The STEM teacher pipeline: building capacity through intra-university cooperation and external partnerships with high schools and 2-year colleges

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With capacity-building funding from the NSF Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program, a team at Midwestern State University (MSU) will address the need for K-12 STEM teachers in Texas by partnering with Weatherford College, North Central Texas College, and the Texas Association of Future Educators (TAFE). The project will improve the recruitment of STEM-interested students to the teaching profession and strengthen relationships among the MSU College of Science & Mathematics (COSM), the MSU Gordon T. & Ellen West College of Education (WCOE), area high schools, and the partnering two-year colleges. Specifically, the project will assess the interest in and perceived challenges of secondary teacher certification in STEM, enhance the recruitment and advising materials available to undergraduate STEM students, and create formal relationships with high schools through their local TAFE chapters. This project will contribute to the knowledge base through extensive data collection and analysis across multiple groups (high school students, two-year college students, MSU STEM majors, current preservice and in-service teachers) to understand the interest in and barriers to pursuing a career in secondary STEM education. Data from this research will be useful to STEM teacher education programs as they strive to address teacher shortages. This project will also evaluate the innovative strategy of strengthening relationships between education faculty and STEM faculty through the learning communities model of linked courses. Furthermore, improved understanding of the success and impact of articulation agreements and degree completion programs will help improve upon the important relationships between universities and two-year colleges.