Science Teachers for Rural America - A Post-Baccalaureate STEM Teacher Licensure Project

该项目旨在满足国家对培养高素质科学教师的需求，这些教师具有在农村社区服务的知识、技能和性格。该项目在堪萨斯海斯的福特海斯州立大学进行，将招募高质量的生物、化学和物理专业的学生，并为他们在农村地区教书做好准备，农村地区往往代表着教育不平等的空间。未来的教师将完成一年的学士学位后准备计划，在高需求地区任教。在他们教学生涯的头两年，他们将接受指导和额外的专业发展培训，以帮助他们继续发展成为有效的教师，他们在文化上具有敏感性，弹性，并擅长在高需求的农村学校教学。该项目的一个重要推动力将是制定和测试战略，以应对为高需求的农村学校配备有效的科学教师的挑战。这将使堪萨斯西部和中部以及全国其他农村地区的高需求学校能够为学生提供更好的科学教育。海斯堡州立大学的这一项目包括堪萨斯州与西南平原地区服务中心在萨布利特的合作伙伴关系，迪尔菲尔德高中和迪尔菲尔德学区-216美元，以及Dighton学区-482美元。该项目旨在解决农村STEM教师队伍的挑战和保留，通过关注农村的独特背景和在农村环境中教授STEM。该项目有四个基本目标。首先，该项目将招募，提供奖学金，并准备，通过后学士学位课程，三十（30）干专业在项目的五年时间内获得许可证任教。第二个目标是将新获得执照的教师安置在农村学校，并实施旨在帮助留住教师的在线入职（导师）计划。第三，项目团队成员将参与迭代和形成性反馈过程，旨在持续改进项目。第四个目标是探索各种模式，开发和推广高质量农村科学教师培养模式。探索模式和开发农村模式背后的理论基础有三个基本组成部分-背景，课程和运输（Azano，et.al [2019，2021]和Schulte [2018]）。背景将侧重于农村环境。课程将包括以地点为基础的地理学。输送将具有亲自和在线访问教师准备计划。对活动和战略的评估将采用混合方法，并由公共事务对接研究所使用过程和结果要素进行，以促进对农村学校有效的STEM教师准备和保留的理解。项目组将采取多层次的方法传播项目成果、发现和农村科学教师培养的特点。特别是，传播将包括在州和全国会议上的演讲，以及在农村和教师教育期刊上的出版物。沿着。这个轨道1：奖学金和津贴项目是通过罗伯特诺伊斯教师奖学金计划（诺伊斯）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有效的K-12 STEM教师和经验丰富的模范K-12教师，成为高需求学区的STEM硕士教师。该奖项反映了NSF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。

The project aims to serve the national need of preparing high-quality science teachers with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to serve in rural communities. The project at Fort Hays State University in Hays, Kansas, will recruit high-quality biology, chemistry, and physics majors and prepare and place them to teach in rural settings, which often represent spaces of education inequity. The prospective teachers will complete a one-year post-baccalaureate preparation program to teach in high-need districts. During the first two years of their teaching careers, they will receive mentoring and additional professional development training to help them continue to develop as effective teachers who are culturally responsive, resilient, and skilled at teaching in high-need rural schools. An important impetus of the project will be the development and testing of strategies to address the challenge of staffing high-need rural school settings with effective science teachers. This will enable high-need schools in western and central Kansas and other rural areas nationwide to provide their students a better science education. This, in turn, will help prepare many of these same students for the STEM workforce.This project at Fort Hays State University includes Kansas partnerships with Southwest Plains Regional Service Center at Sublette, Deerfield High School and Deerfield School District – USD 216, and Dighton School District – USD 482. This project aims to address rural STEM teacher workforce challenges and retention through a focus on the unique contexts of rurality and teaching STEM in rural settings. The project has four underlying goals. First, the project will recruit, provide scholarships, and prepare, through a post-baccalaureate program, thirty (30) STEM majors over the five-year duration of the project to obtain licensure to teach. A second goal is to place the newly licensed teachers in rural schools and implement an online induction (mentorship) program designed to assist in teacher retention. Third, project team members will engage in an iterative and formative feedback process aimed at continuous program improvement. The fourth goal is to explore various models and develop and disseminate a model for high-quality rural science teacher preparation. The theoretical basis behind exploring models and developing a rural model has three fundamental components - context, curriculum, and conveyance (Azano, et.al [2019,2021] and Schulte [2018]). Context will hold an emphasis on rural settings. Curriculum will include place-based pedagogies. Conveyance will feature in-person and online access to teacher preparation programs. Evaluation of the activities and strategies will utilize a mixed-methods approach and be performed by the Docking Institute of Public Affairs using process and outcome elements to advance understanding of effective STEM teacher preparation and retention for rural schools. The project team will take a multi-tiered approach to dissemination of program outcomes, findings, and features of rural science teacher preparation. In particular, dissemination will include presentations at state and national conferences along with publications in rural and teacher education journals. 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.