The influence of pre-service teachers education abroad experience in Choluteca, Honduras on internationalizing agricultural education curriculum
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Date
2019-05
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Publisher
The Ohio State University
Abstract
There is very little known concerning how teachers internationalize agricultural education
curriculum after participating in a global experience. Previous research has stated that
agriculture teacher candidates displayed growth, gaining skills and knowledge towards
becoming a global competent citizen following an education abroad experience in South Korea
(Foster, 2014). However, this was a short-term experience with only pre-service educators and
no follow-up on how their classroom curriculum content was initiated. Although we know an
education abroad experience for pre-service teachers has professional and personal outcomes,
I argue the process, if present, on a teacher’s presentation of classroom curriculum is valuable
to high school students who are part of an increasingly global world.
The researcher seeks to determine how teachers internationalize agricultural education
curriculum after participating in a global experience. The researcher conducted a qualitative
study, interviewing 10 current agricultural educators who attended a short-term international
experience focused on community development in Choluteca, Honduras either as a pre-service
agricultural educator, or current agricultural educator. The purpose of this constructivist study is
to determine how teachers internationalize agricultural education curriculum after participating in
a global experience. The central question guiding the study is: How do agriculture teachers
internationalize their curriculum? The data was collected by voice recording participants and
transcribing, as well as taking field notes and collecting teaching documents related to
international agriculture, if available. Based on the transcripts the researcher formulated
themes.
One of the three main themes showed the researcher that participants in the study needed
external motivation such as grades or professor persuasion to initially travel abroad. However,
after their first trip, the motive for participants was to return abroad and to bring their students,
an internal motive. Another theme revealed in the data was the effects of culture shock on
teachers, many still struggle on their journey to culturally competency and spoke of witnessing
poverty and experiencing gratitude with their students. However, these teachers had difficulty
incorporating international agriculture as full on curricular change, referring only to examples
from their experience as one-time, stereotypical events in the classroom. Lastly, many teachers
had a difficult time elaborating and articulating the learning outcomes of their experience and
specific examples of international agriculture in their classrooms, although all mentioned talking
about their experience with students. The findings support several notions in the literature such
as Conner and Roberts (2013), and Pence and MacGilivray (2006), who found if teachers are
not globally competent, they won’t prepare their students to be globally competent. Willard-Holt
(2001) concluded teachers are less prone to prejudge students based on cultural background,
linguistic difference, and learning disability after participating in a teaching experience abroad. In
addition, these pre-service educators demonstrated a desire to become more globally aware
and instill this attitude in their own students afterwards. All educators had a desire to become
more aware of international agriculture and use it in their classrooms, a lot of them didn’t know
how or where to start.
From the findings I recommend further research on the implementation process of curricular
change to incorporate internationalized perspectives, as well as the ability of agriscience
educators to internationalize curriculum after multiple exposures to other cultures. For many
educators, they had rural backgrounds and limited travel experience, making their time abroad
eye-opening and full of culture shock, perhaps after the shock has worn off they would be better
able to focus on the agriculture industry surrounding them. Further research could also be
conducted on the cultural competency of agricultural educators and the need for training to
create global classroom environments.
Description
2nd Place Social Sciences Category, College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
Keywords
Internationalized Curriculum, Agricultural Education, Agriscience Education, Education Abroad, Study Abroad