- Year 2024
- NSF Noyce Award # 2151141
- First Name Erika
- Last Name Mein
- Institution University of Texas at El Paso
- Role/Position Co-PI
- Proposal Type Workshop
- Workshop Category Track 2: Teaching Fellowships
- Workshop Disciplines Audience Computer Science
- Target Audience Co-PIs, Other Faculty/Staff, Project PIs
- Topics Making the most of clinical experiences, Partnerships for Success (High-need schools/informal institutions/industry/community)
- Additional Presenter(s)
Elsa Villa, evilla@utep.edu
Goals
By attending this session, participants will be able to:–Identify the key features of a high-quality residency pathway for preparing Computer Science teachers;–Discuss the core elements of “shared governance” between the university preparation program and school districts related to partnership-based teacher preparation;–Describe the data use practices incorporated into the university-district partnership related to the preparation of Computer Science teachers.
Evidence
This presentation will draw on several key sources of evidence. First, we will highlight research literature showing the value of well-designed residency models in contributing to higher levels of preparedness among teacher candidates (Guha et al, 2016; Matsko et al, 2022; Ronfeldt, 2021); the critical role that mentor teachers play in mediating candidates’ opportunities for learning, or not learning, about practice during residency (Garza et al., 2014; Goodwin et al., 2016; Kolman et al., 2016); and the higher levels of performance among residency-prepared teachers as compared to other-prepared teachers (Gottlieb & Kirksey, 2022). We will point out that less is known about the role of residencies among Computer Science teacher candidates, specifically. Within this context, we will present programmatic data and artifacts collected as part of our residency model, including (but not limited to): sample shared governance agendas; CS teacher candidate performance data during the residency; candidate exit surveys; and employment data for CS resident graduates.
Proposal
One of the most pressing issues facing the education profession is the recruitment and retention of high-quality STEM teachers for high-needs schools – in particular, the recruitment and retention of STEM teachers of color to serve PK-12 students of color. One key strategy that has emerged to address the overall “leaky pipeline” in education (Wilson & Kelley, 2022) is partnership-based teacher residencies, where universities and school districts closely collaborate to provide a high-quality clinical experience for teacher candidates. Focusing on the preparation of future Computer Science certified teachers, this workshop will highlight one such partnership-based model of residency co-designed between a teacher preparation program at a large, public Hispanic Serving Institution and an urban school district serving a PK-12 student population that is more than 90% Hispanic/Latinx and more than 70% economically-disadvantaged. In this interactive session, participants will learn about our partnership-driven framework for data collection and decision-making and will engage with programmatic and performance data from the inaugural cohort of Noyce CS Teaching Fellows completing the residency in 2023-2024. We will also discuss key implications for policy and practice related to the preparation and retention of diverse CS and STEM teacher candidates across contexts.
