The stem teacher excellence project step will offer one week institutes to pre service and alternate route stem teachers at each of the ten NASA centers. Step is directed by the LBJ institute for stem…

This is a $2,963,497.79 cooperative agreement awarded by NASA to Texas State University for the STEM Teacher Excellence Project (STEP). The project will provide one-week institutes at each of the ten NASA Centers to pre-service and alternate route STEM teachers, with a focus on recruiting participants from minority-serving institutions. The institutes will offer content-rich learning experiences integrated with NASA facility tours and interactions with subject matter experts. Participants will complete online pre- and post-institute activities and receive a $500 stipend upon successful completion. Over the 3-year project, at least 1,500 STEM educators will benefit from these NASA professional development opportunities. The project leverages existing NASA education infrastructure and resources to maximize the impact on pre-service and alternate route STEM teachers across the U.S. There is no set-aside designation for this award.

The stem teacher excellence project step will offer one week institutes to pre service and alternate route stem teachers at each of the ten NASA centers. Step is directed by the LBJ institute for stem education and research at texas state university the leadership team who also coordinates the NASA education professional development collaborative epdc. Institutes will typically be conducted during the summer months, but some may occur throughout the year depending upon the needs of participants and the preferences of the NASA centers. Each institute will serve a minimum of fifty participants who will be recruited from minority service institutions msis from around the country. Msis will be encouraged to send a team of up to five participants accompanied by a stem education faculty member from the institution. This recruitment model has been successfully piloted by johnson space center and was found to be advantageous over other recruitment methods used for previous institutes for preservice teachers. The NASA step institutes will also be advertised through a variety of dissemination avenues affiliated with stem education professional organizations and other stem related entities. Individual teachers may also apply to participate in the NASA step institutes. The one week institute experience is grounded in research based principles of teacher development and will provide rich learning experiences upon which teachers can scaffold their content knowledge and further develop their content specific pedagogical practices. A team of stem educators with extensive NASA EPD experience has designed the learning activities that will be a part of each institute. In addition, these learning experiences will be fully integrated with tours of center facilities and opportunities for participants to interact with the center content specialists. The core instructional staff for the institute will consist of the onsite coordinator identified by the center, the epdc education specialists, and two highly experienced stem educators who have completed training related to the content and delivery of the institutes. Prior to coming to the institute, participants will be introduced via webinar to the center, the centers epdc educational specialist who will help facilitate the on site experience, and to various other NASA EPD resources. Each participant will complete eight hours of instruction through the NASA epdc badging system before arriving at the institute. Following the institute, participants will complete an additional eight hours of online follow up activities designed to help participants internalize and implement what they have learned from their institute experiences. The institute will cover four nights of lodging, and daily breakfasts and lunches. Upon successful completion of the institute experiences and follow up activities, student participants will earn a 500 dollar stipend. In addition participants who chose to enroll concurrently through an online course offered through recipient will have the opportunity to earn three hours of undergraduate credit in a stem methods course for their participation in the institute and completion of the affiliated learning experiences. Collectively over the three years of the project the 30 NASA step institutes will provide a minimum of one thousand and five hunderd stem educators with a series of content rich NASA professional learning experiences and will impact all ten NASA centers across the U.S. The project will leverage existing resources in place through the NASA centers and the NASA educator professional development collaborative and will capitalize upon the existing infrastructure to ensure that the resources invested in the institutes will generate the greatest benefits possible for the professional learning of preservice and alternate route stem educators across the U.S.