Washington State University is offering scholarships in the amount of $10,000 to twelve underrepresented engineering students to encourage them to remain in school an additional year to earn a teaching certificate and return to their home communities as high school math teachers. Because they are engineers, the incremental education needed to teach mathematics in high school is relatively small and they can use engineering examples to provide motivation for the study of mathematics. The new teachers serve as role models and are able to encourage more of their students to pursue professional careers in science and engineering.
The engineering students in the program are recruited from south central Washington. The average resident of this area has a substantially smaller income and is much less likely to hold a BS degree than the average Washington State resident. Further, students from this area are more likely to be of Hispanic ethnicity and to attend high needs schools. They are motivated toward a teaching career by the desire of many students to return to their home communities, the relatively high pay for teachers in Washington, and support features that are effective at keeping teachers in the classroom during the critical first two years of their careers. A unique aspect of this project is the placement of the teachers in paid internship summer jobs in industry to augment their salary and keep them active in the engineering profession.
A significant result of this project is enhanced educational opportunities for students from Hispanic backgrounds. Each of the 12 new teachers trained in this program (four each year in years 2 through 4 of the program) influences 120 students per year. Over the four years of service required by the grant, these teachers will influence nearly 6000 students. Moreover, students will benefit from more relevant education (because engineers use math on a daily basis and can provide a real context for lesson topics) and be exposed to professional opportunities that they may not have known about previously.
The purpose of Washington State University’s Noyce Scholarship program was to recruit students with engineering backgrounds into teaching careers. Convincing engineers to become math teachers was challenging and had limited success. We received NSF permission to modify eligibility criteria to include students who received math teaching endorsements through majors in mathematics or sciences (in the College of Sciences) and who agreed to also complete a minor in engineering. Although our project originally funded only 12 students, we were given supplemental funding in 2009 and 2010 for a total of 16 Noyce Scholars. Scholars were selected who were academically strong with strong interest in teaching and were in the last year of baccalaureate degree. We choose candidates who desired to: · complete their degrees in engineering or mathematics (with a minor in engineering when not earning a degree directly in engineering); · remain in school for one additional year in order to earn a teaching certificate; · return to their home communities (or other high need area schools) to teach math in middle or high school. Findings of the project included: (1) the development of an untapped source of math teachers (those who leave engineering for other disciplines), (2) that this pool of students creates highly qualified teachers (with a group GPA of 3.41); (3) that math teachers with engineering backgrounds have a high level of confidence and ability to teach mathematics and can provide more real-world connections to their students than those without this background; and (4) that math teachers with this background in engineering are extremely desirable to school districts for employment.
