Preparing Engaged STEM Teachers through Multi-level Peer Mentoring and Early Teaching Experiences

该项目旨在满足国家对准备多样化，高质量的STEM教师的需求，这些教师具有深厚的内容知识，能够满足学生的需求。该项目将为寻求教师认证的STEM专业学生提供奖学金支持，招聘主要集中在物理，化学和数学专业。学者将参加由STEM和教育学院合作提供的实地教师准备。项目教师将进行每月全天周六研讨会，以提高学者的教学为重点的内容知识和内容特定的教学技能。该项目还将部分支持学习助理（LA）计划的运作。除了为本科生提供引人注目的早期教学经验外，LA计划还通过LA教学方法课程向学生介绍STEM教育研究，包括STEM中的公平和身份问题的调查。项目工作人员将利用与地区学区的强有力的伙伴关系，促进认证学者在高需求学校的就业，并将通过垂直同行指导网络提供两年的上岗培训。项目人员将参与研究和评估议程，这将有助于有关STEM教师准备的知识基础。德克萨斯州立大学的这个项目包括与Hutto、Leander和Lockhart独立学区的合作。项目目标包括在项目的五年生命中为20至30名STEM教师做好准备;主要招募物理，化学和数学专业的学生;并通过本科和学士后的途径支持学者进入教学。LA计划的设计是由实践社区理论及其与身份形成的关系所告知的，该计划的主要目标是支持学生的STEM身份发展。垂直同伴指导采用了维果茨基理论的所有三个要素：社会互动，“更有知识的其他人”的概念，以及最近发展区的教育心理学概念。研究和评估计划将德克萨斯州教育研究中心纵向数据湖的定量力量与其在STEM教师准备方面的国家Vantage结合在一起，以回答有关教师准备质量，指导的影响以及对教师职业选择和教学实践的影响的问题。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智力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 diverse, high-quality STEM teachers with deep content knowledge who are responsive to needs of students. The project will provide scholarship support to STEM majors who seek teacher certification, with recruitment focused principally on physics, chemistry, and mathematics majors. Scholars will participate in field-based teacher preparation collaboratively delivered by STEM and Education faculty. Project faculty will conduct monthly full-day Saturday workshops to enhance Scholars’ teaching-focused content knowledge and content-specific pedagogical skills. This project will also partially support the operation of a Learning Assistant (LA) Program. In addition to providing compelling early teaching experiences for undergraduates, the LA Program introduces students to research in STEM education through an LA teaching methods course, including investigation of issues of equity and identity in STEM. Project staff will use strong partnerships with area school districts to facilitate certified Scholars’ employment in high-needs schools and will provide two years of induction through a Vertical Peer Mentoring Network. Project personnel will engage in a research and evaluation agenda that will contribute to the knowledge base about STEM teacher preparation. This project at Texas State University includes partnerships with the Hutto, Leander, and Lockhart Independent School Districts. Project goals include the preparation of 20 to 30 STEM teachers over the five-year life of the project; recruiting primarily physics, chemistry, and mathematics majors; and supporting Scholars through both undergraduate and post-baccalaureate pathways into teaching. The LA Program design is informed by Communities of Practice theory and its relationship to identity formation, with a primary goal of the program being to support students’ development of STEM identity. Vertical Peer Mentoring employs all three elements of Vygotsky’s theory: social interaction, the concept of the "more knowledgeable other," and the educational psychology concept of the zone of proximal development. The research and evaluation plans bring together the quantitative power of the Texas Education Research Center longitudinal data lake with its national vantage on STEM teacher preparation, to answer questions about teacher preparation quality, the impact of mentoring, and influences on teacher career choice and teaching practices. 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.