Collaborative Research: Get the Facts Out: Changing the Conversation around STEM Teacher Recruitment

这项改善本科STEM教育(IUSE)发展和实施项目旨在消除与初中和高中阶段的物理、化学和数学教师相关的误解。最近对STEM教师培训的研究发现了人们对教师职业的强烈看法，其中许多是误解。这些误解阻碍了STEM本科生将教学作为一种可行的职业选择。研究结果还表明，STEM系的许多学院和大学教职员工要么没有提到初中或高中教师是一种职业选择，要么歪曲了专业。主要的误解包括不准确的信念：(1)认为教师和私营部门就业之间的工资差距非常大；(2)关于这一职业的有形和无形利益。这个“揭露事实”的项目有三个目标。首先，改变教师、学生和家长对K-12数学和物理教学专业的看法。其次，增加教职员工参与《说出事实》工具包中建议的做法的频率。第三，增加数学、化学和物理专业的教师认证计划的注册人数。该项目建立在先前工作的基础上，其中包括开发一种工具、旨在探索STEM学生对教学的态度和信念的教师职业认知(PTaP)、一套名为“流言终结者”的互动材料，以及一项试点研究。组织伙伴包括科罗拉多州矿业学院、美国物理教师协会、美国物理学会、美国化学学会和美国数学协会，以及几所作为研究地点的学院和大学。这些协会的目标是利用它们与纪律部门的联系，并通过互动传播和支持，让改革推动者实施一项全国性的运动。该项目旨在开发和完善一个“让事实出来”的活动工具包，以支持当地教师冠军改变他们系中关于STEM教学职业的对话。该工具包基于试点干预措施，在改变学生和教职员工的看法方面显示了积极的结果，并已被证明优于传统的招聘努力，将被设计为可定制和适应当地情况。这些材料和策略将包括面向学生和面向教师的资源，以及如何运行互动活动的指南，包括但不限于幻灯片、点击问题和讲义，其中包含关于留校率、工作满意度和学生贷款减免的全国性调查数据。此外，还提供了关于教师工资、教师和教师工资比较以及退休福利的样本信息讲义，以及如何根据当地数据定制这些内容的说明。最后，该项目将制作小册子和海报，其中包括经过测试的消息传递策略，以及可用作电子邮件或实施者设计的其他资源中的对话开始的60秒叙述和单句“项目符号消息”。在资金结束后，预计这项运动将由每个协会持续开展。为了通知和改进全国性和地区性的宣传活动，该项目打算进行研究，以了解“把事实讲出来”工具包中的哪些策略是最有效的，无论是就对教职员工和学生的看法的影响而言，还是在随着时间的推移对教职员工的接受方面。对于这项研究，将检查提供统计上强有力的结果的大规模定量数据，并收集旨在使人能够更深入地了解影响结果的因素的定性数据。为了更好地了解教师和学生的看法对学生职业选择的影响，该项目旨在寻找与部门在培养数学和科学教师方面的成功相关，以及与机构、部门和学生特征的相关性。这一独特的项目旨在帮助美国大部分数学、化学和物理系的STEM专业学生，并有可能显著解决这些急需的STEM学科的教师短缺问题。IUSE：EHR计划是一项核心的NSF本科STEM教育计划，旨在提高本科STEM教育的有效性，包括为K-12 STEM教师做本科准备。这个项目有可能大胆地谈论本科STEM专业的学生和教授他们的教师对教师的误解，并最终影响全国未来初中和高中STEM教师的职业决定。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) Development and Implementation project seeks to dispel misperceptions associated with being a teacher of physics, chemistry, and mathematics at the middle and high school level. Recent research in STEM teacher preparation has identified strongly held beliefs about the teaching profession, many of which are misperceptions. These misperceptions discourage STEM undergraduates from exploring teaching as a viable career option. Study results also suggest that many college and university faculty in STEM departments either do not mention middle or high school teaching as a career option or misrepresent the profession. Major misperceptions include inaccurate beliefs: (1) that the salary gap between teaching and private sector employment is very wide; and (2) about tangible and intangible benefits of the profession. This "Get the Facts Out" project has three aims. First, to change perceptions about the K-12 mathematical and physical sciences teaching professions among faculty, students, and parents. Second, to increase the frequency of faculty engaging in practices recommended in the Get the Facts Out toolkit. Third to increase the numbers of mathematics, chemistry, and physics majors who enroll in a teacher certification program. This project builds upon prior work, which includes the development of an instrument, Perceptions of Teaching as a Profession (PTaP), designed to probe STEM students' attitudes and beliefs about teaching, a set of interactive materials called "MythBusters," and a pilot study. Organizational partners include the Colorado School of Mines, the American Association of Physics Teachers, the American Physical Society, the American Chemical Society, and the Mathematical Association of America, and several colleges and universities to serve as study sites. The societies aim to leverage their connections with disciplinary departments and engage change agents to implement a national campaign through interactive dissemination and support. The project intends to develop and refine a "Get the Facts Out" campaign toolkit to support local faculty champions in changing the conversation about STEM teaching careers in their departments. The toolkit, based on pilot interventions that show positive results in shifting perceptions among students and faculty, and which have been shown to outperform traditional recruitment efforts, will be designed to be customizable and adaptable to the local situation. The materials and strategies will include both student-facing and faculty-facing resources and a how-to guide for running interactive events, including but not limited to slide decks, clicker questions, and handouts with national survey data on retention, job satisfaction, and student loan forgiveness. In addition, sample informational handouts on teacher salaries, comparisons of teacher and faculty salaries, and retirement benefits, with instructions on how to customize these with local data. Finally, the project will create brochures and posters that incorporate tested messaging strategies, and 60-second narratives and single-sentence "bulleted messages" that can be used as conversation starters in emails or other resources designed by the implementer. After funding ends, it is anticipated that the campaign will be sustained by each society. To inform and improve national and local campaigns, this project intends to conduct research to understand which of the strategies in the "Get the Facts Out" toolkit are most effective, both in terms of impact on faculty and student perceptions and faculty uptake over time. For this study, large-scale quantitative data to provide statistically strong results will be examined and qualitative data designed to enable a deeper understanding of factors that influence outcomes will be gathered. To better understand the effect of faculty and student perceptions on student career choice, the project intends to look for correlations with department success in preparing mathematics and science teachers and with institutional, departmental and student characteristics. This unique project is designed to reach STEM majors in a large fraction of all U.S. mathematics, chemistry and physics departments and has potential to significantly address teacher shortages in these high-need STEM disciplines. The IUSE: EHR program is a core NSF undergraduate STEM education program that seeks to improve the effectiveness of undergraduate STEM education for both majors and non-majors, including the undergraduate preparation of K-12 STEM teachers. This project has the potential to speak boldly regarding misperceptions about teachers held by undergraduate STEM majors and the faculty who teach them and to ultimately impact career decisions of future middle and high school STEM teachers across the nation.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.