Closing the Loop: From Student to STEM Teacher for Idaho Schools

With funding from the National Science Foundation's Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship program, Closing the Loop: From Student to STEM Teacher for Idaho Schools will recruit undergraduate STEM majors and prepare them to become grade 6-12 STEM teachers in high-need, rural school districts. This Track 1 project aims to fund 65 scholarships over five years. In this project, Boise State University will collaborate with Caldwell, Jerome, Kimberly, Kuna, and Vallivue school districts to identify, recruit, and then support students interested in pursuing STEM teaching careers. During students' first two years of study, opportunities for support include an on-campus Living and Learning Community and STEM education summer internships in students' home communities. Students will complete Boise State University's four-year BS/certification program for the STEM disciplines (IDoTeach). In addition to scholarship support in their last two years of study, the project will support their transition into STEM teaching careers with an induction program that prepares new teachers to be teacher-leaders. This project aims to prepare teachers to enter the profession with knowledge of the systemic barriers that limit equitable instruction for a range of students, so that they are better advocate for the interests and needs of their increasingly diverse communities.

This proposal's merits lie in its efforts to increase the number and quality of STEM teachers for Idaho's secondary schools. Concomitant with these efforts is the goal to identify mechanisms that support an increase in the number of teachers, particularly with respect to the needs of rural, isolated districts. The theory of action behind this proposal is that explicit attention to students' geography in recruitment, internship placement, preparation, and ongoing support will close a loop: Students will be recruited from, prepared to teach within, and ultimately hired to serve as STEM educators for their rural home communities. Program evaluation will identify features of the recruitment, preparation and retention efforts that impact the number of teachers in rural school districts. The findings have the potential to provide important information about effective strategies for recruiting and preparing highly qualified STEM teachers to teach in rural and high-needs schools.

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.