MSU ag mechanics students learn lifelong skills, build homecoming float

The skills can’t be gleaned online or from a phone. Some of the classes don’t have a textbook. Students may get a little dirty in the lab, which happens to be a shop in one of Montana State University’s equipment facilities. The final grade depends on lessons learned by way of one’s hands.
 
For the MSU students who enroll in Dustin Perry’s classes, and for a modern economy desperate for a skilled labor workforce, honing agricultural mechanics talents are old, albeit, new skills for MSU’s next-generation agricultural educators and agriculturists.
 
Perry, assistant professor in the Division of Agricultural Education, housed in MSU’s College of Agriculture, joined MSU in 2014. Since then, he has revamped the university’s agricultural mechanics classes to promote what he calls “experiential learning” so that students can garner “skills required not just for a job, but for life.” Those skills involve learning to frame, build sub-floors, correctly wire a switchboard and safely use power tools. Bob from InspireDesignAndCreate.com says that proper safety techniques are paramount before taking on any DIY project, especially when novices and new power tools are involved. 

 
“To be sure, there’s a generational decrease in the hard skills of even basic tool operations and safety,” Perry said. “The previous generation would have some kind of inherent knowledge. But in today’s classrooms, it’s a mix between students who know how to operate basic tools and equipment and those who haven’t been exposed to any of it.”

 
About half of Perry’s construction students are required to take his courses for an agricultural education degree. The other half, according to Perry, are students from all majors who are putting their names on wait lists for classes like electrical power and systems operations, small engines, construction and lab management.

 
“I think people are hungry to take these kinds of classes because they’re different and outside of what students are traditionally used to,” he said. 
 
In one of his classes, construction technology, students spend the semester planning and executing a small-scale construction project. Students take on projects from organizations and the public, who are responsible for purchasing the project’s materials. Students present a formal design and budget for the project.  Under Perry’s supervision, they’re responsible for procuring the materials and its entire construction.

 
Former projects include a storage shed at the MSU Child Development Center preschool, an informational kiosk for the Gallatin Valley chapter of Pheasants’ Forever located at MSU’s Lutz Farm, multiple greenhouses and a chicken coop.
 
Last fall, his students built a homecoming float for the College of Agriculture that included the college’s original 1907 seal in honor of MSU’s 125th anniversary year. The float features a center pivot irrigation system powered by 250 gallons of water, which cooled crowds during Bozeman’s Sweet Pea Festival in August. Students constructed hexagonal wooden planters for holding wheat varieties grown on MSU’s Horticulture Farm, as well as the frame for the collegiate seal.

 
Perry, who has a doctorate in agricultural education, grew up in Texas “following his dad around fixing things.” He helps build decks for a local construction company in the summer - what he calls professional development -- so that he doesn’t become disconnected from the industry.
 
Focused on agricultural education recruitment and retention at MSU, he works closely with FFA chapters across the state and is a board member of the Montana FFA. Perry was presented a Teaching Award of Merit by the North American Colleges of Teachers of Agriculture in 2016. Last year at the Western Region Agricultural Education Conference he was awarded a first runner up for distinguished impact in research involving the career decisions of agricultural education teaching graduates. 

 
Jondie Rianda, a graduate student in agricultural education from Kalispell, is a former student of Perry’s and now is a graduate assistant for the construction technology class. Rianda said she enjoys observing students navigate the community aspect of planning and building.
 
“I think what’s so valuable about Dr. Perry’s classes is that he gives his students free rein to really figure things out independently,” she said. “For big projects, that’s a lot of responsibility for students who haven’t been given that learning opportunity. That’s especially true in classes where the level of hard skills really varies.”

 
Rianda said from a teaching perspective, that kind of hands-on learning allows some students to follow a natural tendency to lead.
 
“When it comes to teacher training in agriculture, a lot of rural school districts expect a higher competency in mechancis,” she said. “It’s fun to see the progression of some students take on leadership roles, which is based on the small-group nature of the class.”
 
Austin Standley, an MSU alumnus and current agricultural mechanics teacher at Sweet Grass County High School in Big Timber, said he’s modeling his own classrooms after Perry’s instruction.
 
“It’s almost identical to how I format my electricity class, especially in terms of how much I encourage students to use their hands,” Standley said. “You can go over and over what the electrical principles are in connecting a switchboard, but until you actually do it yourself, you won’t get that ‘ah-ha’ moment. Dr. Perry completely understands the learn-by-doing, which is the nature of ag ed.”

 
Standley said Perry’s classes “were absolutely instrumental” in his ability to teach and connect with students and for an appreciation “of the concepts of how and why most things work.”
 
“It’s a really exciting time to be in ag ed,” Standley said. “There’s a lot of things changing. The most important, I think, is more attention being paid to its value.”