Mentoring Urban STEM Teachers for Equity and Innovation

该项目旨在通过支持和培训更广泛的中学STEM教师来教授这些学生，从而满足国家增加进入STEM专业的学生多样性的需求。项目团队将从广泛的人口统计学、学科和专业背景中招募学士学位以上的STEM专业人士，从事中学STEM教学工作。反过来，该项目将为这些专业人士做好准备，以便在资源不足的城市社区担任STEM教育工作者。项目团队成员将促进大学教师、中学教育工作者和社区伙伴之间的协同合作。特别是，参加者将掌握在服务不足的社区进行有效教学所需的教学和文化知识。作为入职培训的一部分，调查人员将为新教师提供持续的指导，帮助他们在课堂上运用这些知识。因此，该项目将直接促进美国熟练STEM劳动力的发展。该项目位于宾夕法尼亚州的库茨敦大学（KU），包括KU教育学院和文理学院、雷丁和阿伦敦学区以及社区合作伙伴之间的合作。该项目有几个指导性目标。首先，在项目为期五年的时间里，招募25名STEM专业人员，为他们提供奖学金，支持他们的学术培训，为他们颁发教师证书，并在高需求的地方教育机构（LEAs）中安置他们。STEM专业人员的培训和认证将通过一年的教育硕士学位课程进行。第二个目标是通过这个项目增加STEM教师的人口多样性。第三个目标是通过以社区为基础的联合课程计划，使STEM教师能够实施与文化相关的STEM教育方法。最终目标是通过让教育和STEM教师参与这一过程，为新教师提供持续的入职指导和教学内容知识（PCK）研讨会。这个入门课程将在学位后的前两年继续进行。项目评估和研究将评估该计划的潜在组成部分对诺伊斯学者和教职员工的影响和优点。特别是，研究者和外部评估者将采用混合方法来探索以下价值：(1)与内容和教学内容知识（PCK）相关的stem教师指导；(2) Noyce学者在STEM课堂上实施PCK的年度研讨会；(3)在课堂上实施文化相关教学法（CRP）的教育-教师指导和课外经验；(4)指导Noyce学者的PCK和CRP对STEM和教育教师导师本身的影响。本项目由Robert Noyce教师奖学金项目（Noyce）资助。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教师的保留和有效性的研究。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 need to increase the diversity of students entering STEM professions by supporting and training a broader diversity of secondary STEM teachers to teach those students. The project team will recruit post-baccalaureate STEM professionals, drawn from a wide range of demographic, disciplinary, and professional backgrounds, to careers in secondary STEM teaching. In turn, the project will prepare these professionals for the challenging task of serving as STEM educators in under-resourced urban communities. Project team members will foster a synergistic collaboration among university faculty, secondary-school educators, and community partners. In particular, the participants will be prepared in the pedagogical and cultural knowledge needed for effective teaching in underserved communities. As part of induction, the investigators will provide sustained mentorship to the new teachers as they implement that knowledge in the classroom. As a result, the project will contribute directly to the development of a skilled STEM workforce in the United States.Based at Kutztown University (KU) in Pennsylvania, the project includes partnerships between the KU College of Education and College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the Reading and Allentown School Districts, and community partners. The project has several guiding goals. First is to recruit, provide scholarships to, support the academic training of, generate teacher-certification for, and place in high-need local education agencies (LEAs) twenty-five (25) STEM professionals through the five-year duration of the project. The training and certification of professionals with STEM degrees will be via a one-year Master's of Education degree program. A second goal is to increase the demographic diversity of STEM teachers through this program. The third goal is to prepare STEM teachers to be capable of implementing culturally relevant approaches to STEM education through a community-based co-curricular program. A culminating goal is to provide sustained induction mentorship and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) workshops for the new teachers by engaging both education and STEM faculty in the process. This induction program will continue through the first two years of post-degree teaching. Project evaluation and research will assess the impact and merit of underlying components of the program on both the Noyce scholars and faculty members. In particular, the investigators and external evaluator will employ mixed-methods approaches to explore the values of: (1) STEM-faculty mentoring related to both content and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK); (2) an annual workshop on implementation of PCK by Noyce scholars in the STEM classroom; (3) education-faculty mentoring and co-curricular experiences on implementation of culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) in the classroom; and (4) the effects that mentoring Noyce scholars on PCK and CRP have on the STEM and education faculty mentors themselves. 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 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.