- Year 2019
- NSF Noyce Award # 1660700
- First Name Christine
- Last Name Lotter
- Discipline Biology, Chemistry, Math, Physics
- Co-PI(s)
Jan Yow, University of South Carolina, yow@mailbox.sc.edu; Bert Ely, University of South Carolina, ely@sc.edu; George Roy, University of South Carolina, roygj@mailbox.sc.edu
- Presenters
Christine Lotter, University of South Carolina, lotter@mailbox.sc.edu; Jan Yow, University of South Carolina, yow@mailbox.sc.edu
Need
This poster will highlight our programs work with both school district partners as well as a community college partner. Through our partnerships and through program design features, we will share how our scholars are learning project-based learning (PBL) instructional strategies, observing these practices in local schools and engaging in STEM projects with our Central Carolina Technical College partnership. These supports provide our scholars with tools to design cutting edge STEM instructional units to engage their future high need students. Our scholars gain experience with PBL strategies and also learn engineering design and technology tools such as how to use computer-aided design software and 3D-printers. Teachers’ use of these instructional tools have been shown to improve student engagement and learning in high need schools. We will also share results of a research study that investigated 20 of our prior Noyce scholars who have been teaching for at least four years.
Goals
This poster will share information that looks at: How can Noyce programs successfully collaborate with community partners to enhance scholars STEM instructional skills and knowledge? We will also share early results from a Noyce teacher research study that investigated this research question: What factors are important for retaining successful science and mathematics teachers in middle and high school classrooms?
Approach
Noyce community partner focus: We will share program features and projects that we have engaged our scholars in over the first two years of our grant program. These include monthly seminar meetings with Noyce mentors and school teacher partners, visits to observe teachers enacting project-based learning units (PBL), 1-credit hour course that focuses on PBL instruction. Noyce research study: This study involved sending a survey to all past Noyce scholars (from our first Noyce scholarship grant), interviewing 20 of these prior Noyce scholars who are teaching, and observing a science or mathematics lesson within their classroom. We will share some early interview data findings as thing research study is still active.
Outcomes
Some key findings from our Noyce scholars participation in STEM projects and PBL instructional training include a greater understanding of current technology tools (3-D printing, CAD programing) that can aid in PBL unit development. We have also shown our scholars how to engage students in more relevant science and mathematics instruction. We will also share some lessons learned through our Community College partnerships such as the need to bring the content level down to the appropriate level and how we worked as a team to design effective and engaging projects for our scholars. Key finding from the research study into how to retain science and mathematics teachers include a need to provide teachers with opportunities for collaborative planning with content peers during school, encourage open communication between teachers and administrators, reduce non-instructional teacher tasks and micromanagement of teachers’ planning and instructional time.
Broader Impacts
We will share our partnership model with other Noyce projects as well as what we have learned through our various instructional support elements (courses, workshops, school practicums) and what we will do moving forward to enhance our scholars’ pedagogical skills. For our research study, we hope to emphasize through the use of our Noyce teachers words, what elements are essential for keeping quality mathematics and science teachers in our secondary classrooms.
