With funding from the National Science Foundation's Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program, this San Diego State University (SDSU) Noyce Scholarship Track I project will address the national need to produce a high quality teaching workforce in science. The project will recruit a select group of high-achieving and diverse science majors into teaching and will provide support through a variety of hands-on, research-based learning experiences to develop the recipients' teaching practices and science content knowledge, while nurturing their enthusiasm for teaching. The project will provide financial support for seventy-four (74) internships and scholarships, and work with SDSU's existing Center for the Advancement of Students in Academia (CASA) to give particular attention to recruiting participants from diverse backgrounds, including students from underrepresented minorities. Results from the project not only will enhance science workforce diversity, but will also contribute to a broader understanding of how teacher preparation programs can be tailored to reach and prepare underrepresented students for successful science teaching careers.
The program will offer forty (40) Noyce Internships to first and second year biology, chemistry, geology, and physics majors, who will explore teaching through participating in SDSU's summer camp for students from grades 2-8. The camp will be set in place through this grant, and will be sustained by SDSU once the grant is completed. Select interns and other science majors will receive scholarships to become Noyce Scholars during their teaching credential year and as new teachers placed in high needs schools. The program will produce at least thirty-four (34) new high quality science teachers through these scholarships, and the investigators will help place graduates from the program in high needs schools and then provide them with important and timely support when they enter the STEM teaching profession. The project will build on SDSU's Noyce Master Teacher Fellows project (NSF #1240127) by placing the Noyce Scholars from this project in classrooms of master teachers from the Teacher Fellows program. These experienced Teacher Fellows will serve as guides and mentors for the new Teaching Scholars. The overall project will be housed in SDSU's Center for Research in Mathematics and Science Education, and the research and evaluation plans include methodologies for measuring the role of the Noyce Internships in providing early opportunities to promote teaching as a career and for measuring the effectiveness of the Noyce scholarship recipients as teachers.
