The How, When and Why of Forest Farming: Building and Using New Internet Based Infrastructure to Advance Learning and Practice in the Northeast

The project developed as planned in some respects, and in others we made course corrections along the way. We have distilled from our analysis of the project’s strengths and weaknesses, key factors that appear to account for much of the difference between anticipated participation in the project, and the actual participation. We summarize the factors here to aid in understanding the trajectory and results of the project which are discussed below in terms of the project’s milestones.

Factors affecting participation


Two dimensions of participation affected the project outcomes: 1) Who did and did not participate and, 2) How those engaged in the project participated. With respect to who, the project was successful in recruiting Extension and other educators from New York and Pennsylvania, presumably on the strength of prior experience with forest farming/agroforestry programming as well as professional ties that educators had with project leadership. Recruiting educators from other states in the Northeast proved difficult, however. We had not anticipated the extent to which invitations to engage with the project would be met with responses that ‘we’re too busy, there’s no time’. It has become apparent that these arguments stem from perceived opportunity costs and risks that individuals calculate when deciding whether to take on something new. The nature of participation by those who did become involved lends insight into probable reasons for reluctance on the part of those who did not. Specifically, we expect that concern about inadequate performance in online teaching and learning was a greater inhibitor to participation than we had accounted for in planning the project. We had anticipated that asking educators to engage in new subject-matter for which they may not have had strong programmatic support in their various State Extension programs would limit some from participating, but that our encouragement would be successful in attracting at least several curious educators. The fact that ultimately we had no sustained participation from other states is partially a function, no doubt, of ‘full plates’ and scarcity of time. Another factor appears also to be at play however, that is a certain fear about engaging in online technology.

We recognized in many of those who did participate in the pilot a marked reluctance to venture past pre-existing comfort levels and familiar technologies. This reluctance negatively impacted the adoption of new online teaching and learning tools. In attempting to adapt to this factor and accommodate varied comfort levels and technical facility we developed new introductory support materials to bridge the gaps. Even with these foundational steps in digital literacy for online instructors we did not succeed in overcoming these barriers sufficiently to meet our targets. The targets seemed justified on the basis of enthusiasm both for forest farming and online Extension programming that we perceived in our spheres of programming when the project was designed, combined with the prospective benefits for clients and the ultimate impact on land use practice. None the less, our experience provokes us to hypothesize the following barriers to effective participation by educators may lay behind the argument, “I’m too busy…”:

a) Limited basic proficiency and intimidation by technology. We overestimated participant comfort levels with online tools such as a simple discussion board. Concern with appearing incompetent, or of failing, or simply of wasting time on activity that may not generate a payback, is justifiably intimidating.

b) Concern about landowner access to learning tools. Educators may perceive that the potential for landowners to engage in distance learning technology can be limited by the lack of penetration of broad band-width, high speed internet service to rural areas. They may recognize that committed technical support is needed to provide the tools landowners with only dial-up capability need to engage effectively in online learning (CD’s containing essential materials). Without a system-wide culture of online programming to provide the necessary tiers of support, they may consider the value to clients too limited to justify the investment in learning. Educators may have sensed that this was missing in their Extension systems and decided to stay clear.

c. Fear of success. It is possible that online Extension programming can be highly successful. The project’s prototype course with 44 paying landowners from 22 counties in three states suggests the potential -- the exit survey revealed high levels of client satisfaction and interest in pursuing forest farming activity. Some educators may be concerned that if the approach becomes too successful it could supersede needs for some conventional programming and thus threaten their roles and positions. Therefore they prefer not to enhance the credibility of the approach by participating. We know in practice that face to face interaction contributes substantially to online learning, and that the two approaches are complementary. But until one develops competencies in online instruction, this may not be evident.

