- Year 2018
- NSF Noyce Award # 1439817
- First Name Steven
- Last Name Fletcher
- Discipline Other: Phase II award
- Co-PI(s)
Glenda Ballard, St. Edward’s University, gballard@stedwards.edu
Cindy Naples, St. Edward’s University, cynthian@stedwards.edu
David Blair, St. Edward’s University, davidab@stedwards.edu
- Presenters
Steven Fletcher, St. Edward’s University, stevenf@stedwards.edu
Wan Sin Lim, University of Texas at Austin, wansin.lim@utexas.edu
Need
The Phase II Noyce award at St. Edward’s University (SEU) was designed to a. Evaluate the effectiveness of a prior Noyce Phase I award induction program and extend support to scholars for two additional years to build leadership capacity and b.) Examine the partnership with a local community college partner from phase I. SEU is specifically interested in building relationships between local Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI) to help develop teachers. It is valuable and necessary to learn what strategies were successful and what strategies were not successful for future relationship building opportunities with our partnering HSI community college. This knowledge will benefit 2-4 year institution relationships.
Goals
The goals shared in this poster are a. Evaluate the effectiveness of extending a collaborative and engineering-design (maker) focused induction program to 5 years as a career and leadership support for scholars and; b. present findings from a study that explored the complexity of 2yr/4yr IHE partnerships related to STEM teacher preparation. The activities to meet these goals included design and implementation of monthly STEM Teacher Circles for scholars and surrounding STEM ed community, mini-grants for scholars to build leadership skills, and the development and implementation of a research plan to collect data from stakeholders related to 2/4 yr IHE teacher transfer pipelines.
Approach
The research methodology for this project included qualitative, case study (CS) research design (See Stake, 2005) and constructivist grounded theory (CGT). Qualitative research is appropriate for this work due to the nature and context of the study goals. Because both the STEM teacher circle and institutional partners are complex social settings, a holistic and contextually rich analysis is necessary to uncover key findings (Creswell, 2003). The induction/leadership study used CS design while the 2/4 yr pipeline study used CGT to explore possible factors related to transfer. Data collection instruments and techniques included: Written surveys, semi-structured interviews, artifact collection from events and classrooms, focus groups, field notes, and memos to capture the richness of the data.
Outcomes
Key findings from extended induction study include: Community of Practice (CoP) development supports scholar leadership; time and distance matter; and a drop off in scholar commitment to induction program occurs if extended past three years.
Key findings from 2/4 yr partnership study include: STEM teacher transfer pipelines from one large urban CC to a small private liberal arts university face challenges related to communication, cost, competition, and culture; some factors are perceived/not accurate by students, staff, and faculty at one or both institutions; informal partnerships may offer more ways to build pipelines than formal ones; and finally, decreasing enrollment nationwide of teacher candidates and other outside constraints may factor heavily on success of partnership.
Broader Impacts
This work has specific impacts to the broader community. First, it builds the knowledge base on how induction programs can impact both mentor and mentee professional development. Second, it provides one model for examining the relationship between engineering design and technology activities and learning with contemporary math and science instruction. Finally, it adds to the literature base on factors related to teacher pipelines and partnerships between two- to four-year HSI institutions.
Program results have been disseminated nationally at local and national STEM education conferences. Manuscripts relating to induction program and partnership study are currently in progress for submission to peer reviewed journals.
