ABSTRACT
Defining, identifying, and evaluating teaching effectiveness is a difficult proposition;however, measuring the effectiveness of school-based agricultural education (SBAE) teachers is even more difficult considering the diversity of programs nationwide. Faculty in the agricultural education teacher preparation program at Oklahoma State University sought to measure the effective characteristics developed during the Spring 2020 semester, using the effective teaching model as a frame for this study in conjunction with the Effective Teaching Instrument for SBAE Teachers (ETI-SBAE). This approach allowed the research team an opportunity to further investigate the preparedness of SBAE teacher aspirants during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. A descriptive research design was implemented with SBAE teacher aspirants at Oklahoma State University with a junior- or senior-level classification (N = 72). The SBAE pre-service teachers at Oklahoma State University identified a high sense of effectiveness based on the ETI-SBAE instrument. In this group of pre-service teachers, all participants scored an overall teaching effectiveness score of strong to very strong, with the overwhelming majority (79.2%) planning to enter the teaching profession. Additionally, there was a relationship between intention to teach and teaching effectiveness scores, with those who intend to teach reporting higher teaching effectiveness scores. The ETI-SBAE holds utility for SBAE teacher preparation programs.
ABSTRACT
Information technologies has never failed to astound us in any way whether be it in field of Science, Agriculture, Arts, Film & media, Sports, education, making virtual reality possible, all we can say in almost all the field that we can name. Many incidents occurred, where IT sector maintained it expanse & it was on the top of all (for say;covid-19 pandemic period), with the help of this sector the pace of time or situation found to be normal at a times. As the old axiom says that;time is money and money is time so by this we can understand and imagine the value of time in a second. Animations & creative sector (the main part of IT Sector) played a very vital role in fulfilling this adage. As there are many state of affairs where animated videos can save time by becoming a strong source of communication. Communicating anything through visuals can make better understanding of the subject or the concept. This paper will deal out with the role of graphics & animations in the meadow of agriculture. It will show how cropping & techniques used in the agriculture can be modified or used in more effective way. Other salient terms that will throw light in this research will use & impact of Artificial Intelligence & usage of SAWBO program in terms of agricultural practicing. The results obtained from this study urge that animated imaginal or visuals are a well-received approach as a training & guiding tool in agriculture with diverse literacy levels.
ABSTRACT
During the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic, farmers worldwide were greatly affected by disruptions in the food chain. In 2020, Sao Paulo city experienced most of the effects of the pandemic in Brazil, with 15,587 deaths through December 2020. Here, we describe the impacts of COVID-19 on urban agriculture (UA) in Sao Paulo from April to August 2020. We analyzed two governmental surveys of 2100 farmers from Sao Paulo state and 148 from Sao Paulo city and two qualitative surveys of volunteers from ten community gardens and seven urban farmers. Our data showed that 50% of the farmers were impacted by the pandemic with drops in sales, especially those that depended on intermediaries. Some farmers in the city adapted to novel sales channels, but 22% claimed that obtaining inputs became difficult. No municipal support was provided to UA in Sao Paulo, and pre-existing issues were exacerbated. Work on community gardens decreased, but no garden permanently closed. Post COVID-19, UA will have the challenge of maintaining local food chains established during the pandemic. Due to the increase in the price of inputs and the lack of technical assistance, governmental efforts should be implemented to support UA.
ABSTRACT
This paper examines the influence of mortality salience on preference for humanoid robot service. Six studies confirm that consumers/tourists are reluctant to adopt humanoid (vs. non-humanoid) service robots and robotic services when mortality is salient. The effect is driven by the perceived threat to human identity. However, temporal distance can alleviate the mortality salience effect. Eliciting a distant-future temporal perspective can reduce consumers'/tourists' existential anxiety, and then attenuate negative reactions to humanoid service robots. This research provides an innovative standpoint on consumers' reactions to service robots under conditions of mortality salience (e.g., during the COVID-19 pandemic). It also offers insight into service robot implementation and design in the hospitality and tourism industry.
ABSTRACT
The online survey was conducted between June, 2020 and August, 2020 to understand the perception of the undergraduate students of the S.V. Agricultural College. Tirupati regarding online classes. Out of 300 undergraduate students pursuing 1st, 2nd, and 3rd year of B.Sc (Hons.), 72 students belonging to all three years responded. The perception of the students was categorised under four aspects viz., perception of learning environment, social perception, academic self-perception and perception of students on faculty members. The majority of the students (97.1%) were using smartphone for attending virtual classes, ranked online lecture supported by a screen shared PowerPoint as the best virtual teaching method with a weightage of 278 and 3 hrs/day was the comfortable screen time mentioned by 50 percent of the students. About 95.7 percent of the students perceived that a real class environment helps in good understanding than an online learning environment. The majority (87.2%) stated that learning in isolation is not exciting. Less than half (44.10%) of respondents expressed satisfaction, while 55.90% of the respondents expressed dissatisfaction towards virtual classes.
