Agricultural and Life Sciences Communications Curriculum
The Science Communications Lab designs and develops teaching resources that are free to download and use across audience groups. The resources include reusable learning modules as well as face-to-face curriculum packages. The funding for the development of the teaching resources has been provided by federal funding agencies, as noted below. For questions regarding the science communications curriculum, email the Lab.
Future young scientists must be prepared with professional communications skills to disseminate scientific information to broad audiences of agricultural researchers, practitioners, and consumers. Strengthening Communication Skills of Agricultural Students: Using Real-World Examples to Meet Industry Employment Needs was funded by USDA’s Higher Education Challenge grant program in 2017.
The curriculum focus on Crawford et al.’s (2011) seven communication characteristics, using industry-specific examples and learning opportunities that allow college-level students to reflect and compare their communication techniques with industry expectations.
Module Descriptions: Read this for further details about each module’s topic, teaching strategies, and learning objectives.
Curriculum Options: This handout shares additional details about the two curriculum teaching methods (face-to-face and online) to help you find the best fit for your course.
Access Instructions: This document includes step-by-step instructions to access all materials for this course. If you have problems with access or would like further guidance, contact Audra Richburg (audraw@tamu.edu).
Teaching Tips: Whether you use the online or face-to-face format, following these best practices will facilitate a positive experience for both instructors and students.
Instructors using the Canvas LMS may find our Module Upload Instructions for Canvas helpful.
Crawford et al.’s (2011) seven communication characteristics:
- Module 1: Asking Effective Questions
- Summary: Employees must know when and how to ask questions because asking effective questions solves complex problems, increases productivity, and decreases confusion. Further, employees must be attentive to the task at hand to ensure they ask useful questions to complete the task correctly. They must also know how to ask questions and gather more information to solve problems and understand others. Asking questions can offer clarity, increase interest, and encourage further thought on a topic. Critical thinking often involves a decision tree of questions, and students need to understand how to work through this process.
- Learning Outcomes:
- Identify effective questions
- Develop questions of fact, judgment, and preference
- Module 2: Communicating Accurately and Concisely
- Summary: Accurate and concise information is important in the decision-making process. Without accurate and concise information, scientists cannot conduct research and make recommendations based on the findings. However, students often struggle with interpreting and critiquing oral and written scientific information.
- Learning Outcomes:
- Interpret scientific, evidence-based arguments for a general, non-scientific audience.
- Communicate accurate and concise information for publication in popular press mediums.
- Module 3: Communicating Appropriately and Professionally Using Social Media
- Summary: When using social media for personal or business use, students must remain professional, factual, and open-minded. Many individuals believe social media is a factual source of information. However, much of the information found on social media platforms is biased and not fully explained in the appropriate context. Therefore, it is important for students to properly assess information on social media, understand how to appropriately respond to comments or feedback, and manage agricultural issue campaigns for both personal and business accounts.
- Learning Outcomes:
- Identify agricultural brands that have effectively positioned themselves in the digital environment.
- Develop scientific, evidence-based information for delivery on social media platforms.
- Defend agricultural issues on social media platforms using evidence-based arguments.
- Analyze agricultural issue arguments on social media platforms and provide evidence-based information to support or refute the arguments.
- Module 4: Communicating in Writing
- Summary: Writing in the workplace is an important component of all industries because all positions within an organization require employees to write. Effective writing includes social context, discourse knowledge, content knowledge, cognitive processes, confidence, critical thinking, and the writing process (Leggette, Rutherford, & Dunsford, 2015). Poor writing is frustrating to the reader and often leads to misunderstanding among the constituents. Thus, employers seek employees who can write effective messages and who can deliver an accurate message in a compelling way (Selingo, 2017).
- Learning Outcomes:
- Develop talking points about a complex agricultural issue.
- Display personal writing identity using a personal persona.
- Explain the positives and negatives of a complex agricultural issue.
- Translate the science of a complex agricultural issue into an easy-to-read infographic.
