Meet Professor Kate Shoulders! She is the faculty in Agricultural Education, Communications and Technology at the University of Arkansas. Her class AGED 401V: Undergraduate Researches Improving Student Experiences (uRise) has […]
Meet Professor Kate Shoulders! She is the faculty in Agricultural Education, Communications and Technology at the University of Arkansas. Her class AGED 401V: Undergraduate Researches Improving Student Experiences (uRise) has been newly designated as service learning course.
In spring 2018, this uRise course served high school agriculture teachers who were interested in conducting action research within their agriculture programs. Dr. Shoulders said that this was the first time the course was offered, and it had a total enrollment of six students.
Two schools responded to a statewide invitation to request action research assistance; Maynard High School and Lake Hamilton High School. The teacher at Maynard High School requested assistance in determining the most appropriate fundraiser for her program and community. Several fundraisers had failed in the past, and the teacher was interested in using data to determine the characteristics of fundraisers that would be more likely to succeed with her students and in their community. Meanwhile, the teacher at Lake Hamilton High School requested assistance in determining methods to increase student enrollment in the agricultural education program and participation within the program’s FFA organization. Students enrolled in uRise course were divided into two teams of action researchers, each working with one of the teachers. Student teams traveled to the schools to work with the teachers and to collect data from students, parents, and community members.
Dr. Shoulders received funding from University of Arkansas Service Learning Initiative travel grants in 2017 to be used to support this travel, as well as to provide incentives to increase survey response rates. She said that as a result both schools were provided with comprehensive action research reports outlining the research process followed by the team, as well as data-driven conclusions and recommendations to address their requests for assistance. She also used the funds to partially fund her travel to attend the annual American Education Research Association conference, at which numerous presentations regarding service learning were given.