- Year 2023
- NSF Noyce Award # 2243319
- First Name Susan
- Last Name Ferguson
- Discipline Engineering, Mathematics
- Co-PI(s)
Joe Gaston, Kelly Byrd, Katie McCorrison, Christopher Parrish, Madhuri Mulekar, Andre Green, Tres Stefurak, Shenghua Wu
- Presenters
Susan Ferguson, Joe Gaston, Kelly Byrd, Katie McCorrison, Andre Green, Christopher Parrish
Need
Currently, the lack of certified mathematics teachers contributes to poor achievement and low expectations for high-risk pupils. This problem is greatly intensified in rural and urban areas with overpopulated mathematics classrooms, individuals teaching outside their field of certification, and long-term substitute teachers who do not have STEM backgrounds. Results of the aforementioned ACAP evaluation for mathematics showed that only 2.18% of students were proficient in mathematics at Williamson grades 8-12 preparatory academy, a partner school with USA. Pillans Middle School, another USA partner school, had a 1.62% proficiency in mathematics across grades 6-8. The PTM 2 program will have an immediate impact on working with the student population of the schools to help fill gaps in mathematical understanding as well as staffing title one partner schools with high quality mathematics teachers and as a result increase student achievement in those schools.
Research Questions
1). How have recruitment efforts for PTM 2 led to the attraction of an ethnically and culturally diverse pool of candidates for the pre-residency experience? How have they added to the number of diverse mathematics teachers as a result of the Noyce PTM 2 initiative? 2). How does the added approach of a Summer STEM and Diversity Institute and Super STEM Saturday support impact teacher efficacy of the participants, both newly recruited through PTM 2 and those recruited through prior Noyce projects who participated? 3). What has been the impact on grades 6-12 student learning as a result of PTM 2 training?
Approach
The goal of Noyce Pathway to Mathematics 2: An Integrated STEM Initiative Focused in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (PTM 2) is to increase the number of highly qualified mathematics teachers in MCPSS and other regional school districts, while continuing to mentor current teachers produced by the initial Pathway to Mathematics (PTM) grant. A focus of the PTM 2 initiative will be attracting racially and ethnically diverse mathematics and engineering majors, who are traditionally underrepresented in the mathematics teaching field, into the profession by an extensive recruitment campaign utilizing racially diverse graduates of the previously funded Noyce PTM program as spokespeople, and by way of targeted advertising, campus visits to local community colleges and within local and regional student organizations whose student populations identify as predominantly underrepresented in mathematics education. The project will advertise to senior mathematics, statistics, and engineering classes, through advising centers for those majors with help from Co-PIs representing those departments.
Outcomes
N/A New Project
Broader Impacts
N/A New Project
