Teaching, Learning, and Communication (TLC)
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2006 Annual Report

Overview of 2005

1. The TLC track (organized by Leah Greden Mathews) for the Providence meeting featured seven sessions: six organized symposiums and a selected paper session. The proposed organized symposiums were:

Is Good Teaching Bad for Your Career?
Teaching Tips from Top Teachers: 2004 AAEA Award Recipients
Simulations as a Pedagogical Tool: Which Characteristics Improve Learning?
Student Participation in Undergraduate Discipline-Related Organizations: How Can We Get Students (and Faculty) Involved?
Recruiting and Retaining Quality Undergraduate Students: Selling Our Programs to New Audiences
Graduate Student Recruitment: Issues and Strategies in Agricultural and Applied Economics, and Agribusiness

2. The TLC-sponsored pre-conference workshop proposal “Words Work: Using Writing and Speaking to Teach Critical Thinking Skills” was organized by Molly Espey and Chris McIntosh. This workshop proposal featured Chris Anson, Professor and Director of Campus Writing and Speaking Program, North Carolina State University and current President of the Council of Writing Program Administrators. Unfortunately, the workshop was canceled due to low registration numbers (the breakeven registration level was higher than initially planned because the funding request for this workshop proposal was not approved by the AAEA Foundation).

3. The TLC leadership worked closely with the Graduate Student Section to develop the Young Professional Teaching Academy scheduled for Sunday, July 23, 2006 at the AAEA Annual Meeting in Long Beach (See the attached plan for The Academy). Our plan is to sponsor The Academy each year at the AAEA Annual Meeting.

4. The TLC Website was completed and is a link under the Sections link on the AAEA homepage.

Overview of 2006

1. The TLC track proposal (again organized by Leah Greden Mathews) for the Long Beach meetings featured five organized symposiums:

Teaching Tips from Top Teachers: 2005 AAEA Award Recipients
Report of the National Food and Agribusiness Management Education Commission (Co-Sponsored with the Agribusiness Economics and Management Section)
The Cross-Over Experience: Tips from the Liberal Arts Trenches
Implementing Best Practices for Learning Outcomes in Agribusiness Management Education (Co-Sponsored with the Agribusiness Economics and Management Section)
Adapting “Best Practices” from Management Theory Courses for Graduate Courses in Agribusiness Management (Co-Sponsored with the Agribusiness Economics and Management Section)

Please note that three of these five organized symposiums were co-sponsored with the AEM Section.

2. The TLC Section, in collaboration with the Graduate Student Section, will organize and sponsor the 2nd Annual Young Professional Teaching Academy for the 2007 AAEA Annual Meeting.

3. The TLC Section will proposed a TLC track for the 2007 AAEA Annual Meeting with the appropriate co-sponsorship with other Sections of the AAEA.

Young Professional Teaching Academy

Sponsors:
AAEA Professional Activities and New Products Committee
AAEA Graduate Student Section (GSS)
AAEA Teaching, Learning, and Communication (TLC) Section

Challenge:
Most graduate programs in agricultural, resource, environmental and general economics emphasize research, with minimal formal student preparation in classroom instruction. Graduate students and young faculty members learn to teach by mimicking their former instructors and by teaching (i.e. learning by doing). New faculty members often fail to anticipate both the challenges to and opportunities for professional enrichment in the classroom. Without adequate preparation, mentoring and incentives, teaching responsibilities often become more an irritating constraint to professional advancement than a rewarding calling. Both the faculty member and the student lose due to sub-optimal performance and learning.

Opportunity:
The AAEA should draw upon the significant human capital associated with teaching and learning within the Association to sponsor a Young Professional Teaching Academy each year at its annual meeting. The Academy will be designed to acquaint participants with a wide range of valuable teaching techniques and resources for the university and college instructor.

Planning:
The TLC and GSS will be responsible for planning the Academy each year.

Faculty:
Tenured faculty from within the AAEA membership will be recruited to make presentations at this workshop. Each presenter will be paid a $400 honorarium for a resource article and their presentation. New speakers will be recruited each year and any repeat speakers will be asked to update their resource article and presentation. Please note that although we offered an honorarium, nearly all presenters chose not to accept it in 2006.

Content:
The curriculum will be divided into two themes: Instructional Basics and Course Specifics. Under Instructional Basics, three of the five presentations each year will cover subjects like:

• Course Design
• Syllabus Preparation
• Classroom Management
• Advising Opportunities (and Challenges)
• Learning Styles
• Grading Strategies
• Active Learning

The remaining two presentations in the Course Specifics theme will feature material on teaching specific subject matter. These presentations will be rotated each year, drawing upon the expertise of AAEA award-winning graduate and undergraduate instructors in representative fields like:

• Econometrics
• Environmental Economics
• Agribusiness Economics and Management
• International Trade
• Agricultural Development
• Agricultural Policy
• Marketing and Price Analysis
• Agricultural Finance
• Community and Regional Development

Certificate:
Each participant will receive a certificate from the AAEA recognizing their successful completion of the Academy.

