SBAE Teacher Needs

I'm Brian Myers. I'm Mike Ritalik. I'm Becky Hiddad. And this is Al Pelletz, a podcast featuring tips for Ad teachers.

We are your Agricultural Education Resource across the web, sharing research-based tips and tackling the tough questions facing agriculture teachers every day. This is Brian, Becky, and Mike, and we here once again here by the Al Pelletz with some phenomenal guests to talk about some great topics here at Agate. And like we were just talking here off air before we got started, we're going to nerd out on the coolness that is agricultural education. We are having with us today Kayla Marsh and Chris Branken.

Welcome to Al Pelletz. Hi, thank you for having us. Excellent. We are excited to have here with us Kayla and lunch.

I'll have to tell you a little bit about who you are and how you are. I'm a student at Oklahoma State University and I'm excited to be able to teach teachers. I started in the State of Florida. I opened a middle school at Grand and Polk County.

I taught there for three years before teaching for another six in Hillsborough County before going to grad school, doing a master's at Clemson and being recruited at Oklahoma State. So excited to be here today. Kayla, is it allowed? Is it allowed?

You did not use its proper name. Imperial Polk County? I'm sorry. Imperial Polk County and extra Al Pelletz bonus points to whoever is going to play on social media on why it is Imperial Polk County.

Alright, Chris, run it. Hello everyone. My name is Chris Branken. I am a PhD candidate at Oklahoma State University.

I'm actually getting ready to graduate here this upcoming May. I've talked for five years in Central Missouri, just 15 minutes south of the University of Missouri where I got my undergraduate degree. I had lots of fun, lots of exciting times there. I had lots of national winning games, American degree recipients, state officers.

It was just a great fun time and after five years I felt like I wanted to do something a little different. I wanted to come back to the college world and start teaching future ACT teachers to help continue the profession. Excellent. Well, we are glad to have both of you here with us today.

So Kayla, to get us started here, why don't you give us an overview of the topic for today's conversation? Yeah, thank you. So we're looking at the needs of Oklahoma ACT teachers and where the gaps exist in supporting them in that practice, there's a lot of effort and a lot of work that we do depending on PD and the diplomas are really good about cooperating with our career and technical groups here. We have a very active ACT teacher board that puts on ACT teacher to ACT teacher PD, but what makes it effective and where are those needs and where are those over?

We're trying to look at specific to 21st century needs and programs and what's happening. Alright, get us in suspense. What are the needs of Oklahoma ACT teachers? Oh man.

So needs that were found through our study that overlaps between region and career phase were access to essential resources, curriculum resources, support for a local school administration, work-life balance and respect. We kind of expected some of these into resources that curriculum resources Oklahoma previously though 2015 career tech used to support curriculum writing for ACT teachers in the state. It was updated and provided and printed materials. In 2015 they stopped updating materials, they can reorder existing, but there was a gap.

They were no longer updating or creating anything or adapting it to platforms or individually, which also took an impact because we know that it happened after that. Without being updated teachers and tried some different things, I see these and teachers attempted to use currently the University of New York to help teachers get certified in case, providing some summer institutes, but it's a need that ACT teachers feel when they're really looking for some quality curriculum resources to support them in their practice. One that we didn't expect to find necessarily were the ones talking about respect, which they expressed work-life balance and then the change in the support that they felt from work-life administration. That continuum of needs growing from things like curriculum resources, professional development, out to the respect I feel in my classroom, it's about how we think about the needs that you excavated as part of this study and how do we start to process all those different things together?

Because those are, that's, that's, feels like a jump between what we might give a professional development and getting respect from administration in my school. Oh, great. So to talk about that, my thesis research not to nerd out too much. I did some qualitative interviews with ACT teachers in the state of Florida, and South Carolina to see whether there needs currently in their classrooms were at the same time I wanted to see if faculty and supporters, so ag ed expert supporters, all the same needs.

So we conducted a Delphi study and that Delphi produced a validated list of 42 items within Florida, and looking at Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina to see did those means that they saw what teachers represent, what teachers were also saying their needs were. And what we found was there's some really neat overlaps of where they are, and while we can see that teachers are struggling in an area, our ability to solve it or know the depth of where we need to provide the port is where the gap is. We can't get to them where they are to give them the resources that they need. So getting them in an accessible way is something that's important.

So when continuing finishing my master's in my thesis and came to Oklahoma, we used that 42 item list to see if it was effective here, or representing 21st-century needs of Oklahoma ACT teachers as well. Items that did not, and honestly, are only one that really fell below their five identified needs were training on online delivery. I guess thinking here Oklahoma, the pandemic was handled a little differently. It's online instruction and hybrid instruction needs aren't the same as what they were.

