Southeastern Regional Robert Noyce Connections: Convening a Community of Learners Focused on STEM Pre-Service Teacher Education

This project will conduct research about teacher preparation in the context of hosting two annual convenings (2016 and 2017): Southeastern Regional Robert Noyce Connections: Convening a Community of Learners Focused on STEM Pre-Service Teacher Education. The Southeastern region includes 9 target states (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee). Each convening will involve 200 participants, including presenters and discussion leaders. The emphasis of this project is to strengthen connections among the Noyce projects and others interested and engaged in teacher preparation, in order to expand the impact from the local areas influenced by the individual projects to the larger region. To continue to strengthen the connections beyond the convenings, the project team will use a well-established electronic system to create the Southeast Regional Noyce Network (SRN^2), which will allow for discussion forums and a place to post articles, learning and teaching ideas, and other resources.

The research agenda will investigate cultural, racial, and educational variables in the community of Noyce investigators and pre-service and in-service teachers. Research questions include: (1) How do Noyce Programs address cultural competence? (2) What racial, cultural, and educational attitudes and experiences predict desire to teach STEM in a high-need school? (3) How do Noyce Scholars perceive students? STEM abilities from majority and non-majority groups? (4) Which factors are related to job satisfaction and wellbeing for Noyce Scholars? In addition, the convenings will provide opportunities for researchers and other investigators interested in the Noyce Program, as well as Noyce scholarship and fellowship recipients, to build and strengthen collaborations toward moving teaching and research about teacher education forward as fields.