Rural Reimagining of Opportunities for Undergraduate Teacher Education in STEM: A Capacity Building Project

该项目旨在满足国家在高需求农村地区招聘、教育和留住高效STEM教师的需求。该项目认识到STEM和农村教师队伍的严重短缺，旨在通过不断创新确保农村STEM教师队伍的强大。STEM教学劳动力短缺是由于数学，物理科学和生命科学许可领域的初始许可计划入学人数较少，加上大多数领域的STEM毕业生就业前景良好，初始工资相对较高。由于当地人口有限、预算有限以及难以招聘到有经验的教师，农村地区在聘请高素质的STEM教师方面也面临更多障碍。该项目旨在通过支持有前途的农村STEM教师候选人的招聘，教育和保留来解决这些短缺问题。具体而言，该项目将探讨农村STEM学生追求教师执照的情况，以及最初在非STEM领域寻求执照的学生何时转向STEM途径。有了这样的理解，新的许可证途径将被设计来吸引和留住高素质的农村STEM教师。这个项目在缅因州大学包括与农村学区和社区的伙伴关系。主要目标包括：1）开展调查，以检查本科生选择STEM或教师教育的动机; 2）与合作伙伴组织设计思维研讨会，以创建以农村为重点的许可途径; 3）与农村STEM和教师教育专业进行市场研究，以确定农村STEM教师候选人许可的最佳策略。该项目建立在缅因州大学的研究基础上，研究表明，非农村教师教育专业的学生很少考虑农村社区的未来职业。这一发现意味着，农村STEM学生是未来农村STEM教师的最佳来源。该项目有可能开发可扩展、可复制的途径，使更多的农村学生进入STEM许可证途径。这个能力建设项目是通过罗伯特诺伊斯教师奖学金计划（诺伊斯）的支持。诺伊斯计划支持有才华的STEM本科专业和专业人士成为有效的K-12 STEM教师和经验丰富的模范K-12教师，成为高需求学区的STEM硕士教师。该奖项反映了NSF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 recruiting, educating, and retaining highly-effective STEM teachers in high-need rural districts. Recognizing the significant shortages in both the STEM and rural teaching workforces, the project aims to ensure the availability of a robust rural STEM teaching workforce through continuous innovation. STEM teaching workforce shortages arise from the low numbers of enrollments in initial licensure programs in mathematics, physical science, and life science licensure areas compounded by strong employment prospects and comparatively high initial salaries for STEM graduates in most fields. Rural districts also face additional hurdles in hiring highly-qualified STEM teachers due to limited local populations, constrained budgets, and difficulties in recruiting experienced teachers. The project seeks to counter these shortages by supporting the recruitment, education, and retention of promising rural STEM teacher candidates. Specifically, the project will explore the circumstances under which rural STEM students would pursue teacher licensure and when those initially seeking licensure in non-STEM areas would switch to a STEM pathway. With this understanding, new licensure pathways will be designed to attract and retain highly qualified rural STEM teachers.This project at the University of Maine includes partnerships with rural school districts and communities. Key objectives include: 1) developing a survey to examine undergraduate motivations for choosing STEM or teacher education; 2) organizing design thinking workshops with partners to create rural-focused licensure pathways; and 3) conducting market research with rural STEM and teacher education majors to determine the best strategies for licensure of rural STEM teacher candidates. The project builds on University of Maine research demonstrating that non-rural teacher education majors rarely consider rural communities for future careers. This finding means that rural STEM students represent the best possible source of future rural STEM teachers. This project has the potential to develop scalable, replicable pathways to move more rural students into STEM licensure pathways. This Capacity Building 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.