Advancing Language Literacy with Relevant Investigations in Science Education Emergent Bilinguals

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The project aims to serve the national need to support practicing middle school teachers’ beliefs, knowledge, and practices to effectively teach science to emergent bilinguals (EBs) who are developing their home language while learning another new language. These students often experience science instruction curricula and methods that are not responsive to their interests, science and language learning needs which is evidenced by the fact that EBs have lower science achievement scores when compared to their non-EB counterparts. This disparity is a significant obstacle to developing a scientifically literate society and is critical because the learning gap in science obstructs the pipeline of linguistically and culturally diverse students that pursue STEM fields and STEM careers. This project at the University of Houston (UH) includes partnerships with the UH Colleges of Education and Natural Sciences and Mathematics, the UH STEM Center, and Aldine, Alief and Houston Independent School Districts. Nonprofit organizations, Achieving Student Success through Excellence in Teaching (ASSET), and the New Teacher Center, are also project partners. Project goals include preparing 21 experienced and exemplary middle level science teachers over the 5-year period to be teacher leaders for teaching EB students at high needs schools in the Houston area. These Noyce Master Teaching Fellows (MTFs) will earn a master’s degree focused on conceptual and pedagogical education for integrating disciplinary language literacy with contextualized science lessons. The project evaluation is designed to analyze both quantitative and qualitative data. It focuses on understanding how the specialized courses designed to provide culturally and socially relevant conceptual and pedagogical content for science and language literacy instruction for EBs, coupled with professional development, can lead to new insights and opportunities for addressing the challenges teachers and teacher educators encounter in their efforts to enhance EBs’ engagement and success in science. This is expected to empower the MTFs to become science instructional leaders in their districts with a focus on reducing instructional disparities, especially among EB students. Approximately 18,900 EBs being taught by MTFs in the partner school districts are expected to be impacted. 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.