Giving back and looking forward: Enhancing and diversifying STEM teaching in Southwest Florida through recruitment and mentorship of homegrown talent.

Florida Gulf Coast University, Fort Myers FL

Investigators

Abstract

With funding from the National Science Foundation's Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship program, Noyce@FGCU is recruiting undergraduate STEM majors in Biology, Chemistry, Math, and Engineering and preparing them to become grades 6-12 Science or Math teachers. The project will fund 19 Scholars over 5-years. In this project, the Colleges of Education and Arts and Sciences of Florida Gulf Coast University are collaborating with the districts of Lee, Hendry, Glades, Charlotte, and Collier counties in southwest Florida. Primary objectives of Noyce@FGCU include 1) Increase the number of STEM classroom teachers for grades 6-12, 2) Increase the success of Noyce@FGCU classroom teachers, and 3) Support teacher certification of Noyce@FGCU scholars. Elements of the program include: --A) A robust, two-tier recruitment strategy that recruits under-represented urban and rural minority and first generation college students and area high school students. Areas of recruitment include: a) a Learning Assistant program, b) TRIO programming for STEM majors, c) under-served population recruitment in high schools, d) service-learning opportunities in 6-12 classrooms, e) visits to introductory STEM classrooms, and f) advisement seminars and brochures, --B) Pre-service enrichment in the form of workshops, conferences, and summer STEM experiences bridging the junior to senior year; --C) Pre-service mentoring, courses, and state test preparation; --D) A first-year in-service COE FGCU coaching program; and --E) Specific efforts to prepare the Scholars for teaching in high needs schools. Assessment activities will include efforts to assess specific components of their project , success of recruitment efforts in terms of: the strength of the partnerships they develop with recruiting targets such as high needs schools within the area and key departments and offices within the university; the numbers, diversity, scholarship and devotion to service among the applicants they attract, the Scholars reaction to enrichment activities and mentoring services offered; and the quality of the Scholars efforts during their first years of teaching as concerns the use of effective teaching practices and sensitivity to measures to engage the diverse set of students they will work with. Mixed methods including surveys, interviews and focus groups as well as observation of the Scholars in action will be used as assessment/evaluation tools at both the formative and summative stages of the project.