Building a Partnership, Program, and Pipeline for Mathematics Teacher Education in Alabama

University Of Alabama In Huntsville, Huntsville AL

Investigators

Abstract

The project aims to serve the national need of staffing all classrooms with high-quality secondary mathematics teachers. This project will develop the partnerships, programs, and pipelines needed to address the mathematics teacher shortage in North Alabama. Specifically, this project will establish an institutional partnership with local education agencies and stakeholders who are committed to promoting effective mathematics instruction and can offer local perspectives about the needs and strengths of their communities and provide input about current teacher-preparation practices. Furthermore, this project will strengthen the secondary mathematics teacher-preparation program with content courses and increase the diversity (e.g., racial/ethnic) and number of teacher candidates in the teacher-education pipeline. Overall, the project has the potential to provide a diverse, high-quality teacher workforce that can meet the needs of local and national communities in which they serve. This project at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) includes partnerships with the UAH College of Science Department of Mathematical Sciences, the UAH College of Education Department of Curriculum and Instruction, and the Alabama Math, Science, and Technology Initiative at UAH. Once the project begins, an institutional team focused on improving mathematics instruction will be developed and five local school districts and six community colleges will be invited to join. The project will also redesign the mathematics and education degree programs to include new mathematics courses for secondary teachers that address essential concepts in high school mathematics and provide a pathway for graduates to attain dual degrees in mathematics and education. Moreover, the project will utilize student-facing presentations to support teacher candidate recruitment and develop a pipeline to increase the number of incoming mathematics-education candidates by 300%, which will result in nine teacher candidates per school year. Student perception data about teaching mathematics and their presentation experience will be collected to improve recruitment efforts, as well as inform project team members as they plan for a Track 1 proposal. 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 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.