Community Network Practices to Cultivate Resilient STEM Educators

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The project aims to serve the national need to prepare high-quality secondary STEM teachers to fill major shortages. Recognizing that students often have multiple, overlapping identities that impact interest in and preparation for STEM education careers, the project will recruit, prepare, and support high-achieving secondary STEM education students from area institutions with diverse student populations and neurodiverse students in a College Pathways program, providing scholarships to increase interest in and access to STEM teaching careers. The project will use culturally relevant practices and academic supports to increase the graduation of secondary STEM teachers, including Hispanic and neurodiverse teachers, to serve in high-need districts. Innovative hackathons will involve students in “hacking” solutions to issues faced by early career teachers, building collaborative and problem-solving skills as well as a STEM educator community. Conference attendance and summer STEM experiences will also enrich student development. The project will continue to support graduates as they gain experience in the classroom and help to build and maintain a community network of STEM teachers. The project has the potential to increase and diversify students pursuing and succeeding in STEM teacher certification, particularly students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and those who are neurodiverse.This Aurora University project includes partnerships with two high-need school districts, West Aurora and East Aurora, and Elgin Community College, a two-year Hispanic serving institution. The project will recruit 24 undergraduates in biology, chemistry, and math majors over five years, using culturally relevant lesson plans and academic supports to build success in early STEM courses and broaden the capacity of all students to increase secondary STEM licensure. The project uses a theoretical framework of intersectionality to help identify and support student needs, and to teach prospective teachers to do so in their future classrooms. Project goals include 1) increasing enrollment, retention, and graduation in STEM secondary education, 2) increasing awareness of STEM secondary education careers; 3) Decreasing drop/ fail/ withdrawal rates among STEM majors using STEM content supports, tutoring, and faculty interventions; and 4) Monitoring and mentoring new STEM teachers using an online resource hub, mentoring, and hackathons. The project team will generate knowledge on the impact of intersectionality among STEM teaching students and of encouragement, supports, and intersectionality on neurodivergent students pursuing STEM teaching. The project evaluator will review activities and collect and synthesize data to evaluate success meeting goals and objectives and conduct interviews and surveys to determine the effectiveness of participants as teachers in high-needs schools and Hispanic populations. Dissemination of results through the project website, academic journals and conferences will allow broader impact through adaptation and replication at other institutions. 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.