The Talented Teachers in Training for Texas (T4) is an effort led by the Stephen F. Austin State (SFA) University in partnership with Angelina College (AC) and the Texas Region 7 Education Service Center. The T4 endeavor supports development of twenty secondary teachers of mathematics, chemistry, biology, or physics. The goals of T4 are two-fold: (1) to increase capacity of STEM teaching majors, and (2) to study the development of a research-based model for strengthening the STEM teacher pipeline that provides support for STEM teachers, regardless of the remoteness of their location in rural settings.
T4 recruits from the robust SFA and AC freshman and sophomore population of STEM majors to choose a select candidate pool of fifty-five Noyce Recruits. Each Recruit participates in a two-week summer experience involving a math/science camp and STEM classroom observation. From this group, twenty highly-talented Recruits, committed to a career in teaching, are chosen to become Noyce Scholars, each receiving a $15,000 annual scholarship during his/her junior and senior years. In addition, the Noyce Scholars receive intensive academic mentoring, beginning when they are introduced to the possibility of a STEM teaching career as a Recruit, continuing through their scholarship years, and culminating with three years of active classroom induction. T4 Noyce Scholars earn a baccalaureate degree in mathematics, biology, chemistry or physics, as well as a Teaching Certificate.
T4 Noyce Scholars are mentored by STEM faculty collaborating with the existing SFA Noyce Master Teaching Fellows and Master Teachers, which is explicitly tasked with supporting Scholars during their successful passage through the STEM pipeline. Researching teacher quality and effectiveness is a prime focus of SFA's newly established STEM Research and Learning Center. Through this STEM Center, T4 examines project data to discover effective recruitment strategies, to document longitudinal effects of collaborative preparation of highly qualified STEM teachers, to explore sustained induction experiences in a rural environment, to develop culturally responsive pedagogy, and finally, to learn how these teachers impact student success. Through T4, SFA's effort adds to the knowledge base on recruiting, equipping, and retaining STEM teachers by investigating the following: the effectiveness of the summer camp/ shadowing experiences in recruiting; the effectiveness of interaction with STEM professionals and master teachers; the effect of the cohort design; and the effect of peer recruitment between cohort years. By addressing these topics, T4 contributes to the knowledge base for best practices in recruitment, induction, and retention of STEM majors and teachers.
