Nebraska School Gardens and the Potential for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Learning

Improving Elementary Pre-Service Teachers’ Science Teaching Self-Efficacy through Garden-Based Technology Integration

“…We used a quasi-experimental pre-post design [51] to assess the technology-enhanced STEM education experience intervention, Garden TOOLS, to answer the following research questions: (1) To what extent does Garden TOOLS professional development workshop impact science teacher self-efficacy among preservice elementary teachers enrolled in a science methods course? (2) Do participants who also employed an IBT Garden TOOLS lesson with learners in grades 3-5 as part of their science methods course practicum have differences in science teacher self-efficacy compared to teachers who only experienced the workshop and did not employ the IBT Garden Tools lesson plan as part of their practicum?…”

“…Many studies have utilized Enochs and Riggs' STEBI-B instrument [39] which contains 25 Likert-scale questions requiring a 5-point response ranging from strongly agree (5) or strongly disagree (1) for each question as a means of measuring preservice teachers' self-efficacy in the two dimensions of science teaching efficacy (PSTE) and science teaching outcome expectancy (STOE). Thirteen questions pertain to PSTE, and twelve questions pertain to STOE.…”

“…School gardens and other outdoor learning spaces are becoming more prevalent and are being more commonly used to support student learning [1][2][3][4][5][6]. Explicitly connecting modern agricultural practices to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education makes school gardens an intuitive and accessible space to integrate technology to support STEM learning while promoting awareness of agricultural career pathways [7][8][9][10][11][12].…”

“…Explicitly connecting modern agricultural practices to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education makes school gardens an intuitive and accessible space to integrate technology to support STEM learning while promoting awareness of agricultural career pathways [7][8][9][10][11][12]. Despite increasing access and potential usefulness of outdoor learning spaces, widespread technology integration in outdoor learning spaces to support STEM education is not apparent [1] and in cases where technology is utilized, it tends to focus on garden or landscape management (e.g., automated irrigation) rather than to enhance student learning outcomes [1]. The unrealized promise of integrating technologies into elementary school garden instruction to support student-centered STEM learning is rooted in a variety of challenges and barriers including elementary teachers' lack of confidence in teaching science [13,14], lack of familiarity with inquiry-based teaching (IBT) practices [15] and a lack of professional development and instructional resources to facilitate effective gardenbased learning experiences [1,5,6,16].…”

“…While many garden-based and outdoor learning resources are available, these resources often emphasize plant science or environmental education and do not guide how to integrate technology or engineering into school gardens for the benefit of IBT. In addition, while curricular resources can offer a roadmap to support effective garden-based teaching [5,16], teachers have expressed a need for additional support including professional development [1,3,4].…”