They feel like they were confident in pedagogical content knowledge. They felt like they were confident with diversity and equity and inclusion needs, and it wasn't really something they also feel like they needed access. So thinking about those needs and those overlaps, what do some of those things tell us about the teaching career and what do some of those things tell us about the teachers that you were working with? So when we look at my teachers by career base, there's a large chunk of our Oklahoma ACT teachers that are traditionally certified that are towards the end of their career.

So they're really curated by here. In contrast, we have a really big new career teacher population, but almost to the extent of that now, which is a rapidly increasing percentage is alternatively certified teachers. So I think it's unique to see that dynamic work out, because I think our traditionally certified teachers may feel confident with that pedagogy and the ability to teach, but that's why they're asking for instructional resources, because what they've relied on for so long isn't in existence anymore. But they also feel like they're able to lessen plan.

They don't need, I don't think they had a lesson plan like I did in Florida. So sort of more than giving her a deal on me had to go develop our ability to do it, but we have really strong state standards that guide us for being able to do that and plan and develop those career career frameworks. How that needs been built here previously has supported teachers differently, and now they don't have that, which I think is part of why they don't value the lesson plan as much. It is a unique finding and a couple of different places through these assessments here looking at curriculum and resources and how they plan.

So don't really know the why of that one yet. I would also contend to say there that talking with other faculty here at Oklahoma State, that decades ago about 30 years ago, PD was a big robust part of the state, and then for some reason or another, it kind of fell off and the professional development piece was just kind of like lackluster for lack of a better term. And only within the last five to ten years has it really started to pick back up. We saw our early commit career teachers who are really seeing a need for this and they're understanding that, okay, our state's no longer producing curriculum and our state has not adopted case curriculum.

We just told us our first case institute this past summer, and we started by 24-act teachers well. These new teachers are now seeing like, oh, hey, this is what we're asking for. It provides us with less plans to provide us with an updated curriculum that continues to be updated, and it's something that like, okay, we've been asking for this. Is this the end?

I'll be only answer maybe not, but it's a start. And so now our teachers are starting to kind of see like, okay, maybe we don't need less plans, but we need to update our curriculum because the curriculum we are using is ten to twelve years old, and hasn't been updated. And so we're using completely updated numbers, completely updated information, and so now our teachers are like, okay, we need to do something, and we're trying to best to see what we can do for them and provide them, but they're now seeing these other alternative ways in which they can start to meet their needs. And so now we're hoping to continue that trend and then also focus on those other areas where this institution or this business or this model is working for teachers here.

How can we help in other areas? And that's kind of the big piece of this needs assessment list is to see where can we help and where can we assist our future teachers? Yeah, and to build off of that, Chris, I think what I'm hearing is there's kind of been a little bit of a shift in needs based upon new generation of ag teachers that are coming in and as people are moving through their careers, and so how do we assist and help and I think you started talking about that, but what can we do and what should we be providing to help build on those needs for professional development? I think part of that is us getting this information and working with our career tech so let them see what teachers are telling us their needs are, so that we can provide trainings that are relevant and not just trainings, but support some resources and things that they can practically use.

I think it's great that we develop these one-time TDs and we get to get them over summer, but to be honest, teachers are struggling with that need over summer, so it's not realistic that we put into practice when we're giving it to them. So unless we can make these resources more stable when they need them where they are, then we try to meet them that way, we're going to continue to struggle with them being able to use these resources to meet those needs. Another thing that's kind of started to pick up some steep here is this first and second year mentorship program, first and second year teacher program, where they bring students to the career tech kind of leads it right now, but we're starting to see more of a partnership being developed between the university and career tech in this area, where first and second year teachers we see a lot of attrition sometimes where they come in and teach one or two years and it's like okay, this is overwhelming, I can't want to handle the livestock anymore, I'm going to go to a different career field. Now we're starting to bring them in more four or five times a year, six times a year, and it's a partnership between career tech and health home state where we're coming in and it's like okay, what is it that you're struggling with and how can we provide you with support and then in two, three months?

Okay, are you still struggling with that? There's something else we can provide you and it's these multiple touch points that we can do throughout at least the first two years, try to help them get over that initial hump and start getting the ability towards that. And that helps develop a foster even more relationships. I mean, I just have three emails right now that came in over this weekend from Ag Teachers National about support for different CDs and I've got these that I've helped teachers across the state with, and so I'm going to see what I can do there and it's these multiple touch points and just helping them and showcasing that.

