1. Wendy Adams
  2. https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendy-adams-780b082a/
  3. Director Teach@Mines and Research Professor of Physics
  4. Get the Facts Out: Changing the conversation around STEM teacher recruitment
  5. https://getthefactsout.org/
  6. Colorado School of Mines
  1. Lucy Grande
  2. Research Associate, GFO and Advisor Teach@MInes
  3. Get the Facts Out: Changing the conversation around STEM teacher recruitment
  4. https://getthefactsout.org/
  5. Colorado School of Mines
  1. Drew Isola
  2. Get the Facts Out Project Coordinator
  3. Get the Facts Out: Changing the conversation around STEM teacher recruitment
  4. https://getthefactsout.org/
  5. American Association of Physics Teachers
  1. David May
  2. http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmaystem
  3. Get the Facts Out Project Manager and Research Associate
  4. Get the Facts Out: Changing the conversation around STEM teacher recruitment
  5. https://getthefactsout.org/
  6. Colorado School of Mines
Public Discussion

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  • Icon for: David May

    David May

    Co-Presenter
    Get the Facts Out Project Manager and Research Associate
    May 9, 2022 | 04:17 p.m.

    Welcome to Get the Facts Out, a project that aims to help repair the reputation of the teaching profession and thereby inspire more people to become teachers of secondary STEM. Please join our growing community of practice at GettheFactsOut.org!

    My name is David May, and I am the project manager for GFO (as we call it). I and our Principal Investigator Wendy Adams have spent many, many years working to improve STEM teacher preparation, and are very excited about the promise of this project for addressing the severe shortage of secondary STEM teachers.

    Our research has found that many STEM faculty and others strongly value K-12 STEM teaching, yet:

    1. underestimate teachers' salary and benefits,
    2. drastically overestimate the starting salaries of other STEM occupations that require the same degree,
    3. are not aware that about half of all undergraduate STEM majors have an interest in a teaching career, and
    4. that there are research-based resources freely available for getting the facts about teaching out to college students, career changers, and those who mentor and advise them on career options.

    Please keep in mind that many people have to dig into the data before they fully believe all of the facts that we present here. A fair amount of discussion of the data and what it means may also be necessary, because it runs counter to what the conventional wisdom is about how teachers fare in general.

    That's why we would love for you to take part in this online discussion! If you can't for some reason but are still interested in learning more, please sign up for our periodic email newsletter (you can preview several issues first) and visit our website.

     

     
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    Donna Stokes
  • Icon for: Barbara Hopkins

    Barbara Hopkins

    Science Education Consultant
    May 10, 2022 | 08:41 a.m.

    Hi David:  Our state legislature is beginning a study to look at why so many are leaving the profession! I am going to send some of your project materials to them. It's certainly known that the Covid pandemic was challenging for teachers and parents. Did it influence your data? We had a large turnover in school and district administrators as well!

     
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    David May
  • Stephanie Chasteen

    May 10, 2022 | 01:44 p.m.

    Barbara! My high school chemistry teacher! What a coincidence to have one of my inspirations show up on the project that I work on to promote high school STEM teaching! I'm the external evaluator for Get the Facts Out. e-wave!

     
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    Wendy Adams
    David May
  • Icon for: David May

    David May

    Co-Presenter
    Get the Facts Out Project Manager and Research Associate
    May 10, 2022 | 09:34 a.m.

    Hi Barbara! Great question, and one we've been looking into for a while now. While teachers certainly have had it very rough, it turns out that even in the last two years they've been quitting at rates far lower than for people in other professions. Our evidence for this is from U.S. Dept. of Labor data as well as from some recent articles from ChalkBeat/AP, EdWeek, and The 74.

    We know there is still a severe teacher shortage, especially in secondary STEM, and that it's getting worse. So we have our work cut out for us. And while business done by other professionals may have declined as the economy slumped, there's certainly no decline in the number of K-12 students who need teaching!

    Thanks again for the question! I hope that's somewhat helpful. I don't know the specific numbers in NH, but that Labor data might have it.

     

     
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    Wendy Adams
  • Icon for: Steve Maier

    Steve Maier

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 10, 2022 | 09:40 a.m.

    The messaging of this campaign is on point! 