Strategies to overcome constraints

The project leadership team has developed several measures to help overcome constraints to participation in online learning. Based on the key lesson we learned, that very fundamental levels of capacity development and support are needed by those who are not exceptionally adept and committed, we have invested in a multi-prong approach to make interactive, online teaching and learning more viable. The approach includes the following elements:

a) Face to face certification training and instructor certification. A newly formed Distance Learning Unit at CCE will be coordinated by the leader of this project’s instructional technology group. He has instituted a certification program that will engage educators in online teaching-related skill development that includes a face-to-face component. The program will be launched at the system-wide in-service training for all CCE educators, in October 2007. Certification training will be accompanied by ongoing support from the Coordinator until educators feel confident and demonstrate competence with the technology and approach.

b)Enhancement of instructional tools. We have created screen casts that are more basic and carefully illustrated.

c)Provision of ‘live’ course material on CDs. To overcome issues related to lack of access to broad band width, the certification course will provide educators with CDs that contain video and other material that is difficult to access through dial-up systems.

d)Online instruction guide. For those who have basic competencies in online learning and/or enthusiasm for the approach that will motivate them to self-teach, we have constructed a detailed user’s guide for creating online courses. This can be accessed at: http://treadwell.cce.cornell.edu/hwwff/InstructorsGuide/index.html.

Over time, as young people assume positions in Extension education, we can anticipate that computer based programming will become easier and more prominent by virtue of `lifetimes’ of exposure.

Milestones

1. Twelve (12) educators linked with the Northeast Agroforestry Learning Community (NALC) 6 from NY State and 6 from Pennsylvania, will become familiar with the potential for transforming the NALC workshop training package into a comprehensive FF curriculum and DL platform for facilitating learning communities through their engagement in the prototype course design process.

This milestone was reached. Extension educators from NY and PA, several of whom had participated in the SARE-funded NALC between 2000-2002, were enthusiastic about participating in the initial project workshop where the purpose of the project was discussed and an implementation plan developed. The workshop involved 2 and one half days of face to face interaction at the Agroforestry Resource Center in Greene County, NY. Each Educator nominated for this activity accepted, thus there was a waiting list of people who would have attended if resources had allowed. Participants shared their experience and knowledge of forest farming and were curious about online teaching and learning.

After the workshop participants actively contributed content for HWWFF Resource Center. This online Resource Center now contains state of the art information in text, image and video format as well as learning and planning tools to enable educators and landowners to develop competency in forest farming site assessment and marketing, as well as the cultivation of medicinal, mushroom, maple, and fruit and nut crops. The Resource Center can be accessed at: http://hosts.cce.cornell.edu/hwwff/

2. Twenty additional educators, 6 from NY State, 6 from PA and 8 from other Northeast states, will become familiar with the content and design of the course, and learn how to use it to instruct and facilitate groups of land owners in learning about forest farming. These educators and the 80 land owners engaged in the course will also learn how to provide meaningful feedback to the course designers through curriculum evaluation protocols that project leadership will develop with users.

Eleven (11) additional educators met this target, all from NY and PA. For reasons given above, we were unsuccessful in recruiting educators from other states. Sixty-seven land owners were engaged in the courses. Many, although not all, of the educators and landowners learned how to provide useful feedback through online discussion forums that were established and stimulated for the purpose. Our experience with online discussion boards bore out experience we have had in other contexts; that regular seeding of questions by a designated facilitator seems essential for maintaining discussion. Following the course, information from the discussion boards was harvested and posted on a wiki that course participants who were interested could access by gaining a password to the site from project leadership. Participants also provided useful information to the Leadership team through pre-and post-course surveys of their experience with forest farming and online learning. Educators and landowners who participated in the pilot test generally were enthusiastic about the course. Between 75-85% of each agreed entirely or agreed strongly that the course was useful, the instructors were helpful, the videos were instructional and the online discussion was worthwhile.

The eleven educators who enrolled in the How When and Why of Teaching Forest Farming Online course were provided instruction in how to construct online learning modules, quizzes, and surveys and to facilitate discussion among course participants using Moodle software. Upon completion of the training 44% completely agreed with the statement: “I think online courses could expand my outreach opportunities”. An additional 11% agreed that online courses could expand their outreach opportunities, for an aggregate of 55% in agreement. The other 44% neither agreed nor disagreed. The same percentage was uncertain about whether their program participants (landowners) would be able to use MOODLE effectively. Seventy percent of the educators predicted that the largest barrier to program participants would be lack of a high speed internet connection. We determined that this challenge could be met, in part, by providing instructional dvds of the videos and screencasts.

4. At least 90 CE Associations and other agriculture and natural resource education organizations in the Northeast who are linked with organizations participating in the project will be aware of the strengths and limitations of the on-line course, and support its use by educators and land owners who may benefit.

