3090 Views (as of 05/2023)
  1. Jane Coffee
  2. Professor of Mathematics/ Director of the Teacher Education Honors Academy
  3. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  4. College of Staten Island CUNY
  1. Deirdre Armitage
  2. Director of Clinical Collaborations
  3. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  4. College of Staten Island CUNY
  1. Samantha Haimowitz
  2. College of Staten Island Teacher Education Honors Academy
  3. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  4. College of Staten Island CUNY
  1. Mitchell Weitzman
  2. Teacher
  3. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  4. New York City Department of Education, Berta A. Dreyfus Intermediate School 49

Robert Noyce Teacher Academy at the College of Staten Island (CUNY)

NSF Awards: 1540704

2021 (see original presentation & discussion)

Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Undergraduate

1.  Establish a working relationship between STEM and education faculty

2.  Select schools as sites for "host school internships".

3.  Fieldwork seminar for students, STEM faculty, education faculty, high school teachers and administrators, and middle school teachers and administrators.

4.  Host School Internship Experience

5.  Data on teaching jobs and retention

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Discussion from the 2021 STEM For All Video Showcase (16 posts)
  • Icon for: Jane Coffee

    Jane Coffee

    Lead Presenter
    Professor of Mathematics/ Director of the Teacher Education Honors Academy
    May 10, 2021 | 04:13 p.m.

    Hi All,

    Some background for this video:

    The Teacher Education Honors Academy at the College of Staten Island has had grant funding from the National Science Foundation since 2009.  There are 40 Noyce graduates teaching mathematics, biology, chemistry and physics in 14 high need high schools and 3 high needs middle schools—almost all on Staten Island!  Tenure has been awarded to 100% of eligible Noyce graduates.  The retention rate after 2 years of teaching is 97% which is significant when compared to the national average of STEM teacher retention of less than 50%.  One factor that has contributed to this high retention rate is the host school internship program and that is what this video highlights.

    Title: 5 Steps to Effective Partnerships

    URL: http://videohall.com/p/1946

     I hope that you will watch the 3 minute video and ask questions.  The goal of this video was to emphasize--from different perspectives-- the importance of the successful partnership between the Teacher Education Honors Academy and our local school district on Staten Island.

    We appreciate your time and welcome any questions and comments.

    Dr. Jane Coffee, Professor of Mathematics

    Director of the Teacher Education Honors Academy

    College of Staten Island (CUNY)

  • Icon for: Anne Kern

    Anne Kern

    Facilitator
    Professor
    May 11, 2021 | 06:22 p.m.

    Hello CUNY Noyce Program,

    50% retention after 2-years is pretty sad! Was this after competition of the Noyce program or was this the impetus to revamp the program? I know the stats on teacher retention si pretty poor (Ingersoll). However, were your Fellows' STEM majors or education majors hoping to teach in a STEM discipline? If STEM majors what was their incentive to join the Noyce program?

    Cheers,

    Anne

     

  • Icon for: Jane Coffee

    Jane Coffee

    Lead Presenter
    Professor of Mathematics/ Director of the Teacher Education Honors Academy
    May 12, 2021 | 11:54 a.m.

    Hi Anne,

    The 50% retention after 2 years is the national statistic often cited.  I never collected data on retention but through the years I had had a number of graduates who were excellent STEM students and had left teaching within 2 years. They loved their discipline but they said that their classrooms were often out of control.   When I was asked to direct the Teacher Academy, I made a condition that our students would need to have significant time and increasing responsibility in middle schools and high schools--thus the host school internship was created!  Students in our program are undergraduate honors STEM majors who "think" that they would like to teach at the high school or middle school level.  Surprising to me, almost all who "think" they want to teach do actually become STEM teachers.  By the time TEHA students are juniors, many have had a lot of classroom experiences so they "know" that they want to teach.  This is important since the Noyce program begins in the junior year and requires a commitment to teach for 2 years for each year of Noyce Scholarship and our Financial Aid Office makes very certain that they fulfill their commitment.  The Noyce Scholarship pays for all college expenses (thanks to CUNY tuition) and frees the student from doing a lot of outside jobs (we restrict to 10 hours per week).  So...the main incentive is money but there are special opportunities --summer teaching internships, international teaching internships, and professional conferences that are available only to Noyce scholars.  Noyce scholars who have participated in these special opportunities have made presentations at our Fieldwork seminars and their enthusiasm was infectious!

