Preparing Humanizing and Culturally Relevant STEM Teachers through STEM Teacher Education Grounded in Justice, Community, and Leadership

Saint Mary'S College Of California, Moraga CA

Investigators

Abstract

The project aims to serve the national need for highly effective STEM teachers in diverse classrooms and in high-need districts. This is a critical problem given the decline in STEM certificates nationally over the last decade, STEM teacher turnover, and that women and People of Color are under-represented in STEM teaching. To address this need, this project will prepare prospective STEM teachers to be grounded in rigorous STEM disciplinary practices alongside humanizing, culturally relevant, and justice-oriented teaching pedagogies. Features of the project for prospective STEM teachers include: 1) Financial support for highly motivated STEM majors to become STEM teachers, 2) Enhanced learning to teach STEM, field experiences, and communities of practice alongside practicing teachers; 3) Justice-oriented teacher professional career trajectory support; and 4) Beloved STEM educator community – within Saint Mary’s, with local teachers, and with national and regional STEM and educational justice professional networks. The project team expects that STEM teachers from diverse backgrounds will not only enter the profession but persist as equity-oriented transformative urban school change agents. This project at Saint Mary’s includes a partnership with Mt. Diablo Unified School District, a high-need local educational agency. Project goals include fostering scholars’ growth along five knowledge bases: STEM content knowledge, knowledge of self: STEM teacher positionality, knowledge in solidarity with youth and communities, humanizing pedagogical knowledge, and knowledge of educational (in)justice and teachers as change agents. This project will provide financial support over five years (2023-2028) for 17 highly motivated students to complete a 4+1 consisting of a BA/BS in a STEM discipline (biology, biochemistry, chemistry, earth and environmental science, mathematics, or physics); a minor in Justice, Community, and Leadership; a secondary teaching credential; and Master’s in the Art of Teaching. This project will contribute to the field by generating new knowledge on the convergence of STEM disciplinary, secondary pedagogy, and justice studies as foundations for STEM teacher preparation. Insights gained about STEM teachers’ trajectories through case study data and participant surveys could potentially lead to the identification of evidence-based strategies to improve STEM teacher preparation and retention in high-need schools. This project seeks to impact a) Saint Mary’s STEM teacher candidates by preparing them to enter STEM teaching grounded in STEM disciplinary, secondary pedagogy, and justice studies; b) STEM teachers and youth in Mt. Diablo by bringing highly qualified STEM teachers into the district and offering professional communities of practice; and, c) STEM teacher education through the education and retention of STEM teacher change agents. This project advances a scalable model of humanizing, culturally relevant STEM teacher education. The project findings will be disseminated through peer-reviewed presentations and publications. 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 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.