This milestone was not reached. Owing to the very limited participation we were able to gain by Educators in other states, we did not make an effort to monitor how CE organizations in other states perceived the utility of the learning system. We anticipate however, that word will spread about the success of the prototype course that one of the educators conducted (44 participants in 22 counties in 3 States). Educators will take the certification course that CCE’s distance learning program will begin offering in Fall 2007. Popular and Extension articles about project experience will be published and circulated. Distance learning will continue to gain cache in Extension programming and hence the learning system will attract increasing attention by CE systems in the region. The accessibility of the online resources which the project developed should make it easy for users to learn about when they are ready.

5. Of the 32 Extension and other agriculture and natural resource educators who participate in developing and testing the on-line forest farming course, 20 will also facilitate internet-supported forest farming learning communities that collectively will include 80 small farm operators and other private forest owners, and 30 educators will incorporate the use of the web-based course into their on-going programs.

To date, only one educator has conducted an online course. She attracted 44 forest owners, and decided to group them into two courses to enhance the potential for participant interaction that comes with smaller groups. She facilitated the two courses simultaneously. Our target had been based on the premise that each educator would develop a course for 4-5 landowners which was viewed as a way to generate extensive interaction and shared learning. In practice however, the prototype course demonstrated a way for one educator to reach many clients efficiently, and on a cost-recovery basis. Thus, rather than the knowledge generation tool for which the approach was envisioned, it has emerged as a tool for improving efficiency in reaching clients who would not be impossible to work with using conventional programming methods. Her experience was successful and appears to provide a viable model for other educators to adopt or adapt. She will serve as a resource person in the October, 2007 in-service training that the CCE Distance Learning Coordinator will offer to provide others the opportunity to gain first-hand from her experience.

Regarding the opinions of landowners who participated in the prototype course and took the exit survey, 33% liked it a lot and 33% liked it a little, while 17% did not like it and the remainder were neutral. Eighty-three percent found the content of the HWWFF Resource Center to be very useful, and felt that it was very easy or somewhat easy to navigate. All of the respondents however (100%), reported the course to be very useful, overall, in helping them learn more about forest farming. In written comments, respondents reported that one of the most useful and enjoyable parts of the course was a face-to-face field day they spent with the instructor in a setting where forest farming was practiced. This finding reinforces insight we have gained throughout the project, that face-to-face interaction complements online learning and appears to be an important component of an effective program.

6. Of the 80 land owners who participate in the on-line forest farming curriculum, 70 will initiate or expand trial forest farming practices, monitor them and report on-line to their educator-facilitated learning communities on the progress and performance. Fifty (50) will cooperate with Extension and other educators to facilitate the training of many additional land owners using the DL course.

Of the initial 65 who participated in the initial pilot courses, we estimate that about two-thirds initiated or expanded an enterprise following the course. Of the 44 who participated in the prototype, virtually all have or expect to undertake forest farming activity as a result of the course. Thus, we estimate that about 65 landowners initiated trials. At this time however, we do not anticipate that any of them will monitor and report their experience with forest crops online in an organized way through facilitated interaction. Expectations for this component of the project were set aside when the barriers to effective participation in online instruction (by Extension educators) became evident. Eventually we expect this `learning community’ characteristic to emerge from applications of the interactive, online learning system that the project has initiated. It turned out to be premature, however, to anticipate that it would be a direct and immediate outcome of the project.

As the culture of forest farming expands in New York, Pennsylvania and other Northeastern states, where forest is the predominant land cover and land use, we can anticipate that more forest owners will have expanded economic (profit-oriented) incentives to deliberately and effectively manage their forest resources. Farmers in the region who own woodlots stand to diversify their enterprises through growing specialty forest crops.

Experience suggests that the type of management that forest owners will undertake to create conditions that are suitable for forest farming also will stimulate healthy regeneration, including invasive species control. Presumably, a healthy, income-generating forest is more likely to withstand economic pressures to covert it to land uses that are less socially and environmentally beneficial, than one that is degraded and not enjoyable to use.
The project developed as planned in some respects, and in others we made course corrections along the way. We have distilled from our analysis of the project’s strengths and weaknesses, key factors that appear to account for much of the difference between anticipated participation in the project, and the actual participation. We summarize the factors here to aid in understanding the trajectory and results of the project which are discussed below in terms of the project’s milestones.