  • Icon for: Ann Cavallo

    Ann Cavallo

    Facilitator
    Assistant Vice Provost and Director, CRTLE
    May 12, 2021 | 12:38 a.m.

    Thank you for sharing this project! The partnership you have established with the schools is impressive as is the 97% retention rate. It is clearly impactful to place students in the schools early and over extended time as in your program - there is much we can teach at the university level, but many things the students can only really learn and learn well by placing them in the classroom, and having them teach with the guidance of mentor teachers. What are some of the challenges you face with placing students in classrooms? How many students do you need to place each semester? Have the schools allowed you to hand-select the mentor teachers (which would be ideal)?

  • Icon for: Jane Coffee

    Jane Coffee

    Lead Presenter
    Professor of Mathematics/ Director of the Teacher Education Honors Academy
    May 12, 2021 | 11:29 a.m.

    Hi Ann,

    It was absolutely critical to partner with an Education faculty member who has worked with local schools.  In our case, Deirdre Armitage has traditionally placed STEM students in student teaching their last semester before graduation.  Before my involvement with this program, I had never been in a local school although I had taught at CSI for decades!  I asked her to use her connections and knowledge about the different school cultures and place students in host school internships beginning their first semester in the TEHA program.  The TEHA accepts students in their freshman, sophomore, junior years so some students have 7 semesters of host school internships before they student teach.  We work with 7 high schools and 2 middle schools--all high needs but very different cultures, size, demographics, languages, locations.  Our TEHA students are first-generation college and identify with the students at these local schools.

    The host schools have been very receptive to the program--although at times when I have observed a class at a local school I have wondered why that teacher was selected as a mentor. (when I asked the TEHA students about that class, they said that they learned a lot --all the things not to do!). Also some teachers do not like to share--especially if they are themselves being judged for tenure!  As the years have passed, we have more of our graduates as teachers in these schools and they are excellent mentors.  We place about 20 to 25 students each semester in classrooms.  We have not asked to hand-select mentor teachers--different schools plan different internships.  There has definitely been an increase in our graduates as collaborating teachers--an ideal since they trust our undergraduates and give them a chance to gradually have more teaching experiences--"do nows", group tutoring, lesson planning, and a class lesson.  Observation is useful as an initial host school experience but we have urged our students to volunteer and become actively involved in teaching.

     
    1
    Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available

    Ann Cavallo
  • Icon for: Ann Cavallo

    Ann Cavallo

    Facilitator
    Assistant Vice Provost and Director, CRTLE
    May 12, 2021 | 02:55 p.m.

    Yes - as your students graduate it is a best-case scenario to place your current Scholars with graduated Scholars! We do the same here. We also struggle sometimes though, as we have to follow the school districts' selection of mentor teachers due to responsibilities our "choice" mentors may have. Most of the time it works out great - but sometimes there are struggles. Either way it is an excellent learning experience.

  • Icon for: Deirdre Armitage

    Deirdre Armitage

    Co-Presenter
    Director of Clinical Collaborations
    May 12, 2021 | 03:47 p.m.

    HI all!  Thank you for your comments and questions for our project.  I thought I would weigh in on the discussion as I am the Director of Clinical Collaborations for the School of Ed and am the liaison for CSI and the schools.  What Jane said about it being difficult to select the mentors is very true, and can certainly vary from year to year.  We have been pretty lucky in that many of the mentors were either involved in the program from its inception, or have already graduated and are now experienced teachers.  Those folks are super willing to host TEHA students since they know the frustrations of not being taken seriously as a new fieldwork student.  Many really good STEM teachers are reluctant to give up control of their classes - even a bit - because of regents (state exam) pressures. Ann, I also see the increased responsibilities of the newer, more eager (aka, our graduates!) teachers with tasks such as dance company (one of our graduates was a dancer and runs an amazing after-school dance program), tutoring, clubs and even foreign exchange programs.  But as you can see from the very short video testimonials, our local principals LOVE this program.  One of them in the video hired at least 10-15 graduates (and about to hire a physics teacher) and the other is up around 7 or 8.  One really cool outcome is that the TEHA students are like a cohort in a sense. They have their own lounge at CSI, take many of the same courses, tutor each other, venture to schools together and really form community. When they are hired by the local schools, there is often already a group of teachers there that they knew from CSI and they instantly feel part of a professional community.  This has been a very welcome outcome!

