Dr. Trent Wells
Dr. Trent Wells, assistant professor of Agricultural Education in the Department of Agriculture at Southern Arkansas University, recently published an article, “School-based Agricultural Education Teachers’ Experiences During a Year-long Field Test of the CASE Mechanical Systems in Agriculture (MSA) Curriculum,” in Volume 62, Issue 1 of the Journal of Agricultural Education, which is published by the American Association for Agricultural Education (AAAE).
This qualitative research article documented the experiences six high school agricultural education teachers across the United States had when teaching agricultural mechanics subject matter using a new, innovative, inquiry-based curriculum. This curriculum is intended to expose students to a combination of theoretical and practical applications of scientific principles in the context of agricultural mechanics.
“What [my research team and] I learned throughout this project was teachers are definitely willing to push the envelope and find new ways to engage their students,” Wells explained. “For example, one of the learning activities with the CASE MSA curriculum was an agricultural engineering project revolving around the goal of students carefully designing and gearing a small, robotic tractor to pull a 50-pound sled. One teacher reported his students were so engaged with the project that after the 50-pound goal was met, they continued to re-engineer the tractor until it could pull a 100-pound sled. This type of engagement is exactly what the CASE MSA curriculum was designed to accomplish. I look forward to seeing the curriculum adopted within more high school agricultural education programs in the future,” said Wells.
To read Dr. Wells’ paper, please visit https://web.saumag.edu/news/index.php?gf-download=2021%2F06%2FPublished-JAE-Article-CASE-MSA.pdf&form-id=1&field-id=15&hash=713eeb7317d6e0d70125ebd179a8b7a3023956658101041a9a9c7eae2a806d11.
