Effective Teaching: The Deliberate Act of Planning, Organizing, and Managing a Comprehensive Agriculture Program (2005)

I am a teacher at heart and there are moments in the classroom when I can hardly hold the joy...teaching is the finest work I know...But at other moments, the classroom is so lifeless, or painful, or confused...that my claim to be a teacher seems a transparent sham. This statement, by Parker Palmer in, The Courage to Teach (1998, p. 1) iterates common feelings on any given day in the life of a teacher. While we as teachers have experienced and have been witness to such moments of glory and defeat in the classroom, Palmer's exclamations of teaching exclude one salient point. Good teaching, while sometimes an act of luck, happenstance, or spontaneous combustion, does not often occur by chance. Relatedly, good Agriculture programs don't spring forth from the corridors of the career and technical education wings of our high schools by chance. Rather, effective Agriculture teachers, and good secondary Agriculture programs are cultivated through toils of teachers who are reflective practitioners, effective program managers, and careful planners. The articles in this issue consider the planning, reflection, and organizational aspects of teaching outside of the classroom that culminate to effective teaching inside of the classroom, including but not limited to: organizing and managing the comprehensive Agriscience program, preparing for teaching at a conceptual level, preparing for the daily act of classroom teaching, and assessing, reflecting, and improving upon our successes. Planning Theme 1: Organizing and Managing the Comprehensive Agri-Science Program Effective teaching in Agri-Science involves much more than being a classroom teacher. As indicated by both the Retallick article and the Pillack and Roberts article in this issue, Agriscience instructors at the secondary level must manage programs, engage learners in the classroom, maintain community partnerships and organize volunteers, supervise entrepreneurial projects and internships, advise, mentor, and coach youth development teams, and engage in professional development to remain current on a rapidly-changing content and pedagogy. 'Teaching and learning in Agriscience, unlike any other subject at the secondary level is a model that engages learners in the classroom, in the community, and in society as a whole. secondary Agri-science teachers, while they understand Agriculture and agricultural education well, are often under-prepared for the realities associated with the planning, organization, and management of the comprehensive Agri-science program. Planning Theme 2: Preparation for Teaching at the Conceptual Level Thinking about what and how we teach, and organizing teaching at a conceptual level is an important and often unnoticed aspect of Agri-science program planning. The articles written by Martens, Hess and Trexler, Myers, and McGregor and McGregor respectively challenge the reader to think about teaching at the conceptual level. More specifically, as Agri-science teachers are we, and how can we be more relevant? As urban sprawl permeates the countryside, and as fewer individuals work in the production facets of the agricultural industry we must organize content that is conceptually relevant to a diverse group of students in a complex and ever-changing society. Relevance occurs when content is based less upon the production and more upon the consumption aspects of agriculture. …