Page 103 - Innovative Professional Development Methods and Strategies for STEM Education

Systematic Support for STEM Pre-Service Teachers

Outcomes from Project Engage

The overall goals of Project Engage centered on recruitment and retention of underrepresented students
in STEM majors. The four-pillar model of professional development for pre-service teachers was de-
veloped as a by-product through the implementation of this grant program, Project Engage. Data is still
being collected at this juncture of implementation and further data collection and analysis is needed. At
this stage, results during year one of the program indicated retention of freshmen STEM majors, previ-
ously significantly less than freshmen non-STEM majors, equalized at 56%. Current retention data for
year two indicates the proposed model has increased retention rates of freshmen STEM majors (70%)
above that of non-STEM majors (62%). Retention of students in STEM majors is only one aspect of the
effectiveness of Project Engage. By keeping undergraduate students in STEM majors, including STEM
education majors, this program stands to prepare more highly qualified STEM professionals and in the
end will result in a more highly skilled workforce.

SOLUTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

This chapter argues that one of the possible solutions to improving K-12 students’ STEM learning out-
comes, promoting their motivation and interest in STEM, and narrowing the STEM achievement gap,
is to cultivate STEM teachers’ ability to create authentic STEM learning experience for their students.
Avery and Reed (2013) concluded that professional development “is important to STEM education” (p.
55) and affords STEM educators the opportunity to learn methods of integrating new teaching practices.
The authentic and sustainable four-pillar STEM professional development model is proposed as being
able to prepare pre-service teachers for providing authentic STEM learning experiences to their future
students and for making sustainable contributions to K-12 STEM education. But the fact exists that it is
often difficult for teachers to translate knowledge gained through professional development into effective
teaching practice (Duffy, 2004; Gordon, 2004) and this is especially true for pre-service teachers who
normally have no previous teaching experience. This knowledge transfer problem is reflected in the com-
mon lore among teachers: teaching as happening in classrooms and “talk about teaching” as happening
in universities are incommensurable. Because of the knowledge transfer problem, the “from knowledge
and skills to effective STEM pedagogy” component (see Figure 1) has been added into the professional
development model. Pre-service teacher professional development providers are recommended to em-
phasize this component in their professional development programs and employ appropriate professional
development activities (e.g., reflective practice activities and outreach programs) to facilitate the transfer
of knowledge from STEM professional development into effective K-12 STEM teaching practices.

FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS

The authentic and sustainable four-pillar STEM professional development model proposed in this
chapter is intended to provide STEM pre-service teachers with training that will not only improve their
STEM content knowledge and their STEM PCK but also cultivate their ability to create authentic STEM

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