- Year 2016
- NSF Noyce Award # 1240055
- First Name Peter
- Last Name Garik
- Discipline Science Teaching
- Co-PI(s)
Donald DeRosa, Boston University, donder@bu.edu
; Dan Dill, Boston University, dan@bu.edu; Andrew Duffy, Boston University, aduffy@bu.edu; Bennett Goldberg, Boston University, goldberg@bu.edu - Presenters
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. 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 in these settings. The principal activities to achieve these goals include monthly meetings with the Noyce Scholar graduates during their induction years, and 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 systematic surveys, interviews, and classroom observations with debriefings. The monthly meetings also 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 a consultancy derived protocol is used to facilitate the Scholars in helping each other solve their problems. 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
1. 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.
2. Scholars who report being well supported by administration and faculty in their schools once they begin teaching report higher levels of self-efficacy during the first two years of teaching.
3. 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 has increased the number of highly qualified science teachers in high needs districts who are engaged in preparing underrepresented minority and economically disadvantaged students for potential careers in STEM fields.
We will continue to follow the careers of these Noyce Scholars longitudinally to learn what teachers in high need districts perceive as challenges and necessary supports.
Broader Impacts
As part of the Noyce Scholar program, Project BoNUSS aims 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 24 science teachers that we have prepared continue to 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.
We have been presenting at conferences and are planning to publish the current research in education journals.
