Engaging Community Colleges in Recruitment of Secondary STEM Teachers Through Early Field Experiences

University Of Maryland, College Park, College Park MD

Investigators

Abstract

With support from the NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education Program: Education and Human Resources (IUSE: EHR), this project aims to serve the national interest by helping to increase the diversity and number of highly-qualified STEM teachers. It aims to do so by providing teaching experiences for community college students, to encourage them to consider a teaching career. The project is a collaborative effort between the University of Maryland-College Park, Montgomery Community College, and Prince George's Community College. The expected outcome is recruitment of a diverse pool of students who might not otherwise have considered becoming a STEM teacher, including undergraduates, career changers, and non-instructional teaching staff, such as teaching aides. The goal of this project is to research the effectiveness of using "Step 1," an early fieldwork course model developed through the UTeach program at the University of Texas at Austin. Step 1 is designed to generate excitement about STEM teaching as a career, increase awareness of STEM teaching as an option, and create seamless pathways (transfers) from community college coursework into university STEM teacher preparation programs. Data will be collected and analyzed from surveys and interviews of community college students. T-tests of two independent samples will be used to gauge whether the availability of the early fieldwork courses on community college campuses increases STEM student awareness of teaching as a career. The goal is to develop an "exportable" model so that other four-year colleges with STEM certification pathways will be able to partner with community colleges to recruit future teachers and foster diversity in STEM teaching. Reports and data analyses will be used to prepare conference presentations for organizations such as UTeach, the American Educational Research Association, the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators, and the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. Manuscripts will also be submitted for publication in peer-reviewed journal articles. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. This project is in the Institutional and Community Transformation track, which supports efforts to transform and improve STEM education across institutions of higher education and disciplinary communities. 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.