    The resources available at the website (https://getthefactsout.org/) are numerous and include high quality, editable documents for programs to use as they see fit locally.  Administrators and recruiters will especially appreciate the quick data sheets that get at why STEM teaching as a profession is an important and viable career of choice.

    GFO makes it so much easier for departments to take on and/or enhance their ongoing recruitment efforts!

     
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    Paul Miller
    Wendy Adams
    David May
  • Icon for: Paige Evans

    Paige Evans

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 10, 2022 | 10:18 a.m.

    Hello David!  This is wonderful! We have used several of your resources throughout the years that have helped us with our recruiting.  

     
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    Wendy Adams
    David May
  • Icon for: David May

    David May

    Co-Presenter
    Get the Facts Out Project Manager and Research Associate
    May 10, 2022 | 10:22 a.m.

    Thanks Paige! Everyone watching our project's video should check out the one Paige made - it's a perfect example of the power of a teacher's story for generating even more interest in STEM teaching.

     
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    Wendy Adams
  • Icon for: Wendy Adams

    Wendy Adams

    Lead Presenter
    Director Teach@Mines and Research Professor of Physics
    May 11, 2022 | 12:00 a.m.

    Paige, 

    What a great video!!

  • Icon for: K. Renae Pullen

    K. Renae Pullen

    Facilitator
    Science Specialist
    May 10, 2022 | 02:00 p.m.

    Fascinating project! Based on your research and what you've learned, how can schools and districts improve their recruitment efforts especially as it concerns BIPOC STEM educators? 

     
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    Wendy Adams
    Paul Miller
  • Icon for: David May

    David May

    Co-Presenter
    Get the Facts Out Project Manager and Research Associate
    May 10, 2022 | 02:13 p.m.

    Hi Renae, thanks for the question. While our project mostly works with college faculty on recruiting students to their preservice-teaching programs, we have had a number of fantastic interactions with school and district recruiters. In fact, we've started inviting them to co-present with us about our resources because they just know everything about recruiting teachers! They have found our project's resources to be very valuable for improving recruitment.

    As for BIPOC STEM educators: our research has found that STEM majors who identify with a minoritized group have more interest in a teaching career than STEM majors who identify as white. It's not published yet, but one of our next steps is to get this information to those who recruit teachers!

    Thanks for your question.

     
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    K. Renae Pullen
  • Icon for: Brian Foley

    Brian Foley

    Facilitator
    Professor
    May 10, 2022 | 06:02 p.m.

    I love the GFO materials for recruiting STEM teachers. They do a great job of directly addressing the misconceptions that a lot of students have about teaching. Using them has made my job much easier.

    I am glad to hear that you are also working on the teacher retention issues. This really is becoming a crisis. I appreciate David's point that the rates of people leaving teaching are lower than some others, the bar to entering teaching is a lot higher than other professions (e.g. credential), so we can't replace teachers fast enough to meet the need.

     
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    David May
    Wendy Adams
  • Icon for: Wendy Adams

    Wendy Adams

    Lead Presenter
    Director Teach@Mines and Research Professor of Physics
    May 10, 2022 | 11:52 p.m.

    Brian,

    Thank you for the positive feedback!  On your second point, agreed!  We need to do more than add a student or two to our existing teacher prep programs. While that will certainly help, the shortage is larger than that! We're working on new resources to increase the numbers of students majoring in STEM for our next project.  We are also trying to reach career changers.  The problem is large enough that the solution must be multipronged.

     
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    Liza Bondurant
  • Icon for: Liza Bondurant

    Liza Bondurant

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 11, 2022 | 08:28 a.m.

    Thank you for these wonderful materials! I have used the slides, posters, and customizable flyers.

    Regarding teachers leaving the field, I wonder how valid and reliable some of the data we see in the media is. I am concerned that teachers who are considering leaving, may be persuaded to leave due by misleading media stories. 

     

    For example, according to Analysis: There’s Lots of Education Data Out There — and It Can Be Misleading. Here Are 6 Questions to Ask | The 74 (the74million.org) 

    under #5 "What is it measuring?"