Because we're here to develop our pre-service teachers, but we're also here for our end service teachers too and we're here to help them. And I feel like addressing their needs through these needs assessments can really help point us in the areas in which to take okay, this is your strength, is there a way that you can help them? Okay, you have something else that has a different need, send them to me and I'll see what I can do to help them and kind of build off each other's strengths and try to find the best person to work with them and help mentor these teachers, whether they're in years one and two or years three, three, four, three, five and help kind of foster what it is that they're needing at that point in time. What are the ongoing conversations we're having here on outlets around mentorship and you mentioned mentoring here a little bit and so maybe more some of your findings you saw about the mentor relationship and how people saw that to be a possible opportunity and maybe it's somebody to help regarding various career stages on who can help who with various ideas and various needs that they have.

Yeah, again, so part of our population are early career teachers, we see how high percentage that are in that female population demographic wise is growing and alternatively certified teachers, which is our late career, career teachers, which are heavily male and traditionally certified unique between our male and female demographics, there was only one other top five that differed between the two and be emailed one and more professional development and our males wanted respect within the profession, which could potentially be an opportunity for them to be recognized by mentoring and providing some access and training and also meetings of those needs that our female teachers were asking for. When we look at career phase, we saw an overlap between our early career teachers. I was expected having the highest amount of need recorded or all the items that they acknowledged, but the overlap between them and our late career teachers was support from local administration. They both felt like that's something that they need help with.

And I think it needs to be more than us just providing ways and helping support them with PR for their programs, but also building value for what our programs can do and what that is curriculum wise. And I think mentoring them on how to sell what we're teaching and our program as a whole, so the piece of that or winning over our administration. So hopefully, you're violating come as some of the curriculum practices, resources and methods are using will help with that for both early and late career teachers early in mid. You saw an overlap of these where they talk about work life balance and I don't know that late career teachers and say we have that figured out.

I think they're just at a point where they're just cope with what they put themselves into. We know actors do what they do with their product or their heart. And so that's something that they're trying to figure out is how much is too much to getting up in those levels of where we put those boundaries. So that might be an area where maybe like your teachers either talk about this or talk about where they did find ways that those lines and boundaries that help them be successful.

But our early career teachers felt more confident when it came to using digital technology and having access to some of the current resources to incorporate an instruction, which is an area that our late career teachers felt like they were lacking, but might be an area that they could support them as well as assisting with training out of their teams. And I think that also kind of speaks to applications. I don't know necessarily what it is about them, their willingness or their ability where they just get applications, which is an area that late career teachers. I don't know if it's that they had a previously engaged in because of them as pretty competitive, but maybe as those rivers update, they need some help update of what they look like.

So that's an area that our early career teachers could help provide the board for early career teachers. One of the things that's really striking me listening is the answer to that question is this is how these needs they span the career span the different areas of our program. And so I think some of me has to wonder a little bit like what gets when we think about the career overall or we think about standing nature of these needs, how can we use these needs to kind of think about where teachers needs our relative to potential change we need to create or need to be thinking about. So we know that teachers are the most significant factor in a student's future success.

And we know that teachers do what they do as a product of their hard, inter-dedication to their students. So it's really easy to see how teachers put themselves in position to be overworked and overrun and not want to say no, which is where these boundaries are hard to define and place limits on, especially when we talk about how much we have comprehensive programs that requires a lot of them to implement. But we have to know where teachers are. So they're just surviving in those classroom needs that they're surviving because they don't have support for administration, or they're doing a program.

They don't have someone who believes in the value of what they're doing or they don't have what they need to survive in a classroom on a daily basis. Then they can't reach those higher goals that they have. They can't do the best for their students because they can't be the most effective teacher because they're struggling with these lower level needs. One of my part of my teaching philosophy is that people don't know what they're doing, so you know what they're doing, and totally know what they're doing eventually.

So it also comes back to Maslow's over bloom. We can't worry about kids wearing higher level instructional thinking goals if they're not safe and secure and have what they need to function. And that's where teachers are right now. So we see gaps in teachers wellness and ability to go stress ability to have the resources they need in a daily classroom.

And I think when we think about PD and mentorship, we try to respect our teachers by providing them resources at that level of respect because we don't want them to feel like we don't believe that they have the ability or the capacity. They need something that they can use in their classroom every day that's realistic and solve the problem. That's a kind of, you know, a dull learning theory. So they need something that they can use right now to solve the problem, to help support them moving on.

And I think the more we can think about meeting teachers needs at that basic level, they need to fill that gap now. Instead of talking to them to work them through it, they don't have capacity to work through it. They don't have capacity to rely on that level of relationship or respect or sometimes they're so stuck in their classrooms. They can't even work to develop the relationships they need to meet those needs, which I think is another place or a mentor tip.

If we could provide those learned needs and access to the community of people they need to support them, we can make some major change for teacher wellness. I think it's really interesting to think about careers from a Maslow's perspective and thinking about one of those bases that need to be met. But also then, and Chris, I stepped on your toes here. But how do we move them up?

