Responsive, Attentive, Dialogic, and InterActive Noyce Scholars

Texas State University - San Marcos, San Marcos TX

Investigators

Abstract

The Texas State University Noyce project, also known as Responsive, Attentive, Dialogic, and InterActive Noyce Scholars (RADIANS) project, will focus its recruitment efforts on physics, chemistry, and engineering majors, disciplines which are underrepresented in its large teacher preparation program and also represent areas of teacher shortage in US public schools. The RADIANS Project will provide scholarship support to STEM majors who seek teacher certification, resulting in 50-60 teachers over the five-year life of the project. Scholars will participate in a field-based teacher preparation program that is research-based and is collaboratively delivered by STEM and Education faculty members. The first semester of this program will be delivered onsite at an area high school that operates an innovative STEM Academy, while the second semester will consist of a full 16-week student teaching experience supervised by science education faculty from the College of Science and Engineering. During this program, faculty from the Colleges of Education and Science & Engineering will also design and deliver monthly full-day Saturday Seminars for the scholars to enhance their content knowledge and content-specific pedagogical skills, and to increase their knowledge of the latest research on STEM identity and their ability to support K-12 students' STEM identity development. Project staff will use strong partnerships with area school districts to facilitate certified scholars' employment in high-needs schools, and will coordinate with districts to provide two years of induction and mentoring. Finally, the RADIANS Project's emphasis on diversity of representation in the Learning Assistant (LA) program will result in a more diverse teaching force that can serve as advocates and positive role models for minority and economically disadvantaged students, and encourage them to pursue educational opportunities in science and teaching. The RADIANS Project will provide scholarship support to STEM majors seeking teacher certification, and will continue to operate the Learning Assistant (LA) initiative, one pool from which prospective teacher candidates will be recruited, launched with previous NSF support. RADIANS will support 10 to 12 scholars each year. It will investigate the long-term impact of several related interventions on the recruitment, development, and retention of science teachers and will contribute to the growing knowledge base related to STEM teacher development. The research area of STEM identity development figures into the project in two ways: (a) teacher education candidates will be taught about the latest research on high school students' STEM identity development, and (b) project personnel will study STEM teacher identity development of the teacher candidates. This will allow researchers to investigate the impact of these early experiences on the identity development of teacher candidates as they enter a teacher preparation program, progress through their teacher training, and experience their first years of classroom teaching. Potential benefits include: the recruitment of STEM majors who are experienced with research-based instruction into teaching programs will result in improved K-12 science instruction, which will lead to increases in student science achievement during the high school years and improved college and career readiness among students. Finally, the RADIANS Project's emphasis on diversity of representation has the potential to produce a more diverse teaching workforce that can serve as positive role models for students underrepresented in STEM. Proactive encouragement of young diverse learners by a cadre of well-prepared, STEM confident, diverse teachers will positively impact participation and pursuit of STEM degrees and thus contribute to a more competitive, competent, and confident workforce.