Supporting and Preparing Future STEM teachers through Scholarships and Teaching Experiences

Suny College At Geneseo, Geneseo NY

Investigators

Abstract

SUNY Geneseo’s Noyce-track 1 project aims to serve the national need for highly-qualified STEM teachers. This project provides scholarships for 18 undergraduate STEM majors who, at the same time, are completing their teaching certification. This project provides Geneseo’s Noyce scholars with career-related support, including mentorship and exposure to topics such as teaching in high-need schools. This project also supports three recruitment activities that introduce undergraduate students to teaching and helps to dispel misconceptions about high-need schools. These activities include 1) a program where students regularly visit local schools and work with experts to create STEM learning activities that they will share during their visits; 2) a 7-week summer internship at an informal STEM learning environment; and 3) a winter intersession STEM course paired with an internship at a local high-needs district. These three recruitment activities are offered to undergraduate STEM majors at SUNY Geneseo and its collaborative partner institution, Monroe Community College (MCC). The proposed project components will enable high-achieving undergraduate students to become secondary STEM educators with extensive expertise in effective pedagogy and skills that will help them persist as invaluable members in the teaching community. This project at SUNY Geneseo involves collaboration with Monroe Community College (MCC). Partners include Dansville Central, a high-need rural school district near Geneseo and Rush-Henrietta, a district near MCC. This project also partners with the New York State Master Teacher Program, a community of STEM teachers dedicated to developing expertise in content and pedagogy. Master teachers will provide scholars and first-year teachers with mentorship and networking. The goals of this five-year project are to: (1) recruit, retain, support, and graduate 18 qualified STEM teachers, (2) implement and evaluate evidence-based strategies for improving teacher preparation, (3) improve self-efficacy of STEM students pursuing secondary certification, and (4) support and evaluate programming aimed at helping STEM teacher candidates become highly effective in-service STEM educators. This project is guided by past research and theories related to the role of self-efficacy, teaching community support, and the need to adjust notions related to the nature of “high-need” schools as part of teacher development and retention. This project will be iteratively evaluated. Evaluation of the project will be guided by the following evaluation questions: (a) do Geneseo Noyce Scholars increase in their self-efficacy over time as students? and (b) what strategies are most helpful in helping students adjust views about the nature of “high-need” districts? The results of this project will be disseminated to help enhance the field. Evaluation will use surveys and interviews to investigate if the project goals are met and to what extent scholars apply their knowledge to high-need classroom 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 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.