Notebooks:
Participants will receive 3-ring binders containing the resource articles of the invited speakers and a valuable collection of other professional articles on teaching, learning, and communication in applied economics.

Audience:
All AAEA members are encouraged to enroll in the Academy, but its primary audience will be junior faculty, and graduate students (Ph.D.) pursuing an academic position in the near future. The Academy will be limited to 40 participants each year. In 2006, the Academy actually accepted over 50 participants.

Timing:
The Young Professional Teaching Academy will be scheduled for Sunday, 12 noon to 4:30 p.m. Academy participants will be invited to participate in the TLC annual meeting scheduled from 4:30-6:00 p.m.

Cost:
Participants will register and pay an Academy fee ($60) to cover their lunch, refreshments and a portion of the Academy’s overhead costs.

Promotion:
Academy advertising will utilize the conventional channels of AAEA publications, section websites, and word-of-mouth. Special emphasis will be placed on working closely with department heads and graduate committees to encourage attendance on the part of their junior faculty and graduate students.

Agenda:
The following agenda illustrates the structure of a potential program.; The names reflect the expertise in the profession and do not imply that these individuals have been asked to speak at the Academy.

12 noon – 12:30 p.m.
Buffet lunch and welcome
Moderator--Christine Wilson (Purdue University)

12:30 – 1:15 p.m. “Good Teaching as Scholarship”
Otto Doering (Purdue University)

1:15 – 2:00 p.m. “Who Are Your Students?”
Eluned Jones (Texas A&M University)

2:00 – 2:45 p.m. “Fundamentals of University Course Design”
John Foltz (University of Idaho)

2:45 – 3:00 p.m. Break

3:00 – 3:45 p.m. “Teaching Applied Econometrics”
Wade Brorsen (Oklahoma State University)

3:45 – 4:30 p.m. “Teaching Agribusiness Economics, Management, and Strategy”
Al Wysocki (University of Florida)

Budget:

Revenue:
Participant registration fees will generate $2,400. The remaining $2,640 will be raised annually via grants from the AAEA Foundation, Farm Foundation, the National Agricultural Economics Administrators Association, AAEA-affiliated departments and other donors.

We propose that individual student sponsorships be developed so an established AAEA member can sponsor a graduate student or young faculty member.

Evaluation Summary of The 2006 Teaching Academy:
The 2006 Teaching Academy had 50 paid registrants (capacity had been set at 40 but we waived it at AAEA’s request to accommodate more participants). There were 38 who completed an evaluation form. Over two-thirds listed the program as excellent or above average. The composition of these 38 were broken out by sex (25 men and 13 women), educational status (19 graduate students and 19 faculty), and faculty status (2 instructors, 12 assistant professors, 1 associate professor, 2 professors, and 2 adjunct faculty). They were asked to list two courses for which they had teaching responsibilities. Agribusiness was first with 14 followed by quantitative methods (10), resources (8), marketing and price analysis (7), international development or trade (6), policy (5), and finance (5). Industrial organization, community development, production economics / farm management, and health economics were listed with less than five. Over two-thirds recommended continuing with another program the following year.

Overview of 2007

1. The TLC track proposal (organized by Christine Wilson) for the Portland meetings featured five organized symposiums:

• Teaching Tips from Top Teachers:  2006 AAEA Award Recipients
• Effectively Communicating Research Results with a Poster:  Opportunities and Challenges
• The Power of Teaching Somewhere Other Than the Classroom
• Teaching and Communicating Economic Principles in Washington, D.C.
• A Sharing of Advising Approaches and Experiences

Thirty AAEA members moderated or made presentations in these symposiums.
Several other AAEA sections were contacted about co-sponsoring these sessions but declined for various reasons.

2. The TLC Section, in collaboration with the Graduate Student Section, will organize and sponsor the 2nd Annual Young Professional Teaching Academy for the 2007 AAEA Annual Meeting.

3. The TLC Section will propose a TLC track for the 2008 AAEA Annual Meeting with the appropriate co-sponsorship with other Sections of the AAEA.

2007 Young Professional Teaching Academy

Sponsors:
AAEA Graduate Student Section (GSS)
AAEA Teaching, Learning, and Communication (TLC) Section

Planning:
The TLC and GSS were responsible for planning the Academy this year.

