- Year 2024
- NSF Noyce Award # 1950139
- First Name Carmen
- Last Name Bellido
- Registration Faculty/Administrator/Other
- Discipline Chemistry, Life Sciences, Mathematics, Physics, STEM Education (general)
- Role Principal Investigator (PI)
- Presenters
Carmen Bellido (PI), Juan López-Garriga (CoPI), Moises Orengo (Mentor), Bernadette Delgado (Evaluator), & Janette Ferrer (Mentor) – University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez
Need
While educators have access to a wealth of excellent resources, their abundance and accessibility do not guarantee effective classroom implementation. Teacher knowledge and training in utilizing these resources are crucial. Notably, many Noyce scholarship programs incorporate professional development that strengthens participants’ skills and expertise in leveraging these readily available tools. Therefore, such training strategies must be grounded in best-practice research to ensure the successful transfer of learning to actual classroom practice using proven online materials by trusted sources like NASA, GLOBE, and Sea Grant.
Research Questions
How effective are the professional development programs in equipping educators with the necessary skills to utilize online resources from NASA, GLOBE, and Sea Grant? What strategies can successfully transfer learning from professional development programs to actual classroom practice?
Approach
Our approach to STEM education leverages various online resources and hands-on workshops to provide future STEM teachers with a comprehensive and engaging learning experience. We conducted several training workshops utilizing the Global Learning and Observation to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) resources. These online materials offer a wealth of information and tools that can be used to enhance the teaching and learning of environmental science. We engaged students in practical data collection activities to celebrate International Earth Day. They gathered environmental data on clouds and trees, which were automatically sent to NASA. This provided a real-world application of their learning and contributed to ongoing scientific research. We also encouraged students to generate a history of the environment of their school, home, or place of fun. This activity fostered a deeper understanding and appreciation of their local environment. A hybrid workshop titled “Resources to Teach STEM” was offered, utilizing the Spanish version of the NASA webpage. Participants were guided to select and adapt an activity, which they then recorded on video with the help of on-campus resources. This allowed for a personalized and interactive learning experience. Finally, the Sea Grant education personnel delivered a hybrid workshop on “Climate Change.” This workshop demonstrated the basic principles of climate change and introduced the scholars to various resources, including teacher’s and student’s manuals and a laboratory manual. These resources can be used to implement activities in the classroom, further enriching the learning experience. Our approach combines online resources with practical, hands-on experiences to provide a dynamic and effective STEM education.
Outcomes
So far, the project has impacted 30 students: 19 scholarship recipients and 11 affiliates. Alumni successfully adapted NASA, GLOBE, and Sea Grant educational activities with his students. NoTeS scholars will adapt five selected activities in the spring of 2024. NASA workshop scholars selected one activity to be adapted and recorded using university resources. Participants described the professional development activities as well-organized and effective and said they would use the resources presented in their classroom. Comments by Scholars indicated that they would integrate GLOBE, NASA, and SEA GRANT activities in their classes to increase students’ motivation to study science. Regarding NASA activities, one Scholar indicated: “As a future educator in science, NASA is a big facilitator in educational resources and programs for students of any grade. What I’ve learned today will be used to foster a love for space and science”. Another stated: “I will be applying the acquired knowledge and tools in my career as a teacher and with my future students.” SEA GRANT activities also received high praise with comments such as “As a future educator, I must be prepared to teach classes other than physics, one of which is environmental science. The laboratory activities showed in that workshop, and the different resources each participant was given, will be handy when planning and evaluating the knowledge students get in the different topics discussed.” (Translations from activities evaluation forms by Evaluator).
Broader Impacts
The NoTeS Program recruited highly qualified UPRM STEM majors who otherwise might not have considered becoming STEM teachers. With the NoTeS Program, the UPRM Teacher Preparation program produced at least 30 STEM teachers. The professional development of future STEM teachers is enhanced by readily available proven educational materials produced by NASA, GLOBE, and Sea Grant. By assisting in disseminating outreach materials in ready-to-use classroom form from a single campus online website, NoTeS aspired to develop a culture at UPRM that encourages and supports highly qualified STEM majors becoming teachers in high-need educational schools. By providing this service, incorporating STEM materials based on campus research into Methodology and Teaching Practice courses, and using these in significant preclinical experiences in undergraduate STEM, NoTeS promoted mutually beneficial interaction between campus STEM researchers and Teacher Preparation faculty. The results of these interactions between STEM and education faculty were disseminated in both scientific and academic conferences and journal articles.