    ... one of the most-cited statistics from a recent teachers union survey was that 29 percent of educators were considering leaving the profession. However, this was within a very specific context. When asked “How are you currently feeling about your work as an educator?” 7 of the 10 possible answers provided were negative — “stressed,” “overwhelmed,” “frustrated,” “worried,” “thinking about quitting or retiring,” “angry,” “worried about my own mental health.” Only three responses were positive: “happy,” “inspired” and “focused.” 

    With 7 out of 10 negative options it is no wonder teaching has a bad reputation and teachers begin to consider changing careers. 

     
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    Wendy Adams
  • Icon for: Wendy Adams

    Wendy Adams

    Lead Presenter
    Director Teach@Mines and Research Professor of Physics
    May 11, 2022 | 11:38 a.m.

    Liza,

    Exactly!  If everyone around you is complaining about how terrible your job is, how can it not affect you?  There are challenges in every career, especially over the past two years everyone has had a hard time.  But if you follow the media, it infers that only teachers (and healthcare workers) have struggled. It provides a very unrealistic view of the world and is discouraging one of the most important bodies of professionals in our society.  It seems irresponsible, imho.

    I'm really glad you have found the materials useful!

     
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    Liza Bondurant
  • Icon for: Ann Cavallo

    Ann Cavallo

    Facilitator
    Assistant Vice Provost and Director
    May 11, 2022 | 11:18 a.m.

    Thank you for this presentation. Yes there are many misconceptions about teaching that may (but should not!) discourage students from pursuing this wonderful profession! Do you have material (I will also check your website) on some of the day-to-day on why it is a great job/career - on what the job is like? What I mean is, that it is not a mundane desk job - you are active as you work with students and other faculty, every day is different and full of surprises, you get to see the smiles on students' faces when they learn something new -- capturing the joy of teaching itself :). 

     
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    Wendy Adams
  • Icon for: Wendy Adams

    Wendy Adams

    Lead Presenter
    Director Teach@Mines and Research Professor of Physics
    May 11, 2022 | 11:41 a.m.

    Hi Ann,

    Yes!  That is a central message in our student presentation.  There is a slide with a pie chart showing the range of responses when we asked teachers to write down, what makes your job satisfying day-to-day.  What you listed is exactly what they said. Over half of the responses were about their students both watching them grow and learn, and relationships. Following that were reasons including their schedule, their colleagues, the constant learning, and autonomy of the classroom.

     
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    Ann Cavallo
  • Icon for: Wendy Adams

    Wendy Adams

    Lead Presenter
    Director Teach@Mines and Research Professor of Physics
    May 11, 2022 | 11:42 a.m.

    This data also appears on our "Becoming a Teacher" page, https://getthefactsout.org/prospective-teachers/ on the website.  But it's more effective in a presentation when you can describe each area to them:)

     
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    Ann Cavallo
  • Icon for: David May

    David May

    Co-Presenter
    Get the Facts Out Project Manager and Research Associate
    May 11, 2022 | 01:51 p.m.

    Hi Ann. We also have professionally-made videos with real teachers talking about what they love about teaching, including the aspects you mention. Check out our video library, especially "Why I love my life as a teacher," "Why I decided to pursue teaching as a career," and "Did you know? Five surprising facts about the teaching profession" (especially the first fact).

     
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    Ann Cavallo
  • Icon for: Ann Cavallo

    Ann Cavallo

    Facilitator
    Assistant Vice Provost and Director
    May 15, 2022 | 11:25 a.m.

    Thank you! Very worthwhile and important work! Have you received feedback - even anecdotal - if this work has altered perspectives and encouraged students to pursue teaching? 

  • Icon for: David May

    David May

    Co-Presenter
    Get the Facts Out Project Manager and Research Associate
    May 16, 2022 | 03:07 p.m.

    Yes, we have some anecdotal feedback that it's become easier to recruit students to teacher-prep programs in STEM. We are currently collecting actual data on enrollments in teacher ed programs; our initial suspicion is that while some programs are recruiting more and some less, on average they are doing better than many fields (and many teacher prep programs with which we don't interact). We'll see once we crunch the numbers.

     
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    Ann Cavallo
  • Icon for: Ann Cavallo

    Ann Cavallo

    Facilitator
    Assistant Vice Provost and Director
    May 16, 2022 | 03:57 p.m.

    This is great - I look forward to finding out what you learn! Thanks!

