Abstract

On-farm visits in dairy management courses provide students the opportunity to utilize all their senses when describing and evaluating management practices. Obstacles often exist, however, that prohibit classes from visiting farms, thus alternative instructional methods, such as virtual farm tours, must be considered. This study evaluated the use of virtual farm tours as an effective instructional tool in a dairy management course. Three farm videos were developed and viewed by students. Students enrolled in the course were divided into groups of 4 to 5 students (n=8). Following each video, online technology was used for a question and answer period with the producer. Groups evaluated each dairy and provided an evaluation including strengths, opportunities, and recommendations. All groups did one on-farm evaluation and completed the same assignment. A questionnaire was developed to address student perception of the videos’ impact on the learning process (82.8% response rate). Additionally, group responses for each of the virtual assignment questions were compared with those from an on-farm visit and the differences in means were evaluated using a paired t-test. Enthusiasm for the course was high with 89.7% of students indicating a strong interest in the content area. The majority agreed that the virtual tours successfully stimulated interest in the subject matter and provided real-world content. When students were asked to provide recommendations to the dairy producers, there was a difference in mean scores between two virtual farm visits compared with the live visit. Our data suggest that virtual farm tours can be a useful instructional tool in a dairy management course.