- Year 2018
- NSF Noyce Award # 1340069
- First Name Dennis
- Last Name Sunal
- Discipline Other: Teacher Education
- Co-PI(s)
Cynthia Sunal, University of Alabama, cvsunal@ua.edu
Sharon Vincent, Shelton State Community College, svincent@sheltonstate.edu
James W. Harrell, University of Alabama, jwharrelljr@gmail.com
Kevin Shaughnessy, University of Alabama, kshaughn@ua.edu
Jeremy Zelkowski, University of Alabama, jzelkowski@ua.edu - Presenters
Cynthia Sunal, University of Alabama, cvsunal@ua.edu
; Dennis Sunal, University of Alabama, dwsunal@ua.edu
Need
The 5 year, 2013-2018 University of Alabama Noyce Scholarship Program (UA-Noyce) is designed increase the number and diversity of teachers graduating from UA in chemistry, mathematics, and physics.
Goals
The UA Noyce Track 1 program, funded through the National Science Foundation has the major goals of 1) recruitment using 12 collaborating community colleges; 2) early STEM teaching experiences with approximately 100 summer freshman and sophomore internships. Internships include multiple disciplinary tours and workshops on science research, experiencing science teaching in multiple grade 6-12 settings, and planning and teaching STEM lessons to 25 high school students each year; 3) extensive use of collaborative strategies in recruiting, supporting, and sustaining preservice juniors, seniors and graduate students including 21 two-year scholarships with an innovative preservice teacher university curriculum, and 4) evolving multistage induction for inservice graduates aimed at retaining quality teachers in rural and urban high needs school districts with a focus on underrepresented, diverse candidates. UA Noyce is having an impact on STEM within high needs schools, collaboration between higher education institutions, and within the university through its teacher education program.
Approach
The UA teacher preparation program involves a collaborative among stakeholders. The UA program is an innovative approach to address the characteristics of high needs schools while incorporating the features of an exemplary research-based program. It offers an array of student experiences that integrate science or mathematics teacher preparation. The Collaborative is strongly enhanced by extensively developing the linkages with community colleges and high needs school districts. The Collaborative oversees and implements early teaching experiences, content and teacher education coursework, and induction professional development experiences. Teacher learning is a professional continuum spanning recruitment, preparation, induction, and professional development as opposed to fragmented programs, institutions, or policy levers governed by localized mandates, beliefs, and practices.
Outcomes
1. Community College Consortium: UA Noyce is finding the establishment of a wide community college network serves as a pipeline to the recruitment of diverse, highly capable students into the chemistry, math, and physics major and teacher education certification programs. Community college liaisons are enthusiastic, meet with project senior personnel on a regular basis, and recruit rural and urban students often underrepresented in science and math education. 2. Instrumentation used to determine results: The evaluation of the 2017 UA Noyce summer internship program consisted of three pre-post experience attitudinal surveys, a program evaluation survey, a program satisfaction survey, and focus group interview data regarding satisfaction with the program. 3. Early recruitment efforts and retention are successful.
Broader Impacts
UA Noyce assists faculty in chemistry, physics, and mathematics in continuing professional development of pedagogical methods. Inservice teachers assist UA project staff in their outreach. The emphasis is on modifying instruction in undergraduate coursework to focus more on active inquiry-oriented student learning and engagement. This approach leads to a broader impact on the project. A secondary emphasis involves making connections in the undergraduate STEM curriculum with the Next Generation Science Standards preservice science teachers will be expected to implement and demonstrate in schools. Connections also are made to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics standards. UA Noyce’s 12 community college liaisons further extend impacts relating to student engagement at their campuses.
