Preconceived experience of the unknown v. experienced reality

Teachers’ self-efficacy regarding nutrition education can have a significant impact on the implementation of nutrition education programmes^{(Reference Unusan and Yalcin14)}. A lack of self-efficacy emerged in the form of hesitancy during both the pre-focus group and the lesson plan feedback, specifically regarding teachers’ experiences with growing microgreens during the pilot.

When asked about the anticipated challenges during the pre-focus group discussion, three teachers expressed concerns about their abilities to grow plants, but the majority still seemed to have an open mind towards planting and growing. Some teachers had direct experience with planting, growing and harvesting, and some teachers had no experience. One teacher with some experience mentioned, ‘We do have a garden at my house, but my husband is the one in charge of it’. Despite the feelings of hesitancy that emerged about teaching the nutrition lessons, all of the teachers agreed they were willing to give it a try as noted in the following anecdote: ‘It is going to be a learning experience. I think it is ok for the kids to see that we are still learning as well’. An essential finding was the fact that the teachers were willing to try the lessons despite their hesitancy. One teacher noted:

When alluding to the teachers’ experienced reality with the nutrition-integrated lessons, one of the teachers noted in the post-focus group that the nutrition-integrated lessons ‘kinda built up and you planted and you watched it grow and you had a journal and you learned about it as you went…those four lessons went nicely together’. Instead of focusing on just the lesson content in the post-focus group, the teachers pinpointed how the development of the lessons made teaching nutrition much less intimidating and reduced their reluctance to implement. Throughout the lessons students had ownership of the planting and growing and one teacher mentioned that ‘because the students had something to do with it, they grew it technically, they learned a lot from it’. Although the central focus of the teachers’ feedback was on how the students experienced the lessons, a few teachers mentioned they were unable to grow anything, while some mentioned that theirs grew mold, and yet one teacher said ‘the whole thing [microgreen planting tray] filled, it was awesome!’ One teacher noted that ‘for the future it would be helpful to have some more detailed directions for the planting and pickling parts of the lessons’. In one of the feedback responses another teacher noted the following in regard to further directions and her experienced reality:

While many teachers had to ask for help and learn along the way, this will always be part of the ‘growing and learning experience’, as one teacher noted in the pre-focus group. However, it is important for the researchers to accommodate for how the teachers’ hesitant preconceived experiences of the unknown manifested themselves into experienced realities during this pilot curriculum.

Promoting buy-in and engagement through hands-on learning experiences

The notion of hands-on learning experiences was reported frequently throughout the online feedback provided by teachers and revealed a sense of buy-in from both teachers and students. During the first nutrition-integrated lesson, What Do We Need to Grow? there were multiple comments relating to acting out the story through body movement (Fig. 1). One teacher shared, ‘I liked the book [Seed Song] and song used during this lesson. It helped the children remember what plants need, to grow’.

Fig. 1

Students acting out the Seed Song book through movement during lesson one

Notes from researcher observations also aligned with this notion of engagement during lesson one. One of the observers noted, ‘They LOVED the movement. They were all engaged’. Some teachers did the movements alongside the students, while some teachers had the students create their own movements. Enabling students to explore their own movements and describe how their movements aligned with the science and nutrition-related vocabulary in the story might not only promote higher levels of recall and engagement^{(Reference Lindgren and Johnson-Glenberg15)} but even further buy-in through ownership of their movements in the lesson.

While it is important for students to be engaged in the learning process to promote buy-in, it is also important to acknowledge that teachers are key stakeholders in any programme’s success^{(Reference Margolis16)}. During the second nutrition-integrated lesson, How Do We Grow?, MyPlate was introduced alongside healthy food choices, and towards the end of the lesson the students observed and planted their microgreens (Fig. 2). Responses to this lesson were overwhelmingly positive, as teachers noted, ‘It went very well’ and ‘It was a lot of fun!’ More specifically, one teacher noted, ‘The lesson did a great job at presenting students with new food categories and the types of food in each. It really helped to expand their prior knowledge since they got to interact with the different foods’. In regard to the connection of lessons brought up in the first theme, it was also tied into the feedback regarding this lesson, as another teacher stated, ‘The students seemed engaged and remembered what was taught in the previous lesson to lead into this lesson’. This recall of information demonstrates a transfer of learning from the first lesson to the second lesson. Because information in the second lesson built upon what was learned in the first less, children were able to construct meaning and transfer their learning in new ways within the second lesson^{(Reference Sousa17)}. Perhaps the students’ engagement with this lesson was connected with the teachers’ engagement and comfort level with the particular content and its relatability to other parts of the day as noted in the following anecdote during the post-focus group:

Fig. 2

Students observing their microgreens before planting them

The topic of food and nutrition is something that the teachers mentioned they had already connected to their classroom, especially during their farm unit that teaches students about different types of animals and foods grown on a farm, so it was not an unknown topic for the teachers. This is similar to what was found with the third (pickling cucumbers) and fourth (harvesting) lessons. Therefore, buy-in may have already been embedded into this lesson due to the comfort level with the content.

