Author(s):
Need:The US K-12 STEM education system faces the combined challenges of an overall shortage of qualified STEM teachers (Cowan et al., 2016) and a mismatch between the diversity of the student population and the teaching workforce (Hrabowski & Sanders, 2015; National Science Board, 2021; Schaeffer, 2021). Considering evidence that students benefit from exposure to teachers who share their backgrounds, these challenges need to be addressed (Egalite & Kisida, 2018; Gershenson et al., 2018; NASEM 2020; Price, 2010).Guiding Inquiry:This work uses a phenomenological approach to investigate the following questions:•What are the barriers and supports students’ experience in developing a STEM teaching identity and considering a STEM teaching profession? •How do these experiences relate to their STEM identities and other intersectional identities? Outcomes:We will present findings from the phenomenological study regarding experiences of MRE students in introductory STEM teaching courses with respect to their identity development as future STEM teachers. Examining the intersections between students cultural, STEM, and teaching identities provides opportunities to identify barriers and supports to students’ persistence in STEM teaching degree pathways. This knowledge can then be leveraged to design and deploy interventions that increase MRE students’ retention in STEM teaching careers.Broader Impacts:The broader impacts of this project include direct impact to MRE STEM students and STEM Education faculty. Students will be directly impacted through experiencing interventions that are designed to explicitly connect their cultural, STEM, and teaching identities to a career in STEM education. Faculty will gain strategies to better recruit and retain the next generation of STEM teachers, especially those from MRE groups. References:Cowan, J., Goldhaber, D., Hayes, K., & Theobald, R. (2016). Missing elements in the discussion of teacher shortages. Educational Researcher, 45(8), 460-462. Egalite A.J, Kisida B. 2018. The Effects of Teacher Match on Students’ Academic Perceptions and Attitudes. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 40(1):59–81. Available at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.3102/0162373717714056. Gershenson, S., Hart, C., Hyman, J., Lindsay, C., Papageorge, N.W. 2018. The Long-Run Impacts of Same-Race Teachers. Working Paper 25254. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. Available at https://www.nber.org/papers/w25254. Hrabowski, F. A., & Sanders, M. G. (2015). Increasing racial diversity in the teacher workforce: One university’s approach. The NEA Higher Education Journal: Thought & Action, winter, 101–116. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM). 2020. Changing Expectations for the K–12 Teacher Workforce: Policies, Preservice Education, Professional Development, and the Workplace. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. National Science Board, National Science Foundation. 2021. Elementary and Secondary STEM Education. Science and Engineering Indicators 2022. NSB-2021-1. Alexandria, VA. Available at https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20211/. Price, J. (2010.) The Effect of Instructor Race and Gender on Student Persistence in STEM Fields. Economics of Education Review, 29(6):901–10. Schaeffer, K. (2021). America’s public school teachers are far less racially and ethnically diverse than their students. Pew Institute Research Center, retrieved from https://pewrsr.ch/3rSsNLB
Coauthors
Nicole D. Cook, Florida International University, Miami, FL; Leslie Nisbet-Gonzalez, Florida International University, Miami, FL; Ingelise Giles, Florida International University, Miami, FL; Zahra Hazari, Florida International University, Miami, FL; Amanda Martinez, Florida International University, Miami, FL
