With support from the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program (Noyce), this Track 1: Scholarships and Stipends project at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) aims to serve the national need to prepare high-quality science teachers for high-need school districts. In partnership with Santa Barbara City College, Santa Barbara Unified School District, and the Wolf Museum of Exploration + Innovation (MOXI), UCSB intends to develop science teachers who will be highly effective in teaching both science and engineering to culturally and linguistically diverse students. Through field placements and coursework, the project will engage undergraduate interns and Teacher Candidate Scholars to be effective in using the Next Generation Science Standards. This goal will be accomplished by emphasizing convergent science, which includes the merging of ideas, approaches, and technologies among the disciplines of science and engineering. The recruitment strategies include career guidance, exposure to exceptional educator role models, information about career opportunities, one-on-one mentoring, and targeted assistance for community college students transferring to a four-year university. The expected outcomes of the project include: (1) encouraging STEM undergraduates to consider teaching as a career and supporting post-baccalaureate students with degrees in a STEM discipline to become certified as teachers; (2) increasing UCSB's production of thoroughly trained, highly respected science teachers; (3) graduating Scholars with the knowledge and skills needed to grow innovative science programs in their own high-need schools; and (4) disseminating strategies found effective in both preparing exceptional science teachers and teaching convergent science to all students in high-need schools.
Over its five-year duration, the project aims to support 24 STEM undergraduates in internships and produce 52 beginning secondary science teachers with baccalaureate STEM degrees and teaching certification. The project will make a concerted effort to attract high-achieving students who are first generation college students, underrepresented students, English learners, and/or transfer students from community colleges. To recruit and prepare diverse undergraduate interns and teacher candidates, UCSB will collaborate with both MOXI and the Dos Pueblos High School's Engineering Academy (DPEA), located in the high-needs Santa Barbara Unified School District, with the goal of integrating convergence science in the teacher certification program. Undergraduates will complete a yearlong internship to learn about teaching convergent science. During the internship, they will be placed at DPEA and MOXI, as well as enroll in an introductory science education course at UCSB. In addition to their regular teacher education coursework and field experiences, teacher Candidate Scholars will participate in an Industrial and Technology Education methods course at DPEA and attend field trips to MOXI. Through these efforts, the project aims to produce reform-based, equity-minded science teachers who will provide California's diverse secondary school students with greater access to an excellent and innovative STEM education. The Noyce program supports talented STEM undergraduate majors and professionals to become effective K-12 STEM teachers and experienced, exemplary K-12 STEM teachers to become STEM master teachers in high-need school districts. It also supports research on the persistence, retention, and effectiveness of K-12 STEM 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.
