Increasing the Value of Education for Secondary Teachers in STEM

该项目旨在满足国家培养和留住高素质中学科学和数学教师的需求，这些教师准备在高需求的农村学区任教。该项目的一个潜在目标是建立从社区大学到四年制STEM学位和教学执照的途径。该项目将为20名致力于STEM教学事业的生物、化学、数学或物理专业的优秀本科生提供奖学金、学术和课外支持。通过指导和社区建设，该项目将支持学生完成副学士和学士学位，并在毕业后进入教学行业。教师准备和入职将强调丰富的教学内容和教学知识，并将以文化能力的发展为目标。这将使弗吉尼亚州农村地区和全国其他地区的高需求学校能够为他们的K-12学生提供强大而包容的科学和数学教育。反过来，这将帮助这些学生为STEM劳动力做好准备。朗伍德大学的这个项目包括与帕特里克和亨利社区学院、弗吉尼亚西部社区学院以及弗吉尼亚州爱德华王子县、亨利县和富兰克林县的当地教育机构的合作。该项目将以几个目标为指导。第一个目标是建立一个跨机构的教职员工团队，致力于招聘STEM专业的本科生，并为他们成为合格的教师做好准备。其次，在项目的五年期间，研究人员将招募20（20）名高质量的本科STEM专业学生，并为他们提供财政和加强的计划支持，其中约75%将是社区大学转学，为他们在高需求的农村学校教授生物、化学、数学或物理做好准备。该项目采用“自我成长”的方法，从当地招募学生，然后将他们安置在这些地区担任STEM教师，将解决弗吉尼亚州南部和西南部农村地区严重的教师短缺问题。对教师准备和入职的项目支持将包括实施高影响力的实践，如加强教师和同伴指导、夏季桥梁体验、队列建设和专业实践社区。第三个目标是，该项目将促进综合、混合方法的形成性和总结性评估，以：(1)为适应性项目管理和实施提供评估和反馈；(2)为招募、支持、准备和留住社区大学和其他学生产生基于证据的新知识，使他们成为高需求农村学校成功的、具有文化能力的STEM教师。与此同时，合作伙伴关系将加强朗伍德大学的持续努力，以增加当地学校中传统边缘化群体的学生在STEM领域从事职业的人数。第四个目标是通过同行评议出版物和州、地区和国家会议传播成果和经验教训。反过来，这将促进全国招募和留住更多为农村社区服务的STEM教师的持续需求。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教师的有效性和留任率的研究。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 for preparing and retaining highly qualified secondary science and mathematics teachers who are prepared to teach in high-need rural school districts. An underlying aim of the project is to build pathways from community colleges to a four-year STEM degree and teaching licensure. The project will provide scholarships and academic and co-curricular support to twenty (20) talented undergraduate students who are majoring in biology, chemistry, mathematics, or physics and are committed to a STEM teaching career. Through mentoring and community building, the project will support students as they complete their associate’s and bachelor’s degrees and, after graduation, enter the teaching profession. Teacher preparation and induction will emphasize strong content and pedagogical knowledge and will target development of cultural competencies. This will enable high-need schools in rural Virginia and other areas nationwide to provide their K-12 students a strong and inclusive science and mathematics education. This, in turn, will help prepare many of these same students for the STEM workforce.This project at Longwood University includes partnerships with Patrick and Henry Community College, Virginia Western Community College, and local educational agencies in Prince Edward, Henry, and Franklin counties in Virginia. The project will be guided by several goals. The first goal is to establish a cross-institutional team of faculty and staff members committed to recruiting undergraduate STEM majors and preparing them to become certified teachers. Second, over the five-year duration of the project, the investigators will recruit and provide financial and enhanced programmatic support to twenty (20) high-quality undergraduate STEM majors, of whom approximately 75% will be community college transfers, to prepare them to teach biology, chemistry, mathematics, or physics in high-need rural schools. Using a grow-your-own approach of recruiting students from their local areas and later placing them as STEM teachers in these same areas, the project will address critical teacher shortages in rural Southside and Southwest Virginia. Project support for teacher preparation and induction will include implementing high-impact practices such as enhanced faculty and peer mentoring, a summer bridge experience, cohort building, and a professional community of practice. For a third goal, the project will foster comprehensive, mixed methods formative and summative evaluation to: (1) provide assessment and feedback for adaptive project management and implementation and (2) generate evidence-based new knowledge for recruiting, supporting, preparing, and retaining community college and other students to become successful, culturally competent STEM teachers in high-need rural schools. In concert with this, the collaborative partnership will strengthen Longwood University's ongoing efforts to increase the number of students from traditionally marginalized groups in local schools who pursue careers in STEM fields. A fourth goal is to disseminate outcomes and lessons learned through peer-reviewed publications and state, regional, and national conferences. In turn, this will promote an ongoing national need to recruit and retain more STEM teachers who will serve rural communities. 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 effectiveness and retention 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.