Abstract
Agriculture education programs that provide integrative learning experiences that reflect the complexities, values, and challenges inherent to sustainable agriculture and food systems (SAFS) continue to evolve as faculty, staff, and students implement, experience, and modify them. Higher education institutions, especially land-grant universities, have strengths that position them to implement transformative learning and action methodologies. In this article we explore the principles, approaches, and practices consistent with integrative learning and a values-based pedagogical approach to curriculum design and teaching specific to SAFS. By a values-based pedagogical approach, we mean paying explicit attention to the values that (1) underpin different agricultural and food systems and their governance, (2) inform and shape educational strategies and experiences, and (3) are held by different individuals in various encounters in the learning environment. A values-based approach to SAFS curriculum development, teaching, and integrative learning is dynamic rather than static. We provide illustrations of practices across the education "life-cycle" — curriculum design, implementation, and evaluation — that have used values-based pedagogy to guide the development, modification, and strengthening of SAFS curricula. Finally, we discuss some limitations and issues that arise when using such pedagogical frameworks. We conclude by challenging educators to focus on connecting values relevant to SAFS with innovative curricular practices that allow emergence of new ways of teaching, learning, and knowing for all.
Highlights
Universities need to be more responsive to the need to enact curricular change if we are to prepare students to understand the interconnections between rapidly changing agrifood systems and environmental, economic, and societal contexts, and to help them to act as responsible, productive, and innovative citizens in a dramatically changing world
We deal with a values-based approach linearly here — from design to teaching practice to evaluation — we note the importance of making educational praxis an iterative cycle, from design to implementation to evaluation todesign, to restart the cycle anew
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) (2009) report recommends that we “situate” agricultural instruction at institutions of higher learning in ways that focus on integrative learning and its outcomes in order to have graduates who are competent in connecting and applying knowledge and skills from multiple sources to address issues in real-world settings
Summary
Universities need to be more responsive to the need to enact curricular change if we are to prepare students to understand the interconnections between rapidly changing agrifood systems and environmental, economic, and societal contexts, and to help them to act as responsible, productive, and innovative citizens in a dramatically changing world. We see movement toward these ends (see introductory article by Jacobsen et al, in this issue), and we note that today’s sustainable agriculture and food systems (SAFS) educational landscape continues to evolve as faculty, staff, students, and administrators actively devise strategies to create learning contexts that better reflect their values and goals than does the current context. The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) (2009) report Transforming Agricultural Education for a Changing World offers nine recommendations for transforming agricultural and life science education to better address our agricultural systems’ need to adapt to rapidly changing social and biophysical environments. Educators, practitioners, and employers understand that SAFS education for undergraduates should provide diverse opportunities to examine complex problems from multiple perspectives, connect theory and action inside and outside the classroom, and contend with the ethical implications and complex realities surrounding SAFS (Parr, Trexler, Khanna, & Battisti, 2007)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callMore From: Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
