Urban Teacher Partnership for Culturally Relevant STEM Education

Rhodes College, Memphis TN

Investigators

Abstract

This Noyce Track 1: Scholarships and Stipends project at Rhodes College aims to serve the national need of increasing the number of highly qualified secondary STEM teachers in high-need school districts by supporting 18 pre-service STEM majors with scholarships. Urban areas across the nation struggle with recruitment and retention of teachers, particularly for STEM content areas. This project offers undergraduate STEM students supplementary research opportunities throughout their degree program to expand their skill set as educators. Other project highlights include seminars with an Educational Studies Scholar-In-Residence, as well as professional development for Noyce Scholars once they are teachers. These supports are supplemented by training teachers to understand how to be responsive to the needs of students while learning. This training will be analyzed as part of a research study that was designed to develop a model for improving teaching in high-need urban school districts. The four project goals of this Noyce project include: (1) recruiting 18 STEM majors to become Scholars; (2) retaining the Scholars in high-need school districts after completion of the Noyce program; (3) preparing the Scholars to effectively implement responsive practices in their STEM instruction; and (4) institutionalizing the supplemental (non-scholarship) project components. Project activities and support will span the five-year project, beginning in each Scholar's junior year and continuing through induction support in the first years of teaching. To broaden the project's impact, the leadership team will research the correlation between student-responsive training and teacher retention as the scholars graduate and become STEM teachers in high-need school districts. Thus, the project's outcomes are expected to contribute to identifying replicable academic experiences and evidence-based models for successful STEM teacher education that can be shared with other institutions. In turn, the project has the potential to influence teacher education and retention for urban, high-need districts nationwide. The Noyce program supports talented STEM undergraduate majors and professionals to become effective K-12 mathematics and science teachers in high-need school districts and experienced, exemplary K-12 STEM teachers to become STEM master teachers. It also supports research on the persistence, retention, and effectiveness of K-12 STEM teachers in high-need school districts. 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.