Integration of Computing in Rural Agricultural Education

由于计算已经成为科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）实践中不可或缺的一部分，STEM+计算计划旨在通过将计算思维和计算活动应用于高中（preK-12）早期儿童教育的STEM教学和学习，来解决计算STEM领域的新挑战。这项探索性整合研究旨在确定在何种条件下，在农业教育和问题解决中整合计算和计算思维将提高学生的兴趣、动机、在课程、独立项目和技术职业中的表现。期望学生能够熟练运用程序设计解决农业中的具体问题，并在未来的学术课程和职业选择中培养对计算科学和/或计算的兴趣。该项目的目标包括为学生创建一个教育计划，该计划由四个入门模块和两个高级模块组成，重点关注农业挑战。调查人员将利用在线培训研讨会为参与的教师队伍做好准备，以有效地实施教育计划，并建立一个同伴支持网络，以支持教师的成功。该项目将计算与农业科学相结合，为建立青年职业模型提供了机会，该模型将适用于全国众多农村农业社区和学校。许多国家报告表明，需要推进计算机科学，并推进计算与STEM内容的整合，以应对计算密集型的职业，但关于将计算嵌入非计算职业和技术课程（如农业科学或农业机械课程）的研究很少。因此，这个以农业为基础的项目将解决学术研究和计算农业对未来劳动力的影响方面的一个重要差距。虽然农业和自然资源管理等主要是农村的行业正变得越来越技术化和计算化，但农村学生将自己视为这些技术的消费者，而不是这些技术和应用的潜在创造者。农村学生在计算机和STEM教育方面仍然得不到充分的服务。该项目将通过提供高质量的教育课程来解决这些不足，这些课程将以一种吸引农村受众文化的方式向学生展示计算机。研究者想知道：在什么条件下，整合计算技能和能力来解决和帮助解决农业问题，增加学生的兴趣、动机和就业机会？此外，不同人口统计和学术背景的学生如何与计算机修改的农业课程互动？这些学生是否有相似的参与模式、表现、兴趣和态度变化？教师的实施模式如何带来更大的课堂影响？最后，实施和整合的哪些方面会影响学生对未来计算机和STEM课程和职业的参与和兴趣？

As computing has become integral to the practice of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), the STEM+Computing program seeks to address emerging challenges in computational STEM areas through the applied integration of computational thinking and computing activities within STEM teaching and learning in early childhood education through high school (preK-12). This proposed Exploratory Integration study is to determine under what conditions integrating computation and computational thinking in agricultural education and problem solving will increase student interest, motivation, performance in courses, independent projects, and technical careers. It is expected that students will gain proficiency in the application of programming to solve specific problems in agriculture and will derive interest in pursuing computational science and/or computing in their future academic courses and career selection. The objectives of the project include creating an educational program for students composed of four introductory and two advanced modules focused on agriculture challenges. Investigators will utilize online training workshops to prepare the participating cohort of teachers to effectively implement the education program, and to build a peer-support network to support teacher success. This project is an integration of computation within agricultural science to provide an opportunity to build a youth career model that will be applicable or adaptable to the multitudes of rural agriculture communities and schools in the Nation. Many national reports indicate the need for advancing computer science and advancing the integration of computing into STEM content in response to computationally-intensive careers, but there is a scarcity of studies examining embedding computing into non-computing careers and technical courses, such as agriculture science or agricultural mechanics classes. Thus, this agricultural-based project will address an important gap in academic research and the impact of computational agriculture on the future workforce. Although primarily-rural industries like agriculture and natural resource management are becoming increasingly technical and computationally-driven, rural students see themselves as consumers of these technologies rather than potential creators of the technologies and applications. Rural students continue to be underserved in computing and STEM education. This project will address these deficiencies by deriving high-quality educational courses exposing students to computing in a way that will appeal to the culture of the rural audience. Investigators want to know: under what conditions does integrating computing skills and competencies to address and help solve agricultural problems, increase student interest, motivation, and career opportunities? Further, how do students of different demographic and academic backgrounds interact with the computing-modified agriculture curriculum? Do these students have similar engagement patterns, performance, interest, and attitude changes? How do teachers' implementation models lead to greater classroom impact? Finally, what aspects of the implementation and integration influence student engagement and interest in future computing and STEM courses and careers?