Preparing Future Secondary STEM Teachers to Integrate Authentic Experiences into their High-Needs Classrooms using Regional Real-World Contexts

该项目旨在满足国家培养高质量的中学职前生物、化学、物理和数学教师的需求，这些教师能够将真实的背景融入课堂。真实体验的目标是模拟科学家如何思考解决问题。在学习各州采用的内容标准时，真实的体验提供了一个真实的环境。这些经历使学生拓宽了他们的批判性思维技能，同时进一步加深了他们对学习期间和毕业后将遇到的区域现实世界STEM问题的理解。对于教师来说，有能力为学生创造和实施真实的体验，他们将从参与这种体验中受益。该项目将提供两个真实的暑期体验，职前教师将与大学教职员工、研究人员和指导教师合作，开发内容丰富的教学课程，以在课堂和实地体验中实施。同样，他们将开发评估来探索课程的影响。高影响力的教学实践可以提高STEM的参与度，并建立一支强大的STEM劳动力队伍，以解决科学、技术、工程和数学方面的国家和全球问题。佐治亚南方大学是一所公立研究型大学，该项目包括与埃文斯县特许学校系统，萨凡纳-查塔姆公立学校系统，佐治亚南方大学植物园和STEM教育中心以及Skidaway岛海洋扩展项目合作。该项目有四个基本目标。首先，该项目旨在为6名STEM专业大一和大二学生提供K-12实习机会，以帮助他们产生并保持对教学的兴趣。第二个目标是提供奖学金，并培养18名成绩优异的本科生物、化学、数学或物理专业的学生，这些学生在中学阶段被认证在他们的专业领域任教。第三个目标是将这些毕业生安置在高需求的学区，然后在他们毕业后的六年内提供指导和其他入职支持。第四，项目组将创建、实施、研究和维护一个同步与异步相结合的反思性实践教学共同体模式。在此过程中，研究人员将探索除了项目课程外，重点研讨会经验如何影响职前准备，以成功完成临床实践和第一年的教学。项目成果将深入了解实践社区模式如何对高需求学校的项目创新和教师留任产生纵向影响。此外，该项目将为在中学STEM课堂中开发和整合真实情境提供策略。该项目还可能影响职前教师教育项目的结构、课程规划策略的教学方式，以及帮助职前教师培养技能和素质以在高需求学校工作的指导策略的设计。开发的资源和项目评估结果将通过地区、州、国家和国际来源传播，包括STEM会议、同行评审出版物和各种互联网应用程序。本项目由Robert Noyce教师奖学金项目（Noyce）资助。Noyce计划支持有才华的STEM本科专业和专业人士成为有效的K-12 STEM教师，并支持经验丰富的模范K-12教师成为高需求学区的STEM大师教师。它还支持对高需求学区K-12 STEM教师的有效性和留任率的研究。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。

The project aims to serve the national need of preparing high-quality secondary preservice Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Mathematics teachers who can integrate authentic contexts into their classrooms. The goal of authentic experiences is to model how scientists think about solving a problem. Authentic experiences provide a real-world context when learning state-adopted content standards. These experiences engage students in broadening their critical thinking skills while furthering their understanding of regional real-world STEM issues they will encounter during their studies and after graduation. For teachers to have the ability to create and implement authentic experiences for their students, they will benefit from being engaged in such experiences. This project will provide two real-world summer experiences where preservice teachers will work with university faculty, researchers, and mentor teachers to develop content and pedagogically rich curriculum to implement in their classrooms and field experiences. Likewise, they will develop assessments to explore the impact of the curriculum. High impact teaching practices can lead to higher engagement in STEM and build a strong STEM workforce to address national and global problems in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.This project at Georgia Southern University, a public research university, includes partnerships with Evans County Charter School System, Savannah-Chatham Public School System, Georgia Southern University Botanical Garden and Center for STEM Education, and Skidaway Island Marine Extension. The project has four fundamental goals. First, the project aims to provide K-12 internships for six freshman and sophomore STEM majors to help generate and sustain their interest in teaching. A second goal is to provide scholarships and to graduate eighteen (18) high-achieving undergraduate biology, chemistry, mathematics, or physics majors who are certified to teach in their major areas at the secondary level. A third goal is to place these graduates in high-need school districts and then provide mentoring and other induction support for six years following their graduation. Fourth, the project team will create, implement, study, and maintain an integrated synchronous and asynchronous reflective teaching community of practice model. In the process, the investigators will explore how focused seminar experiences, in addition to program coursework, can impact preservice readiness to successfully complete clinical practice and first-year teaching. Project outcomes will provide insight into how a community of practice model can longitudinally impact program innovation and teacher retention in high-needs schools. In addition, the project will provide strategies for developing and integrating authentic contexts in secondary STEM classrooms. The project also has potential to impact how preservice teacher education programs are structured, how lesson planning strategies are taught, and how mentoring strategies to help preservice teachers develop skills and dispositions to work in high-needs schools are designed. Resources developed and project evaluation findings will be disseminated via regional, state, national, and international sources, including STEM conferences, peer-reviewed publications, and various internet applications. 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 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.