- Year 2019
- NSF Noyce Award # 1852790
- First Name Robin
- Last Name Johnson
- Institution Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi
- Role/Position Assistant Professor and Co-PI
- Workshop Category Capacity Building
- Workshop Disciplines Audience Other: STEM
- Target Audience Project PIs / Co-PIs / Other Faculty/Staff, School and District Administrators, Undergraduate and/or Graduate Noyce Scholars
- Topics Preparing Teachers for High-Need School Districts
- Session Length 30 minutes
Goals
Participants will leave with an understanding of our model for building capacity in our university students in the STEM teaching fields, how we will revise curriculum to better prepare our undergraduate STEM students, and how we plan to collaborate with and meet the needs of our partnering school district.
Objectives:
1. Share our Capacity Building Model that infuses STEM curriculum with culturally relevant pedagogy and community engagement.
2. Share our Needs Assessment data collected from our partnership district.
3. Share our next steps in regards to recruitment, curriculum revisions, and plans for STEM field experiences.
Evidence
We continue to suffer disappointing declines in the critical mass of college students enrolled in and completion of STEM programs (Reñdon & Kanagala, 2017), particularly those that want to become STEM teachers. This trend has resulted in a dearth of skilled teachers within all STEM fields as the number of STEM teachers continues to dwindle. It is noteworthy that in science, the number of students entering the 7-12 Life and Physical Science program at Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi (TAMUCC) has dropped over 87% from 2010-2018. This decrease reflects national data as fewer teacher candidates enter STEM fields. Research studies advocate curriculum changes to learner centered approaches and engaging STEM students in projects with real-world applications (National Research Council 2003; Olds & Miller, 2004; Tobias, 1992). We are in the beginning stages of this Capacity Building grant. In this session, I will share the results of our needs assessment and our next steps with collaborations between the College of Science and Engineering and the College of Education and Human Development, as well as the data collected from our partnership district and community meetings. Our research questions for the STEM INSPIRES prioject are as follows: 1. To what extent does the INSPIRES program affect the self-efficacy of teacher andidates in STEM subjects? 2. To what extent does the INSPIRES program affect career decisions in STEM teaching? 3. How did the INSPIRES program help protect underrepresented minority students against negative stereotype threat? 4. How did INSPIRES scholars perceptions regarding students of minority cultures change as a result of their community immersion experience in student teaching? 5. What mechanisms, resources and policies support and constrain teacher preparation programs that seek to infuse culturally relevant pedagogy as part of teacher training?
Proposal
There is a recognized need for research-informed instructional approaches and strategies for increased STEM engagement to promote self-efficacy among teachers of grades 6-12 students, according to researched educator preparation program feedback. This workshop will present a capacity building proposal that will result in a community- engaged teacher preparation model that can be adopted and replicated through region-wide resources, shared expertise, and challenge projects for grades 6-12 science and mathematics students. Data collected and shared will help the STEM INSPIRES team to address these issues through its operational goals and objectives by using community mentors and resources, culturally relevant pedagogy, and STEM needs assessment data from our partnering school district. There will be time for questions from participants and a discussion about next steps in the future.
