Engaging Community Colleges in Recruitment of Secondary STEM Teachers Through Early Field Experiences

本项目由美国国家科学基金会改善本科STEM教育计划：教育与人力资源（IUSE: EHR）资助，旨在通过帮助增加高素质STEM教师的多样性和数量来服务于国家利益。它旨在通过为社区大学学生提供教学经验，鼓励他们考虑从事教学事业来实现这一目标。该项目由马里兰大学帕克分校、蒙哥马利社区学院和乔治王子社区学院合作完成。预期的结果是，招收了一群原本可能不会考虑成为STEM教师的多样化学生，包括本科生、转行者和非教学教学人员，如教学助理。该项目的目标是研究使用“第一步”的有效性，“第一步”是德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校UTeach项目开发的早期实地考察课程模型。第一步旨在激发人们对STEM教学作为一种职业的兴趣，提高人们对STEM教学作为一种选择的认识，并创建从社区学院课程到大学STEM教师准备课程的无缝衔接（转移）途径。通过对社区大学生的调查和访谈来收集和分析数据。两个独立样本的t检验将用于衡量社区大学校园早期实地考察课程的可用性是否提高了STEM学生对教学作为职业的认识。目标是开发一种“可输出”模式，以便其他拥有STEM认证途径的四年制大学能够与社区大学合作，招募未来的教师，促进STEM教学的多样性。报告和数据分析将用于为UTeach、美国教育研究协会、数学教师教育者协会和美国教师教育学院协会等组织准备会议报告。稿件也将提交到同行评议的期刊文章中发表。NSF IUSE: EHR计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生STEM教育的有效性。该项目属于机构和社区转型轨道，支持在高等教育机构和学科社区之间转变和改善STEM教育的努力。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

With support from the NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education Program: Education and Human Resources (IUSE: EHR), this project aims to serve the national interest by helping to increase the diversity and number of highly-qualified STEM teachers. It aims to do so by providing teaching experiences for community college students, to encourage them to consider a teaching career. The project is a collaborative effort between the University of Maryland-College Park, Montgomery Community College, and Prince George's Community College. The expected outcome is recruitment of a diverse pool of students who might not otherwise have considered becoming a STEM teacher, including undergraduates, career changers, and non-instructional teaching staff, such as teaching aides. The goal of this project is to research the effectiveness of using "Step 1," an early fieldwork course model developed through the UTeach program at the University of Texas at Austin. Step 1 is designed to generate excitement about STEM teaching as a career, increase awareness of STEM teaching as an option, and create seamless pathways (transfers) from community college coursework into university STEM teacher preparation programs. Data will be collected and analyzed from surveys and interviews of community college students. T-tests of two independent samples will be used to gauge whether the availability of the early fieldwork courses on community college campuses increases STEM student awareness of teaching as a career. The goal is to develop an "exportable" model so that other four-year colleges with STEM certification pathways will be able to partner with community colleges to recruit future teachers and foster diversity in STEM teaching. Reports and data analyses will be used to prepare conference presentations for organizations such as UTeach, the American Educational Research Association, the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators, and the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. Manuscripts will also be submitted for publication in peer-reviewed journal articles. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. This project is in the Institutional and Community Transformation track, which supports efforts to transform and improve STEM education across institutions of higher education and disciplinary communities.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.