Pathway to Mathematics II: An Integrated STEM Initiative Focused on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

University Of South Alabama, Mobile AL

Investigators

Abstract

This project aims to serve the national need for well-prepared and highly effective mathematics teachers. Currently, the lack of certified mathematics teachers contributes to lower achievement and expectations for high-risk students, especially in rural and urban areas that have overpopulated classrooms, individuals teaching outside their certification fields, and long-term substitute teachers lacking STEM backgrounds. This project intends to recruit and prepare 20 high quality mathematics teachers over a five year period. As a continuation of the original Pathway to Mathematics project, it will also involve and benefit teachers produced by that prior project. A focus of the current project will be attracting racially and ethnically diverse STEM majors from related disciplines, such as mathematics and engineering, through an extensive recruitment campaign. A hallmark of the project will be its pre-residency experience, allowing prospective teachers to observe and participate with mentor teachers prior to becoming scholars. Scholars will graduate with a master’s degree in mathematics education, completing graduate coursework in both teaching pedagogy and mathematics content. This project of the University of South Alabama College of Education and Professional Studies and the Colleges of Arts and Sciences and Engineering includes a partnership with the Mobile County Public School System. Goals include: 1) generating knowledge of factors that attract STEM majors to careers as mathematics teachers, and 2) engaging current STEM majors and professionals in a curriculum designed to provide a wide spectrum of teaching experiences beneficial to all students, especially those in local high-need school districts. The intellectual merit of this project derives from its capacity to produce mathematics teachers who stay in the profession while evaluating effects of an integrated STEM approach to teaching mathematics starting in the middle grades. Towards the project's broader impacts it is anticipated that through coursework, a Summer STEM and Diversity Institute, seminars, immersive field trips, and workshops focused in culturally relevant pedagogy and diversity education, and through real life personal connections with middle and high school students, scholars will graduate with the tools and dispositions needed to meet the academic, social, and psychological needs of students in the population they will serve. This Track 1: Scholarships and Stipends project is supported through the Robert Noyce 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 effectiveness and retention 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.