Building Equity Leaders for STEM in NH: A Teacher Leaders Program to Improve STEM Learning for All Students

University Of New Hampshire, Durham NH

Investigators

Abstract

This project aims to serve the national need for highly effective science and mathematics education in grades six through ten. To achieve this aim, the project will improve the leadership capacity of Master Teaching Fellows in high-need school districts. The project will provide these emerging leaders with professional development to deepen their STEM content knowledge, broaden their STEM instruction skills, develop their teacher leadership skills, and expand their implementation of equity pedagogies. The project focuses on broadening the use of effective teaching strategies that serve under-resourced populations and that support the new vision of teaching mathematics, science, and engineering reflected in national recommendations and policy documents. It also will partner with New Hampshire professional societies and school districts to prepare and support the Noyce Master Teaching Fellows to serve as outstanding teacher leaders. This project at the University of New Hampshire includes partnerships with Manchester, Nashua, and Rochester school districts, and The New Hampshire Council of Teachers of Mathematics, The New Hampshire Science Teachers Association, and the Leitzel Center, a STEM center connected to the University. In-service certified teachers of mathematics and science who possess a Master’s degree will be selected for support as Fellows. The five-year project will address the following goals: 1) Recruit 15 exemplary in-service teachers from STEM disciplines (grades 6th-10th) to become Master Teaching Fellows committed to improving the educational opportunities and outcomes of high-need students in three of the largest school districts in New Hampshire; 2) Provide interdisciplinary, asset-based, locally responsive professional development; and 3) support the Fellows to serve as outstanding teacher leaders capable of designing and enacting project-based STEM learning that is culturally responsive, relevant, and authentic, and who understand the effects of poverty on learning. The project plans to create a new model for excellence in STEM professional development that uses a cohort approach to developing teacher leaders, is informed by principles of teacher learning across the career span, involves multi-level collaborations, and is sustainable. Dissemination will be addressed locally through New Hampshire professional society partnerships and nationally at conferences and meetings. This Track 3: Master Teaching Fellowships 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.