The Robert Noyce Scholarship program is attracting science and mathematics secondary teachers into the Cornell Teacher Education (CTE) program to provide highly qualified for high needs rural schools. The objectives of the program are to: (1) recruit qualified STEM students dedicated to teaching in high needs districts; (2) educate them to become exemplary teachers; (3) support and retain these teachers in teaching in high needs districts; and (4) use program evaluation to research teacher recruitment, retention and development.
CTE students complete a rigorous undergraduate major in a science, mathematics, or engineering field, then complete a Masters of Arts in Teaching degree and earn New York certification. The project is expanding existing successful recruitment networks to find qualified STEM students or professionals interested in teaching in high needs schools. Cornell's location and the presence of the Rural Schools Association of New York State at Cornell allows the CTE Noyce program to focus on placing teachers in high needs rural schools. Noyce teachers are developing learning groups to collaborate on solving the problems they face in their teaching. The learning groups build on the established CTE cohort structure and are supported by asynchronous web-based communication systems and summer work with Cornell faculty.
Noyce scholars participate in evaluation research as they are fulfilling their teaching commitments. Evaluation data is contributing to the knowledge of how to support teacher learning and development and is being used to determine best practices for recruiting qualified STEM students and career changers; helping pre-service teachers perform well in rural schools; supporting new teachers in high needs districts/schools; and determining which students perform most successfully in high needs districts/schools.
