Northern Illinois Noyce Science Teaching Scholarship and Internship Program

The project aims to meet the national need to prepare exemplary science teachers by recruiting and retaining prospective teachers who are trained and supported to teach in high-need schools in northern Illinois, where there is a documented STEM teacher shortage. This project looks, in part, to address this need through a strong partnership between a two-year and four year institution.

Students from Waubonsee Community College (WCC) will receive training and serve as instructors for the Northern Illinois University STEAM camp in the summer. To explore teaching as a potential career path, the students will also serve as WCC peer tutors. This project has the potential to reduce attrition by enhancing support for prospective teachers through scholarships, early clinical experiences in high-need schools, and mentoring from practicing teachers from high-need schools.

Graduates will receive ongoing peer support during their first two years as practicing teachers. As a result of this project, twenty new science teachers will be prepared to teach in high-need schools, which has potential to enhance science learning for thousands of students in northern Illinois.

This project at Northern Illinois University includes partnerships with Waubonsee Community College, a Hispanic-Serving Institution, and West Aurora High School, an ethnically and socio-economically diverse high school. Over five years, twenty biology, chemistry, earth and space science, environmental science, and physics majors entering their junior year will be selected as Scholars.

The project has three main goals: (1) to recruit and retain high achieving, diverse STEM majors to become science teacher educators; (2) to build culturally competent teachers; and (3) to provide embedded social and professional supports to Scholars through their teacher licensure and into their early classroom years. This project will develop and test a model of recruitment and retention of diverse candidates in university-based teacher preparation programs (TPP) through its partnerships with an HSI community college, regional state university, and a high-need school in the same community.

Project outcomes will contribute to the knowledge base about supporting nontraditional TPP candidates who experience barriers that impact their success (e.g., financial insecurity, childcare, health challenges). Evaluation data will highlight the effectiveness of building a clinical learning community through a cohort model, community building activities, mentoring from teachers of color, and social support on retention of nontraditional prospective teachers, including those from groups underrepresented in STEM disciplines.

Project outcomes aim to inform best practices in recruiting, retaining, developing, and supporting secondary science teachers committed to culturally responsive teaching and leadership. The Noyce program supports talented STEM undergraduate majors and professionals to become effective K-12 STEM teachers and experience, exemplary K-12 teachers to become STEM master teachers in high-need school districts.

It also supports research on the retention and effectiveness of K-12 STEM teachers in high-need school districts.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.