This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
The Urban Teaching Fellowship program for STEM professionals is supporting two cohorts of 10 NSF Teaching Fellows per year to participate in the Philadelphia Teacher Residency (PTR) program. Each Fellow is being supported for a total of five years: one year as a master's student, and four years as a full-time classroom teacher in a high-poverty school. The PTR program is a teacher preparation and induction program for STEM professionals that is designed and implemented collaboratively by the Graduate School of Education of the University of Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia Education Fund, the School District of Philadelphia, and the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. The goal of the PTR is to increase the number of teachers certified to teach math and science in grades 6-12 in high-need schools in the District, and to support those teachers to remain in the classroom through the provision of at least three years of professional development. NSF Teaching Fellows, a select group of promising teachers, receive a fourth year of support. The PTR program builds on the knowledge and expertise of these multiple constituencies to offer an innovative way to attract and prepare STEM teachers for urban centers. It includes a cohesive and intellectually rigorous curriculum and a comprehensive support system that reflect the challenges of teaching in urban public schools. Each aspect of the curriculum and professional development programs is closely aligned with the particular needs of the individual schools, the local district, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania standards, while incorporating the latest research on mathematics and science pedagogy. As the program is being implemented, the partners are developing expertise in using a residency approach to prepare and support urban teachers and in fostering partnerships among stakeholders in urban districts that is being disseminated nationally to partner residency programs in other cities, as well as to teacher education programs seeking to build partnerships with urban districts.
