Supporting Teacher Scholars through Education and Professional Development in Place-Based Education

Colorado State University, Fort Collins CO

Investigators

Abstract

This project aims to serve the national need for high-quality science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) teachers. Specifically, this project is designed to increase the number of highly effective STEM teachers in high-need K-12 school districts in Colorado. At least 80% of school districts in Colorado serve rural communities and have trouble recruiting and retaining STEM teachers. To address this need, the project will recruit undergraduate STEM students, provide them with scholarships, professional development, mentoring, and other supports as they pursue their STEM degrees, become certified teachers, and begin their teaching careers. The project includes a central goal of providing these Noyce Scholars, as well as in-service teachers, with professional development focused on Place-Based Education. Lessons based on Place-based Education principles include a goal of promoting civic engagement, and are locally relevant, practical, and transdisciplinary. The project intends that professional development in Place-based Education will help in-service and new STEM teachers design lessons that engage their students in meaningful inquiry activities, and also help the new teachers become more familiar with and rooted in their new school community. An additional feature of the project is its focus on recruitment of new STEM teachers by supporting potential candidates in discipline-specific educational coursework. The anticipated outcome of this project is to prepare 32 highly qualified STEM teachers for high-need Colorado school districts. These new teachers will help to fill critical shortages of these teachers in rural areas of Colorado. This project at Colorado State University includes partnerships with Poudre, Thomas, and Morgan County School Districts in Colorado. The project will prepare and support 32 undergraduate STEM majors (in four cohorts) to become STEM teachers. The targeted majors include mathematics, biology, chemistry, and physics. Project goals include: (1) recruiting new prospective STEM teachers by hiring undergraduates to be STEM Assistants in local K-12 schools; (2) building capacity for prospective and current STEM teachers to develop robust, standards-based curricula that integrates locally-relevant place-based issues; and (3) improving the quality and retention of novice STEM teachers in high-need K-12 schools. The project intends to develop a pipeline for recruiting new STEM teachers, as well as to create an interdisciplinary community of pre- and in-service teachers dedicated to locally relevant STEM teaching in high-need schools, especially those in rural school districts. The broader impact of this project will be demonstrated by developing and testing a model for universities to develop strong teacher education programs across STEM disciplines. The project evaluation plan is designed to provide insights into the effectiveness of project strategies to identify the effective ones for replication in other settings. This Track 1: Scholarships and Stipends project is supported through the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program (Noyce). The Noyce program supports talented STEM undergraduate majors and professionals to become effective K-12 STEM teachers and experienced, exemplary K-12 STEM teachers to become STEM master teachers in high-need school districts. 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.