The Colorado State University Noyce Phase II project began in 2015 and ended in 2020. Our goals were to recruit high-achieving undergraduate majors in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) who planned to become teachers in high-needs school districts after graduating. These Noyce Scholars received financial support, structured professional development, and guidance from 3 mentor teachers (retired after 12-25 years of teaching) hired by our team. Scholars also attended regional Noyce professional development meetings.

Broader Impact

In total, we supported 22 Scholars. Currently, 18 of our Phase II Scholars are employed full-time as secondary teachers. Three Scholars are following other educational (PhD Math program) or professional pursuits (computer science or medical technician). One Scholar is on parental leave but will return to teaching next year. We expect that by next year, we will have at least 86% of our Scholars working in schools. Of those who are currently teaching, two completed M.Ed. degrees, and two will finish their M.Eds. next spring.

We developed and implemented a successful recruitment approach to encourage undergraduate STEM majors to consider a teaching career. Our initial plan was to hire undergraduate STEM majors to work during the summer in STEM camps for K-12 students; however, the targeted camps were discontinued due to a lack of funding. Instead, we hired undergraduates to become STEM Assistants and work alongside teachers in the local school district during the academic year and to be mentored by our Noyce coordinator. In 2018-19, we hired 5 STEM Assistants, of which 2 became teachers (one became a Noyce Scholar). In 2019-20, we hired 5 STEM Assistants who were ultimately trained as tutors to support K-12 students who transitioned to remote schooling during the pandemic. Because our university was supportive of this effort, they provided funds to pay these 5 students. Of these STEM Assistants, one will graduate as a teacher. Hence, we recruited 3 of 10 STEM Assistants into teaching careers over 2 years.

Intellectual Merit

Our Sense of Place structured professional development series comprised 4 formal workshops a year (2/semester). The overarching focus of the series was to support Noyce Scholars to integrate STEM education and social justice in secondary education STEM settings. For each workshop, we invited local disciplinary STEM experts (often CSU professors) to describe their work to the Scholars. During the first hour, Scholars were asked to make explicit connections between the topic and 1) their interests, 2) their licensure area, 3) the local community, and 4) social justice. During the second hour Scholars and the three mentor teachers participated in lessons that PI Balgopal developed, which modeled how to integrate content from the presentation, a specific high-leveraged teaching practice (e.g., questioning, grouping), and a social justice focus area (e.g., addressing needs of English language learners, including culturally relevant examples).

Mentors, Scholars, and the CSU Noyce leadership team (especially PI Balgopal and Coordinator Wright) developed strong professional relationships during workshops and regular informal mentoring discussions. Each Scholar paired up with one mentor as they started their first year of teaching. Mentors provided important support as the pandemic started, especially related to classroom management, teaching challenging topics, and addressing the social emotional health of grade 6-12 students. We attribute the strong retention of our Scholars to the success of this relationship-building.

We received a COVID supplement grant in April 2020 to survey and interview teachers across 13 Noyce programs in 6 states. We reached out to other Noyce PIs to help us recruit their Scholars. We contacted 255 Noyce Scholars of which 158 participated and were compensated. Teachers completed surveys in late spring, early fall, and late fall in 2020. We then conducted virtual focus group interviews with 50 of these participants in Jan 2021. We found that during the pandemic 1) teachers described being more likely to remain in the teaching profession if they felt connected to their alma mater, 2) early career teachers demonstrated more resilience than veteran teachers (>10 years of experience) and willingness to adapt instructional delivery and approaches, and 3) teachers achieved agency when they could draw on a combination of both social support and personal capital. These results are described in 3 publications.

We produced 6 additional publications and 2 others in review. One paper describes a conceptual model of teacher professional resilience. One paper describes how three of the co-PIs formed a Professional Learning Community around STEM teacher education and mentoring. One paper describes the undergraduate STEM Assistant model as a recruitment strategy to increase the numbers of teachers. Three papers describe how to support place-based education through partnerships between universities and K-12 schools. Two additional papers are in review and focus on rural Colorado science teachers: regarding their professional resilience and how they teach climate change.

Last Modified: 10/18/2023
Modified by: Meena Balgopal