Example Career: Agricultural Sciences Teachers, Postsecondary

Career Description

Teach courses in the agricultural sciences. Includes teachers of agronomy, dairy sciences, fisheries management, horticultural sciences, poultry sciences, range management, and agricultural soil conservation. Includes both teachers primarily engaged in teaching and those who do a combination of teaching and research.

What Job Titles Agricultural Sciences Teachers, Postsecondary Might Have

• Agriculture Professor
• Animal Science Professor
• Instructor
• Professor

What Agricultural Sciences Teachers, Postsecondary Do

• Conduct research in a particular field of knowledge and publish findings in professional journals, books, or electronic media.
• Prepare and deliver lectures to undergraduate or graduate students on topics such as crop production, plant genetics, and soil chemistry.
• Evaluate and grade students' class work, laboratory work, assignments, and papers.
• Supervise undergraduate or graduate teaching, internship, and research work.
• Prepare course materials, such as syllabi, homework assignments, and handouts.
• Keep abreast of developments in the field by reading current literature, talking with colleagues, and participating in professional conferences.
• Write grant proposals to procure external research funding.
• Maintain student attendance records, grades, and other required records.
• Initiate, facilitate, and moderate classroom discussions.
• Advise students on academic and vocational curricula and on career issues.
• Compile, administer, and grade examinations, or assign this work to others.
• Plan, evaluate, and revise curricula, course content, and course materials and methods of instruction.
• Supervise laboratory sessions and field work and coordinate laboratory operations.
• Collaborate with colleagues to address teaching and research issues.
• Maintain regularly scheduled office hours to advise and assist students.
• Participate in student recruitment, registration, and placement activities.
• Select and obtain materials and supplies, such as textbooks and laboratory equipment.
• Provide professional consulting services to government or industry.
• Serve on academic or administrative committees that deal with institutional policies, departmental matters, and academic issues.
• Compile bibliographies of specialized materials for outside reading assignments.

What Agricultural Sciences Teachers, Postsecondary Should Be Good At

• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
• Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• Inductive Reasoning - The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
• Speech Clarity - The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
• Written Comprehension - The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
• Written Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
• Deductive Reasoning - The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
• Speech Recognition - The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
• Problem Sensitivity - The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.

What Agricultural Sciences Teachers, Postsecondary Should Be Interested In

• Social - Social occupations frequently involve working with, communicating with, and teaching people. These occupations often involve helping or providing service to others.
• Investigative - Investigative occupations frequently involve working with ideas, and require an extensive amount of thinking. These occupations can involve searching for facts and figuring out problems mentally.
• Realistic - Realistic occupations frequently involve work activities that include practical, hands-on problems and solutions. They often deal with plants, animals, and real-world materials like wood, tools, and machinery. Many of the occupations require working outside, and do not involve a lot of paperwork or working closely with others.

What Agricultural Sciences Teachers, Postsecondary Need to Learn

• Education and Training - Knowledge of principles and methods for curriculum and training design, teaching and instruction for individuals and groups, and the measurement of training effects.
• English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
• Biology - Knowledge of plant and animal organisms, their tissues, cells, functions, interdependencies, and interactions with each other and the environment.
• Mathematics - Knowledge of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, statistics, and their applications.
• Computers and Electronics - Knowledge of circuit boards, processors, chips, electronic equipment, and computer hardware and software, including applications and programming.
• Customer and Personal Service - Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
• Administration and Management - Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.