Developing Digitally-rich Urban Teacher Leaders: Fostering and Sustaining a STEM Culture of Belonging, Access, Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

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The project aims to serve the national need of developing highly effective STEM teacher leaders, referred to a Master Teaching Fellows, prepared to be agents of change around issues of belonging, access, justice, equity, diversity and inclusion in STEM teaching and learning. The disruptions in school operations experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic have made even more visible serious inequities that exist in K-12 schools, and even more so in schools serving high-need students – calling for action to address these issues. The proposed project addresses these issues by first expanding the knowledge and skills in inclusive teaching practices of participating experienced and exemplary STEM teachers. This is accomplished through graduate coursework and content-focused coaching from professional mentors. To further broaden impact, the project supports the development of participating teachers’ skills and dispositions as teacher leaders and supports them in enacting their leadership. Their leadership is intended to assist other STEM teachers in creating safe, inclusive, and culturally responsive STEM learning environments. Coursework and mentored leadership experiences will help teachers develop these skills. Through this project, participating teachers are prepared to leverage digitally-rich resources into their teaching and to posses increased expectations in STEM for all students regardless of identity markers, including race, gender, sexual orientation, language, ability, and economic background. Through an action research project, participating teachers become more reflective practitioners and identify opportunities for self-improvement that will impact student learning.This project in the Warner School of Education & Human Development at the University of Rochester includes partnerships with the Rochester City School District, Elmira City School District, Jamestown City School District, and the Rochester Museum & Science Center. The project aims to recruit a cadre of 19 grade 7-12 exemplary and experienced mathematics and science teachers from across the three partner districts in Western New York for a five-year program leading to an MS in Inclusion and Special Education, along with advanced certificates in Teacher Leadership, Urban Teaching & Leadership, and Digitally-Rich Teaching and Learning in K-12 Schools. Fellows selected to the program are engaged in a continuous leadership seminar series to further develop their leadership skills and mentored in implementing a change project in their home district. Fellows also receive focused mentoring on coaching and professional learning. The external evaluation is designed to examine in what ways the project develops participating teachers’ digitally-rich teaching practices, culturally sustaining pedagogical practices, and teacher leadership practices. This Track 3: Master Teaching Fellowships 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 effectiveness and retention 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.