Next Generation STEM Teachers for Urban Schools: Recruiting, Preparing, and Mentoring Undergraduates for Innovative STEM Teaching

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Educating high-quality STEM teachers is a national priority that underpins progress in science, the advancement of national health initiatives, and overall national prosperity in an increasingly technical economy. Toward that end this project aims to support and mentor 40 undergraduate seniors who are majoring in the Physical Sciences, Life Sciences, Engineering, or Mathematics, while concurrently earning their STEM teaching credentials. During the 5-year project, these highly qualified, STEM educators have the potential to teach over 10,000 students in high-need urban schools in the Los Angeles area. The project is designed to (1) develop new approaches to identifying STEM students at a research-intensive university who are interested in teaching careers and (2) invite community college STEM transfers to explore teaching through paid Noyce summer internships. Over the five-year span, this project expects to provide 100 community college transfer students with a classroom internship that may foster permanent ties and mentorships with exemplary teachers. The centerpiece of this project is a new pre-credential summer program that includes a one-week workshop on using data science and computational thinking as a framework for teaching relevant content, analysis, reasoning, and communication. Following the workshop, the Noyce Scholars go through a three-week field experience in which they can observe and participate in the opening of a new school year without the concomitant challenges of coursework during their senior year. During the induction year, the project is designed to provide the Noyce Scholars with (1) a field supervisor, who can assist, monitor, and support their progress and (2) a cohort community of fellow first-year science and math teachers. During the second Noyce service-year, the project aims to continue to provide networking opportunities for the novice teachers and ensure they are mentored in a district-sponsored Beginning Teacher Support network. Archived, teacher-quality data from UCLA's previous Noyce award will serve as a benchmark to rigorously assess the effectiveness of the new components of Next Generation STEM Teachers in preparing teachers to use content-rich pedagogy that fosters greater equity and access in classroom settings.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.