ABSTRACT
The purpose of the study is to assess students' attitudes towards remote employment during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study considers the objective and subjective prerequisites for the development of remote employment, its advantages and disadvantages in the respondents' assessments. The information base of the research is based on the results of a pilot survey of students. The sample size is 216 respondents, including 144 urban residents and 66 students who lived in rural areas before entering the agricultural university. The results of the study show that an important advantage of remote work, according to students, is the ability to achieve a balance between work and personal life (52.6%). The disadvantages of the remote format included low chances of promotion (26.6%), limited opportunities for professional development (26.3%) and the inability to concentrate on work while at home (23.4%).
ABSTRACT
This article assumes that international tourism is facing a deep crisis as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic that brought about the paralysis of the sector, resulting in trillions of losses. However, its effects occur unevenly in space-time, which requires localized studies to decipher the specificities of its impacts on tourism in different places. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the implications on tourism, specifically, on tourism services in the city of Aracaju/SE, from the restrictive measures instituted with the pandemic. The methodological procedures adopted in this exploratory research were the bibliographic survey, the documental research, as well as interviews with public agents and application of forms with city residents, with a quantitative-qualitative analysis approach. The results point to new challenges for the destination with regard to the resumption and attraction of tourist flows. In this sense, it is urgent to prepare creative proposals and protocols adjusted in the world scenario for the reactivation of the sector's activities.
ABSTRACT
The sustainability of community ecotourism under the Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE) in Zimbabwe is under stress due to shocks including the new coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The pandemic has potential to impede the efforts the community ecotourism sector has been making towards the attainment of the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. The specific objectives of the research were to: (i) document the shocks emanating from the COVID-19 pandemic on the Mahenye community ecotourism project and (ii) suggest possible coping and recovery strategies to the COVID-19 pandemic shocks at the Mahenye community ecotourism project. Qualitative methods were adopted encompassing data mining, expert opinion and key informant interviews. The overall impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on Mahenye ecotourism elements have been negative. The present research results could enable ecotourism to be sustainable in the face of shocks emanating from infectious pandemics like COVID-19 and future others.
ABSTRACT
In the midst of the 2020 global health crisis, universities have been forced to alter teaching modalities. Much of this alteration involves increased use of the internet as a teaching tool in a variety of capacities. The evolving higher education landscape has resulted in many university faculty members reevaluating basic teaching concepts such as content delivery formats. These include delivering content either synchronously or asynchronously. Although existing literature examines the effectiveness of both synchronous and asynchronous delivery, very little exists pertaining to the role of internet access in higher education, even as rural America falls behind in broadband access. This accessibility increases in importance as more courses are taught online, with the digital divide introducing barriers for many rural students. As faculty work to maintain their own personal teaching styles while being cognizant of student needs, it is important to evaluate content delivery as a function of rural broadband availability.
ABSTRACT
On 12 Mar. 2020 Dickinson State University moved all classes to distance delivery (DD) in response to COVID-19. Faculty had only a brief opportunity to plan, as the turn-around to DD was very rapid. Meaningful laboratory exercises were needed for SOIL 210-Introduction to Soil Science. The senior author learned about the Science of Agriculture (SoA) website on a discussion board created by the Soil Science Society of America, which provided links to distance education resources. Most of the resources from SoA addressed topics still to be covered in SOIL 210, and four of the semester's final six labs were developed using SoA: Understanding Data and Chemistry, Soil Chemistry, Dryland Soils, and Microbiology and Nitrogen. Materials available on the SoA website include video clips, interactive exercises, and virtual labs. Although the virtual labs, with the exception of Sorption!, are not soil science focused, they cover basic skills that soil scientists use. Each of the four labs utilized four to eight of the activities (video clips, interactive activities, and/or virtual labs) available on SoA, depending on the length of time each activity was expected to take and the number of activities available for the given topic. Students were asked to answer specific questions related to their lab experience with the digital activities. The SoA website provided useful tools to develop meaningful experiences for the SOIL 210 students in lieu of their traditional laboratory exercises.
ABSTRACT
Exploring the challenges faced by agriculture teachers during the Spring 2020 semester brings to light the reality of teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, understanding the challenges faced by teachers empowers the profession to make agricultural education more resilient to broader, social forces in the future. In this study, a national sample of agriculture teachers were asked to identify the three most pressing challenges they experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using qualitative research methods, eight challenge themes emerged: (a) Communication, (b) FFA (National FFA Organization, a student leadership organization previously named the "Future Farmers of America"), (c) Instructional Quality, (d) Program Facilities and Activities, (e) Supervised Agricultural Experiences (SAE), (f) Student Motivation, (g) Technology and the Internet, and (h) Work-Life Balance. Using quasi-statistical methods, the most commonly reported challenges were identified - Instructional Quality, FFA, and Student Motivation. Analysis of all the challenges suggested permeation across each aspect of the three-component model of agricultural education. Furthermore, many challenges appeared to be related to each other. Finally, analysis of the results illuminated responding teachers, and their students, each experienced the challenges brought about by COVID-19 differently, including evidence of exacerbated educational inequality for students from lower income households.
