- Year 2024
- NSF Noyce Award # 2050336
- First Name Corin
- Last Name Slown
- Registration Faculty/Administrator/Other
- Discipline Chemistry, Computer Science, Engineering, Geosciences, Life Sciences, Mathematics, Physics, STEM Education (general)
- Role Principal Investigator (PI)
- Presenters
Corin Slown, Dennis Kombe, and Joanne Lieberman, CSUMB
Need
RISE Ready engages students in the practices of real scientists, engineers, and mathematicians. An integrated, multidisciplinary approach ensures students learn through authentic inquiry activities. Mentoring, faculty advising, near peer-feedback, and collaborative activities support learning.RISE Ready implements STEM Teacher Pathways professional learning opportunities to complement Undergraduate Research Experiences, including action research for teachers, internships for credit, and STEM research with outreach through regional REUs and federal, state, and local partners. We address issues of equity, inclusion, diversity, and culturally relevant pedagogy in STEM by making meaningful connections to the cultural knowledge and ways of knowing.
Research Questions
1. Students as assets with social capital entering a pathway: a. What scaffolding recruitment, preparation, and support strategies emphasized students’ prior experience and funds of knowledge? b. What onset, frequency, and duration of experiences are common among Associates? 2. Students as assets staying on the pathway/deepening their commitment to STEM teaching: a. How does student participation in early teaching and integrative research experiences deepen student commitment to a STEM teaching pathway? b. What onset, frequency, and duration of experiences are common among Scholars? c. What evidence-based advising and mentoring practices result in students joining and persisting in a STEM Education pathway? d. What onset, frequency, and duration of mentoring provides effective support? 3. Students as assets emerging as highly qualified STEM teachers: a. How effective are Noyce Scholars as practicing teachers in rural, remote, and hybrid learning environments?
Approach
A mixed methods approach was utilized. Data were collected throughdocument review of key RISE Ready documents, including student reflections, focus groups with Noyce scholars and Associates, as well as an interview with grant leadership. The Student Transformative Learning Record (STLR) framework used to evaluate these reflections provides three STLR Achievement Level Descriptions, which apply to six tenets. This analysis focused on only one tenet; the Research, Creative & Scholarly Activities (RCSA) tenet, defined as: Research, creative and scholarly activities involve student-centered learning mentored by faculty, staff or professionals to create knowledge, peer-reviewed presentations, publications, creative projects, exhibitions or performances to be recognized as legitimate scholarly or creative contributions to an area of study.
Outcomes
We provide a summary of the first three years of the STEM Education Central Coast Conference. This includes the number and type of participant (community college students, university students, pre-service teacher credential candidates, in-service teachers candidates, and informal education partners).
Broader Impacts
Through the faculty engagement and partnerships established during the Noyce Capacity Building Grant as well as ongoing outreach, scaffolded recruitment strategies at the community colleges have been able to reach more students than anticipated. The STEM Education Central Coast Conference provides professional networking opportunities. California enrolled 5.8 million students in K-12 public schools. Over half (54.2%) of those students are Hispanic. Data indicate that in California, only 20% of the teachers are Hispanic and only 35% in total are URM (CDE, 2023). b) We will benefit Hispanic rural California communities by recruiting, preparing, and supporting 30 new math and science minorityteachers in their early careers. The majority of school districts in California’s Central Coast region are classified as rural and serve primarily Hispanic and socioeconomically disadvantaged (SED) students. By diversifying the demographics of STEM teachers in Central California, these highly qualified STEM teachers will serve as STEM leaders for over 20,000 K-12 students per year in their communities.
