Building Capacity through Professional Learning Communities to Advance Identity Integration in STEM Pre-Service Teacher Preparation

该项目旨在满足国家培养 STEM 教师在高需求学区服务的能力的需求。该项目将通过开发教育途径来实现这一目标，使 STEM 专业的学生能够接受培训并获得教学许可。高素质的STEM教师可以激励下一代科学家使用科学工具和方法来解决社会问题。此外，培训 STEM 教师对于实现国家科学进步目标至关重要。不幸的是，目前培训、招聘和留住 STEM 教育工作者的方法产生的结果好坏参半。这个问题的一个被忽视的方面是 STEM 和教育项目之间的身份冲突。当 STEM 教师从准备过渡到实践时，他们可能会感到这些项目的文化之间存在冲突。哈丁大学的这个能力建设项目包括与 Searcy、Bald Knob 和 Riverview 公立学区的合作。该项目的目标包括利用身份理论和专业学习社区的理论基础来建立一个学位课程，以培养综合的 STEM 教师身份。这些项目目标将通过建立一个由相关利益相关者组成的专业学习社区来指导新的 STEM 学位计划的创建来实现，该计划弥合了教师准备和 STEM 学科之间的身份差距。专业学习社区将评估利益相关者的需求，并确定哈丁大学完成项目目标的可用能力和缺乏能力。该项目将采用定量和定性技术来获取和分析来自 550 - 600 名 STEM 教师、STEM 课程高中生、STEM 大学教师和其他相关利益相关者的数据。此外，该项目将记录调查结果，向合作学区通报 STEM 教育，并由外部评估员进行评估。该项目定位于提供一个模型，用于评估利用专业学习社区推动身份整合的效力，从而加强 STEM 学科和教师准备之间的联系。通过该项目发现的知识可以影响教师准备的实践，并有望使它们与 STEM 的现实变化更加一致。该能力建设项目得到罗伯特·诺伊斯教师奖学金计划（Noyce）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高效的 K-12 STEM 教师，并支持经验丰富、堪称典范的 K-12 教师成为高需求学区的 STEM 大师级教师。它还支持对高需求学区 K-12 STEM 教师的有效性和保留率的研究。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project aims to serve the national need of building the capacity to prepare STEM teachers to serve in high-need school districts. This project will accomplish this goal by developing education pathways that enable STEM majors to be trained and licensed to teach. High-quality STEM teachers can inspire the next generation of scientists to use scientific tools and methods to solve societal problems. Furthermore, training STEM teachers is crucial for meeting targets of national scientific advancement. Unfortunately, current approaches to training, recruiting, and retaining STEM Educators have yielded mixed results. An overlooked aspect of this problem is the conflicting identities between STEM and education programs. STEM teachers may feel conflicted between the cultures of these programs as they transition from preparation to practice.This capacity building project at Harding University includes partnerships with Searcy, Bald Knob, and Riverview Public School Districts. The project goals include leveraging the theoretical foundations of identity theory and professional learning communities to build a degree program that will nurture an integrated STEM teacher identity. These project goals will be accomplished by building a professional learning community of relevant stakeholders to guide the creation of a novel STEM degree plan that bridges the identity gap between teacher preparation and STEM disciplines. The professional learning community will assess stakeholder needs and identify available capacity and the capacity lacking at Harding University for completing the project goals. The project will employ quantitative and qualitative techniques to obtain and analyze data from 550 - 600 STEM teachers, high school seniors in STEM courses, STEM college faculty, and other relevant stakeholders. Further, the project will document the findings that inform partnering school districts about STEM Education and be evaluated by an external evaluator. This project is well-positioned to provide a model for assessing the potency of using a professional learning community to drive identity integration that strengthens the pathways between STEM disciplines and teacher preparation. The knowledge uncovered through this project can influence practices in teacher preparation and hopefully bring them into closer alignment with real-world changes in STEM. 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.