Building Partnerships & Pathways to Elevate STEM Education

The project aims to serve the national need of building capacity to recruit and prepare college students to enter careers in primary and secondary STEM Education, especially in high-need school districts. With a large percentage of its undergraduate students coming from underrepresented backgrounds, Augsburg University is well positioned to help meet this need.

This project develops a strategic plan for growing STEM Education at Augsburg by cultivating partnerships with local community colleges and high schools and creating curricular pathways designed to make pursuing STEM Education and teaching licensure more accessible.

This project at Augsburg University includes partnerships with Minneapolis Community and Technical College, Normandale Community College and Henry, Washburn, and South High Schools in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The long-term project goals are to increase the number of STEM majors (Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, and Physics) at Augsburg who seek grades 5-12 STEM teaching licensure, to offer clinical teaching experiences that prepare students to teach at high-need schools, and to maintain a viable, sustainable program in secondary education for STEM majors.

To advance these goals, this project will create an Advisory Committee to guide the project that will consist of stakeholders from the project partners, Augsburg STEM faculty, and the PIs; develop curricular maps and resources for recruiting and retaining STEM majors; and improve operational processes and coordination across academic departments and campus offices. 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 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.