It’s teaching… On Campus and Off

Steve Isaacs

University of Kentucky

75/25 Distribution of Effort

• 100% teaching

– 75% paid by Extension

– 25% paid by Teaching

Distribution of Effort

• Classroom teaching and extension teaching are complementary in every respect except time

Complementarities

• Source of illustrations

• A two-way street

– Extension cases to illustrate principles

– Classroom principles to explain why things happen

Complementarities

• Farm illustrations

• Marginal decision making

– Spent $600 on fencing next milk check was up $800

– Award winning dairy farm in bankruptcy

– Pen of hogs that “eat a hog every two days”

– Add Input as long as value created by the input exceeds it’s cost

Complementarities

• Classroom illustrations

– Add input as long as the value created exceeds the cost of the input

– 10% interest and 8% returns, risk aversion

– Senior seminar projects (machinery costs, corn grazing, dairy heifer budgeting)

– Lab exercises on financial statements

Complementarities

• Classroom principles- teaching/learning

– Deficient in learning “how to teach”

– Teaching methods

• Direct instruction

• Socratic method

• Interactive approaches

Complementarities

• Classroom principles- teaching/learning

– Learning styles

• Visual

• Auditory

• Kinesthetic

Similarities

• Diversity of audience

– Undergraduate backgrounds, majors and abilities

– Farmers education and knowledge level

Thoughts on addressing diversity

• Avoid the least common denominator

• Don’t leave some behind

• Err on the challenging side

• See challenge as a motivator

Tools to address diversity

• Low student/teacher ratio

• 1-on-1 assistance

• Use TA’s, LA’s

• Peer tutoring, e.g. Lab tracking

Extension

workshops

Classroom

labs

Another similarity

• Students want to know

– “what’s on the test?”

• Farmers want to know

– “how much do I use to kill it?”

• The challenge

– to move from facts to application

– to teach thinking

How do we teach thinking?

• Critical thinking in classroom equals decision making in Extension

• The easy way is to answer the questions

• It’s harder to teach critical thinking and decision making

How do we teach thinking?

• Active learning

– Ext addresses current problems

– Bring current problems to classroom

• Classroom interactive lectures, exercises, problems, projects

• Extension workshops instead of 20 minute show and tell

Differences (other than time)

• Extension is not a captive audience– when you going to get to the estate planning?

– Extension audiences are more cynical

– Extension audiences rarely take notes

– Extension education is too cheap

– Is the classroom?

Your thoughts

• How do you reach diverse audiences

– In the classroom?

– In Extension?

• How do you avoid teaching to the test?

• How do you avoid giving them a fish?