- Module 5: Communicating Orally
- Summary: Presentation and oral communication skills are important attributes of new graduates; yet, many students are not taught how to effectively communicate orally. In fact, students are often expected to deliver presentations as part of course assignments without adequate instruction on how to present. This module will provide foundation skills focused on communicating orally.
- Learning Outcomes:
- Describe an audience persona.
- Develop a message to connect to an audience.
- Deliver dynamically and effectively through oral presentation.
- Module 6: Communicating Pleasantly and Professionally
- Summary: Communicating in a positive and productive manner is critical in the workplace. In situations of conflict or opposing ideas, pleasant and professional communication is of paramount importance. Pleasant and professional communication is a part of verbal and non-verbal communication and both can positively or negatively impact internal and external climates of an organization.
- Learning Outcomes:
- Know your communication style and how to apply it in a group setting.
- Create pleasant and professional messages for dissemination through a variety of business communication mediums.
- Apply non-verbal communication concepts to business communication scenarios.
- Module 7: Listening Effectively
- Summary: Listening is a key to communicating with others as individuals spend more time listening than they spend writing, reading, speaking, etc., and listening is not the same as hearing. Effective listening includes attentiveness, thinking critically about the information, head nodding, and watching nonverbal movements and cues. Employers look for potential graduates who can listen effectively and identify keywords and concepts needed to make informed decisions.
- Learning Outcomes:
- Identify elements of effective listening.
- Use critical thinking concepts by listening for keywords and concepts in oral discussions.
- Compare complex agricultural issues using keywords and concepts from oral discussions.
Click here to access a list of modules that align with the writing intensive courses in the Texas A&M University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
This project was supported by Higher Education Challenge Grant no. 2017-70003-26386 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
High school graduates need more soft skills preparation to be successful in college majors and careers in food, agricultural, natural resources, and human sciences. Fueling the Mind, Feeding the World: Delivering Communication and Decision-Making Curricula to Secondary Agricultural Education Students was funded by USDA’s National Institute for Food and Agriculture Secondary Education, Two-Year Postsecondary Education, and Agriculture in the K-12 Classroom Challenge Grants Program grant program in 2019.
The curriculum focus on Crawford et al.’s (2011) seven communication characteristics and seven decision-making characteristics. The primary audience of the curriculum is high school agricultural education students and teachers with the secondary audience being community college and university faculty and food, agricultural, natural resources, and human sciences employers.
Because this is a current project, online modules for the following topics are being developed and will be added as they are completed.
Decision Making:
The decision-making skill characteristics reusable learning modules for secondary agricultural students are based on Crawford et al.’s (2011) seven problem-solving and decision-making characteristics:
- Module 1: Identifying and Analyzing Problems
- Summary:
- Learning Outcomes:
- Use critical thinking skills to evaluate agricultural issues
- Develop a plan to overcome issues
- Module 2: Taking Effective and Appropriate Actions
- Summary:
- Learning Outcomes:
- Analyze potential impacts of decisions
- Distinguish cause and effect scenarios
- Determine actions
- Module 3: Realizing the Effects of Decisions
- Summary:
- Learning Outcomes:
- Compare and contrast agriculturally-related scenarios
- Investigate possible effects of decisions
- Devise appropriate plans of action to best benefit all stakeholders
- Module 4: Generating Creative and Innovative Solutions
- Summary:
- Learning Outcomes:
- Investigate existing conditions to formulate the problem
- Devise innovative solutions to overcome issues
- Integrate creative ideas into action steps
- Module 5: Transferring Knowledge from One Situation to Another
- Summary:
- Learning Outcomes:
