- Year 2017
- NSF Noyce Award # 1240055
- First Name Peter
- Last Name Garik
- Discipline Other: physical sciences
- Co-PI(s)
Dan Dill, Boston University, dan@bu.edu
Donald DeRosa, Boston University, donder@bu.edu
Andrew Duffy, Boston University, aduffy@bu.edu - Presenters
Tyler Wooley-Brown, Boston University, tbwbrown@bu.edu
Peter Garik, Boston University, garik@bu.edu
Need
There is a national need to recruit and retain highly qualified science teachers in high need school districts. As a Noyce Scholars Program, our project aims to better understand what teachers need so that they will remain in high school districts over the long term. We are conducting research on the preparation of the Noyce Scholars in our pre-service program and during their induction years with respect to their expressed needs. Improved preparation may lead to their greater retention in high need school districts. This will benefit society as a whole by increasing the access that underrepresented minority and economically disadvantaged student populations have to high quality science education.
Goals
The goals of the project are to increase the number of highly qualified middle school and high school science teachers in high need school districts, and to determine what is needed to retain them in these settings. The principal activities to achieve these goals include monthly meetings with the Noyce Scholar graduates during their induction years, careful monitoring through classroom observations, debriefing sessions, interviews, and surveys to learn the needs of the new teachers as they perceive them.
Approach
The goals of the project are being achieved through feedback to the Project BoNUSS staff as provided by systematic surveys, interviews, and classroom observations with debriefings. Monthly meetings function as an opportunity for group discussion of issues that the scholars face in their day-to-day teaching. These issues are posed by the Scholars and inform the Boston University Project BoNUSS staff. The Scholars, the master teachers, the research faculty, and the research graduate assistant are all engaged in the research, the evaluation, and the meeting activities.
Outcomes
Our research indicates that differentiated preparation in the science methods courses is necessary for Scholars being prepared to teach in middle school as opposed to high school, as well as differentiated support by content fields at the high school level. For this reason, we modified our induction year supports to include workshops in specific areas. Moreover, the Scholars report that the monthly meetings of Scholars, university faculty, and master teachers are valuable both in maintaining collaboration networks developed during their teacher training program.
Project BoNUSS increased the number of highly qualified science teachers in high needs districts. With the end of our first grant, and the start of our new grant, we are engaged in a longitudinal study that is revealing where our Scholars need the most support.
Broader Impacts
As part of the Noyce Scholar program, Project BoNUSS aimed to increase the access to highly-qualified secondary science teachers by underrepresented minority and economically disadvantaged student populations in keeping with the educational objectives of the White House, the Department of Education, and the National Science Education. The 30 science teachers that we have prepared work in high needs districts in the Greater Boston area, and other school districts around the country, and are preparing students who might otherwise not have access to a high quality science education.
