Capacity Building: Spelman's STEM Teacher Education Pipeline (SSTEP)

在国家科学基金会罗伯特·诺伊斯教师奖学金计划的资助下，该项目将满足国家日益增长的招聘和准备中等STEM教师的需求，并为新教师提供必要的支持，以确保他们继续从事教师职业。斯佩尔曼学院的这一能力建设项目将解决招收STEM学生参加教师培训计划所涉及的挑战。斯佩尔曼学院有一个优秀的中学STEM教师培训计划；然而，没有斯佩尔曼的学生，只有来自其他机构的学生参加了该计划。为了满足对有效招聘的需求，该项目将为斯佩尔曼学院大一和大二新生开辟一条途径，让有兴趣的学生接触STEM教育。PI项目团队将为招募STEM专业的学生进入中学STEM教学工作创造一条“接触、探索、参与和教育者准备”的途径。能力建设途径的每一步都加强了学生对成为STEM教育者所涉及的错综复杂的理解。该方案的所有要素都已被证明是招收学生进入教学的有效机制。第一个要素是通过介绍STEM教育和STEM教育研究的信息会议和讲习班接触STEM教学。然后，学生通过本科生助教(UTA)的职位探索STEM教学。最后，他们通过STEM本科生研究教育者(SURE)暑期项目从事STEM教育和研究。这一招聘途径将学生引导到整个过程的顶峰，通过斯佩尔曼中等教育计划为正式的教育者做好准备。该项目的正式评估计划提供的知识将有助于成功地将STEM学生招募到STEM教学中，特别是在全国各地的项目中招募女性和少数族裔学生。关于这一渠道成功的一个指标将通过参加斯佩尔曼教育方向课程的学生人数来衡量，这是学生申请教师认证计划之前需要的一门必修课。

With funding from the National Science Foundation's Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program, this project will address the Nation's growing need to recruit and prepare secondary STEM teachers, but also to provide new teachers with the support that they need to ensure that they remain in the teaching profession. This capacity building project from Spelman College will address the challenges involved in recruiting STEM students into teacher preparation programs. Spelman College has an excellent Secondary STEM Teacher Preparation program; however, no Spelman students, only students from other institutions, have enrolled in that program. In response to the need for effective recruiting, this project will create an avenue for incoming freshman and rising sophomores at Spelman College to follow a recruitment pathway that exposes interested students to STEM education.The project PI team will create an "Exposure, Exploration, Engagement, and Educator-preparation" pathway for recruiting STEM majors into careers in secondary STEM teaching. Each step of the capacity building pathway reinforces students' understanding of the intricacies involved in becoming a STEM educator. The elements of the program have all been demonstrated to be effective mechanisms for the recruitment of students into teaching. The first element is exposure to STEM teaching through informational sessions and workshops describing STEM education and research in STEM education. Students then explore STEM teaching through positions as undergraduate teaching assistants (UTAs). Finally they are engaged in STEM education and research through a STEM Undergraduate Research Educator (SURE) summer program. This recruitment pathway leads the students into the culmination of the process, formal educator-preparation through the Spelman secondary education program. The formal evaluation plan of the project is providing knowledge that will inform successful recruitment of STEM students into STEM teaching, particularly the recruitment of women and minority students, into programs across the nation. One indicator regarding the success of this pipeline will be viewed through the number of students enrolling in Spelman's Orientation to Education course, a mandatory class needed before a student can apply to the teacher certification program.