ABSTRACT
School based agricultural education has long been associated with teacher stress, burnout, and attrition, and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has likely exacerbated these conditions. Thus, the purpose of this study was to determine the differences in Arkansas SBAE teachers' stress, coping strategies, and job satisfaction based on teaching environment, and demographic variables during the pandemic. Results showed that respondents experienced fatigue, frustration, worrying, forgetfulness, and impatience, and that these symptoms of stress along with related sources of pressure were negatively correlated with job satisfaction. However, teaching environment resulting from the pandemic was not shown to predict job satisfaction. Nonetheless, results showed that teaching is stressful regardless of situation, and respondents who utilized coping strategies were found to have higher levels of job satisfaction. Therefore, we recommend that administrators work with teachers to develop coping strategies for dealing with stress.
ABSTRACT
Quality education is crucial for growth and development of a nation. Teaching learning process worldwide which was disrupted by COVID-19 pandemic has found consolation through online remote teaching. Competency of teachers plays an important role in the success of online teaching. The study was conducted in North Eastern region (NER) of India to assess the faculty members' competency in online teaching of agricultural undergraduates. For the study, all the teachers of institutesin NER imparting undergraduate level degree course in Agriculture were selected. Online questionnaire was sent to all the teachers of which 75 responses were received, which formed the respondents of the study. Five online teaching competency dimensions were considered for the study. The respondents had highest mean competency score in Teaching Ethics and lowest in Content Facilitation. Online teaching competency had significant and positive correlation with online teaching experience;attitude towards online teaching;and organisational facilities & support. The study recommends providing organizational facilities and support in the form of adequate infrastructure and conducting trainings on awareness and usage of e-teaching resources and tools to improve the online teaching competency of the teachers.
ABSTRACT
India became independent in 1947, when it was still reeling from the impact of the 1943 Bengal famine and world as a whole was experiencing the brunt of world war second. Thus India was born hungry in a hungry world. The country leaders were well aware of the challenge that India was expected to face in terms of food security and it was Jawaharlal Nehru who said everything can wait but not agriculture. The first president of India Rajendra Prasad after taking the chair, the first thing he did was to hoist the flag at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, declaring "India's most pressing task would be to conquer the battle of hunger. The Indian population has increased tremendously from 376 million in 1950 to 1380 million in 2020 and it is agriculture and its allied sectors that sustained such a huge population. India still has a significant proportion of population 14% undernourished, 35% children stunted, 20% children underweight, 52% women of reproductive age anaemic. India could bring out green revolution, white revolution and blue revolution in order to provide food security to its people. India presently is not food deficient;it has attained self sufficiency in food production and stands exporters of food. However the irony is that India stands at place 102 in global hunger index with score of 30 that is a matter of concern (Global Hunger Index-GHI, 2019). The problem is in making this food available to the people or access to the food is ensured. India needs nutritional security rather than food security besides transformation in agriculture and allied sectors to become free from hunger. The task is tough and precipitated by Covid-19 pandemic, but not impossible. India has much strength but will need research, extension, implementation and policy framing to have sustainable, nutrition sensitive, climate resilient, integrated and smart agriculture to eliminate hunger.
ABSTRACT
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is an important element in the education scenario to prepare citizens for the future. Since, its inception factors influencing the use have not been studied more, hence an exploratory research study has been framed for finding those factors among the students of CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar, Haryana during 2018-19. The data were collected from 200 respondents using structured interview schedule and analyzed using standard methodology. The findings revealed that the institutional factors were perceived highest with composite index value (CIV) of 70.18, followed by personal (67.35), technical (59.15) and economic constraints (47.33). Although, these factors could be overcome through implementing remedies suggested by students like;teaching should be through ICTs, followed by improved internet connection, training programme related to use of ICTs, etc. but an effective national level policy related to infrastructure facilities, software licensing, availability of high quality ICT gadgets at subsidized rates, free and regular training programmes, etc. are possible ways to deal with these factors especially during COVID-19 pandemic. The correlation and regression of different variables, i.e. age, education, family education, scientism, annual expenditure, mass media exposure, information seeking behaviour and risk orientation exhibited negative and significant effect with their perceived personal factors at 0.05 level of probability. Hence, the paper recommends that effective utilization of ICT depends not only upon the available ICT resources, but also effective utilization of the same.