Perspectives on Professional Learning at the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture

Professional learning in higher education is changing from a workshop approach to long-term interactive learning. According to the Western Governor’s University (2017), this new form of professional development known as “professional learning” incorporates collaboration among educators to improve their teaching and development at work. The University of Tennessee (UT), Herbert College of Agriculture (Herbert) is incorporating new approaches to improve employee professional learning. To explore this learning environment two methods of professional learning were investigated including peer mentoring and faculty development in teaching higher order thinking. The Tennessee Extension Peer Mentoring Program was established to orient and mentor new extension agents at UT (Tennessee Mentoring Toolkit, 2015). The first study in this thesis contains a comprehensive literature review for this new program on employee confidence, competence, and job satisfaction. The review suggests that mentoring is beneficial to new employee orientation and has been found to increase employee confidence, competence, and job satisfaction. The second study in this thesis is a literature review and analysis of focus group data from faculty interviews. A team of Herbert researchers is seeking to create an environment of higher-order learning in accordance with the best management practices of the National Collegiate Honors Council. Herbert faculty participated in focus groups to identify strengths of the current program and to determine future needs to implement higher-ordered learning into curricula. The results suggested that faculty perceived problem solving as the greatest strength of the college and identified the need to improve students’ abilities in critical evaluation. The students’ fear of failure was identified as an impediment to teaching higher order thinking. Faculty realized a need to teach higher order thinking that builds upon each year in college and emphasizes a curricula wide approach. The faculty reported a need for professional development in teaching critical thinking and student assessment, preferably in a hands-on workshop with a group discussion format