How do we make sure we're starting at the right level? But then how do we keep moving up the goal is to stay at that survival mode. And I think arguably we do want to make sure that we're moving beyond just those base needs. How do we get beyond just meeting at the survival level?

One thing that can be used with Kingless Model is, as it becomes more widely accepted, more used in different areas, is starting to cooperate into the software courses where it's possible. As you said, as the data says, it's like, some of these are career crossover needs. So this is a need that's spanning the entire career. How can we possibly address this within our teacher preparation programs?

Are there areas in maybe a Foundations in Philosophy class, maybe a Teaching Methods course, that we can address some of these needs now? And show case, okay, we understand that this is what our current and service teachers are saying. This is what people on the field are saying. We're going to try and address this now and continue to address this, but we need to be up front with you.

This is going to be something that we're going to need your help on as well as that. You need to be up front with us and say, hey, this is what I'm struggling with. This is what I need. And maybe there are ways that we can address those early on to try and help.

Maybe not fully like make it to where I'm like, oh, I'm now I'm up in the higher needs, like so pristine. I'm not so honest with that. Maybe it's just getting above that base level of the need. And it's just trying to build them early on in their careers.

I feel like that's a very big possible way to look at things. But I also feel if we introduce this to our pre-service teachers and our early career teachers, is that they can start doing self-evaluations. And it's not so much us going back through every two to five years. Okay, what do you need now?

What do you need now? They can self-evaluate themselves and let them have those honest conversations with themselves or with their close peers that they're comfortable with. That's okay. This is where I'm struggling.

I need to find something that I can do to answer my own needs and look to be more self-sufficient. And yes, we can provide everything and we can work our tails off to do whatever we want to do and we need to do. But in the end, we also need them to come forward and be like, okay, I want to be an active participant in this. I know this is my need.

I need to be an active participant. How can we go about addressing that? One of the things that strikes me is I've listened to the conversation here and looked at what you talked about. And the interesting thing to look more into is those are the potential to be a changing of values to where like career teachers were saying, well, I value winning this competition.

I want to win the live stock show. I want to win seven LDEs. I want to have 49 American degree winners. I want to do all these things.

And that's the thing I value. And early career teachers are saying, I'm valuing reaching every student on my classroom, making sure that the classroom is tight and that we're providing learning experience from there. And that may be part of that disconnect with the respect. Maybe administrators now are saying, hey, we're looking at what are we doing every day to every student in every classroom and how are we engaging them.

And they're not seeing them. They're not valuing as highly as in the past of, oh, look, you've got 97 district winners to whatever else, but it's the same four kids. And so I think there's going to be some conversations there around, well, maybe there's not just a disconnect here on this is good and bad. It's a chain of what people are seeing as being valued, which then draws their needs.

And how do we have that conversation? I think you're talking about mentoring. There's opportunity for early career to get to be mentored by late career. There's also the opportunity for late career to be mentored by the early career to have those conversations on what do we value about school based education and what's that total picture look like, or maybe I'm way off.

Maybe I'll make a thing set up. No, I think you think you're on to something and I think part of that conversation starts for us here at Oklahoma State with meeting the common need widget. So I think the first thing that we need to talk about is, regarding that curriculum resource piece is to get them in a room together to try to see what are they wanting? And how do we make this work where teachers are for all of them?

And then how do we get them to network of the poor each other for that? What's been interesting is when we first sent this out, we also asked how they felt to curriculum resources like case and IDB and how are they using them in their classroom. Where late career teachers were a little more reluctant because I don't know that they felt as confident with the level of science that they felt like they would be implementing with changing their curriculum and how they've done it previously. I'm not hungry and excited to have this as a resource to build on.

And I think that's another way that those relationships and the supports can naturally happen. The liquor want to engage. They're just nervous about having that network of support as they go through this process. So I think that's for us kind of how we start to build this network and this relationship so that we can start those natural partnerships and the tortures.

Right. Well, Kayla, Chris, the rest of your career there, we appreciate the work you're doing there in the great state of Oklahoma. I will not break out into song. Don't worry about keeping singing my favorite tunes from the musical Oklahoma.

But it is really appreciate you all sharing your work with us and keep up the great work. I think it was a lot to be thinking about it. Each of us look at how do we meet the needs of our teachers in our various states. I think we're seeing a lot of differences based off of just the situation people are in and how do we help them be successful at understanding what we need to be doing with them.

So Kayla and Chris, thank you for being here on with us today here on Out pellets tips for Ag teachers podcast. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of Out pellets. Check out our website for more information on this topic and to learn more about our guests. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to stay connected and be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you'll never miss an episode.

For Mike and Becky, this is Brian here by the Out pellets saying thank you and we look forward to seeing you again on another episode of Out pellets tips for Ag teachers.