Abstract
Through this chapter there is reflection on using active learning strategies for agricultural education in the Arab world. There are difficulties with utilizing specific active learning strategies that encourage student learning and achieve important graduate attributes. Changing teacher and faculty perceptions about learning strategies and focusing on students' higher order thinking requires a lot of training, orientation, and mind shifting. Learning through specific active learning techniques, such as vocational, simulation, case studies, and using technology, supports student learning. It is particularly important to use instructional ways that encourage deep learning and analysis with agricultural problems and deficits. Professional development and hands-on learning changes perceptions of teachers through agricultural education in the Arab world. Many aspects relevant to using active learning in agricultural education perfectly in Arab world countries are clarified.
TopIntroduction
This chapter will present and discuss many topics relevant to utilization of active learning concepts, rationality, importance, pillars and foundations, comparison with traditional learning, overview of agricultural education in Arab world, agricultural education development through MUCIA / USAID in Egypt, an overview of active learning utilization, and suggested strategies of active learning that could be applied for agricultural higher and vocational education in the Arab world. Vocational and higher agricultural education in the Arab world require new patterns for ways of instruction and giving more emphasis on cases, problem solving, and using technology through education. There is a high demand to transfer traditional education techniques in agricultural education based mainly on lecturing into more active strategies that inspire students and expose them to new technologies and recent advances in agricultural applications.
Establishing teaching excellence centers within schools and colleges will provide capacity building for teachers and faculty to be more effective and making breakthrough for graduates’ capabilities and competencies. Through rural communities, closer links between higher educational institutions and agricultural companies will lead to increased awareness of farmers to accept the data and achievements of agricultural scientific research that are directly related to solving production problems.
According to Battisti and Passmore (2008), traditional experiential learning is viewed as a cycle of experimentation, generalization, reflection, and experience but does not always place much emphasis on the necessity of careful reflection or the requirement that the students' interests motivate the experience. Classic degree programs, in which students are typically expected to be information receptacles, and simulations are examples of traditional collegiate experiential learning pedagogies used in the classroom (in which students are exposed to the subject matter via a simulation). Capstone courses take place outside of the classroom but are still governed by the institution (in which students are invited to synthesize the coursework from their degree program into a final project, usually practical in nature). Additionally, as more active learning experiments are conducted in higher education, it is crucial that learning research be started as well. By doing so, our agricultural education will be able to better understand how active learning may change the way that individuals and groups think and behave.
Bransford et al. (1999) indicated that constructivist learning theory emphasizes that individuals learn by combining new ideas and experiences with existing knowledge and experiences to build their own knowledge and develop new and improved understandings. In addition, Freeman et al. (2014) revealed that students in traditional lectures are 1.5 times more likely to fail than students in active learning courses. In addition, incorporating active learning into the course design increased student performance on exams, concept inventory, or other assessments by an average of about half the standard deviation.
TopBackground
Agricultural Education is the preparation of agricultural human frameworks that are scientifically and technically qualified with information, experiences, and skills. These competencies support the effectiveness of their agricultural, plant, and animal performance, achieve increased production, improve quality, and reduce the cost of agricultural development projects.
Key Terms in this Chapter
INJAZ Al-Arab Foundation: Non-profit organization for education and training in workforce readiness, financial literacy, and entrepreneurship across the Arab World.
Intermediate Education: Vocational agricultural training is considered as an essential part of the educational system at secondary education institutions by all national partners in Egypt.
Collegiate/Non-Collegiate Settings: Collegiate means affiliated to a college or university or related to college student or life depends on the situation we use it, while non-collegiate means not regularly affiliated to the college or university.
Agricultural Simulation: It is a computer simulation created to facilitate learning on the part of students or trainees. Educational simulations are abstracted or simplified representations of a target system, which are neither as complex nor as realistic as the relevant scientific simulations.
Interactive Teaching: Interactive teaching is a means of instructing whereby the teachers actively involve the students in their learning process by way of regular teacher-student interaction.
Case Study: A case study is an in-depth, detailed examination of a particular case (or cases) within a real-world context.
Teaching Excellence Centers: The Centre for Teaching Excellence collaborates with individuals, academic departments, and academic support units to foster capacity of effective teaching and meaningful learning.
Teacher Character: Some qualities of a good teacher include skills in communication, listening, collaboration, adaptability, empathy, and patience. Other characteristics of effective teaching include an engaging classroom presence, value in real-world learning, exchange of best practices and a lifelong love of learning.
Arab World Countries: Consists of the 22 Arab countries which are members of the Arab League. A majority of these countries are located in Western Asia, Northern Africa, Western Africa, and Eastern Africa
Vocational Education: Vocational education is education that prepares people to work as a technician or to take up employment in a skilled craft or trade.
MUCIA/AERI Project: Midwest Universities Consortium for International Activities (MUCIA)/The Agriculture Exports and Rural Incomes (AERI) Project funded by USAID and concentrates much of its financial and human resources on organizing low-income farmers from the eight governorates of Upper Egypt into effective nonprofit business associations.
Deep Learning: Deep learning (deep structured learning) is part of a broader family of machine learning methods based on artificial neural networks with representation learning.
Traditional Learning: The teacher directs students to learn through memorization and recitation techniques thereby not developing their critical thinking, problem solving, and decision-making skills.
Curriculum Reform: Curriculum reform can be seen as a process that aims to change the objectives of learning and the way learning takes place.
Capstone Course: Senior seminar (in the U.S.) or final year project (more common in the U.K.) that make peers work together on specific project and represent results.
Arab Encyclopedia: Arab Encyclopedia is an encyclopedia in 24 volumes in the Arabic language in 1953.
Experiential Learning: The experiential learning model allows youth to participate in engaging, stimulating activities that have a real-world basis.
ALECSO: The Arab Organization for Education, Culture and Science is one of the organizations of the League of Arab States, which as a body concerned with the preservation of Arab culture.