There is a well-documented national need for K-12 teachers with substantial content knowledge in the several STEM disciplines. In this regard, undergraduate STEM majors from liberal arts institutions are an under-tapped pool of potential STEM teachers. The Summer STEM Teaching Experiences for Undergraduates (TEU) program will provide undergraduate STEM majors from liberal arts colleges and universities with an immersive summer experience in secondary mathematics or science education. The TEU program will encourage these students to explore careers in K-12 STEM education via a high quality discipline specific pedagogy course integrated with a teaching practicum with a focus on urban education. Owing to the small size of many liberal arts institutions, a key challenge they face is how to provide their undergraduate STEM students with high quality courses and experiences that are focused on mathematics or science pedagogy. The TEU program is designed to fill this need. The mathematics TEU model has been piloted during the summers of 2013-2015 at Brown University as part of the Brown Summer High School program. Through this TEU project, the mathematics pilot will be joined by the science TEU. The project, led by faculty from Barnard College, Brown University, Bryn Mawr College, Trinity College and Vassar College will contribute to the intent of the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education-EHR effort in adding to the understanding associated with engaging STEM majors from liberal arts institutions in the K-12 enterprise.
Over five summers, a total of 120 undergraduates (24 per year) will be recruited from a national network of sixty-one liberal arts institutions to take part in the 6-7 week TEU program. Each summer twelve undergraduate students will participate in the mathematics TEU program to be held at Brown University and twelve will participate in the science TEU program to be held at Trinity College. The teaching practicum, designed and taught by the TEU participants working under the supervision of master teacher mentors, will provide a summer enrichment course to approximately 1250 local high-need urban secondary students drawn from the Providence area and from the Hartford Middle Magnet Trinity College Academy. The TEU provides participants with the option to receive credit for the 60 hour pedagogy course. TEU participants will undertake a STEM leadership project at their home institution during the following academic year. TEU project investigators will engage in design and development research to explore the extent to which the TEU model, consisting of an immersive summer experience and teacher leadership project, affects the participants' preparation for teaching. Specific beneficial learner outcomes to be examined include: preservice teacher pedagogical knowledge, efficacy, effectiveness, and leadership. The research will employ a multiple-case study approach and a mixed-effects model to analyze the cumulative data. The data will include pre- and post-tests of participant knowledge of core course content, observational data, surveys and self-assessments collected from all participants, as well as semi-structured interviews and collection of artifacts of teaching from a smaller subset of TEU participants. What will be learned through the TEU model, and attendant educational research, will provide evidence for wide adoption and will contribute to the broader impacts of this project.
