This Noyce Track 3: Master Teaching Fellowships (MTF) project, Developing Science Leaders in High-Need Elementary Schools: Noyce Master Teaching Fellows Academy, will address a serious gap in the STEM knowledge pipeline - the dearth of strong science instruction. The project aims to increase understanding of factors that contribute to building a foundation for science learning in the critical elementary school years by providing elementary teachers who teach in underperforming, high-poverty schools with 1) the disciplinary and pedagogical knowledge to more effectively engage students in science learning and achievement and 2) the leadership skills to develop powerful professional learning communities that can support and sustain improved elementary science instruction. The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) observed that learning science is a cumulative process, requiring strong groundwork to be laid in childhood. Because relatively few initiatives focus on elementary level STEM instruction, this project provides a bellwether opportunity to accumulate and disseminate unique knowledge about best practices for improved elementary science education. Project results will not only shape effective strategies for improving science teaching and learning across New York City classrooms, schools, and districts, but also serve as a national model for driving better STEM outcomes through the enhancement of elementary STEM education.
This College of Staten Island (CSI) Master Teaching Fellowships Noyce project will recruit 16 K-5 experienced and exemplary elementary teachers working in high-need, low performing schools in New York City's District 31 and prepare them to become science teacher leaders in this District. The project, in partnership with the non-profit Staten Island MakerSpace, will enable these elementary teachers to advance their science teaching while, simultaneously, facilitating development of leadership skills to create a network of science teacher leaders with the collective capacity to improve the quality of science teaching across the district's high-need elementary schools. To build these competencies, the project will engage teachers in a blended, multi-component Professional Development (PD) that includes: a) content-based graduate level courses at CSI with integrated STEM research/lab experiences on campus, led by CSI STEM faculty; b) face-to-face training led by CSI School of Education faculty and Discovery Institute experts in the fields of teacher leadership, curriculum, and pedagogy; and c) online and face-to-face collaboration with project faculty and MTF peers. The PD will also include a school and field-based component that is integrated into the daily work of participating teachers by involving them in delivering workshops in STEM learning and teaching to colleagues at their own schools and at the Staten Island MakerSpace. By focusing on teachers' development in three overlapping waves - teacher as science learner, teacher as science teacher, and teacher as facilitator of professional community - the project will develop educators' capacity to affect their individual classrooms and schools as well as district-wide science instruction.
