The primary goal of the STEM Teams strategies project is to build a bridge from isolated middle schools in rural NC to the high tech resources at research universities, to effectively teach STEM (science, mathematics, & technology) content and instill an understanding of the potential of STEM careers. The middle school teachers in the selected schools will be supported by an administrative team to guide, coach, and empower the teachers to make the most of the resources. The project builds on extensive pilot studies done by the Project Team with teachers, leaders, and students in similar districts in the region. STEM Teams will directly serve 45 STEM teachers, 60 students through the STEM after-school program, 32 leadership personnel, and all of the 2,300 students located in teachers' classrooms in 4 middle schools in these districts, each academic year. STEM Teams is driven by four research-based, key strategies: 1) Adopt new and emerging technologies to network and enhance learning across all teams, 2) Provide up-to-date STEM careers information to districts through a variety of student, teacher, and leader professional development featuring minority STEM scientists and STEM education experts, 3) Update students' and teachers' STEM skills and content knowledge, and skills explicitly connected to state/national STEM content standards and the school curriculum, and 4) Use a Strategic Teaming Model that builds leadership goals from within.
STEM Teams will study the efficacy of the Strategic Teaming Model using a comparison group. Both quantitative and qualitative measures will be used to collect data on students' content knowledge, STEM interest and career awareness. Data will also be collected on teachers' attitudes, dispositions, and classroom enactment related to such factors as self efficacy, teacher dissatisfaction, & technological confidence. The project will leverage the on-going projects such as NC State College of Education's Friday Institute (www.fi.ncsu.edu) and the MEGA technology support network (www.ncsu.edu/mega). Research findings will provide evidence in support of the Strategic Teaming model to increase students' STEM content knowledge and STEM career awareness.
The STEM Teams project (NSF ITEST #1031118) was funded in 2010 ($1,199,963.00/3 years) and employed a Strategic Teaming Model® to support innovative STEM Career activities and reform-based instruction in 4 rural, high poverty school districts, in their middle schools. A neighboring comparison district had the same resources and demographics, but no intervention. STEM Teams delivered intensive professional development to the middle school teachers to enhance their STEM content knowledge, significantly increase their technology familiarity, moved their beliefs to being more student centered, and their instruction to be more technology-infused. There was a core group of extremely motivated teachers at each school who were not necessarily STEM teachers. In contrast to the Comparison district, Intervention district teachers, staff, and leaders were clearly aware of the purpose of the STEM intervention. The district leadership teams reported a much greater use of dialogue and collaboration to elicit change and promote communication, and district data collected on relevant factors enabled them to develop action plans and to view these plans as flexible and responsive. This led the Intervention districts to believe the STEM Teams intervention would sustain over time. Interdisciplinary teams of teachers across grade levels and the inclusion of staff (such as the media specialist) helped to make the STEM intervention a part of the culture of the whole school. Students in the intervention districts increased their interest in STEM subjects and careers, and math content knowledge compared to the Comparison district. There was a wide range of interest in STEM careers, with large standard deviations within science, technology, and mathematics, indicating that students tended to either like or dislike the STEM content areas. Female students initially had a significantly higher interest in science than male students, higher science self-efficacy scores, and greater recognition of family members in science. Student interest in science was best predicted by the ability to talk to a professional in STEM careers, having a family member in a science career, and earning good grades in science class. Interest in mathematics careers was best predicted by students understanding that mathematics would be helpful to them in their future career of choice and that their parent(s) would be proud of them if they got a career in mathematics. The primary predictors of interest in technology careers was the ability to talk to someone who uses technology in their career and having a family member who used technology in their career. Therefore, contextual supports and self-efficacy were most likely to predict student interest in a career at the start of the Intervention. Students considered careers primarily in relation to their interests and the outcomes of the career, such as what they would earn, job perks, job tasks, and how much schooling was involved. Middle schools students demonstrated a lack of focus on future goals or the supports that would be needed to achieve these goals, and most of these students do not envision themselves in careers that require college. Students have a lack of awareness of steps to going to college, and lack learning experiences in their classes that promote thinking about STEM careers or steps to attain those careers. Career exploration activities helped to provide information about the extent to which students valued and weighed the relative costs of their potential career choices. STEM exploration was useful but insufficient; students need direct experiences in STEM in order to determine interest. Students with clearly defined goals were best able to plot out a career path; yet, familial support, cultural stereotypes and gender roles impacted students' perceptions of likely career options of these rural, predominantly African American, high poverty students. The 60 students in an intensive STEM program, which took place on a university campus on Saturdays and during the summers, scored significantly higher on self-efficacy, science interest, math interest, technology interest, and overall interest in STEM than students in the Intervention school or the Comparison school, revealing substantial benefits of participation in the intensive out of school STEM program. Students overwhelmingly talked about their positive learning experiences in the intensive STEM program, which included interactive, socially gratifying learning experiences on a university campus, reporting comfort and identification as future college students. Students who had exposure to outside experiences related to STEM had an opportunity to discover their level of interest, a key factor in considering the related careers. These experiences were universally provided in the intensive STEM program, 100% of whose students intend to attend college. The impressive results of the intensive STEM program indicate that more focused interventions that provide enriching social experiences embedded in academically challenging activities are more impactful than whole school interventions, and that STEM interventions are more impactful than no intervention.
