Identifying Practitioner Needs Related to Rural Population Changes Using Whiteboard-Enhanced, Online Listening Sessions

Authors

• Jason P. de Koff, Tennessee State UniversityFollow
• Kristina Brant, Penn State UniversityFollow
• John Green, Mississippi State UniversityFollow
• Paige Kelly, Penn State UniversityFollow
• Katherine Curtis, University of Wisconsin-MadisonFollow
• Sreedhar Upendram, University of TennesseeFollow
• Gloria Mangoni, Penn State UniversityFollow

Volume

64

Issue

3

Abstract

Rural communities are changing in size and composition, with implications for programming needs. As these communities comprise a large proportion of any Cooperative Extension program's stakeholder group, programs must identify and respond to changing needs. Through online listening sessions with Extension professionals and other rural practitioners, we identified how researchers and others could support practitioners' programming. Practitioners called for local data, examples of successful programs and policies, enhanced program evaluation protocols, better information dissemination, strategies for equitable community discussions, and ways to identify and connect with trusted resources. Using whiteboard-enhanced online listening sessions helped identify needs and reduced logistical efforts.

Authors’ Contribution Statement

JPD: Writing-original draft, data collection and analysis, writing-review and editing.

KB: Data collection and analysis, writing-review and editing.

JG: Conceptualization, data collection and analysis, writing-review and editing.

PK: Conceptualization, data collection and analysis, writing-review and editing.

KC: Data collection and analysis, writing-review and editing.

SU: Data collection and analysis, writing-review and editing.

GM: Data collection and analysis.

Data Availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License.

Recommended Citation

Koff, J., Brant, K., Green, J., Kelly, P., Curtis, K., Upendram, S., & Mangoni, G. (2026). Identifying Practitioner Needs Related to Rural Population Changes Using Whiteboard-Enhanced, Online Listening Sessions. Journal of Extension, 64(3), Article 4. https://doi.org/10.66752/1077-5315.6347