Preparing Chicago STEM Teacher-Leaders through Community Partnership, Transformative Practices, and Mentorship for Improved Middle Level STEM Education

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The project aims to serve the national need for STEM Teacher Leaders in middle and high schools in high-need school districts. The STEM Teacher Leaders (Master Teaching Fellows, MTFs) developed through this project will be positioned to provide STEM teachers early in their careers with help to improve instruction, enhance their confidence in their teaching approaches, and develop their overall feeling of support as teacher professionals. The project will collaborate with the Chicago Public Schools, a diverse, high-need, urban school system by implementing a mentor-development program that uses professional learning communities, transformative practices, coursework, and intentional partnerships with community-based organizations (nonprofits) to build a support system for early-career middle school STEM teachers. Through the proposed mentorship program, Northeastern Illinois University and partners have the potential to build a strong and committed STEM teaching workforce, highly knowledgeable about STEM content, and grounded in the school community and in students’ lives. By engaging with the larger STEM community, the project has the potential to increase student engagement, enhance STEM instruction, and improve retention of teachers in opportunity districts.This project at Northeastern Illinois University includes partnerships with Chicago Public Schools, a high-need school district, and nonprofit partners, the Museum of Science and Industry, Westside Bee Boyz, and Math Circles of Chicago. Over a five year period, the project will offer a graduate level STEM Leadership certificate to prepare a cohort of 15 experienced science and math middle and high school teachers, who already possess master's degrees, support to become Teacher-Leaders who will do the following: (1) mentor second year STEM teachers; (2) design professional development and facilitate professional learning communities; and (3) build partnerships with community-based organizations to promote culturally relevant pedagogies. To integrate these goals, university faculty and nonprofit partners aim to use a sustained professional learning community approach in collaboration with the MTFs to co-design place-based curricula that address authentic community issues. This sustained professional learning community will be grounded in restorative/transformative practices in order to inculcate relationships centered around respect and responsibility-taking while building the tools to navigate difficult conversations needed for transformative change and to repair harm when caused. Evaluation questions examine the effectiveness of professional learning communities as a vehicle for influencing teachers’ STEM identities and practices as well as the effectiveness of relationship-building with community-based STEM organizations on place-based teaching strategies and teacher retention. Results of the project evaluation are intended to provide greater understanding on how to best support middle level teachers to engage culturally grounded STEM instruction. Results are projected to be disseminated nationally and regionally at workshops for area STEM teachers, at conferences, and through scholarly publications. Project evaluation will examine the effectiveness of the training model itself. 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.