Thanks Bo and team for sharing your project on empowering teachers to support STEM learning. I'll be visiting your project site to learn on how you conceptualized 'high needs schools' and how you balanced supply and demand parameters in the project 

Hi Christine, 

We have regularly had alumni come back to share with current Noyce scholars during monthly meetings we host. Alumni have shared about their experiences during student teaching, applying for jobs, and their first years as teachers, often sharing video or activities they implemented. Scholars have enjoyed and learned a lot from those discussions. 

Based on informal discussions with scholars, early field experiences and opportunities to get exposure to diverse ideas (e.g., teaching assistantships in non-majors courses, outreach events, summer STEM camps) have been particularly formative activities to develop the Bridging Practices. Both activities are enhanced with structured reflection or discussion on the specific bridging practices, with one practice usually emphasized in an instance. For example, we encourage scholars in biology to TA in introductory biology labs and have weekly meetings with TAs to analyze the previous lab and prepare for the upcoming lab. These field experiences often expose scholars to a range of different ways of thinking about concepts that may vary substantially from how scholars thought about these concepts as high school or undergraduate students. We have a project planned for the next several years that will look at various resources (e.g., social, material, human, etc.) that scholars use in their initial years teaching that should shed more light on this question!

Thank you for your comments, and we’d welcome you or others to share activities or experiences you’ve found to be formative in supporting the transition from preservice to early career teacher.

Bo

Thanks Bo for the response -- it sounds like there is a good "give back" "feedback" loop as part of the program that has been implemented.

Christine

I really appreciate this discussion thread. I know I always struggle with finding the balance between making theories of teaching and learning accessible to teacher candidates, and making sure they can identify the theoretical bases of the practices they are employing. Do you have any specific advice for this challenge?

Janelle

Hi Janelle, 

This is a struggle we have as well, especially since the timing of our initial STEM methods courses is often before students are placed in K-12 classrooms. We currently have students conduct weekly reflections when they are placed during a science education capstone course. This course is in winter quarter when they are spending ~18 hours in their placement, but before full time student teaching in spring. The rubric explicitly asks students to connect their observations to the concepts and theories in the methods courses, which helps but there are many opportunities for connections that students don't identify in their reflections (though they may still understand the underlying theory). In the course we usually start each class session having students share reflections, and then I share particular experiences, challenges, celebrations, etc. from reflections that were not already shared by the students that I think would serve valuable learning experiences for the class to discuss. I let students know beforehand so they can note if they'd like an experience kept out of the class discussion, and always keep the experiences I share anonymous. 

I'm also interested in what others do during student teaching or post-methods courses (perhaps even into induction programs) to help support early career teachers in developing these connections between theory from methods courses and practice in the classroom!

Hi Bo, 

Just for context, your cohort model is much different than ours. Students at our university often work full time and/or have families, take 6-8 years to complete their degree, and/or come to us as post-bacs. It does add some challenges to our program design. 

I teach the secondary science methods class just before student teaching and this is the exact issue I've been wrestling with, especially as I reflect on the challenges our student teachers face. In our preparation program, they do lots of lesson and unit planning, but they have limited opportunities to try those out until they are student teaching. Also, the units are pretty big-picture focused, and candidates often report that schools don't teach in the same kind of 3-4 week units we coach them in. The three clinical fields they have prior to student teaching give them a bit of exposure, but there is a lot of room for growth in helping them feel truly prepared for student teaching, in my opinion.

I want to completely overhaul my methods syllabus. What I am hoping to do is help them apply theoretical readings to modifying actual lesson plan segments, then doing peer mini-teach sessions so they can practice and get feedback. I *think* that could help make the practice/theory connections more explicit and concrete. Does that make sense? I'd love to hear your thoughts (or anyone else reading this.) : )

Gratefully,

Janelle

Thank you Jill!

One productive strategy has been our partnership with local community colleges to recruit and provide early advising on their campuses to students potentially interested in STEM education. We do provide 2-years of induction support for scholars, including regular virtual meetings and the option for classroom observations, activities, etc. For example, two scholars were having difficulty with classroom management their first year and Noyce faculty went into their classrooms multiple times to support scholars. Our partnerships with local districts are primarily focused on the preservice scholars, but that's a great idea to work more closely with districts on collectively supporting the induction scholars after graduating! Have you used this strategy or do you know of any examples of this partnership? 