Lesson three, It Takes a Community for Everything to Grow, proved to have the most discrepancy regarding lesson perception and its impact on the students and their engagement levels. Much of the enjoyment in the feedback alluded to the outcome of trying the pickles that each class made. However, the process of actually getting there (pickling the cucumbers) was the part of the lesson that several teachers mentioned ‘needs to be simplified’, and in regard to following the pickling instructions teachers noted that ‘there needs to be more details’. Although some teachers mentioned the need for more guidance, it did not seem to deter from the buy-in of pickling cucumbers in future lessons or the impact it had on their students as revealed in the following statement when prompted on what should be kept in the nutrition unit: ‘The pickles were fun, don’t drop it!’ (Fig. 3)

Fig. 3

Student pickling cucumbers during lesson three

The last lesson, Hard Working Hands Happily Harvesting, asked the students and their teachers to harvest and taste test the microgreens they planted. This particular lesson revealed some trials and tribulations that the research team had anticipated during the pre-focus group and as the planting process began. Because the microgreens did not grow for some, while others had an overabundance of greens, some adjustments were made by the research team to support the teachers (Fig. 4). However, teachers were still successful due to the support the research team provided and brought into the hands-on process of making the dressing for the salad to taste test, as revealed in lesson feedback:

Fig. 4

Microgreens growing at the end of the nutrition unit

The hands-on part of taking care of the plants throughout this unit seemed to either gain momentum or confusion by teachers with minimal planting experience. Teachers mentioned that they were ‘concerned about disappointing the children’ since they would be excited about their plants. However, the research team provided support via email to address some of the concerns teachers had while growing the microgreens, and provided greens at the end for those who either had few or no microgreens to harvest.

Manifestation of perceived prioritisation

Teachers stated in the pre-focus group, ‘The biggest challenge every teacher faces is always time. We have everything else we have to do, where are these lessons going to go?’ The idea of time manifested itself as a prioritisation in how the teachers perceived the curriculum. Throughout the pre-focus group data, time emerged in a multitude of ways. Firstly, instead of teachers focusing on my students and their needs, the conversation turned to I in relation to the focus being on the teachers’ perceptions of prioritisation of time. Consequently, the focus on what the students might obtain and how they might benefit from the lessons became less apparent when the concern of time arose in discussion. In regard to perception of time during the pre-focus group, one teacher noted the following:

Time and pressure to complete everything seemed to emerge in every facet of the data. During the post-focus group, teachers grappled with the notion of how to prioritise all of their demands. One teacher noted, ‘Looking at it alone is not a lot of pressure, but when you think about the fact that we are doing the Collaborative [state-funded Pre-K program with additional requirements], OWL curriculum, and adding up all the things we are required to do this year, it was kind of a lot of pressure’. This anecdote revealed itself through several teachers’ responses during the post-focus group, wherein one teacher noted, ‘I felt like the shorter lessons were better because we do have so much going on’. Agreeing with this perspective, another teacher mentioned that ‘while the lessons were great they were too time-consuming’. This lack of time and reality of prioritising all of the expectations teachers have to meet seemed to result in shortening of the lessons for some during the pilot, while others chose to conduct lessons as a whole group instead of small group, and some teachers simply did not complete a lesson because of the time of year the unit took place.

Even though a few teachers did reveal that they had to adjust the lessons to their needs based on their perception of how they needed to prioritise their time, all ten of the teachers completed lessons one and two, nine completed lesson three and eight completed the final lesson. It was also noted that a solution to this situation might be to flip-flop when the units were taught. Because the nutrition unit ties in so well with Halloween, farming and Thanksgiving, some teachers thought it would be better to provide some flexibility regarding when the lessons were taught, instead of being on a restricted timeline. One teacher suggested the following regarding the timeline:

Seamlessly fusing this curriculum into the already mandated curriculum proved challenging because this was a pilot curriculum and voluntary. However, this manifestation of prioritisation does urge the research team to rethink how they will rebuild and implement the curriculum. While it is impossible to know all of the inner workings of a teacher’s classroom and school schedule, it is essential to assist with alleviating such manifestations of perceived prioritisation by interweaving what is known as time components for teachers in with future pilot lessons to ultimately benefit the students in the classroom.