Building Capacity to Recruit and Prepare High-Quality Secondary STEM Educators in Kentucky

Lindsey Wilson College, Columbia KY

Investigators

Abstract

The project aims to serve the national need for highly qualified biology and mathematics teachers in secondary schools. In particular, the project will address the secondary STEM teacher shortage in rural Kentucky. This will be accomplished by bringing together STEM faculty and Education faculty to collaborate on improving STEM courses and aligning course content with state teacher certification standards. Additionally, the project will collect evidence from college students about their interests in teaching careers and use this information to improve recruitment of future secondary STEM teachers. Further, the project will explore the feasibility of building a new Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program that could provide a graduate education pathway to secondary STEM teaching careers. This Capacity Building project at Lindsey Wilson College includes partnerships with Somerset Community College and two high-need local school districts – Russell County Schools and Adair County Schools – that will lay the groundwork for a future Noyce Track 1: Scholarships and Stipends proposal. The project goals are to: 1) improve coordination among STEM and Education faculty; 2) collect evidence and develop new strategies to increase enrollment of future secondary STEM teachers; and 3) determine feasibility of a new Master of Arts in STEM Teaching graduate program. To accomplish these goals, the campus will establish a new STEM Education Curriculum Committee to build key bridges between STEM and Education faculty. STEM faculty will be engaged in taking the PRAXIS subject assessments for teachers as a novel approach to guide authentic revision of 36 STEM content courses to produce highly qualified future secondary STEM teachers for the region. Additionally, the project will collect evidence from students to inform and improve materials to recruit undergraduate STEM majors, local community college transfer students, and local high school students to secondary STEM teaching careers. The project will translate recruitment materials into Spanish and conduct outreach specifically to reach Hispanic and Latino students, who are currently underrepresented in the teacher workforce compared to secondary student populations in the region. An experienced, external consultant will be contracted to analyze the feasibility of developing a Master of Arts in Teaching program that could enable entry to STEM teaching careers at the graduate level, in addition to efforts to attract future STEM teachers from undergraduate student populations. Project evaluation will be led by an Advisory Committee composed of stakeholders from the campus, the local school districts, and the partner community college. In addition to building capacity to recruit new secondary STEM educators in the region, the project will produce insights into how STEM and Education faculty can collaborate to revise undergraduate STEM curricula such that they align with state certification standards and better prepare highly effective secondary STEM teachers. This Capacity Building 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 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.