Catalyzing STEM Education Part II: Preparing STEM Educators for High-Need School Districts

The project aims to serve the national need of increasing the number of highly-qualified STEM teachers prepared to teach in high-need schools and encourage the persistence of those teachers in their teaching roles. To achieve this goal, the project team will (1) recruit, prepare, and graduate 17 highly effective elementary and secondary mathematics, biology, and chemistry teachers who persist as classroom teachers in high-need schools; (2) create opportunities for cross collaboration among PK-16 educators to collaboratively develop and implement research-based mathematics and science education curriculum and pedagogy for improving teacher preparation; and (3) develop, implement, and evaluate programming and professional development for prospective and practicing teachers aimed at helping to prepare and retain highly effective STEM educators.

This project at Nazareth University includes partnerships with the Rochester City School District and the Greece Central School District. Project goals include preparing 17 undergraduate students to become highly qualified mathematics, biology, and chemistry teachers, over five years, and training them in culturally responsive teaching practices. This project will build upon relationships strengthened during previously grant-funded professional development workshops; using data gathered during that time to respond directly to the most pressing needs of partner school districts and their students.

Evidence-based strategies for teacher training and induction support will also increase the retention of new teachers teaching in high-need schools. This project will produce broader impacts on science and math education by increasing the number, quality, diversity, and retention of licensed science and mathematics teachers in New York State. Rochester, NY, is experiencing extreme disparities in income and education, particularly for school-aged children, a crisis that has caused a trickle-down effect of unemployment and a shortage of workers with the requisite STEM skills needed to fill the region's dire skilled labor shortage.

Responsive STEM education that meets the needs of students in high-need districts will likely result in greater student success in math and science, greater graduation rates, and higher chances those students will seek college education or be placed in well-paying jobs after high school graduation. This Track 1: Scholarships and Stipends project is supported through the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program (Noyce) and is supported in part by funds from Micron Foundation.

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.