Preparing STEM Teachers to Serve in High-Need, Rural School Districts

Utica College, Utica NY

Investigators

Abstract

This project aims to address the national shortage of highly skilled STEM educators in high-need school districts. To this end, the project seeks to grow a sustainable pipeline of STEM teachers by recruiting, retaining, preparing, graduating, and supporting talented undergraduate STEM majors to become secondary school teachers. It intends to accomplish this goal by providing twenty STEM undergraduates with scholarships and other supports as they pursue degrees in biology, biochemistry/chemistry, mathematics, geology, and physics and become certified to teach in New York. Following entry of the Noyce Scholars into their teaching careers, experienced school-based educators will mentor them to increase the Noyce Scholars' success as teachers and their retention in the teaching profession. The project will emphasize inclusion of underrepresented, low income, and first-generation students as Noyce Scholars. This emphasis is expected to increase the diversity of STEM teachers in the region's high-need school districts. Through hands-on teaching opportunities, collaborations with faculty and peers, and a capstone research experience, it is expected that the Noyce Scholars will develop their STEM teaching talents and skills and enter a productive, rewarding teaching career. This project at Utica College includes partnerships with Mohawk Valley Community College, Little Falls Central School District, and Poland Central School District. Project goals include: recruiting twenty highly-qualified STEM undergraduate scholars; retaining and graduating well-prepared Noyce Scholars who are ready to instruct students, including those from underserved populations; placing the graduating scholars into high-need school districts to fulfill their teaching requirement; and advancing STEM education by developing original, student-created, inquiry-based laboratory investigations and mathematics lessons aligned to national learning standards. The Noyce Scholars will adapt college classroom laboratory experiments and mathematics lessons to create new inquiry-based laboratories and lessons that meet Common Core Mathematics and/or Next Generation Science standards. This pedagogical model provides training for the scholars in scientific thinking and effective communication as they create and present original research proposals. In partnership with two rural, high-need school districts, the Noyce Scholars will collaborate with faculty and their peers, develop their pedagogical strengths and talents, and engage in hands-on teaching opportunities. Students’ original, inquiry-based STEM investigations will be disseminated at conferences and in peer-reviewed science education journals so that they might be adapted by secondary STEM teachers for classroom and teaching laboratory use. The project seeks to disseminate a pedagogical model that other teacher education programs may adopt or adapt, thereby advancing knowledge in STEM teacher preparation. 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.