2012 Call for NACTA Abstracts

Annual Call for NACTA Abstracts for 2012 Conference

The 2012 NACTA conference will be held June 26 – 29 at University of Wisconsin, River Falls. This conference will be a joint meeting with the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), Division of Community and Education (DOCE).

The theme for the 2012 NACTA Conference is “Celebrating and Sustaining Agriculture”. Accepted abstracts that address the theme will be given first priority for oral presentations. Authors will be given the option to request an oral presentation, but it will be up to the host committee to make the final selection & timetabling of oral presentations. All other abstracts will be poster presentations.

The 2012 NACTA Conference will serve as a venue for faculty in agricultural, environmental, natural, and life sciences to share their information on the theme of “Celebrating and Sustaining Agriculture” as well as to share innovative teaching or advising ideas, scholarship of teaching, and other pertinent information. Abstracts are to fall within one of the four following topic areas:

Innovative Teaching Approaches – Teaching that facilitates learner-centeredness, shared power, deep processing, student engagement, empowerment, and responsibility. New creative teaching ideas may include interdisciplinary learning, problem-based learning, service-learning, and technology-enhanced learning.

Learning Outcomes – Scholarly assessment of students, courses, curricula, and programs. Empirical evidence of impact can be documented through an array of dependent variables because learning develops human capital in a variety of forms, such as knowledge, problem-solving skills, attitudes, motivation, responsibility, communication skills, personal development, teamwork, and interpersonal skills.

Scholarly Research Approaches – The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning is grounded in how professors systematically investigate the teaching-learning process. Challenges, critical reflections, and effective applications of action research methods and procedures can be highlighted regarding the use of interviews, observations, journals, content analyses of student work, achievement or performance measures, and questionnaires.

Abstract Format

The abstract should be a concise summary of factual information and not simply a general description of what the author plans to present. A high-quality abstract contains the following key elements (without designating them as such): (1) a brief introduction, including objectives of the presentation; (2) relevant experimental conditions indicating the scope of study or survey (authors of predominately philosophical works may substitute other appropriate criteria); (3) observations, results, or data (however, data should be in summary form and not presented in tables or graphs) - philosophical abstracts must demonstrate application of said philosophy; and (4) a concise summary.

Guidelines for NACTA/DOCE Abstracts

• Abstracts are limited to one paragraph of 250 words, not including title and by-lines.
• Create the abstract with MS Word or compatible software, using Times New Roman, 12 point font or similar
• Title of abstract should be brief and precise and in bold.
• The author(s) name(s) and affiliation(s) follows the title. The first author/submitting author is the contact author.
• Body of the abstract is single spaced in 12 point Times New Roman font or similar.
• File name of the abstract follows this naming format for submitting as a NACTA abstract: NACTA12XXX.doc where the XXX are three initials representing the submitting author, or for DOCE abstracts files must be named DOCE12XXX.doc where XXX are three initials representing the submitting author.
• Use single space.
• Do not include illustrations or bibliographical references in the abstract.
• Indicate if you would like to be considered for an oral presentation.
• If an author submits multiple proposals, the topic and content of each must differ substantially.
• The abstract should stand alone and contain valuable information for both those in attendance as well as those who read it in the NACTA Journal. Abstracts are subject to editing before publication.

An abstract is unacceptable if it:

• Contains significant grammatical errors and (or) meaningless statements such as: "The results will be presented."
• Includes no results or statements relating to the objective(s).
• Fails to comply with submission requirements.
• Presents opinion/speculation with no demonstrated use in a teaching or advising experience.

All abstracts must be submitted at this website: http://nactaabs.expressacademic.org/login.php

If you have any questions contact the NACTA Journal Editor, Rick Parker, at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Deadline: March 20, 2012. The author submitting the abstract will be notified of its status four weeks after the deadline.

For details on the 2012 Conference check out the 2012 Conference website: