Planning: Eastern North and South Carolina STEM Teacher Corps Alliance Planning Meeting

This project aims to serve the national interest by forming a collaborative team – spanning multiple universities, K-12 districts, state-level education organizations, and non-profit entities across the predominantly rural Eastern Region of North and South Carolina – to recognize excellence and support professional leadership and growth opportunities for STEM teachers from traditional and alternative licensure pathways. This project supports a planning meeting with the team to develop a network that will recognize, elevate, and leverage the expertise of outstanding STEM teachers to promote professional learning for teachers from traditional and alternative licensure pathways throughout the region. The network will meet a significant need for more highly qualified STEM teachers, which will translate into high-level, equitable, and accessible learning opportunities for each student. Additionally, this project will provide an example of how to create a network of teacher leaders to support high-quality STEM instruction for not only Eastern North and South Carolina, but also with a focus on scalability. The scope of this project is to identify potential members of the regional collaborative team and hold a two day in person planning meeting with dedicated time to 1) listen to regional stakeholders potentially served by this project, 2) understand the unique needs across contexts, 3) examine existing resources, programs, and infrastructure, and 4) synthesize knowledge and understanding gained to co-construct the vision, mission, goals, and objectives for the Eastern North Carolina and South Carolina STEM Teacher Corps Alliance. An additional outcome of the meeting will be an outline of a project proposal to be submitted to NSF National STEM Teacher Corps Pilot Program. This project's design will advance understanding of how a network, in which outstanding STEM teachers work with a collaborative team, can elevate STEM teachers, collectively, throughout a region. The NSF National STEM Teacher Corps Pilot Program supports the elevation of the STEM teacher profession by selecting and recognizing outstanding STEM educators that advance equity in our Nation’s PreK –12 classrooms and providing professional development of STEM teachers. 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.