Authentic Research in STEM Educator Preparation for Issues of Culture, Justice, and Equity

The project aims to serve the national need of recruiting and preparing high-quality and diverse teachers in STEM disciplines to teach in high-need schools. Teachers that share attributes with students of color are important as role models for success in STEM. However, high-need school districts often have a small percentage of teachers of color.

This project will increase the percentage of teachers of color in high-need schools and improve the overall academic success of students in these schools. The project will use direct recruitment at local high-need schools to identify prospective teachers. Once recruited, prospective teachers will engage in a week-long science introduction experience prior to starting classes at the university with the goal of creating a community of learners.

They will engage in STEM education that uses current teaching methods and participate in food and agriculture related research to further foster their interests in STEM. Teaching preparation will involve extended practice in the classroom and hands-on learning. As a part of the education of these prospective teachers, they will also learn about issues of culture, justice, and equity.

New, practicing teachers will be supported by university faculty mentoring and post-graduation workshops.

This project at Illinois Wesleyan University includes partnerships with Bloomington District 87 and McLean County Unit District No. 5 Public Schools. Project goals will include adding up to twenty new STEM teachers of color over five years to teach in high-need schools in a manner that supports the partnering school districts’ objectives of recruiting a more diverse STEM teaching force.

The project will prepare biology, chemistry, mathematics and physics teachers with a strong foundation in research, improving experience-informed STEM teaching in community high-need schools. Further, the project will add to the well-documented benefits of STEM undergraduate research experiences (UREs) by exploring the ways in which UREs impact preservice teachers.

Through the guidance of faculty mentors, the emphasis on food and food production in the UREs will offer the preservice teachers an authentic and relatable context for investigating complex STEM issues. The ways in which rigorous STEM content acquired through local and familiar means may be effective at fostering teacher content knowledge and retaining STEM educators.

A sustainable model to recruit, train, and mentor teachers of color in the STEM education field will be implemented, assessed, modified when needed, and disseminated to institutions and investigators wishing to enhance preservice STEM teacher education. The potential increase in STEM teacher retention through rigorous preparation and mentoring that fosters a sense of professional community will also be analyzed.

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.