- Year 2023
- NSF Noyce Award # 1949892
- First Name Daniel
- Last Name Moore
- Institution Southern Maine Community College
- Role/Position Co-PI
- Workshop Category Track 1: Scholarships and Stipends
- Workshop Disciplines Audience Chemistry, Life Sciences, Mathematics, Physics
- Target Audience Co-PIs, Other Faculty/Staff, Project PIs
- Topics Partnerships for Success (High-need schools/informal institutions/industry/community)
- Session Length 75 minutes minutes
- Additional Presenter(s)
Emily Lesher elesher@sjcme.edu
Goals
As a result of this workshop, participants will 1) identify best practices for building pathways for STEM education between community college and 4-year colleges, 2)
explore community college student perceptions of teaching and factors that influence interest in STEM secondary education, and 3) critically analyze partnerships and identify opportunities for growth.
Evidence
To understand perceptions of careers in STEM teaching, we administered a survey to 84 SMCC and 67 SJC students enrolled in a science course. Results from our survey yielded insights into the upsides, downsides, and enticements to enter STEM teaching. Being a role model and making a difference were viewed as upsides of teaching. Among community college students, respect from students and society were viewed as downsides of teaching. Loans and scholarships are encouragements for those ‘open to teaching’ while course flexibility and formal teaching experience was the greatest incentive for those ‘somewhat interested.’ Informed by these results, the Growing Future STEM Teachers in Maine (GFSTM) project employed three innovative approaches to increase the number and diversity of qualified STEM teachers: career exploration workshops, a teaching experience short course (TESC), and professional learning community. The career exploration workshops expose interested undergraduates to STEM education professionals, the TESC provides a formal teaching experience opportunity for students considering teaching, and the professional learning communities allow Noyce graduates to systematically review their practice. GFSTM has recruited 12 scholars, 4 have come from SMCC. Of the Noyce Scholars, 6 have participated in a TESC and all have participated in a Career Panel, and were engaged in the online professional learning community while attending SJC. We have extended our online professional learning community to support alumni as they move further from the institution.
Proposal
The Growing Future STEM Teachers in Maine (GFSTM) program is a collaboration between Southern Maine Community College (SMCC) and Saint Joseph’s College of Maine (SJC). The goal of this workshop will be to discuss best practices for developing partnerships between four-year institutions and community colleges to diversify the pool of potential STEM teachers. Our partnership with SMCC was strengthened through the development of articulation agreements to ease the transfer process. SMCC is a subawardee on our Track 1 grant, and Dr. Daniel Moore is a Co-PI lending important insights on the community college student perspective. The PI team conducted research on the perceptions of students in science and science-related programs at both institutions to determine what students viewed as upsides and downsides to STEM education careers, as well as enticements and barriers to entering those careers. GFSTM used this data, collected during our Capacity Building year, to design interventions to recruit and support students in our Noyce Scholars program. The interventions designed to recruit potential Noyce Scholars are the Careers in STEM Education Workshop and the Teaching Experience Short Course (TESC). The Careers Workshop addresses preconceptions and misconceptions students held about the upsides and downsides of entering the profession. The TESC provides students a formal teaching experience, which was identified as a critical enticement (along with financial support available from the Noyce Scholarship) to students open to considering a career as a STEM teacher. The profiles of two scholars who benefitted from these program activities will be highlighted.
