By Erin Moss, Co-Editor, DUE Point, Millersville University

The Edinboro Noyce Teacher Scholar (ENTS) program began in Fall 2019 with the goal to increase the number of STEM teachers in western Pennsylvania.  Undergraduate STEM majors and recent postgraduates seeking teacher certification engage in seminars and workshops to prepare them to work in high-need school districts.  They commit to two years of secondary teaching for each year of their scholarship and remain engaged with the ENTS team for at least two years after certification through the mentoring program.  Principal Investigator Dr. Roger Wolbert from Pennsylvania Western University-Edinboro and co-PI Dr. Whitney Wesley (currently at Slippery Rock University) describe the features that make their Noyce scholarship program unique.

When your project team began work on this grant, you anticipated recruiting primarily undergraduate students in STEM as Noyce scholarship recipients. Interestingly, around half of your scholarship recipients have been post baccalaureate students. What strategies have you found productive for recruiting this student population?     

Collaboration with the graduate admissions office, personal outreach, and the flexibility of Edinboro’s fast-track certification program have been key to successful recruitment. Dr. Wesley served as program head and advisor for post-bacc teacher certification at Edinboro University (now Pennsylvania Western University-Edinboro). Potential applicants who requested additional information about Edinboro’s post-bacc certification program were directed to her so she could share information about the Noyce program to anyone with a STEM degree. Dr. Wesley also met with all post-bacc students upon acceptance into the teacher education program as part of academic advising and on-boarding. 

A significant draw to Edinboro’s teacher certification program in general is that it can be completed in as few as three semesters of full-time enrollment, with the first semester fully online. Students who are already employed as emergency certified teachers can complete the second semester coursework online as well, with their own classrooms serving as their field and student teaching placements.   

An important aspect of support you provide to your Noyce Scholars--both undergraduate and postbaccalaureate--is a monthly seminar.  What are some of the topics you address through this seminar and other ENTS professional development activities?  

Guest speakers for the “Voices from the Field'' monthly seminar series present on topics including trauma informed teaching, culturally responsive teaching, socio-scientific issues, early career transition, positive behavioral supports and restorative practices, and classroom management. In between seminar dates, additional resources, readings, videos, and online professional development opportunities are shared with the scholars through an online learning management platform. The following professional organizations have hosted supplemental sessions: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Association for Middle Level Education, Pennsylvania Association for Middle Level Education, and Kappa Delta Pi. Sessions address the overarching theme of “Equity in STEM'' and include topics such as women in STEM, racial and ethnic diversity in STEM, and supporting LGBTQIA+ students in the classroom. 

Scholars also participate in formal training in Youth Mental Health First Aid and complete the QPR Gatekeeper Training for Suicide Prevention. This training was hosted by two Edinboro faculty from School of Psychology and Special Education who are trained trainers.   

The seminar series on professional educator ethics is something that the grant team is particularly proud to offer. Can you describe what students learn in this series? 

Noyce Scholars are required to complete the Model Code of Ethics for Educators (MCEE) program provided by the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification. The MCEE is guided by the following five principles: Responsibility to the Profession, Responsibility for Professional Competence, Responsibility to the Students, Responsibility to the School Community, and Responsible and Ethical use of Technology.  These five principles comprise 47 performance indicators that specifically define the knowledge, skills, and dispositions for ethical best practices required of professional educators. Scholars are assigned one learning module per week in which they view a case-study video based on real-world professional scenarios and complete multiple reflective responses.

There is a research component to your project as well as the design aspect. What questions do you hope to address by the conclusion of your grant?

The ENTS leadership team foresees contributing to the knowledge base by studying the effects of recruiting and retaining students from urban upbringing and providing them rural experiences and vice versa. This research can better enhance and sustain the STEM teacher certification program beyond the period of the Noyce grant because PennWest-Edinboro is uniquely positioned to provide both rural and urban experiences for students in high-need school districts. We are still awaiting preliminary results, since our first cohort has just graduated from the teacher preparation program!

Learn more about NSF DUE 1852781

Full Project Name: Preparing STEM Teachers for Western Pennsylvania

Abstract: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1852781

Project Contact: Dr. Roger Wolbert, PI; rwolbert@edinboro.edu