This project aims to serve the national need of preparing highly qualified science teachers who have a technological skillset that helps them teach effectively in high-need schools. Research suggests that less affluent schools teach less grade-level content, offer significant synchronous instruction, and are more likely to provide paper worksheet packets. Conversely, research demonstrates that more affluent schools use technology for live conferences with teachers, digital delivery of content, and pre-recorded science lessons that can be viewed asynchronously. The project expects that increasing teachers’ use of technology can support greater equity between low-poverty and high-poverty schools, particularly during extended periods of remote instruction. The project builds on integrated collaboration with informal science learning organizations, as well as college-based technology training that addresses how we work with, socialize, and educate science teachers. A direct goal of this effort is to prepare highly qualified science teachers who can teach in physical, digital, and hybrid environments that best serve the high-need schools in which they will serve.
This project at Queens College, CUNY, includes partnerships with three high-need local high schools (Bayside High School, Forest Hills High School, and Freeport High School), as well as two informal science learning agencies (the New York Hall of Science and the Black Rock Forest Consortium). The project’s overall goal is to improve the effectiveness of biology, chemistry, geoscience, and physics secondary science educators from culturally diverse communities. To this end, the project seeks to support a total of 30 Scholars across three annual cohorts of undergraduate students and STEM professionals. To support completion of New York State licensing requirements for secondary science teaching, twelve undergraduate Scholars will receive two-year scholarships and eighteen STEM professionals will receive one-year stipends. The project aims to deliver a revised curriculum intended to enhance Scholars' technological content knowledge, science pedagogies, and research experience. It is expected that the project will contribute to a deeper understanding about how integrating formal and informal technology training can support the preparation of highly qualified, culturally diverse teachers who will advance scientific literacy in high-need schools. The results of this work have the potential to inform other teacher preparation programs across the country. This Track 1: Scholarships and Stipends project is supported through the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program (Noyce). The Noyce program supports talented STEM undergraduate majors and professionals to become effective K-12 STEM teachers and experienced, exemplary K-12 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.
