Faculty careers are desirable to many graduate students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), yet few STEM graduate trainees are provided with formal opportunities for career development related to academic or other career outcomes. However, it has been demonstrated that engaging in teaching in conjunction with research can promote graduate students? skills relevant to research, without increasing the time to graduation. This National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) award in Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) to Drexel University is a pilot to address the need to develop mechanisms to train STEM graduate students to effectively teach undergraduate students. This project will develop and test a new model of graduate education that will enable students to train in educational methods as part of their graduate career and earn an additional advanced degree in STEM education.
The project will support the professional development of STEM graduate students as educators through four targeted goals to (1) train graduate students in evidence-based pedagogical approaches, (2) provide a mechanism for STEM graduate students to earn an MS in Undergraduate STEM Education in addition to their chosen technical PhD, (3) maintain student interest in diverse careers in the professoriate, and (4) support faculty development. The program will leverage the national UTeach program model, currently being replicated at the undergraduate level at Drexel University through the DragonsTeach program. The new courses, including a capstone internship, mentoring activities, and the new degree program will be developed as a cross-university collaboration among STEM education and content faculty and will emphasize the importance of deep content knowledge and research-based pedagogy. To evaluate this pilot, data will be collected on student outcomes and perceptions, faculty perceptions, as well as the value and costs of the pedagogical training as part of a graduate program to determine whether this model is sustainable and transferrable to other institutions.
The NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Program is designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new, potentially transformative, and scalable models for STEM graduate education training. The Innovations in Graduate Education Track is dedicated solely to piloting, testing, and evaluating novel, innovative, and potentially transformative approaches to graduate education.
