This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
The Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) NSF Master Teaching Fellowship Program is aligning, coordinating, and integrating resources across the College of Education, College of Basic and Applied Sciences, STEM Industry Partners, non-profit partners (the Rutherford County Chamber of Commerce and Mind2Marketplace), and 6 high needs P-12 school districts (DeKalb, Grundy, Lewis, Lawrence, and Rutherford Counties and Tullahoma City) to select and support the development of 14 master teachers to become MTSU NSF Master Teaching Fellows. While these master teachers already possess the requisite criteria to be considered master teachers, their effect on their school and district is being transformed through their development and empowerment into a professional learning community of Master Teaching Fellows (MTFs), leading educational transformation across all STEM disciplines in high-needs schools. The 14 master teachers are assessed via a series of content, pedagogy, pedagogical content knowledge, STEM workforce development skills, and educational leadership instruments. Based on the data from these pre-assessments, the Master Teaching Fellows participate in a collaborative inquiry development process that generates an annual Master Teaching Fellow Enhancement Plan (MTF-EP). The project is supporting each MTF with an annual $10,000 salary supplement/stipend for five years. Additionally, the MTFs are supported with a team of content, pedagogy, and leadership mentors from MTSU as well as a district administrative partner and a STEM Industry partner as they take on an instructional leadership role in their school and district. The common transformative element of the program is the annual lesson design / action research project. All Master Teaching Fellows develop and implement a lesson design / action research project each year and present their findings to colleagues, administrators, and regional and/or national conference audiences. Through the consistent and regular participation of teachers, administrators, STEM industry partners and university faculty, the project is seeking to institutionalize lesson design / action research as a sustained element within the school districts' school improvement and professional development programs.