Timeliness, Rationale and Objectives:
The Teaching, Learning, and Communication section of the AAEA held The 2006 Teaching Academy at the annual meeting of the AAEA.  Over 50 individuals participated in the program. Most graduate programs in agricultural, resource, environmental and general economics emphasize research, with minimal formal student preparation in classroom instruction. Graduate students and young faculty members learn to teach by mimicking their former instructors and by teaching (e.g., learning by doing). New faculty members often fail to anticipate both the challenges to and opportunities for professional enrichment in the classroom. Without adequate preparation, mentoring and incentives, teaching responsibilities often become more an irritating constraint to professional advancement than a rewarding calling. Both the faculty member and the student lose due to sub-optimal performance and learning.

For many years, the AAEA held a periodic teaching workshop although since the mid-1990s it has been held sporadically due to lack of organization and competing programs (e.g., WAEA Young Professionals Workshop in late 1990s). Since 2000 there have been several teaching preconferences. Most of these programs have had good attendance.

The long-run goal of The Teaching Academy is to:

1. Improve the quality of and passion for teaching in our profession by having the Academy become an institutional part (as opposed to a preconference) of the AAEA annual meetings similar to the Galbreath Forum and Waugh Lecture.

2. Obtain USDA CSREES as a sponsor of The Teaching Academy.

The specific objectives for the 2007 Teaching Academy are to:

1. Provide an educational program for graduate students and faculty interested in teaching.
2. Describe innovative teaching programs in applied economics and management for present and future teachers; and
3. Discuss teaching topics in an informal way.

Audience and Scope:
The audience for the program is current graduate students, junior faculty (post-doctoral scholars, visiting assistant professors, research associates, or assistant professors) and senior faculty (associate professors and full professors). The 2007 Academy is expected to be similar to the 2006 Academy with a few changes. The evaluations of the 2006 Academy were good (see the Evaluation Summary of The 2006 Teaching Academy above).  Three speakers are scheduled for the 2007 Academy.  A combination of informal and organized discussion will be used.  We have visited with over 20 leaders in teaching at various universities (i.e., TLC members, undergraduate teaching coordinators, etc.).

Participants at each table will discuss a series of questions regarding that topic.  Each table will have a recorder and leader to keep track of discussion. The participants at each table will be pre-chosen based on a short questionnaire that will be completed prior to attending the program.  This will ensure a broad background of participants at each table.  Then a facilitator will lead discussion by calling on each table’s recorder to discuss their thoughts regarding the discussion questions.  Finally, a panel discussion will be held at the end with the three speakers as panelists to answer questions from the audience.

The Academy is limited to 40 participants each year.  In 2007, the Academy currently has 30 participants.

Faculty:
Tenured faculty from within the AAEA membership were recruited to make presentations at this workshop.  Presenters were not offered any honorarium in 2007.   

Certificate:
Each participant will receive a certificate from the AAEA recognizing their successful completion of the Academy.

Notebooks:
Participants will receive folders or binders containing the resource materials of the invited speakers and a valuable collection of other professional articles on teaching, learning, and communication in applied economics.

Timing:
The Young Professional Teaching Academy will be scheduled for Sunday, 11:30 am to 4:00 p.m. Academy participants will be invited to participate in the TLC annual meeting scheduled from 4:00-6:00 p.m.

Cost:
Participants will register and pay an Academy fee ($80) to cover their lunch, refreshments and a portion of the Academy’s overhead costs.

Promotion:
Academy advertising will utilize the conventional channels of AAEA publications, section websites, and word-of-mouth. Special emphasis will be placed on working closely with department heads and graduate committees to encourage attendance on the part of their junior faculty and graduate students.

Agenda:
The following agenda illustrates the 2007 program. 

11:30 – 12:05 p.m.
Buffet lunch and welcome
Moderator—Paul Wilson (University of Arizona)

12:05 – 1:10 p.m. “Active Learning in the Classroom”
Molly Espey (Clemson University)
Table Discussions
Facilitator-Led Discussion—Mike Boland (Kansas State University)

1:10 – 2:10 p.m. “Diverse Student Learning Styles”
Andrew Barkley (Kansas State University)
Questions

2:10 – 2:25 p.m. Break

2:25 – 3:45 p.m. “Managing the Classroom for Success”
Mary Marchant (Virginia Polytechnic Institute)
Table Discussions
Facilitator-Led Discussion—Mike Boland (Kansas State University)

3:25 – 3:55 p.m. Panel Discussion
Moderator—Christine Wilson (Purdue University)

3:55 p.m.  Closing—Paul Wilson (University of Arizona)

Budget:
Participants will register and pay a fee ($80) to cover buffet lunch, refreshments and a portion of the Academy’s overhead costs.  Buffet lunch and refreshments are budgeted at $40 per participants. Notebook costs and certificate costs are estimated at $10 per person.  AAEA fee and room fee are estimated at $10 each, respectively.

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Site last updated on August 7, 2007