NSF Awards: 1540794
The Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program is a National Science Foundation funded program designed to recruit and prepare talented STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) students for a career in middle and high school teaching. At CSU, we go beyond offering scholarships by our providing our scholars with workshops around place-based education that incorporate local problems and issues related to inclusivity. Our workshops draw on the expertise of CSU faculty members to link a particular issue or area of research to their grade 6-12 curriculum. Students are then given opportunities to discuss high-leverage teaching practices as they relate to a follow-up activity based on the workshop topic and their pedagogical practices. Scholars are also paired with an expert teacher mentor who attends the workshops and helps guide the discussion during activities. This project is a collaborative effort among the Colleges of Natural Science, Engineering, Warner Natural Resources, & Health and Human Sciences, and the CSU STEM Center.
Hollylynne Lee
Professor
Thanks for creating a video that really highlighted how your Noyce projects expanded over the past decade or so. The mentoring aspects shown in the video focused on larger group sessions with Noyce teachers and experienced teachers or university researchers serving as session leaders/mentors. I am wondering about the success of your approach.
What were the impacts of mentoring for your Noyce teachers with respect to their classroom practices and retention in teaching?
Was there any 1-1 mentoring that occured in teachers' classrooms or at their schools? If so, what did this look like?
Meena Balgopal
Associate Professor
Hello Hollylynne,
To answer your question, our Scholars engaged with their mentors in several ways: during professional development workshops, during small group meetings with other Scholars paired with the same mentors, and one-on-one about topics about which the Scholars have concerns. The small group mentoring sessions were focused on topics that our Noyce team (including the mentors) selected because of what we anticipated (based on all of our teaching experiences) may be areas of concerns for the Scholars once they are novice teachers. These have been held on campus. However, once the Scholars are in classrooms, they meet with their mentors either through email, video-chat, or in person (if they are in the same town as the mentor). Based on our evaluation data, Scholars, who have taken advantage of all of these levels of mentoring, have found it useful. Scholars who are novice teachers have often contacted their mentor to ask how to address a specific issue (e.g., a difficult student who does not want to participate in class). Scholars have told us that the mentoring our team has offered goes beyond the types of mentoring they have received from their school districts.
Christine Cutucache
I love the initiation of the mentoring community-- it's so helpful for prospective and future teachers to have that genuine ecosystem or network for their long-term growth and to have a quick resource should roadblocks arise. The duration of your success speaks to the tremendous support system and high quality program that you've created. Kudos!
Meena Balgopal
Jill Rhoden
Meena Balgopal
Associate Professor
Thanks, Christine! We've learned over the years from our Noyce Scholars what they need. From what we've observed and learned is that novice STEM teachers benefit from having multiple mentors, so introducing them to that type of support early on (as undergrads) helps set them up for success once they are teachers. We also hope it encourages novice teachers to feel like they can develop and implement innovative curriculum or instructional approaches.
Ann Cavallo
Assistant Vice Provost and Director, Center for Research on Teaching and Learning Excellence
I like the personal stories/experiences streamed through the video. How many scholars have been able to benefit from this program? Do you know if/how the mentoring has impacted retention in teaching?
DeeDee Wright
Graduate Research Assistant
Thank you Ann for asking about our Noyce Program. At Colorado State University we've been fortunate to receive 2 Noyce grants. The first grant ran Fall 2011- Spring 2017 provided scholarships to 42 STEM pre-service teachers. Our current grant starting in Fall 2016 has provided scholarships to 22 STEM pre-service teachers along with mentoring and professional development. From this current group, 9 have graduated and all are currently completing their 1st or 2nd year in the classroom, 6 are wrapping up student teaching, and 7 will complete course work in the next year.
Each person has utilized the mentoring in ways that are specific to their needs. One way the mentoring has supported our scholars is during their student teaching. The mentors have been able to provide additional support and ideas on classroom management and navigating professional relationships along with the support offered by cooperating teachers. My belief is that by having this supportive foundational base as these scholars enter the education profession they will remain in the the field for the long term.
Ann Cavallo
Ann Cavallo
Assistant Vice Provost and Director, Center for Research on Teaching and Learning Excellence
Great - I hope you will be able to follow them through their careers to see the impact of your work!
DeeDee Wright
Graduate Research Assistant
Our Noyce team would like to hear about mentoring programs at the university and K-12 schools where you work. What has been effective at engaging students and supporting their learning?
Ann Cavallo
Assistant Vice Provost and Director, Center for Research on Teaching and Learning Excellence
Hi DeeDee - we have various mentoring programs in our Noyce program. Scholars have a faculty content mentor (according to their science field or in math) and a faculty pedagogy mentor (education). When students graduate they work with a school-based Mentor Teacher - a teacher preferably in their field - who provides guidance during their first two years of teaching. Also, we have on Noyce staff a Noyce Scholar Leader, an experienced math and science teacher, who visits each Noyce Scholar graduate in the school and meets with the Noyce Scholar-teacher and Mentor-teacher, organizes seminars to bring scholars together, and provides resources and support. We recently began a Near-Peer Mentor program led by Scholar graduates/teachers, who mentor Noyce Scholars still in the certification program or in their first years of teaching. We find the network of support from all to be the most effective in supporting our new teachers!
