The University of Texas El Paso (UTEP) Colleges of Science and Education faculty, El Paso Community College (EPCC), and area school districts (El Paso and Ysleta Independent Scholar Districts) are recruiting and supporting undergraduate students majoring in math and science (physics, chemistry, geological and biological sciences to build science and mathematics capacity among future science teacher populations and students who are traditionally less likely to succeed in mathematics and science courses or choose STEM related careers. The goals of the project are to recruit and specially prepare STEM majors to become high school science and mathematics teachers, to retain novice teachers, and to emphasize inquiry teaching methods and interdisciplinary overlap and alignment among the sciences and mathematics. The program is recruiting 42 new science and math teachers from UTEP and EPCC supported by $10,000 annual Noyce scholarships. Teaching Miners has three critical components: 1) a content-rich summer internship for 20 lower division undergraduate STEM majors emphasizing inquiry pedagogy, 2) a teacher preparation program for selected upper division STEM majors that leverages and extends existing successful programs (MaST: Math and Science Teachers Academy and SABE MAS: Supporting a Better Education in Math and Science) and includes student research projects, and 3) a strong induction program for novice teachers with release time, individual coordinated mentoring, and Web resources. The Teaching Miners Summer Institute emphasizes the links between inquiry in science & mathematics and inquiry teaching methods, as well as interdisciplinary linkages. Participants work with faculty and selected in-service science and mathematics teachers from the local districts in developing inquiry-based science & mathematics curricular materials. Noyce Scholars develop a senior research project in either science or mathematics topics OR science-education or mathematics-education topics. These research projects provide the Noyce Scholars real-life research experiences focused on inquiry. After graduation and successful certification, the Noyce Scholar novice teachers are placed in selected schools as teams with cross-disciplinary expertise in mathematics and the individual sciences. Additional induction support is provided by discipline-specific mentoring from special district mentors who participate in all summer and academic year Noyce Teaching Miners workshops. The Noyce Teaching Miners project is introducing a unique cohort model that emphasizes subject-specific mentoring and teams for improving STEM education at two El Paso school districts. Student cohorts share the same preparation and work together for at least 2 years prior to entering their assigned school. As new teachers, Noyce program participants engage their students through the use of best practices in inquiry teaching and interdisciplinary overlap among sciences and mathematics. The expected outcomes of the program are teachers qualified to use the approaches that have been shown to improve student performance on standardized tests and increase student interest in mathematics and science; and a decrease in the drop-out rate of exceptional science and mathematics teachers in EPISD and YISD.