  • Icon for: Stephanie Chasteen

    Stephanie Chasteen

    multimedia director
    May 16, 2022 | 06:07 p.m.

    Hi Ann, I'm the external evaluator for the project and I do have some new data on this question that Wendy said I could share with you!

    Surveys of participants in the GFO workshops show large changes in attitude and knowledge about teaching as a career, with pre/post gains of 41% for student presentations and 45% for faculty presentations. These have large effect sizes of 1.9 and 2.3 respectively.  These are shifts in both knowledge and attitudes. Post-test, most faculty and students give correct answers to factual questions (such as mid-career salaries and age of retirement). They also agree that teaching is a good career choice in general. 

    These attitude shifts for faculty are really important, since they are who the students to go to for career advice. Some of the data suggest that GFO empowers faculty to get involved in student recruitment, where they weren't sure what or how to recruit students to teaching before.

    For student perception change, across 1,657 students who attended a presentation, 1/3 of students shifted towards agreement with "I want to be a grade 7-12 teacher." They typically disagreed prior to the presentation, and shifted more towards neutrality -- which is a reasonable change after just a short engagement.

    Thus, the data suggests that GFO presentations to students and faculty are enhancing attitudes and information. Together, these are reducing the barriers for students to choose teaching careers. 

     
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    Wendy Adams
    Ann Cavallo
  • Icon for: Ann Cavallo

    Ann Cavallo

    Facilitator
    Assistant Vice Provost and Director
    May 16, 2022 | 06:50 p.m.

    Stephanie, thank you for this information! These are great results. 

  • Icon for: Vivian Guilfoy

    Vivian Guilfoy

    Researcher
    May 11, 2022 | 03:29 p.m.

    Countering misinformation is a critical need these days.  Your project is addressing this need directly in a number of ways  and pointing a way forward for those who are entertaining the idea of teaching.  You are opening a welcoming door, and helping prospective teachers learn from a community of practice that can portray a more realistic and positive frame of reference.  When coupled with hands-on teaching experiences and supported by systems that are committed to enhancing the teaching professions, your efforts should contribute to an increased interest in and pursuit of teaching.  How are you measuring the influence of your efforts?  

     
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    Wendy Adams
  • Icon for: Wendy Adams

    Wendy Adams

    Lead Presenter
    Director Teach@Mines and Research Professor of Physics
    May 12, 2022 | 01:04 a.m.

    Hi Vivian,

    Thank you!

    We have a range of measures. 

    • We have five comprehensive sites where we visit each year and hold focus groups with faculty and students to learn about the perceived culture around becoming a teacher and the perceptions of the profession. 
    • We also have ~50 universities that collect student and faculty perceptions via research instruments that we have developed - the PTaP (Perceptions of Teaching as a Profession) and the PTaP.HE (Peceptions of Teaching as a Profession in Higher Education). This data is collected in one or more of the physics, chemistry, and/or math departments each year. 
    • These two instruments are followed by questionnaires about how faculty and students engage in the conversation about teaching. Specifically we use this to understand faculty use of the resources and student engagement with the resources.
    • We are collecting enrollment data in teacher preparation programs from these study sites.
    • We also have built out specific studies at the Colorado school of Mines to measure the impact of the student presentation.
    • We conduct focus groups with a range of student populations as well as with faculty to study the impressions of our messaging (Did you knows, tag lines, photos, etc..)  
    • We ask faculty who use these resources to register their activities so that we can track the uptake and we look at the gains on the embedded pre/post survey in each presentation to see if presenters outside of GFO are able to generate the same level of perception change as the developers.  
    • Our external evaluator has also collected a range of data including awareness data via large scale surveys administered to members of all four of our partner societies, she has surveyed all and interviewed a selection the registered GFO Champions about their views of the resources and how they use them. Along with a host of other measures of the project activities and reach.

    Hopefully this helps and I'm happy to provide more detail if you'd like!

     
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    Ann Cavallo
  • Icon for: Stephanie Chasteen

    Stephanie Chasteen

    multimedia director
    May 16, 2022 | 06:00 p.m.

