- Year 2016
- NSF Noyce Award # 1540704
- First Name Jane
- Last Name Coffee
- Discipline STEM
- Co-PI(s)
Irina Lyublinskaya, College of Staten Island, irina.lyublinskaya@csi.cuny.edu
Susan Sullivan, College of Staten Island, susan.sullivan@csi.cuny.edu
Eleni Tournaki, College of Staten Island, nelly.tournaki@csi.cuny.edu - Presenters
Jane Coffee, College of Staten Island, jane.coffee@csi.cuny.edu
Need
(a) Why is this project important and what need(s) does it fulfill?
The Noyce scholars who were funded under phase 1 were hired in high-need schools where many had spent internships during their participation in the Noyce program. The principals wanted to hire new teachers who are well-prepared in their STEM disciplines and are knowledgeable about the culture of their school. Through the host school internship program the principals know our Noyce scholars and the Noyce scholars know the school. 100% of our Noyce graduates who have been hired in these high-need schools have been retained. There is no revolving door. Our Noyce graduates plan to be career STEM teachers in high need schools.
(b) Who does this project benefit and why?
Most of our Noyce scholars are graduates of high-need high schools and middle schools. They are successful models for the students that they teach. The principals are impressed with their academic preparation and eager to hire them. This project benefits the students in STEM classes in high need schools, the principals who want to hire effective teachers, and the Noyce scholars who want to teach STEM in these schools.
Goals
(a) What are the goals for this project?
To graduate honors majors in mathematics, biology, chemistry, and physics that have had significant internship experience in high need high schools and middle schools to be effective new teachers and to remain as career teachers.
(b) What key activities are taking place?
Every semester CSI Noyce scholars spend a minimum of 5 hours per week for 10 weeks. They rotate after each semester to one of 6 high schools or 3 middle schools that are high-need schools. Each semester there is a fieldwork seminar for the partnering high need host school faculty and administrators, current members of the Teacher Education Honors Academy that includes the Noyce scholars, and college faculty from the STEM and Education Departments.
Noyce scholars participate in a New York City Department of Education Summer School teaching internship. For the past two summers, Noyce scholars have participated in an International Teaching Internship in Russia where they have observed similarities and differences in STEM teaching.
Approach
(a) How are the goals of the project being achieved?
Significant internship time is spent in different high-need school settings. Students learn about the different school cultures and the teachers and administrators in these schools have an opportunity to evaluate the growth of these students while they are still undergraduates. Surveys are completed by the collaborating teachers and Noyce scholars every semester. A longitudinal study has started and will incorporate the results from a new survey of Noyce graduates.
(b) What approach frameworks, and/or methods are being used and why?
The model of medical residency is the framework for the host school internships. Noyce scholars are assigned greater responsibilities in the classroom as they progress through the program. It begins with guided classroom observations, then individual tutoring, then group tutoring, then “do nows”, then lesson planning, then part of a lesson, and then a complete lesson. When the Noyce scholars do their student teaching, they are assigned a classroom with a supervising teacher but they have a real teaching experience.
(c) Who is involved? Collaborating teachers and administrators at 9 high need host schools—6 high schools and 3 middle schools, the Noyce scholars, the students in STEM classes at these host schools, and an evaluator.
Outcomes
(a) What are the key outcomes and/or findings of the project?
Significant internship experience with increasing teaching responsibilities while still an undergraduate provides a real-life experience for future teachers. Principals are able to observe possible future hires in real classrooms in their schools. The host schools are different although all are high-need. Some are huge, some small, some with a majority of a particular ethnic group, and all of them with many different native languages. Noyce scholars have enough experience to make a reasoned judgement of the type of school that they prefer.
(b) What are the key deliverables?
Phase 1 Noyce Grant (2010-2015) funded 17 Noyce graduates who are teaching in high need schools– 13 are teaching mathematics in 7 high schools in New York City, 3 are teaching biology in 3 high schools and 1 is teaching chemistry in a high school. The first Noyce scholars graduated in 2012 and the teacher retention rate for all the Noyce graduates is 100%.
(c) What is coming next?
A longitudinal study of the CSI Noyce graduates based on a newly created survey.
A ‘reunion’ of graduate Noyce scholars and current Noyce scholars.
Broader Impacts
(a) What are broader impacts of the project?
It is possible – although not easy – to recruit honors students in the STEM disciplines who want to teach in high need schools, to provide them with financial and academic support through their undergraduate years, to give them real and significant teaching internship experiences in high need schools, to produce graduates that are considered the “gold standard” by principals who hire them, and to have these Noyce scholars become effective career teachers.
(b) Who has been impacted by this project and how?
The students in the STEM courses in the high need schools where Noyce graduates have been hired and the Noyce scholars who have been prepared and hired to be the next generation of STEM teachers.
(c) What means of dissemination have been used?
Undergraduate Research Conference presentations by Noyce scholars, April 2016.
Publication in College of Staten Island Newsmakers, March 2016
Publication in the 13th International Congress on Mathematical Education, July 2016
