Recruiting the Next Generation of Science Teachers
Ingrid Novodvorsky , University of Arizona
Undergraduate students at the University of Arizona who wish to become middle or high school science teachers have a unique opportunity to pursue their goal in the company of other science majors and under the guidance of science educators and experienced mentor teachers. In this article, I present some of the methods we have used to recruit science majors into our program, as well as our plans to increase the number of students recruited.
As described in an article in the Spring 2005 issue of this newsletter, the Teacher Preparation Program (TPP) was established at the University of Arizona in 1999 to provide preparation for prospective middle and high-school science teachers within the College of Science . Students in the program have two different degree options that lead to eligibility for teacher certification. They may remain in their science-degree programs, and take an additional 33 credits of coursework in science teaching, or they may enroll in a B.S. degree in Science Education, with concentrations available in biology, chemistry, earth science, or physics. Each of the concentration options includes the 33 credits of science-teaching coursework, and at least 45 credits of science coursework. Faculty members in the program are affiliated with various content departments, including physics, chemistry, molecular and cellular biology, astronomy, and biochemistry, and function as members of an interdisciplinary program in managing the program, teaching its courses, and advising students.
The table below indicates enrollments over the life of the program. We currently have the capacity to support the preparation of 20 teachers a year, and so our recruitment efforts are focused on increasing the number of students in the courses leading up to student teaching.
|
2000-01 |
2001-02 |
2002-03 |
2003-04 |
2004-05 |
2005-06 |
Individual students in CoS TPP courses |
26 |
35 |
67 |
100 |
114 |
135 |
CoS TPP completers |
5 |
1 |
5 |
14 |
8 |
13 |
Physics teachers prepared # |
0 |
0 |
2 |
1 |
1 |
4* |
# Prior to TPP, ~ 6 science teachers graduated each year from the College of Education; 2 physics teachers graduated in 4 years
*3 of these 4 are women
We have worked on recruiting students into our program in a variety of ways. First, we have established a presence for the program in the New Student Orientation Sessions presented by the College of Science. All incoming freshmen are required to attend a two-day orientation session, and the TPP is highlighted in the overview of college programs. Those incoming students who are already committed to teaching can select Science Education as their major when they enter the University of Arizona, and we meet with those students during the orientation sessions to help them plan their schedule, and keep in contact with them via e-mail until they start taking courses in our program, typically in their sophomore year. This recruiting effort has yielded 11 students over the past two years; this small number is not surprising, since we have found that few students enter college already planning to teach high-school science.
Since most of our students do come to the program after they have been at the university for two years or more, another avenue of recruiting has been in second-year introductory science courses. This recruiting is done in connection with small scholarships ($750/semester) that we offer students simply to take our first course, in order to see if teaching is a good fit. The scholarships are funded through the proceeds of a sales-tax increase approved by state voters and earmarked for workforce development. Each semester, faculty members in the program visit science courses in various departments to announce the scholarships and describe the program. This recruiting path has resulted in 19 students who enrolled in our first course upon receiving a scholarship. Nine of those students only completed the first course and decided that teaching wasn't a good fit. The other ten completed all or most of the courses in the program. (Students can also select a Science Education minor, which includes all of the science-teaching courses except student teaching.)
Another recruiting avenue, which we have just established, is the Noyce Scholars Program. This is a program funded by NSF, and is designed to support students in mathematics and science teacher preparation programs who agree to teach in high-needs schools upon completion of their programs. We awarded ten scholarships for the 2006-07 academic year, the first year of our funding, and we have funding to support up to 14 Noyce Scholars each year.
All of these recruiting avenues have attracted some students to our program. However, our most powerful recruiting tools have been the advisors and students in the departments within the College of Science. We send the advisors regular updates on the program, provide them with program brochures, and encourage them to send students who express an interest in teaching to one of the faculty advisors in the program. In addition, as our program has grown, the word-of-mouth advertising by students in the program has brought many new students into our program. It is difficult to quantify the impact of this avenue of recruiting, but given the steady increase in the number of students in our program courses, we expect that most of the students who enroll do so after talking with one of the students in the program or one of the faculty advisors.
We have developed two additional recruitment tools that we will be utilizing this year. The first is our student chapter of the National Science Teachers Association; we plan to solicit the advice of the students in this group, who are already committed to teaching, on how we might recruit more students to the program. We also plan to ask some of these students to accompany us on recruiting visits to science classrooms, to provide a student perspective. The second new tool is a showcase of science inquiry projects developed by prospective science teachers in our subject methods courses. (We have three of these courses, focused on Biology, Earth Science, and Physical Science.) Students in all of these courses will complete science inquiry projects and present their results in a poster session at the end of the fall semester, to which we will invite other science majors. We anticipate that these two recruitment strategies will tap into the "student network" to recruit more prospective science teachers.
We have been successful in recruiting students into our first program course, and approximately 2/3 of the students who complete that course go on to complete additional science-teaching courses. Our future recruitment efforts will be focused on attracting even more students into that first course, in an effort to increase our overall production of secondary science teachers.
Ingrid Novodvorsky is the Director of the College of Science Teacher Preparation Program at the University of Arizona. |