Bo

Hi Bo:

Yes-- in Massachusetts its increasingly common for institutions of teacher preparation to continue to support career induction after graduation.  They might assign mentors, incentivize participation in reflection cohorts, or have growth-oriented alumni events. 

As an example, you can read about the Boston Teacher Residency's Early Career Network here.

Best,

Jill

Thank you for sharing Jill! I look forward to looking at the Early Career Network in Boston. 

Hi Cathy, 

Great questions! At EWU, the education program is set up so that traditionally students complete their content courses prior to their education courses and experiences. For example, a student might have 3 years of general education and science/math courses then a 4th year of education courses. In Noyce, we have scholars enter the field a year early. During this time, their first two quarters are ~18 hours total in the field, initially observing and working with students during classroom activities, and their third quarter is ~30 hours total, with students usually beginning to take on leadership roles in the classroom. Their time and responsibilities then continue to ramp up the following year in the formal education program. Separate from Noyce, I have piloted an Introduction to Science Education course that is a low-stakes, low-credit introduction with a volunteer component in local schools, based on the literature you reference. Students can enroll in this course anytime, so this might be comparable to Step 1 in the UTeach model. 

For the graduates of our program, we host regular meetings during their first 2 years teaching (~2 per quarter). I think the scholars have found this particularly useful this year, in which they were all learning to teach in a variety of constantly changing contexts. They were able to share resources and effective strategies. We start each meeting with celebrations and challenges to foster those discussions. I could tell most scholars were working with a peer or small group outside these meetings as well (both peers from Noyce and from their general education cohorts). About half are teaching in rural schools where they are the only science teacher, so keeping them connected to a support network is a priority. I am not sure about their broader participation in professional networks, such as NSTA/Washington Science Teaching Association, and that'd be a great point to follow-up with scholars on and encourage in a future meeting with the scholar graduates!

Thank you, 

Bo

Hi Janelle, 

Great point about the heavy load for our new teachers. We know they're often overwhelmed those first years, so are very careful about what we expect and how much time we ask of scholars. Our students are primarily in either an urban setting which has a heavier load of induction/PD within their district/school or are in very rural settings which have little demand in those areas but those teachers are often tasked with teaching 5-7 different preps (some across grades 6-12 as the only science or math teacher in their school). 

With that being said, we focus primarily on maintaining the cohort community formed during Noyce and supporting them in the bridging practices to help them through this transition in ways they may not be getting from their schools/districts. We meet 2-3 times per quarter via Zoom, and I schedule the meetings ~2 weeks in advance to find a time that works for the most scholars. The meetings are set up where we first open the floor for scholars to share celebrations and challenges in their classes since our last meeting. In this time they share resources, commiserate/encourage, and learn from each other's experiences. We then explore one of the bridging practices, with activities/discussion to help apply that practice to their experiences. We also ask scholars if they have anything in particular they'd like us to explore during our meetings so we can prepare support accordingly. 

Would love to hear what you and/or others are doing as well to help improve induction efforts!

Bo

Hi Bo,

I'm copying directly from the job description. We had one previous round and this is after revision: 

"This person will provide direct service and support to Noyce U-STEM Scholars prior to and through the admission process, program completion, secondary teacher licensure, and during teaching service. Supporting the mission of the grant will include: developing strategies to recruit and retain STEM majors as potential teachers; providing guidance and mentoring for students pursuing STEM secondary teacher licensure and placement in high-need schools; and participating in relevant activities hosted by the Center for Advanced STEM Education (CASE). This is a three-quarter time, benefited position which is grant-funded, renewed annually based upon performance, and dependent on the availability of grant funds. The University is particularly interested in applicants who have experience working with students from diverse backgrounds and a demonstrated commitment to broadening access to STEM pathways for under-represented groups."

It was her voice on our video interviewing the scholars. She is...AMAZING. She actually went through our teacher licensure program relatively recently so she knows it and the institution well. I would informally describe her role as Mama Bear or a Scholar Shepard. But she has definitely been key to the success of our efforts so far.

Janelle