Building Capacity to Develop STEM Teacher Leaders in Montana Rural and American Indian Schools

该项目旨在满足国家在农村和美国印第安保留地社区培养高质量科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）教师领袖的能力建设需求。像其他农村州一样，蒙大拿州在许多地理上孤立、STEM人数不足、高需求的学校和社区中缺乏高质量的STEM教师领导者，尤其是在蒙大拿州七个美国印第安人保留地及其附近。高质量的STEM教师领导者可以产生巨大的影响，激励年轻学生学习STEM内容知识并追求STEM职业，最终扩大该国STEM劳动力的多样性。为了培养高质量的STEM教师领导者，必须招募、培训、留住合格的STEM教师，并为他们提供持续的支持，以发展他们的教学能力和磨练他们的领导技能。蒙大拿州立大学的这个项目将评估四个保留区（Flathead, Blackfeet， Northern Cheyenne和Crow）或附近潜在合作学校STEM教师的需求，同时在大学内外建立合作网络。这些合作伙伴将共同制定有效的方法，招募和选择经验丰富、堪称典范的STEM教师成为教师领袖；确定或推荐一种有意义的、文化上可持续的教师领导力发展模式，适合高需求的农村和保留地社区。我们的最终目标是建立能力，以支持一群敬业、高质量和文化上可持续的教师领导者，他们可以实施和发展示范性的做法，以支持农村和美国印第安学生。该项目产生的研究结果和建议做法将提高我们的知识水平，增强我们在创建脚手架方面的专业知识，以培养经验丰富的模范STEM教师，使其成为高需求农村和少数民族学区的教师领导者。该能力建设项目由罗伯特·诺伊斯教师奖学金项目提供支持。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 of building capacity to develop high-quality science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teacher leaders in rural and American Indian reservation communities. Like other rural states, Montana has a shortage of high-quality STEM teacher leaders in many geographically isolated, STEM-underrepresented, and high-needs schools and communities, particularly on and near Montana’s seven American Indian reservations. High-quality STEM teacher leaders can make a huge difference—inspiring young students to learn STEM content knowledge and pursue STEM careers, which ultimately broadens the diversity of the country’s STEM workforce. To develop high-quality STEM teacher leaders, qualified practicing STEM teachers must be recruited, trained, retained and provided ongoing support to develop their teaching competencies and hone their leadership skills.This project at Montana State University will assess the needs of STEM teachers in potential partner schools on or near four reservations (Flathead, Blackfeet, Northern Cheyenne, and Crow) while building a network of collaborators within and beyond the university. Together, these partners will develop effective methods for recruiting and selecting experienced and exemplary STEM teachers to become teacher leaders; and identify or recommend a meaningful, culturally sustaining teacher leadership development model appropriate for high-need rural and reservation communities. Our ultimate goal is to build the capacity to support a cohort of dedicated, high-quality and culturally sustaining teacher leaders who can implement and develop exemplary practices for supporting rural and American Indian students. The findings and suggested practices generated from this project will advance our knowledge and enhance our expertise on creating scaffolds to develop experienced, exemplary STEM teachers to become teacher leaders in high-need rural and minority school districts. This Capacity Building project is supported through the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program. 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.