With support from the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program (Noyce), this workshop hosted by the Quality Education for Minorities (QEM) Network aims to serve the national need of increasing the diversity of the STEM teacher workforce. Through this effort, the project will serve a long-term goal of improving the representation of students of color in K-12 mathematics and science coursework, undergraduate STEM majors, and the STEM workforce. Relative to the composition of kindergarten through twelfth grade students in the United States, the current teaching force lacks racial and gender diversity. Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) have the potential to produce significant numbers of teachers from diverse backgrounds. Through Noyce support, MSIs have the potential to offer incentives for STEM undergraduates to pursue K-12 teaching careers.
The QEM Network will use organizational learning to meet the following objectives in three phases: (1) Initiation Phase - Conduct one webinar per year (over two years) targeting approximately 500 potential PIs and administrators from 100 MSIs to discuss institutional and individual readiness for preparing a competitive Noyce proposal and the social and civic responsibility of MSIs to advance diversity in STEM teaching; (2) Engagement Phase - Provide one workshop per year (over two years) for MSI faculty members to connect Noyce proposal ideas to larger societal needs for diversity in STEM teaching; and (3) Maintenance Phase - Provide ongoing tailored post-workshop guidance focused on enhancing participants' ability to complete and submit competitive Noyce proposals and reinforce societal needs for diversity in STEM teaching. This project will assist with developing tools that help MSIs to compete for the resources necessary to provide measurable resources to their STEM education students, so that their students can become STEM teachers who make important contributions to our nation. The Noyce program supports talented STEM undergraduate majors and professionals to become effective K-12 STEM teachers in high-need school districts and experienced, exemplary K-12 STEM 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.
