Preparing a Community of Outstanding STEM Teachers for Rural and Urban Northeast Texas

第一轨道罗伯特·诺伊斯教师奖学金计划将在五年内招募和准备32名学生，成为德克萨斯州东北部高需求学区的中学物理、化学、生物和数学教师。这一地区的县都缺乏中等STEM教育人员。使这一问题雪上加霜的是高流失率，这至少部分是由于该地区STEM教师经常经历的孤立造成的。该项目将通过三个主要努力解决这些问题。(I)将招募潜在的诺伊斯学者，开展活动，将教学作为一种有吸引力的首选职业选择，并为学生在其学术生涯早期提供教学经验。(Ii)Noyce学者将通过将其专业课程与教师资格认证课程相结合的教学途径进行准备，并在每个专业开设一个专门的课程，涵盖特定学科的教学法、教育研究和适应文化的教学。(Iii)诺伊斯教师在当地高需求学校工作时，将得到个别指导教师以及由诺伊斯教师、诺伊斯学者、学习助理、在职教师和参与的教员组成的相互支持的社区的支持。社区将定期举行会议，并将促进城乡地区之间的合作和交流。该项目以德克萨斯农工大学商业学院(TAMUC)为基础，将由TAMUC、当地的农村商务区、卡多米尔斯和罗伊斯市以及为达拉斯-沃斯堡大都会和东部农村县服务的区域1教育服务中心合作完成。在该项目的过程中，四个八人组的32名STEM教师将做好准备，以满足德克萨斯州东北部农村和城市高需求学校的需求。为此，项目团队将遵循三个步骤的流程。首先，它将通过广泛的广告宣传活动提高人们对该计划及其好处的认识。其次，它将每年招收24名一年级和二年级学生参加物理、化学、生物和数学入门课程的扩展学习助理(LA)计划。第三，团队将从洛杉矶池和社区大学转校生中招募诺伊斯奖学金获得者。诺伊斯学者项目将有两名导师，一名在职教师和一名项目团队成员。LA和Noyce计划对新教师教学实践的影响，以及LA计划和Noyce计划对特定学科身份、教师身份和职业兴趣的影响都将得到衡量。关于项目实施的细节、通过实践社区活动创建的材料和研究结果将在同行评议的STEM教育期刊、地方和国家会议上以及项目网站上报告。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 Track 1 Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program will recruit and prepare thirty-two students over five years to become secondary physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics teachers in high-needs school districts in Northeast Texas. Counties in this region suffer from a shortage of secondary STEM educators. Compounding this problem are high turnover rates that are at least partially caused by the isolation that STEM teachers in this region often experience. This project will address these problems through three primary efforts. (i) Potential Noyce Scholars will be recruited with activities that present teaching as an attractive, first-choice career option and by providing students teaching experiences early in their academic careers. (ii) Noyce Scholars will be prepared through teaching tracks that combine their major courses with teacher certification courses and a dedicated class in each major which covers discipline-specific pedagogy, education research, and culturally-responsive teaching. (iii) Noyce Teachers will be supported as they work in local high-needs schools by individual mentor teachers and a mutually supportive community of Noyce Teachers, Noyce Scholars, learning assistants, in-service teachers, and participating faculty. The community will meet regularly and will foster collaboration and communication between rural and urban districts.Based at Texas A&M University-Commerce (TAMUC), this project will be a collaboration between TAMUC, the local rural school districts of Commerce, Caddo Mills, and Royse City, and Region 1 Educational Service Center which serves the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and the rural counties to the east. Over the course of the project, thirty-two STEM teachers in four cohorts of eight will be prepared to meet the needs of both rural and urban high-needs schools in Northeast Texas. Towards this end the project team will follow a three-step process. First, it will raise awareness of the program and its benefits through a broad advertising campaign. Second, it will recruit twenty-four freshmen and sophomore students/year into an expanded learning assistant (LA) program in introductory physics, chemistry, biology, and math classes. Third, the team will recruit Noyce Scholars from the LA pool and community college transfer students. Noyce Scholars will have two mentors, an in-service teacher and a member of the project team. The impact of the LA and Noyce programs on the teaching practices of new teachers and the impact of the LA program and the Noyce program on discipline-specific identity, teacher identity, and career interests will all be measured. Details about the implementation of the project, materials created through the activities of the community of practice, and research results will be reported in peer-review STEM education journals, at local and national conferences, and on the project website.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.