricula, focusing initially on the high school cohort. Subjects in the control group will come from MCEE's longstanding course titled, "Preparing to Teach High School Economics." Preparing is a five-day professional development course for high school teachers who are relatively new in
teaching economics. The curriculum covers standard topics in introductory economics in a standard manner, which does not focus on addressing issues in NIFA Priority Areas through an economics lens. Subjects in the experiment group will come from the proposed professional development course for the high school cohort: a five-module professional development program that use economics to analyze issues surrounding the five NIFA Priority Areas. A pre-test and post-test of the participating teachers in both groups will be conducted. The test questions will be adapted from "The Test of Understanding of College Economics" (TUCE) (Walstad, Watts and Rebeck), published by the (national) Council on Economic Education. The question set will be supplemented by additional questions related to food and agricultural economics, especially those pertaining to the addressed NIFA Priority Areas. Changes
in the pre- and post-test scores for the two groups will be analyzed and compared via regression analysis, controlling for the effects of concomitant variables such as a teacher's prior training in economics, number of years in teaching economics, and relevant social, demographic and school specific factors. Specifically, the following hypotheses will be entertained: Hypothesis 1: Providing relevance to economics by grounding the lessons in practical examples and topics related to the addressed NIFA Priority Areas improves general understanding of economics. This hypothesis can be tested by comparing the change in the TUCE scores (i.e., pre-test vs. post-test) of the control and experiment groups. Hypothesis 2a: Providing relevance to economics by grounding the lessons in practical examples and topics related to the addressed NIFA Priority Areas expand knowledge in those areas.
This hypothesis can be tested by comparing experiment group's pre-test and post-test scores of the supplemental questions related to the NIFA Priority Areas. Hypothesis 2b: The gain in knowledge in NIFA Priority Areas can be accomplished without compromising knowledge gain in economics. This hypothesis can be tested by comparing experiment group's pre-test and post-test scores in TUCE questions. 5. To the extent feasible, a similar evaluation will be conducted to assess the effectiveness of the NIFA-centered program on the learning of the participating teachers' students. 6. To the extent feasible, the experiment group will be divided into two sub-groups: (i) a sub-group treated with the NIFA-centered curriculum and the delivery mechanism developed in the project, and (ii) a sub-group treated with only the NIFA-centered curriculum (delivered in a traditional classroom
setting). This would allow one to disentangle the learning effect of the two treatments. As the project progresses into the future, the evaluation will be extended to the curricula for the middle school and elementary school cohorts. [1] To reach teachers in nearby states, the project will involve additional collaborators at other higher education institutions, such as faculty members in the Agricultural Education Program and the Department of Agribusiness and Applied Economics at North Dakota State University (NDSU), Fargo, as well as faculty members in the Agricultural Education Program and the Department of Economics at South Dakota State University (SDSU), Brookings. Further, to address challenges associated with working across a large geographical area, the project will identify and develop an internet-based approach for multi-institutional delivery of a shared curriculum. The
agricultural economics and agricultural education faculty members in each higher education institution will jointly serve as the on-site mentors for the participating secondary agricultural education teachers near their geographic location.