- Year 2024
- NSF Noyce Award # 2243319
- First Name Susan
- Last Name Ferguson
- Registration Faculty/Administrator/Other
- Discipline Mathematics
- Role Principal Investigator (PI)
- Presenters
Dr. Susan Ferguson, Dr. Kelly Byrd, Ramsey Willis, Andrew Pham, University of South Alabama
Need
The project aims to serve the national need of preparing highly effective mathematics teachers to address the deficit of mathematical content competency and to support students in achieving their full mathematical potential. Currently, the lack of certified mathematics teachers contributes to poor achievement and low expectations for high-risk pupils. This problem is intensified in rural and urban areas with overpopulated classrooms, individuals teaching outside certification field, and long-term substitute teachers lacking STEM backgrounds.
Research Questions
Goals include adding to the body of knowledge factors that attract STEM majors to careers as mathematics teachers, and engaging current STEM majors and professionals in a curriculum designed to provide a wide spectrum of teaching experiences beneficial to all students, especially those within lower socioeconomic situations who are attending high needs schools. A critical characteristic of intellectual merit for PTM 2 will be its capacity to produce mathematicsteachers who stay in the profession while evaluating effects of an integrated STEMapproach to teaching mathematics starting in the middle grades.
Approach
It is projected that through coursework, a Summer STEM and Diversity Institute, seminars, immersive field trips, and workshops focused in culturally relevant pedagogy and diversity education, and through real life personal connections with middle and high school students, PTM 2 scholars will graduate with the tools and dispositions to meet the academic, social, and psychological needs of students in the population they will serve.
Outcomes
The Pathway to Mathematics II (PTM 2) project intends to help schools fill gaps in student mathematical understanding while staffing title one schools with 20 high quality mathematics teachers over a five year period, continuing to mentor current teachers produced by the initial PTM project. A focus of PTM 2 will be attracting racially and ethnically diverse STEM majors from related disciplines such as mathematics and engineering, traditionally underrepresented in the mathematics teaching field, by an extensive recruitment campaign. A hallmark of the project will be its pre-residency experience, allowing prospective teachers to observe with mentor teachers prior to joining the PTM 2 project. Scholars will graduatewith a master’s degree in mathematics education, including graduate coursework in both teaching pedagogy and mathematics content.
Broader Impacts
This project of the University of South Alabama College of Education and Professional Studies and the Colleges of Arts and Sciences and Engineering includes a partnership with the Mobile County Public School System. This Track 1:Scholarships and Stipends project is supported through the Robert Noyce Scholarship Program (Noyce). The Noyce program supports talented STEM undergraduate majors and professionals to become effective K-12 STEM teachers and experienced, exemplary K-12 teachers to become STEM master teachers in high-need school districts. It also supports research on the effectiveness and retention of K-12 STEM teachers in high-need school districts.
