Building Capacity to Prepare STEM Majors to Become STEM Educators

Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma WA

Investigators

Abstract

The Building Capacity to Prepare STEM Majors to Become STEM Educators project is a Capacity Building project at Pacific Lutheran University (PLU), in preparation for a Noyce Track 1 proposal. The project's primary goals include building institutional capacity to produce highly skilled K-12 STEM teachers, particularly for service in marginalized communities, as well as deepening partnerships with surrounding school districts. The project aims to develop an undergraduate course that will deepen preservice teachers' knowledge of STEM content and pedagogy. As a part of the new course, preservice teachers will have field experiences in culturally and linguistically diverse public schools. Preservice teacher supervisors will receive training on how to best foster STEM teaching development. The project will also create a resource library with curriculum materials and STEM related diversity-responsive literature for use by PLU students and local school partners. This project seeks to build capacity to prepare highly qualified STEM teachers through (i) strong collaborations with local and regional partnerships via an advisory board and (ii) the engagement of diverse student populations in STEM learning through culturally responsive curriculum. Preservice teachers participating in the project will be undergraduates from all STEM disciplines including biology, chemistry, physics, geosciences, mathematics, and computer science. The project will develop an interdisciplinary, research-based course that includes K-8 classroom experiences to deepen students' knowledge of science content and pedagogy. Through the development of interdisciplinary partnerships, students will co-plan and teach science lessons with local K-12 teachers. Student field placements will occur in three local school districts (Tacoma, Franklin Pierce, and Clover Park) that serve diverse student populations in poverty affected communities and that are intentionally building their STEM teaching capacity. The mutually beneficial partnership between PLU and local school districts has the potential to result in authentic school and university-based experiences for PLU students. In addition to their impact on preservice teacher knowledge, these experiences aim to enhance STEM education for school district students, foster school-university STEM collaborations, enhance teaching and learning in the schools and PLU, and provide new materials and intellectual resources for local teachers. The advisory board will include members from the Puget Sound Educational Service District, the Board of the Smithsonian Science Education Center's program (Leadership and Support for Science Education Reform), PLU faculty, and the Institute for Systems Biology. Through a design-based research (DBR) approach, this project aims to generate knowledge on how to leverage collaborations to create effective STEM-focused course offerings, improve teacher preparation and development, and foster mutually beneficial partnerships. The DBR approach to bring about change involves implementing multiple iterations of design, implementation, analysis, and redesign. This project is the first iteration that will collect and analyze data such as observations, surveys, and student reflections, within the DBR context. Dissemination efforts will focus on sharing the project's results at STEM and Education conferences as well as in science education and teacher education journals, both regionally and nationally. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.