  • Icon for: Kelly Costner

    Kelly Costner

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 13, 2021 | 07:02 p.m.

    It's good to see that you're having success with the community aspect of your Noyce program.  We, too, are starting to see those benefits as we place scholars with alums, and are starting to build on that by incorporating more community-facilitating components on campus. We were able to gain a new office space on campus that is big enough to serve as a lounge-type informal gathering/study spot.  Unfortunately that came to us in Summer 2020, and we haven't yet been able to take advantage of it due to pandemic restrictions.  We did have online events instead, and found that some of our more-distant alums joined us for those when they never could have thought about driving to campus for it.  We'll be keeping virtual gatherings even after we get to use our (still) new space again!

  • Icon for: Jane Coffee

    Jane Coffee

    Lead Presenter
    Professor of Mathematics/ Director of the Teacher Education Honors Academy
    May 14, 2021 | 09:23 p.m.

    I agree that we too will keep some virtual meetings--parking is a serious problem on our campus so no one complained about a zoom meeting for the Fieldwork Seminar!  We have a resource room where our students hang out in normal times and they have told me how much they miss it.  It is equipped with a smart board but it seems that the blackboard gets more use. Our college draws the bulk of its students from many of the high schools where our students intern so community involvement is crucial.  Our students are honors students and the best advertisement possible for our college.

  • Enid Sichel

    May 13, 2021 | 12:52 p.m.

    Brava, Professor Coffee!

    The internship concept is excellent.  Congratulations on high retention of new teachers.

  • Icon for: John Coleman

    John Coleman

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 13, 2021 | 12:57 p.m.

    Your approach to developing STEM teachers has provided great insights on how we might improve  recruitment of future STEM teachers. I can see how it makes the transition to teaching easier. Many of our better STEM majors are reluctant to select teaching as a career due to the salary scale; other STEM professions have better pay scales, which is more attractive to them.  Is this an issue in your program? Based on your retention rate, it looks like this is not a problem.  In addition to the support you provide, what else do you believe influences their desire to remain in the teaching profession?

  • Icon for: Jane Coffee

    Jane Coffee

    Lead Presenter
    Professor of Mathematics/ Director of the Teacher Education Honors Academy
    May 13, 2021 | 04:19 p.m.

    Hi John,

    Most of our students are first-generation college and many of the parents think teaching is not a good choice for their honors STEM children.  They would much prefer them to be doctors or engineers.  I think that is reflected in our numbers--few biology, chemistry or physics majors and many more math majors.  Our numbers show that if you can get the student into an honors program that respects teaching--like the Teacher Education Honors Academy--early in their college career then many find that they love teaching and they are good at it. They also have fellow graduates --some at the same school but many at different schools--that provide useful help and encouragement.  I certainly wish that teaching got the honor and pay that it deserves! 

  • Icon for: Elizabeth Allan

    Elizabeth Allan

    Facilitator
    Professor; Secondary Science Education Program Coordinator
    May 13, 2021 | 08:36 p.m.

    What a great way to recruit STEM majors into teaching even when they might not have originally intended to be a teacher. I like the sequencing. How involved are your school partners in the design and evaluation of the project?

  • Icon for: Jane Coffee

    Jane Coffee

    Lead Presenter
    Professor of Mathematics/ Director of the Teacher Education Honors Academy
    May 14, 2021 | 09:12 p.m.

    Each school partner designs the host school internship for their school and there are differences.  For example, some schools assign an intern to one collaborating teacher for the semester while others arrange for the same course with different teachers.  All collaborating teachers are asked to complete an evaluation at the end of every semester.

  • Icon for: Eric Hamilton

    Eric Hamilton

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 16, 2021 | 12:43 a.m.

    Jane and team, you have identified an intriguing and promising solution to losing teachers soon after they enter the profession.  Well-done, and thank you.  

  • Icon for: Jane Coffee

    Jane Coffee

    Lead Presenter
    Professor of Mathematics/ Director of the Teacher Education Honors Academy
    May 18, 2021 | 04:42 p.m.

    Thank you, Eric.  I appreciate that you spent the time to view our video and your kind comments!

  • Further posting is closed as the event has ended.