With support from the NSF Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program, this project aims to serve the national interest in high quality STEM teaching by building capacity to prepare highly-qualified middle and high school STEM teachers for high-need Texas schools. Through collaborations between Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi, and the West Oso Independent School District, the project will develop an infrastructure for recruiting, preparing, and supporting new middle school and high school STEM teachers. The project will engage community partners in designing and delivering meaningful activities for teacher candidates, thus strengthening connections between schools and their communities. Long-term goals of this project include increasing student achievement in STEM fields and helping to address the national shortage of highly-qualified STEM teachers.
The project will begin by conducting an assessment to define teacher shortage areas and to prioritize teacher training needs. The results of the assessment will inform the design of a new licensure program for middle and high school STEM teachers. STEM faculty, Education faculty, school personnel, and community partners collaborate to develop a community-engaged teacher preparation curriculum. This work will strengthen the partnerships among these groups. The resulting new courses, field experiences, and community mentoring activities will be pilot tested and assessed. The project will also develop and pilot test strategies for recruiting talented STEM undergraduates from diverse groups into teaching careers. The NSF Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program supports talented STEM undergraduate majors and professionals to become K-12 mathematics and science teachers in high-need school districts and in-service teachers to become STEM master teachers. It also supports research on the persistence, retention, and effectiveness of K-12 teachers in high-need school districts.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
