The geographic isolation and severe resource limitations of schools in the Northeast Tennessee region of Appalachia make the recruitment and retention of STEM teachers a challenge. The Northeast Tennessee Robert Noyce Scholarship Program is a three-pronged approach to the lack of opportunity, financial ability, and support that prevent many from becoming high school mathematics teachers. The project is recruiting and forming cohorts of future teachers via summer internships. These undergraduates are "mentored mentors" who are integrated into existing programs for high school students. Interns are exposed to the central focus of their possible future career - that of working with high school students through instruction, projects, and dialogue. While doing so, they themselves are mentored on how best to interact with these high school students. The project is providing scholarships to 24 junior and senior mathematics majors who are preparing to become teachers. Networking of inservice and cohort teachers is facilitated via enrichment activities especially in the areas of computational science and instructional technology. An academic year lecture/workshop/discussion series features modern technologies such as webinars and remote location participation. Noyce scholar cohorts are designing and organizing extra-curricular activities, most of which involve in-service teachers. This introduces the scholars to their future colleagues and exposes them to the non-instructional aspects of a career as a STEM high school instructor, giving them a solid view of their future jobs before they graduate from college.
