ISU's Noyce Scholarships for STEM Teachers of Under-Represented Groups

Board Of Trustees Of Illinois State University, Normal IL

Investigators

Abstract

With funding from the National Science Foundation's Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship program, ISU's Noyce Scholarships for STEM Teachers of Under-Represented Groups is recruiting undergraduate STEM majors in agriculture, biology, chemistry, earth and space science, mathematics, physics, technology & engineering and preparing them to become grades 6-12 Science or Math teachers. The project will fund 40 Scholars over 5 years, with $10,000 scholarships in their junior and senior year as Noyce Scholars along with the opportunity to earn a $3000 research internship during their junior year (as a paid intern in one of the university's research laboratories) and a $1560 teaching internship during the summer (co-teaching a STEM summer camp to 6-8th graders from the Valley View School District). Illinois State University (ILU) is partnering with Joliet Junior College (JJC) and Valley View School District of the Chicago Unified School District to both recruit sophomore STEM majors from the junior college and ISU to become NOYCE Scholars (earning both a degree as a STEM major and a secondary teaching credential) and to interest junior high students in STEM teaching as a career. The primary objectives of this project are to: increase the number of students from under-represented groups seeking a STEM major and a secondary credential, increase the transfer rate of students from JJC to ISU to seek a STEM secondary credential, develop Noyce Scholars' conceptual knowledge of STEM in order to effectively implement the Next Generation Science Standards, develop Scholars' skills in teaching a diverse student body, develop Scholars' understanding of the nature of science, develop Scholars' self-efficacy toward STEM teaching, and increase middle school students' interest in attending college and pursuing a STEM career. Ninety-four percent (94%) of the 50 graduates from a previous ISU Noyce program (centered on urban high needs schools in the city of Chicago) are still teaching in these high-needs urban schools. The current project will enable ISU to use the lessons learned from that urban based project to expand their efforts to serve a suburban high-needs district and to benefit a student population whose importance is just beginning to be realized, students from groups currently underrepresented in the STEM teaching field who might not have otherwise considered attending ISU and/or seeking a secondary teaching credential to teach a STEM discipline. Furthermore, it will support two new partnerships: one between ISU and a diverse, high-need school district that previously had few interactions with ISU and another between ISU and Joliet Junior College, which should increase the transfer rate from one of Illinois's largest community colleges to ISU. Assessment activities will feature a quasi-experimental design. Experimental groups will comprise ISU Noyce Scholars and summer camp participants while comparison group will comprise ISU non-Noyce scholars and non-summer camp participants, respectively. ISU non-Noyce Scholars will be recruited from their teacher education programs in STEM disciplines. The summer camp comparison group will be recruited from middle school students who did not attend the camp. A mixed-method (quantitative and qualitative data collection) approach will be used to provide a comprehensive analysis of the effectiveness of the project, and provide an in-depth interpretation of the overall results.