Recruiting and Retaining STEM Teachers through Community, Mentoring, and Industry Experiences

该项目旨在满足国家的需求，招聘、准备和留住了解所教儿童生活的高效STEM教师。该项目将为STEM本科生提供与K-12学生在STEM项目上合作的机会。这一经历有望帮助许多本科生决定以从事STEM教学为职业。一旦这些STEM本科生走上了成为高中STEM教师的道路，他们将沉浸在额外的社区和行业体验中，例如夏令营。通过将这些经验与学校的实地经验相结合，该项目旨在建立STEM、行业和教育导师网络。导师将指导未来的STEM教师完成教学准备和他们作为STEM教师的入门岁月。有了强大的支持网络和对他们任教的社区的深入了解，预计这些新教师将留在高需求学校，从而有可能减少STEM领域的教师短缺。道尔顿州立学院是一家为拉美裔美国人服务的机构，该项目包括与两个当地高需求学区(惠特菲尔德县和道尔顿公立学校)以及邵氏和莫霍克工业公司的合作伙伴关系，这两家公司是世界上最大的地板覆盖物制造商，员工总数超过63,000人，年销售额为140亿美元。该项目的目标是通过招聘STEM专业的本科生进入教师职业生涯，招聘和准备22名新的生物、数学和化学中学教师。该项目的未来教师将与选定的STEM教师干部相匹配，他们将担任导师。在参加STEM社区活动时，未来的教师将有机会了解K-12学生的生活背景。通过STEM行业外部培训，未来的教师将学习如何将当地的STEM工作与他们正在教授的STEM内容联系起来，并将扩大他们的STEM导师网络。通过与利益相关者的焦点小组访谈、调查和观察数据分析，科学界和教育界将加深对辅导、社区参与和行业沉浸对培养和留住STEM教师的影响的理解。增加教师对他们所服务的社区的了解将是这项工作最重要的更广泛的影响。在教师和行业之间建立的网络有可能帮助改变人们对先进制造业职业的看法，这是社区关注的一个焦点。未来的教师将在社区组织中分享他们的行业经验，这可能会在项目结束后增加项目的可持续性。这个Track 1：奖学金和津贴项目由罗伯特·诺伊斯教师奖学金计划(Noyce)提供支持。Noyce计划支持有才华的STEM本科专业和专业人员成为有效的K-12 STEM教师，并支持经验丰富、模范的K-12教师成为高需求学区的STEM硕士教师。它还支持对高需求学区K-12 STEM教师的持久性、保留率和有效性的研究。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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, preparing, and retaining highly effective STEM teachers who understand the lives of the children they teach. The project will provide STEM undergraduate students with opportunities to work with K-12 students on STEM projects. This experience is expected to help many of the undergraduates decide to pursue STEM teaching as a career. Once these STEM undergraduate students are on a path to become high school STEM teachers, they will be immersed in additional community and industry experiences, such as summer science camps. By combining these experiences with field experiences in schools, the project aims to build a network of STEM, industry, and education mentors. The mentors will be positioned to guide the prospective STEM teachers through their preparation for teaching and their introductory years as STEM teachers. With a strong network of support and a deep understanding of the community in which they teach, it is expected that these new teachers will be retained in high-need schools, thus potentially reducing teacher shortages in STEM fields. This project at Dalton State College, a Hispanic-Serving Institution, includes partnerships with two local high-need school districts (Whitfield County and Dalton Public Schools) and Shaw and Mohawk Industries, two of the world’s largest floorcovering manufacturers with a combined total of more than 63,000 employees and $14 billion in annual sales. The project goal is to recruit and prepare 22 new biology, math, and chemistry secondary teachers by recruiting undergraduate STEM majors into teaching careers. The project's prospective teachers will be matched with a selected cadre of STEM teachers who will serve as mentors. While working at STEM community events, the prospective teachers will have an opportunity to develop an understanding of the contexts of K-12 students’ lives. Through STEM industry externships, the prospective teachers will learn how to connect local STEM jobs to the STEM content they are teaching and will broaden their network of STEM mentors. Through focus group interviews with stakeholders, surveys, and analysis of observational data, the scientific and education communities will develop an understanding of the impact of mentoring, community engagement, and industry immersion on the preparation and retention of STEM teachers. Increasing teacher's knowledge about the community in which they serve will be the most important broader impact of this work. The network that has been created between teachers and industry has potential to help change the perceptions of advanced manufacturing careers, a focus of the community. Prospective teachers will share their industry experiences at community organizations, which may increase the sustainability of the program beyond the life of the project. 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 persistence, retention, and effectiveness 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.