    Hi Vivian, I'm the external evaluator for the project and wanted to share some of the information about how project impact is assessed! I just completed the annual report for the project and there is some really compelling data I'd love to share:

    1. The number of people using GFO is just growing a growing. The number of people registered in our database is now 202, most of whom are using GFO materials. These folks are conducting more student presentations than any of the formal project staff or partners: 93 this last year, reaching over 2200 students. 

    2. Student responses to those presentations conducted by those GFO users is also very positive.

    3. Over the past 3 years, I estimate that the project has reached ~6600 students and ~4000 faculty through workshops, outreach, and engagement. 

    4. Surveys of participants in the GFO workshops show large changes in attitude and knowledge about teaching as a career, with pre/post gains of 41% for student presentations and 45% for faculty presentations. These have large effect sizes of 1.9 and 2.3 respectively. Even more critically, 1/3 of students shifted towards agreement with "I want to be a grade 7-12 teacher" after attending a workshop. 

    Thus, the data suggests that GFO has a broad reach, faculty appreciate the materials and use them well, and presentations to students and faculty are enhancing attitudes and information. Together, these are reducing the barriers for students to choose teaching careers. 

     
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    David May
    Wendy Adams
  • Icon for: Vivian Guilfoy

    Vivian Guilfoy

    Researcher
    May 16, 2022 | 07:28 p.m.

    Hi Stephanie:  Excellent to see the results.  We know that changing mindsets is a crucial step in shaping attitudes and actions.  That is just another reason why your project is so important.  

     
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    Wendy Adams
  • Icon for: Ayanna Shivers

    Ayanna Shivers

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 11, 2022 | 04:08 p.m.

    This is amazing!  It ties into one of the things we are trying to do with our NOYCE Project.  I will be using the website.

     
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    David May
    Wendy Adams
  • Icon for: Wendy Adams

    Wendy Adams

    Lead Presenter
    Director Teach@Mines and Research Professor of Physics
    May 12, 2022 | 12:44 a.m.

    Ayanna,

    I'm glad this will be helpful for your work:)  Once you use GFO resources, it helps us out if you register as a GFO Champion (anyone who uses resources or even has a conversation with a student or colleague about the facts).  https://getthefactsout.org/become-gfo-champion/

    Please let us know how you decide to use these and what you found helpful!

  • Icon for: Ashley Coon

    Ashley Coon

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 12, 2022 | 12:16 p.m.

    Thank you for your video.  I am interested in science teacher recruitment and retention, and have listened to many pre-service science teachers describe how difficult it was for them to find out information about teaching.  I'm curious to know your thoughts on who is best positioned to share information about STEM teaching with undergraduate STEM majors - do you envision these presentations held by education faculty, by fellow STEM graduates who are pursuing teaching, or by science faculty (perhaps with interests in teaching)?  Should these presentations take place in STEM courses, or should it be part of an extracurricular event (and housed in STEM buildings or schools of ed?)?

     
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    David May
  • Icon for: Wendy Adams

    Wendy Adams

    Lead Presenter
    Director Teach@Mines and Research Professor of Physics
    May 12, 2022 | 01:46 p.m.

    Hi Ashley,

    Yes!  All of the above:)  Our resources are designed with faculty in mind, originally faculty in STEM departments; but we are finding a large number of faculty from schools of education, particularly directors of teacher education programs who find the resources helpful for their work broadly, not just for STEM prospective teachers.  We also have student ambassadors at our institution who give these presentations to other students.  Another one of our resources is the "Data Handouts" and these contain the same data that is found in the presentations and are nice to use during a conversation with a student or a colleague.

    On our "How to reach students" page, we list a range of venues and ways to share the facts at your institution.  https://getthefactsout.org/reach-students/

    Sharing facts with any faculty and any students is helpful for shifting the culture so that a pre-service teacher doesn't feel the need to defend their career choice.  Sharing the facts with pre-service teachers is helpful for retention.  We often hear, "I was starting to question my choice, but now I'm solid after hearing this!"

     

     
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    Ann Cavallo
    David May
  • Icon for: Josh Stowers

    Josh Stowers

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 12, 2022 | 10:30 p.m.