DeeDee Wright
Beth Sappe
Director - STEM Mathematics
Thanks for creating a detailed video to highlight your funded program to recruit and prepare talented STEM students for a career in teaching. I think having multiple mentors can be helpful for a new teacher so they can learn from different perspectives. How are the mentors and the STEM teachers recruited?
Are you using any specific tools/rubrics to support the impact of the mentoring? I am also wondering how you aligned to PD to align to the local school district goals and supports.
Thanks,
Beth
DeeDee Wright
Graduate Research Assistant
Our mentors are retired or former teachers who have remained connected to education through the university or personal contacts. They are invested in student learning for the long-term and expressed a desire to continue supporting the profession that they loved.
Since our scholars are distributed throughout various districts we designed a PD program that supports using local experts to provide content information as a way to demonstrate place-based education strategies. We pair the content with discussions on vignettes or case studies to address high leverage teaching practices and inclusivity issues that arise in classrooms. For example, in the video, Dr. Melissa Burt shared her research related to climate modeling (place-based topic) which was followed up with an activity that used recent New York Times articles on climate change to push our scholars to consider how they would use these in a middle or high school classroom while considering how to reinforce positive student behavior (high-leverage teaching practice) and the impact of climate change on communities of color (inclusivity issue).
Jeffrey Ram
One of our most effective professional development leaders is a former Michigan Science Teacher of the Year. Teachers appreciate the advice of someone who has been in the trenches with them and can speak about teachers' needs authoritatively. (That's June Teisan in our video).
DeeDee Wright
Meena Balgopal
Meena Balgopal
Associate Professor
Jeffrey, I agree! The insight from a veteran teacher is so valuable. Although all of our PI team has experience in K-12 teaching and professional development, it's the mentor teachers' perspectives that our Scholars seek
Two of our mentors, Mike Viney and Lynn Gilbert, are featured on our video. Both have been recognized by their local school districts, as well as by other organizations and professional societies. The third mentor, Janet Oien, after teaching in high needs schools for a decade is now the academic advisor for math ed students at CSU. I will check out your video - thanks for letting us know that June was recognized for her expertise!
David Andrews
I really agree with your efforts to leverage resources from a variety of sources in an effort to magnify the impact and range of outreach of the Noyce projects you have completed and continue to operate. My own experience over the years has proven that this leveraging of resources approach leads to greater institutionalization of project outcomes as well. Nice job!
David
DeeDee Wright
Meena Balgopal
Associate Professor
Thanks, David. Our intentions are that developing and novice STEM teachers realize that there are many resources and mentors who can support them when they are in the classroom. From our interactions with them after they graduate from CSU and begin their teaching careers, this is what we are finding! Some Noyce Scholars are more resourceful than others, but, in general, they are willing to connect with former professors, local organizations, mentor teachers, or peers at conferences.
Jennifer Carinci
I appreciate that you are learning what is needed from the Scholars, themselves, and I enjoyed hearing their voices. Consider nominating an outstanding Noyce alum to be profiled here: https://www.nsfnoyce.org/noyce-alumni-where-are-they-now/.
DeeDee Wright
Meena Balgopal
Beth Sappe
Director - STEM Mathematics
Thanks for sharing.
Meena Balgopal
Associate Professor
Thanks for suggesting that we highlight our outstanding Noyce schollar alumni. In fact, we nominated three this year! I love hearing from the scholar alums once they are teachers each year at the Noyce PI Summit.
Hollylynne Lee
Professor
I really loved reading about all the ways different programs are supporting their practicing Noyce scholars through a variety of mentoring. I think the question was raised above, and I love for Noyce programs as a collective to help investigate the ways in which mentoring may impact STEM teacher retention. We all know that attrition is a huge issue. Such longitudinal studies would really help Noyce programs make effective and efficient choices in mentoring strategies.
Meena Balgopal
Associate Professor
Thank you for your comments, Hollylynne. I agree - longitudinal studies would help STEM teacher educators develop a better understanding of how we an support novice teachers, as well as veteran teachers, who are considering leaving high-needs schools (both urban and rural schools). The research on the importance of mentoring for STEM teachers is, indeed, compelling. We suspect that a combination of mentoring, social justice awareness, and building capacity for becoming part of a new community are all important, along with the skills to make STEM concepts and content engaging for students.
Meena Balgopal
Associate Professor
For those interested in learning more about our structured professional development program for pre-service STEM teachers/Noyce Scholars, please visit the our site (https://noyce.colostate.edu/noyce-professional-...).
Plus, I want to acknowledge that our video was made by Bradley Whitaker, an undergraduate biology major in the teacher licensure track and a Noyce Scholar. :)
Michael I. Swart
Great to see this kind of PD what connects peers and brings metacognitive considerations of and in stem. Earlier in this discussion, evaluation data is mentioned. Can you expound on this data? Types? What theoretical constructs the data center around? How you analyze the data? Are there any resources you can share regarding program development and evaluation?