Capacity Building for Increasing STEM Teacher Education at an Urban Lasallian University

This project aims to serve the national need for increasing the capacity of higher education to prepare qualified STEM educators for high-need schools that serve diverse, urban student populations. These high-need schools often struggle with recruiting and retaining qualified STEM teachers. As a result, student performance in STEM subjects often suffers.

Working with a local, high-need school district, Christian Brothers University plans to assess school district needs to refine its own pathways for students pursuing STEM majors to seek teaching licensure. The University aims to enhance its recruiting strategies to generate greater interest among STEM majors to pursue teaching licensure. It also intends to investigate the feasibility and need for a computer science major paired with teaching licensure.

These activities are intended to position the University to produce diverse and highly qualified STEM educators who are prepared to meet the needs of urban school districts.

This project at Christian Brothers University includes a partnership with Shelby County Schools, the largest school district in Tennessee, which faces the challenges of STEM teacher vacancies and poor student performance in STEM subjects. More than half of the students enrolled at Christian Brothers University’s major in STEM fields. However, these STEM majors have remarkably low interest in and completion of the two currently available undergraduate STEM teaching licensure options.

To address this problem and to meet the needs of Shelby County Schools, the goals of the project are to: 1) assess Shelby County Schools’ needs, to strengthen University programs and meet the needs of an urban, diverse school setting; 2) research and develop targeted strategies to increase interest and enrollment in teaching licensure programs among STEM students the University; and 3) determine the feasibility of and interest in expanding existing pathways to include a new computer science/teaching licensure endorsement. In addition to shedding light on the STEM needs of a large, diverse, and high-need school district, the project aims to produce valuable feedback on the efficacy of various recruiting strategies designed to spur interest in STEM teaching careers among new and current STEM students.

More broadly, the project aims to design programs to generate a larger and more diverse supply of STEM educators for the area, which may in turn help to encourage Shelby County students to pursue STEM training and careers, thereby further diversifying the STEM workforce. This Capacity Building 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.