    GFO has great resources and has done a nice job keeping them up to date. I have used the presentations in my Exploration of Biology Teaching course with positive feedback from students. These are students who have already declared an interest in teaching Life Sciences. I am hoping this next Fall to be able to share this information with our intro majors' Biology courses to see if we can connect with students who may be a great fit for the profession. These resources are geared more toward physical sciences and math but have still been useful.  Thanks for the work you have put into this project.

     
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    David May
    Wendy Adams
  • Icon for: David May

    David May

    Co-Presenter
    Get the Facts Out Project Manager and Research Associate
    May 13, 2022 | 09:31 a.m.

    Hi Josh. Great to hear how the resources are working for you!

    Just so others know: Yes, some of the presentation slides show data for math, chemistry, and/or physics. But most (if I recall) are either for all STEM or for all K-12 teachers.

  • Icon for: Wendy Adams

    Wendy Adams

    Lead Presenter
    Director Teach@Mines and Research Professor of Physics
    May 12, 2022 | 11:01 p.m.

    Thank you! It's nice to hear how  you've used GFO:)

  • Icon for: Emily Jackson-Osagie

    Emily Jackson-Osagie

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 16, 2022 | 12:41 a.m.

    Great video! I'm planning to meet with STEM faculty this summer to help me with exposing STEM majors to a career in education. I've had a few STEM majors add an education minor in their junior year, so I would like to expose them earlier. Please provide any advice. Thanks!

     
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    David May
  • Icon for: David May

    David May

    Co-Presenter
    Get the Facts Out Project Manager and Research Associate
    May 16, 2022 | 03:20 p.m.

    Hi Emily, I'm so glad you'll be working on this with your colleagues in STEM and I'd be happy to provide some advice.

    First, to expose STEM majors to education earlier than junior year, you can do many things: hire them as undergrad TA's or Learning Assistants for courses they've already taken; offer a 1-credit course on "intro to STEM teaching" or "Assist a local K-12 teacher once a week;" or give them the highly-effective student-facing presentation mentioned in our video.

    Second, for meeting with STEM faculty about this effort, I strongly recommend starting out with our faculty-facing presentation. Our extensive research has found that because people hear so much misinformation about teaching, they really need to dig into the facts and discuss them before bringing accurate information to students. If you have time for the longer presentation, do it. If you don't, you will probably at least get a few colleagues to understand enough that they can do something worthwhile. Faculty often value teaching but don't understand a lot of the great things about it and thus can't communicate that to students.

    I hope that helps! Let me know if you have any more questions. And if you do plan to use any of our resources, please consider becoming a GFO Champion. It really helps us document our reach for NSF!

     

     
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    Wendy Adams
  • Icon for: Maia Punksungka

    Maia Punksungka

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 16, 2022 | 10:08 a.m.

    This is a great video, and what you're doing is quite important! I'm curious to hear -- have you looked at the role of continued, or adult education and training opportunities for existing STEM teachers as a form of teacher retention? I'm interested to know what resources exist to ensure existing STEM teachers stay in the field as well as stay up-to-date in the field, and how effective these resources are. 

  • Icon for: David May

    David May

    Co-Presenter
    Get the Facts Out Project Manager and Research Associate
    May 16, 2022 | 03:28 p.m.

    Hi Maia. Thanks for the intriguing question! We have not explicitly studied STEM teacher retention for this project, but we have heard anecdotally that many of the K-12 teachers who hear about our resources get very excited and "wish they'd seen them sooner in their careers." We suspect that knowledge of these facts about teaching tends to increase commitment to the profession among anyone, not just preservice teachers.

    And many of the faculty with whom we work run STEM teacher preparation programs for inservice as well as preservice teachers (usually as a Master's level program). They are using GFO's resources wherever they can.

    For our next grant, we are looking into creating resources that accurately compare teaching with other STEM careers (because that's what we've found students want). We will also be targeting older students and career-changers. These resources may also be helpful for inservice teachers who might (as most people) not be aware of all the facts about STEM career benefits. (Most people think an undergrad STEM degree will give you a six-figure salary, which is not the case.)

     

  • Icon for: Kelly Costner

    Kelly Costner

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 17, 2022 | 12:40 p.m.

    I've attended some virtual info/training sessions and registered as a GFO Champion. So far, I've just shared with colleagues, but we planning an organized campaign utilizing these resources and some local data that I requested that you all gather. Thanks so much for that!

