Increasing the African American STEM Teacher Workforce with Community Coaching, Mentoring, and Wellbeing Support

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This project aims to serve the national need of recruiting, preparing, retaining, and supporting high-quality mathematics teachers of color. Using a robust social media recruitment strategy, the project will focus on the recruitment of graduates from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) who have graduated with at least a STEM baccalaureate degree. Through a year-long Master's program, prospective teachers will receive the preparation and support needed to become mathematics teachers in high-need school districts. In their first years of teaching, the project will also provide community-based coaching, mentoring, and health tools related to social and emotional wellbeing. Located in Georgia, the project will study the problems that have historically hindered African American mathematics teacher recruitment, preparation, and retention in urban schools. This project at Clark Atlanta University (CAU) includes partnerships with Clayton County Public Schools (CCPS), Genesis Innovation Academy (GIA), the Atlanta Algebra Project & Young People’s Project (Atlanta APYPP), and Quality Education for Minorities (QEM). Nineteen STEM degree-holders will be recruited in two cohorts using multiple social media platforms and a network of HBCUs. A social media consultant will advise this effort. Each cohort of Teaching Fellows will earn a Master of Arts degree through CAU’s new online-hybrid accelerated mathematics program. Upon completion of the degree program, Fellows will become full-time teachers in partner high-need districts. CCPS and GIA, along with CAU faculty, will provide mentoring. The Atlanta APYPP will offer mathematics literacy coaching for the Fellows as they progress through their first years of teaching. Fellows will participate in community-school based activities for leadership development. The project will investigate the following research questions: (1) what impact did the marketing strategy have on attracting STEM degree-holders; (2) to what degree did social and emotional health coaching and mathematics literacy coaching impact teacher preparation; and (3) to what degree did the coaching influence retention in teaching? Each cohort will be surveyed in the first and third years of their experience. This Track 2: 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.