Recruiting, Preparing, and Supporting Highly Qualified Kentucky Science and Mathematics Teachers

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This project aims to serve the national need of preparing and retaining highly qualified STEM teachers who can implement culturally responsive instruction in diverse classrooms. This project addresses the nationwide growing shortage of certified STEM teachers in high-need communities. Many Kentucky STEM teachers are teaching outside of their field, and school districts in Kentucky are collapsing science courses and reducing STEM course offerings. Additionally, STEM teachers do not reflect the demographic make of students in culturally and ethnically diverse classrooms. Project outcomes will include the certification of STEM teachers in high-need schools to remedy the 6-12 STEM teacher shortages in Kentucky. A STEM Teacher Education Learning Community will form a new ecosystem and provide synergy in STEM teacher education among the project’s collaborative partners, which include the Jefferson County Public School District, the Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS), Academies of Louisville, the Kentucky Science Center, and the University of Kentucky. The goals of this project at Bellarmine University (BU) include the recruitment, preparation, peer mentoring, academic support, and retention of first-generation and minority STEM students that will produce 25 prospective highly qualified diverse 6-12 STEM teachers over five years. An underlying goal is that these teachers will have an understanding of culturally responsive teaching (CRT) and will be equipped to teach across cultural boundaries in high-need schools. Scholarships/stipends will be awarded to high-achieving undergraduates in their junior and senior years majoring in Mathematics, and to graduate students in the final post-baccalaureate year, who have a bachelor’s degree in Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, or Mathematics. Certification will be obtained via one of two possible pathways. One pathway will be through a post-baccalaureate Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) middle and/or secondary teacher certification for STEM students and STEM professionals who have completed a bachelor’s degree in a targeted STEM discipline. A second pathway will be available to undergraduate mathematics majors who are dual majoring in secondary mathematics education to obtain secondary certification in Mathematics. This project will provide summer internships in STEM education at the Kentucky Science Center to 16 high-achieving undergraduate BU and KCTCS STEM students. The project team will also implement a CRT-focused professional learning experience at the University of Kentucky. Field experiences during senior and MAT years will provide classroom teaching experience in a diverse setting. Relevant data for evaluation will be gathered from surveys, observations, performance in CRT seminars and Maker Fairs, summer internships, and MAT coursework/field experiences. Persistence, retention, outcomes/perceptions, and success as prospective 6-12 STEM teachers in high-need schools will be evaluated. This project will generate new knowledge through data analyses of evaluation questions; results will add to the growing body of knowledge in STEM teacher education and preparation relevant to CRT. Project findings and outcomes will be disseminated through conference presentations and peer-reviewed journal publication. This Track 1: Scholarships and Stipends project is supported through the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program (Noyce). The Noyce program supports talented STEM undergraduate majors and professionals to become effective K-12 STEM teachers and experienced, exemplary K-12 teachers to become STEM master teachers in high-need school districts. It also supports research on the persistence, retention, and effectiveness of K-12 STEM teachers in high-need school districts.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.