Sustaining and Evaluating STEM Teacher Quality and Retention at Cal Teach Berkeley

University Of California-Berkeley, Berkeley CA

Investigators

Abstract

Through funding from the Robert Noyce Scholarship Program, this Track 1 Phase 2 project will address the established and growing national need to increase the quality, quantity, and diversity of the K-12 teaching workforce in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The University of California-Berkeley (UC Berkeley) program will: (1) build on its current and expanding Cal Teach program which supports undergraduate students as they pursue their STEM disciplinary degrees along with credentials in teaching mathematics and science, particularly in urban schools; (2) leverage a new collaboration with the University of California-Merced (UC Merced) to offer education courses and activities for STEM undergraduates at both campuses and a secondary teaching credential in mathematics or science at UC Berkeley; and (3) enhance the overall efforts and activities through strong extant partnerships with local school districts (Berkeley, Oakland Unified, and Merced City) and with local research and outreach institutions (e.g., Lawrence Hall of Science and the Chabot Space and Science Center). The project will support a total of more than one-hundred (100) students by providing (a) internships to twelve (12) lower division undergraduate students per year to engage these students in research, professional development, and interactions with outreach partners, and (b) scholarships to nine (9) upper division students per year who are participants in the Cal Teach program. These scholarship awards will be highly visible within the STEM disciplines at UC Berkeley and UC Merced, and will be identified as awards which reflect student accomplishment and success. This Noyce Phase 2 project will be an integrated program, with early and frequent field placements, allowing aspiring teachers to develop both deep subject matter understanding and exemplary pedagogical skills as they engage in both theory and practice. To accomplish this, the project will engage faculty from the STEM content areas as well as from the Graduate School of Education at UC Berkeley through an interdisciplinary approach to teacher preparation that has been shown to be critical in the context of training mathematics and science teachers for urban schools. In the process of project implementation, the project team will investigate the following questions: (i) What are the key activities which generate successful recruiting and retention of STEM major candidates with diverse backgrounds--including gender, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status--compared to entering teacher candidates for the state and national teacher workforce? (ii) How do teacher candidates, their university supervisors, and, once they begin a teaching position, their administrators, perceive the quality of their preparation for a teaching career in urban schools? What gaps and other issues need to be addressed in their preparation? (iii) What is the nature of classroom practices for these teachers? What is the impact on their K-12 students' learning? and (iv) What is the long term retention rate of these teachers? To what extent do these teachers assume a leadership role in their schools/districts? Research related to the key factors behind answers to above questions will lead to a national model for success in STEM teaching in urban settings that will also stimulate broadening participation in STEM and promoting social justice through mathematics and science teaching and learning.