An official website of the United States government
Mentoring is an important aspect of mathematics teacher education, and in particular, pre-service teacher education. Faculty at a large Midwestern university developed and refined a mentoring program designed to help pre-service secondary mathematics teachers, called Scholars, become future leaders in mathematics education. This paper describes how faculty mentors leveraged challenges in the mentoring program’s early stages based on their reflections and initial mentee outcomes to create a more effective mentoring program. Recommendations based on research and practice are provided for other university programs interested in mentoring future mathematics teachers.
more »
« less
Lived Experience of STEM Faculty Becoming Teacher Educators
This study employed an ethnographic qualitative research approach to examine the experiences of Science, Technology, Engineering, or Math (STEM) faculty who participated in a supplementary mentoring network, the National Science Foundation Noyce Scholarship program, for STEM pre-service teachers. The findings highlight the ways in which mentoring programs can positively impact faculty and the preparation of STEM pre-service teachers.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 2050397
- PAR ID:
- 10448487
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- The Texas forum of teacher education
- Volume:
- 13
- ISSN:
- 2166-0190
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 78-86
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
The need for a comprehensive, high-quality pipeline for the development of undergraduate pre-service teachers, especially those that represent a diverse student body, within STEM disciplines is acute. Here, we studied the NoyceSCIENCE program to determine the most impactful experiences offered to undergraduates through the lens of student development theory. We used qualitative coding to analyze data collected from journals ( n = 29) written by students of varying backgrounds, and at varying levels within the program (i.e., the Scholar and Intern level) over a 3-year program running period. We observed that faculty mentorship, the ability of undergraduates to mentor others, volunteer experiences, and learning directly from experts had the greatest influence on student development overall. For Scholars that participate for more than 1 year in the program, access to undergraduate mentoring and volunteering experiences contributed most to student development. We posit that these findings are broadly applicable to other science learning communities and STEM content-focused teacher preparation programs as they are program components that can be integrated in isolation or in their entirety.more » « less
-
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) are the focus for a Research Experience for Teachers (RET) Site in Engineering at X University. The relevant and meaningful contexts of the SDGs allow middle and high school teachers and their students to easily make connections between research in a university lab setting to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) concepts in their classroom. Lesson plans inspired by the UN SDGs research experience were developed as an “integrated STEM” problem solving activity by each of the RET teachers. Ten (10) teachers comprising of both pre-service and in-service middle or high school teachers have participated in each cohort over the two years of the NSF RET grant thus far. Six weeks of authentic summer research takes place in 5 different faculty labs at X University under the mentorship of faculty and their graduate students or postdoc. Examples of the research projects include “Photocatalysis for Clean Energy and Environment,” “Genetically Engineering Plasmid DNA molecules to address Tuberculosis Antibiotic Resistance,” and “New Water-Based Technology for Plastic Recycling.” RET participants also attend a weekly coffee session to help guide the teachers through the research process and a weekly ½-day professional development (PD) session to translate the research experience into a classroom lesson plan that aligns to state standards, as well as evidence-backed curriculum design and teaching strategies. Teacher cohort building and community is fostered through group lunches and additional activities (e.g., coordinated lab visits, behind the scenes tour of a local science museum, and industry panel). For evaluation of the RET program, pre/post-surveys measured the teacher’s self-reported ability, confidence, understanding, and frequency of use of the Engineering Design Process (EDP), Integrated STEM, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Formative assessment was conducted throughout the summer on various aspects of the RET through surveys and regular check-ins with the teachers. At the end of the summer, focus groups were conducted by an external evaluator for both the teacher participants and the research mentors. Both teachers and mentors declared the program was well planned and executed. The teachers developed close bonds and connections, learned a lot from each other, had meaningful research experiences, and developed a sense of community. The research mentors reported that the teachers provided useful research contributions, were enthusiastic about the research, had genuine lab experiences, developed professional skills, and built good community connections. Areas for improvement included clear expectations for everyone, reducing steep learning curves, and consistency of mentoring across the labs. The RET program continues into the academic year with occasional meetings to report on the implementation of their research-inspired lesson plan in their classroom. The RET participants share that they are bringing in the “real world” relevance to their students with an integrated STEM lens (e.g., climate change and UN SDGs) and that they refer back to their own lab experiences (e.g., importance of measuring chemicals accurately). The research experience has made several positive impacts on the teacher participants that also benefit their students.more » « less
-
null (Ed.)Purpose The purpose of this case study is to explore the perceptions of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) faculty members toward mentoring undergraduates. Design/methodology/approach Within the context of a student scholarship and faculty development project, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), STEM faculty members were interviewed at a small teaching-focused university in South Texas, United States. This research study utilized a qualitative case study approach based on semi-structured interviews with nine Mathematics and Computer Science faculty members. Transcripts were coded thematically, beginning with open coding and continuing with repeated rounds of comparison leading to the identification of four themes. Findings Four themes were identified in the data: describing settings where mentoring occurs, identifying the tasks of mentoring, developing skills for mentoring others and inhabiting the identity of a mentor. These findings suggest that increasing faculty engagement and effectiveness in mentoring STEM students may be a matter of broadening the definition of mentoring and helping faculty members develop the identity of a mentor. Practical implications In an effort to promote retention of students, specifically within STEM fields, many initiatives highlight the importance of faculty mentoring for undergraduate students. This research suggests that faculty members' perceptions of the role and structure of a mentoring relationship will shape this relationship and have an impact on student persistence and success. Originality/value While most studies of faculty–student mentoring focus on the experiences of students, this study explored faculty members' perceptions of that relationship.more » « less
-
This full paper interrogates the perceptions of mentoring of international STEM doctoral faculty at US universities. International faculty comprise the second largest STEM faculty population in the US, yet little is known about their perceptions surrounding mentoring. Literature informs on the importance of cross-cultural mentoring which is impacted by various factors especially sociocultural and sociopolitical concerns. As a result of the miniscule number of Black and Brown STEM faculty at US institutions, most US underrepresented racially minoritized students have doctoral faculty mentors who are either White or international. These students are negatively impacted when these cross-cultural mentorships fail to be culturally liberative. A qualitative case study using interviewing as method was employed to better understand the perspectives of international faculty teaching in US STEM doctoral programs. Using inductive constant comparative analysis, the study identified three patterns relative to STEM doctoral mentoring by international faculty: focus on pragmatics, science culture as race and culture neutral, and limited ability to empathize with the marginalization of "the other" in spite of marginalization as international faculty. Three implications were developed based on the findings. STEM doctoral education should reimagine mentoring as holistic, embedded in and accountable to cultural understanding, international faculty should draw on their own experiences of marginalization to connect with and better respond to the needs of racially minoritized US STEM doctoral students and international faculty should engage in anti-racism and anti-Black racism training to become aware of ways in which implicit bias and lack of cultural knowledge infiltrates mentoring practice.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- The DOI is not currently available.
