When Jaron VanHouden came from Oldfield, Missouri, to Mizzou to study Agricultural Education, he never imagined that he would do research, but when he worked as a teaching assistant for Rebecca Mott’s Leadership Development in Youth Organizations class (Ag_Ed_Ld 2270) he found an unexpected passion.
“I use a lot of research articles to teach in that class, and he just seemed to take to it like a duck to water; he was curious,” said Mott.
While he then knew he wanted to do research, he wasn’t sure what topic he wanted to pursue.
“We spent probably an hour in the Gentry Hall conference room with Dr. Tummons going over potential topics,” said VanHouden. “I was getting ready to go through the student teaching experience that I’m currently doing and so that was something that was on my mind at the time and that we kept coming back to. In Dr. Tummons’ Program Management class we talked about community all the time and about how your program is a reflection of the community you’re in, and that’s where the idea came together.”
Under the direction of Mott and Tummons and with funding from the CAFNR Undergraduate Research Internship program, VanHounden conducted a study about how student teachers in the agricultural education field get connected to the community surrounding their student teaching school.
When the Mizzou agricultural education student teaching cohort came to campus for a seminar in January, VanHouden conducted his first focus group, which yielded a lot of data for his project as it stretched over the one hour they had allotted. The student teachers completed several reflective writing assignments during the rest of their experience to provide additional data. After combing through the data and beginning to draw conclusions, VanHouden applied to be one of the 10 undergraduate students from Mizzou to present at Undergraduate Research Day at the Missouri State Capitol.
“He is very open to learning, and I often tell students that being a good researcher is being a good listener,” said Mott. “You have to be open to ideas, read, ask questions, be curious, and just continually be coming back for more, and he’s done all of those things. “
“My favorite part of this process was analyzing our data,” said VanHouden. “It was really interesting to start peeling back layers from all of our data sources and figure out exactly what our findings were.”
On March 13, VanHouden presented the three key findings of his research to legislators. Through the study, VanHouden found that cooperating teachers are doing an excellent job of exposing their student teachers to the community, cooperating teachers spend a lot of time helping their student teachers with the actual classroom teaching experience, and that student teachers are eager to get connected to their community, but don’t always know how, and are relying heavily on support systems already in place before their student teaching experience.
“In ag education, we send our student teachers all across the state,” said VanHouden. “It’s not just Columbia, they are scattered all across the state, so it’s important that they build support networks in the communities they are student teaching in. Long distance support is great, but there is only so much they can do at a distance.”
During his time at the Capitol, VanHouden got to meet with a variety of legislator and Karla Eslinger, Commissioner of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
“It was a very busy day at the Capitol,” said VanHouden. “They had 14 bills to vote on in the House that day, so I felt really lucky that everyone was taking time our of their day to meet with me about my research. Commissioner Eslinger even made a special trip over to the Capitol to meet with me, and that was probably my most productive conversation of the day. She even gave me some more potential recommendations on how to further the research. Also, several Missouri legislators are former ag teachers, so they knew how important my research was to the student teaching experience, and how meaningful it could be in the future.”
VanHouden is currently finishing a student teaching experience himself and will graduate with his bachelor’s degree in agricultural education, teacher certification, in May. He will return to Mizzou in the fall to pursue a master’s degree in agricultural education, leadership, and communication.
“After my master’s I still want to teach classroom agriculture,” said VanHouden. “After I dove into their research, I just realized I wanted to continue doing meaningful research that could make a difference on the industry as a whole, so when the opportunity to pursue my master’s came up, I jumped at it.”
While VanHouden didn’t think of undergraduate research as an interest or a possibility in the first two years of his time at Mizzou, he is thankful for the faculty that helped him pursue his newfound interest.
“Get connected with the faculty in your department to mentor you through your undergrad and through your research,” said VanHouden. “You’ll gain communication skills, research skills, relationship building skills, and you’ll meet a lot of great people. Just take advantage of your time here and all the opportunities Mizzou has to offer.”