Building a Pathway for Recruiting and Preparing STEM Teachers in Rural West Central Illinois

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

This project aims to address the national need for high-quality math and science teachers who are well-prepared to teach in high-need school districts, including rural districts. Many public schools in rural West Central Illinois are underfunded, have small populations, and are in communities with high poverty rates. This project will serve these partner rural districts by recruiting and preparing STEM teachers for their secondary schools. Scholars will complete STEM curriculum and will benefit from a high-quality teacher preparation program and induction support. They will receive mentoring and advising from both STEM and education faculty, tutoring for subject area exams, and small equipment grants to help build their classroom materials. To facilitate professional development, scholars will have access to a workshop series that focuses on how to teach secondary STEM topics, including how to use pedagogies that enable the scholars to teach these topics in a way that is culturally sensitive and aware. Scholars will also complete a summer seminar that will prepare them to teach in high-need districts and will have the option to complete an undergraduate research experience and/or participate in other pre-service teaching experiences.This project at Western Illinois University (WIU) includes partnerships with Black Hawk College (BHC) and five local high-need districts (Galesburg, Macomb, Bushnell-Prairie, Fulton County, and Moline-Coal Valley). The project goals are 1) to graduate 24 scholars and place them in local, high-need districts; 2) to grant scholarships to at least six students from BHC; 3) to build a pathway for STEM education majors who graduate from local high schools, start at BHC, finish their degrees at WIU, and teach in local secondary schools; 4) to expand opportunities to introduce early STEM majors to the theory and practice of teaching STEM; and 5) to prepare STEM teachers who are broadly trained in both content and pedagogy and specifically trained to be culturally sensitive and aware. The intellectual merit of the project is to determine the efficacy and impact of all project activities, including participation in seminars and workshops focused on preparation for teaching in high-need districts. The project team will also measure the impact and effectiveness of expanding the existing WIU Learning Assistant program. The broader impacts of the proposed activities include addressing the critical need for well-qualified STEM educators; recruitment activities to attract a diverse candidate pool; and demonstrating the benefits of STEM teaching and the opportunities available in STEM secondary education. Furthermore, expansion of the Learning Assistant program will support all introductory STEM courses at both WIU and BHC. The project includes specific plans for formative and summative evaluation of all activities; dissemination of project results will be made through traditional channels, such as conference presentations and journal articles. 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.