- Dissect a situation to understand main points and supporting elements
- Understand available technology and construct dissemination plan
- Module 6: Engaging in Life-Long Learning
- Summary:
- Learning Outcomes:
- Identify interest areas within the FANH sciences
- Explore their passions within their discipline
- Validate techniques to encourage life-long learning
- Module 7: Thinking Abstractly about Problems
- Summary:
- Learning Outcomes:
- Compare and contrast context from content
- Identify relationships within problems
- Develop a model of techniques to practice thinking abstractly
To download the faculty instruction sheet, instructor guides, student resource packets, and curriculum, visit http://zippyzest.com/courses/SciComm/List.html. The following topics are currently available for download as of July 2023:
DM01: Identifying and Analyzing Problems
- Full Curriculum (Written curriculum, Instructors’ Food for Thought, activities/blank assignments, answer keys, handouts, PowerPoint slides, and Deep Dive mini-lesson)
- Quick Assignments (Written curriculum, worksheets, answer keys, and handout)
DM02: Taking Effective and Appropriate Action
- Full Curriculum (Written curriculum, Instructors’ Food for Thought, activities/blank assignments, answer keys, handouts, and PowerPoint slides)
- Quick Assignments (Written curriculum, worksheets, and answer keys)
DM03: Realizing Effects of Decisions
- Full Curriculum (Written curriculum, Instructors’ Food for Thought, activities/blank assignments, answer keys, handouts, and PowerPoint slides)
- Quick Assignments (Written curriculum, worksheets, answer keys, vocabulary handout, and simplified Instructors’ Food for Thought)
DM04: Generating Creative Solutions
- Full Curriculum (Written curriculum, Instructors’ Food for Thought, activities/blank assignments, answer keys, handouts, and PowerPoint slides)
- Quick Assignments (Written curriculum, worksheets, answer keys, and essential handouts)
DM05: Transferring Knowledge
- Full Curriculum (Written curriculum, Instructors’ Food for Thought, activities/blank assignments, answer keys, handouts, and PowerPoint slides)
- Quick Assignments (Written curriculum, worksheets, answer keys, and handout)
DM06: Lifelong Learning
- Full Curriculum (Written curriculum, Instructors’ Food for Thought, activities/blank assignments, answer keys, handouts, and PowerPoint slides)
- Quick Assignments (Written curriculum, worksheets, and answer keys)
DM07: Thinking Abstractly about Problems
- Full Curriculum (Written curriculum, Instructors’ Food for Thought, activities/blank assignments, answer keys, handouts, and PowerPoint slides)
- Quick Assignments (Written curriculum, worksheets, and answer keys)
Crawford et al.’s (2011) seven communication characteristics:
- Module 1: Asking Effective Questions
- Summary:
- Learning Outcomes:
- Use critical thinking concepts to listen for keywords
- Develop clarifying questions to further understand complex issues
- Module 2: Communicating Accurately and Concisely
- Summary:
- Learning Outcomes:
- Interpret scientific, evidence-based data
- Summarize key, accurate points of the data
- Module 3: Communicating Appropriately and Professionally Using Social Media
- Summary:
- Learning Outcomes:
- Compare and contrast two oral presentations that focus on a complex agricultural issue.
- Develop and deliver an oral presentation emphasizing the strengths and weaknesses of two presentations.
- Module 4: Communicating in Writing
- Summary:
- Learning Outcomes:
- Create pleasant and professional evidence-based messages for dissemination through professional documents (e.g., emails, letters)
- Module 5: Communicating Orally
- Summary:
- Learning Outcomes:
- Use critical thinking concepts by listening for keywords and concepts in oral discussions
- Develop clarifying questions to further understand complex issues
- Module 6: Communicating Pleasantly and Professionally
- Summary:
- Learning Outcomes:
- Use critical thinking skills to identify effective questions
- Develop clarifying questions of fact, judgment, and preference
- Module 7: Listening Effectively
- Summary:
- Learning Outcomes:
- Defend agricultural issues on social media platforms using scientific, evidence-based information
- Prepare a response to a negative argument for delivery on social media
This project was supported by the Secondary Education, Two-Year Postsecondary Education, and Agriculture in the K-12 Classroom Challenge Grants Program no. 2019-38414-30265 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.