Developing more, highly qualified science and mathematics teachers is a national priority. Through funding from the National Science Foundation's Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program, this grant will respond to the increased need for outstandingly prepared teachers of mathematics and science at a time when the State of Arkansas is increasing expectations for teaching and learning in STEM disciplines at the secondary level. Forty rising sophomores and juniors will participate in an internship program designed to provide participants with the opportunity to experience teaching in tutoring and mentoring situations. These students will serve as the primary pool of juniors and seniors who will be selected to receive the thirty Noyce Scholarships available through this project. The University of Central Arkansas (UCA) Noyce Scholars will graduate with Bachelor of Science degrees in their respective STEM disciplines and will have experiences working in a laboratory and developing the critical inquiry skills necessary to effectively teach today's STEM content. This project seeks to tap into the passions and inquisitiveness that are innate in STEM majors and support them in translating this into powerful teaching pedagogies which capture and motivate middle and high school students in excelling in science and mathematics. Partner school districts, from the urban North Little Rock School District to the suburban Conway School District to the rural Vilonia and Mayflower School Districts, will benefit from the UCA Noyce Scholars, while providing these nascent teachers diverse experiences.
Noyce Interns will have the opportunity to participate in summer research projects with Master Teachers so they can enjoy the rewards of teaching while strengthening teaching skills in the context of extracurricular presentations to the Boys and Girls Club and Upward Bound Program. The recipients will also work with more than 1,000 students in STEM university classes through learning assistants and tutoring programs. The internship program will serve as a primary recruitment vehicle for Noyce Scholars. The Noyce Scholars will complete the UCA STEMteach preparation program which is a replication of the UTeach program from the University of Texas-Austin. This program provides mathematics and science majors the opportunity to earn an Arkansas teaching license by completing a 26 credit-hour minor that focuses on developing pedagogical skills within the context of the student's major program of academic study in mathematics, chemistry, physics, or biology. One of the hallmarks of the program is the strong collaboration between the College of Education, the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, and partner school districts. The program centers on the belief that the preparation of teachers excels when students have both a contextual and a theoretical understanding interacting in accord. For this reason, the UCA STEMteach program begins with field experience, an approach that differs from most other teacher education programs. The UCA Noyce program will provide robust support for Scholars after graduation during the earliest years of their teaching careers through classroom visits, collaboration with other UCA Noyce Scholars Program alumni, and strong connections with the UCA Institute for STEM Professional Development and Education Research (UCA STEM Institute) that will continue past the initial two years of teaching. Ultimately, this UCA Noyce project intends to triple the current output of secondary STEM teachers to approximately thirty annually, while at the same time recruiting, preparing, and retaining an increasingly diverse set of outstanding secondary STEM teachers armed with deep content, research experience, and pedagogical content skills. While the fundamental indicator of success of the UCA Noyce program will be the production of thirty outstanding STEM majors with teacher certification, the project will use the UTeach Progress Evaluation and Reporting System data collection system for storing data and will also assess the extent to which the project has been successful in recruiting teacher candidates who are traditionally underrepresented in STEM disciplines, has provided students with a content rich introduction to research based pedagogy to promote teaching as a career choice, and has improved sustained connections with Noyce Scholars during the first two years in the classroom.
