Meeting the Needs of Diverse Students through a Next Generation of Science Teacher Leadership in Nebraska

本项目旨在为国家利益服务，在高需求学校培养优秀、高素质的科学教师领导者，以满足区域和国家的四个关键需求。首先是在高需求学校保留职业生涯中期的科学教师。二是为有不同学习需求的学生提供高质量、公平的科学教学。三是在中学科学教学中推广强学科知识。四是调整7-12年级科学课程，使之符合新一代科学标准。一级学校（来自低收入家庭的学生比例很高的学校）受到高素质教师保留率低的不成比例的影响。有证据表明，教师必须获得持续的、高质量的专业发展和学习机会，以提高他们的教学技能，并保持留在高需求学校的动力。该项目将为内布拉斯加州杰出的中学科学教师提供独特的专业发展、全州范围内的交流机会和教育程度提升。参与的教师将完成一个教育专家学位，一个教师设计的领导力项目，重点是促进公平的科学学习，以及国家委员会的认证。该项目旨在确保内布拉斯加州不同文化和种族的学生有更多机会获得公平和高质量的教育。它有可能为多种有效的科学教学模式提供信息，这些模式将在全国广泛传播，以响应全民科学素养的愿景。内布拉斯加大学林肯分校（UNL）的这个项目包括与两个高需求学区（林肯公立学校和奥马哈公立学校）和一个主要农村学区（格兰德岛公立学校）合作。这个为期六年的项目的目标是通过教育专家学位项目和长期专业发展，招募26名在职科学教师成为教师领袖，加强内布拉斯加州的科学教育。领导团队将使用“推进连贯和公平的科学教育系统”项目提供的公平科学和工程学习的概念框架，为该计划及其目标的各个方面奠定基础。结合专业发展，该项目将使用系统的数据收集和分析来调查研究问题，包括教师领导学到了什么，他们如何使用课程中的关键概念来设计以公平为中心的领导项目，教师领导在多大程度上产生了关注和促进不同学生学习知识的领导项目，以及教师个人和全州的专业网络如何随着时间的推移而变化。项目将采用纵向设计的定性和定量方法进行评估，以比较长期的结果，并评估实现项目目标的进展情况。项目研究和评估将产生关于有效的教师领导发展模式、基于改革的公平教学实践以及内布拉斯加州及其他地区多样化学生的高质量教育的新基础知识，这些知识将通过会议、同行评审期刊和联合国大学支持的网站传播。这个Track 3：硕士教学奖学金项目是由Robert Noyce教师奖学金计划（Noyce）支持的。Noyce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，并支持经验丰富的模范K-12教师成为高需求学区的STEM大师教师。它还支持对高需求学区K-12 STEM教师的持久性、留任性和有效性的研究。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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。

This project aims to serve the national interest by developing outstanding and highly qualified science teacher leaders in high-need schools to address four critical needs of regional and national importance. The first is to retain mid-career science teachers in high-need schools. The second is to provide high-quality, equitable science teaching of students with diverse learning needs. The third is to promote strong subject matter knowledge for teaching secondary science. And the fourth is to adapt 7-12 science curriculum to meet the Next Generation Science Standards. Title I schools (which are those with a high percentage of students from low-income families) are disproportionately affected by low retention of highly qualified teachers. Evidence suggests that teachers must have access to ongoing, high-quality professional development and learning opportunities to improve their pedagogical skills and remain motivated to stay in high-need schools. This project will provide unique professional development, statewide networking opportunities, and educational degree advancement to exceptional secondary science teachers in Nebraska. Participating teachers will complete an educational specialist degree, a teacher-designed leadership project focused on promoting equitable science learning, and National Board Certification. This project aims to ensure greater access to equitable and high-quality education for culturally and racially diverse students in Nebraska. It has the potential to inform multiple models for effective science teaching, which will be broadly disseminated nationally in response to a vision of scientific literacy for all. This project at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) includes partnerships with two high-need school districts (Lincoln Public Schools and Omaha Public Schools) and one lead rural school district (Grand Island Public Schools). The goal of this six-year project is to strengthen science education in Nebraska by recruiting 26 in-service science teachers to become teacher leaders through an educational specialist degree program and long-term professional development. The leadership team will use the conceptual framework of equitable science and engineering learning offered by the Advancing Coherent and Equitable Systems of Science Education project to ground all aspects of the program and its goals. In conjunction with professional development, the project will use systematic data collection and analysis to investigate research questions regarding what teacher leaders learn, how they use key concepts from coursework to design equity-focused leadership projects, the extent to which teacher leaders generate leadership projects that attend to and facilitate knowledge about diverse students’ learning, and how teachers’ personal and statewide professional networks change over time. The project will be evaluated using qualitative and quantitative methods with a longitudinal design to compare outcomes over time and assess progress toward meeting project goals. Project research and evaluation will produce new fundamental knowledge of effective teacher leader development models, reform-based equitable teaching practices, and high-quality education for diverse students in Nebraska and beyond, which will be disseminated via conferences, peer-reviewed journals, and a UNL-supported website. 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 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.