- Year 2023
- NSF Noyce Award # 2149596
- First Name Colleen
- Last Name Eddy
- Discipline Geosciences
- Co-PI(s)
Zhenhua Huang
- Presenters
Colleen M. Eddy
Need
This project serves a national need for building a pathway for engineering majors to become grades 6-12 STEM teachers in high-need schools. Students in engineering, especially those racially minoritized, are deemed a shortage area and disproportionately carry more student debt. This project includes developing a recruitment plan, a supplementary induction plan, and reshaping graduate teacher certification for engineering majors to become STEM teachers. This is a collaboration between the College of Engineering and the College of Education at the University of North Texas.
Research Questions
1. Recruitment: If a pathway for Engineering majors is created, will they seek to be teachers of mathematics, physical science, and engineering, especially individuals racially minoritized? 2. Induction: What components of a supplemental collaborative induction are needed between UNT and partner school districts to support and retain engineering majors as STEM teachers? 3. Program Infrastructure: How does reshaping a post-baccalaureate program for STEM teachers support engineering majors?
Approach
For recruitment, the research team used an explanatory sequential mixed method to determine if engineering majors would be interested in teaching mathematics, physical science, and engineering in a high-needs school, especially individual racially minoritized (Tashakkori & Creswell, 2007). Yang et al. (2015) survey was adapted and uploaded to a web-based survey platform for data gathering. Those participants who showed an interest in teaching and being part of focus group were selected for focus groups. For determining the components of a supplemental induction program between UNT and partner school districts, a review of literature of successful induction program between universities and district partner(s) regarding the included components (Eddy, Bump, and Huang, 2022). Also, a content analysis of our district partners induction programs of the components included then identifying potential components for the supplemental induction program between UNT and partner districts. For the final guiding question, we plan to investigate after the program with changes begins and engineering majors are admitted.
Outcomes
The poster will present the results up to date for recruitment, induction, and program infrastructure. The focus will be on recruitment with results from adapted survey (Yang et. al, 2015) and focus group data with an emphasis on racially maginalized engineering students. We will further present findings on the supplementary induction program (Eddy, Bump, & Huang, 2022). Our next steps is to finalize the reshaping of the of the post-baccalaureate program for engineering majors to be STEM teachers.
Broader Impacts
This capacity building project at the University of North Texas potentially serves as a model for U.S. engineering majors to become STEM teachers at the post-baccalaureate level through the collaboration between the College of Education and College of Engineering and district partners. This has the potential to support racially marginalized students from high school to college and increasing diversity in STEM careers, especially engineering.
