Building a Culturally-Competent STEM Teacher Workforce in Northeast Ohio

The project aims to serve the local, regional, and national needs of recruiting, training, and graduating more STEM educators in K-12 schools and ensuring those students have the training necessary to succeed in diverse classrooms. To address these needs and build the capacity necessary to implement a Noyce program, Baldwin Wallace University will develop a new STEM-anchored education program; establish stronger recruitment pipelines for that program with area K–12 schools and community colleges, including the creation of a new dual enrollment program focused on STEM education; and improve the quality of training that students receive in culturally competent practices (CCP) to better prepare graduates to succeed as STEM educators. This project at Baldwin Wallace University (BWU) includes partnerships with Cleveland Metropolitan School District, Fairview Park City School District, Cuyahoga Community College, and Lorain County Community College. The project objectives are to (1) design and launch a new STEM education bachelor’s program that couples a major in biology or mathematics with the courses necessary to meet the teacher licensure requirements in the State of Ohio; (2) improve the education and STEM faculty’s knowledge of and capacity to integrate instruction in the use of culturally competent practices into the curriculum; (3) strengthen existing partnerships with area high schools by establishing a recruitment pipeline into the STEM education program; and (4) strengthen existing partnerships with area community colleges with a focus on recruiting transfer students in the STEM education program. These activities will improve BWU’s capacity to meet the growing local, regional, and national need for additional, well-trained, culturally competent STEM educators. Additionally, as part of the eventual Track 1 proposal, the project leaders will study how the integration of culturally competent practices into the curriculum might broaden the perspectives of and increase the resilience of young STEM educators. The program evaluation will rely on interviews of the project team and partners to establish the fidelity to proposed project activities and the extent to which those activities achieved the proposed outputs. This Capacity Building project is supported through the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program (Noyce). The Noyce program supports talented STEM undergraduate majors and professionals to become effective K-12 STEM teachers and experienced, exemplary K-12 STEM teachers to become STEM master teachers in high-need school districts. It also supports research on the persistence, retention, and effectiveness of K-12 STEM teachers in high-need school districts. 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.