    But even without regional/local data, the fact that all the materials are customizable makes this a project that should and will have wide-ranging and long-lasting impacts. Everything looks classy in addition to providing much needed factual info, and those two features together will help seal the deal for many in the "yeah, but... I just don't know" phase!

  • Icon for: David May

    David May

    Co-Presenter
    Get the Facts Out Project Manager and Research Associate
    May 17, 2022 | 01:59 p.m.

    Hi Kelly. Thanks for your informative response! I'm glad you're finding the resources useful. We hope you continue to provide feedback like this (and even negative feedback, if you have it) so that we can make the resources as useful as possible.

    We'll try to get working on your request for local data ASAP. It takes a lot of staff time but is definitely worth it: Students are happy to know about the local salary rates and costs of living, but faculty in particular are often reluctant to believe our national data until they dig into their local data.

     

  • Icon for: Kelly Costner

    Kelly Costner

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 17, 2022 | 02:32 p.m.

    David--So sorry to have misled you in my phrasing above. I requested the local data and it has already been compiled. We will indeed be making use of it! Thanks again to you and your team!

     
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    Wendy Adams
    David May
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    Jane Jackson

    Co-Director, ASU Modeling Instruction Pgrm
    May 17, 2022 | 02:15 p.m.

    I'm a GFO Champion, and I work with high school physics and chemistry teachers and TYC physics faculty nationwide. They KNOW who to encourage to become a high school teacher, and they have a lot of influence for their students. But they lack resources such as GFO can provide, but modified and simplified for their "quick" use from time to time in their classes, for reinforcement of encouragement during the school year. Can GFO query them as to what TYPES of resources will best serve them?

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    Jane Jackson

    Co-Director, ASU Modeling Instruction Pgrm
    May 17, 2022 | 03:31 p.m.

    I'm responding to Liza Bondurant and Brian Foley, about STEM teachers leaving the field.  In greater Phoenix, we have 40 job openings in high school chemistry and physics, in public DISTRICT schools (and probably more in charter high schools and private/parochial high schools; I haven't had time to look at their websites). This is MANY more than usual. It is a crisis.  Yet the entire state of Arizona produces only about 8 new physics teachers each year, and about 16 new chemistry teachers.  Some Phoenix-area school districts (e.g., Casa Grande UHSD and Maricopa USD) hire STEM subject teachers from the Philippines and other Asian nations, on 'cultural exchange" visas, where they can stay here only 5 years. Casa Grande UHSD had 28 such teachers last year.

     
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    Wendy Adams
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    Jane Jackson

    Co-Director, ASU Modeling Instruction Pgrm
    May 17, 2022 | 08:00 p.m.

    I respond to Maia Punksungka, who asked about teacher retention and staying up-to-date.  The demise of professional development for STEM subject teachers is alarming! This summer, only 25 multi-week Modeling Workshops will be held in physical, life, and computational sciences – down from 60 in 2017, due to demise of the two Federal grant programs for LOCAL teacher professional development.(They are listed at https://www.modelinginstruction.org )

    Numerous physics teachers have written that professional development in Modeling Instruction saved their career!  Teachers wrote : “If I had not found the Modeling Instruction pedagogy, I would most likely left teaching by now because I was so discouraged with the mile-wide, inch-deep approach that I was using.”

     (More generally, K-12 science teacher professional development (PD) has declined in recent years. Horizon Research documented the decline; see Trends in U.S. Science Education from 2012 to 2018, by P. Sean Smith. 2020, Horizon Research, Inc. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED611301 )

    Why has it declined? Because the Federal government ended 2 crucial PD programs, making PD much too expensive. Chief among the programs that served physics teachers was the U.S. Department of Education’s 2.5% set-aside for colleges in their formula Title II-A grants to each state. (That provided $1 million to Arizona each year, for subgrants for local teacher PD. The other program was the Math & Science Partnerships -- state formula grants that were subgranted to school districts. Impossible to use for HS physics & chemistry PD in most states.)

    All of that is GONE. Now teachers nationwide must PAY typically $775 for a summer Modeling Workshop. It's unfair; wealthy private schools benefit -- and sometimes entire science departments transform -- but most PUBLIC schools are LEFT OUT.      Bottom line: How can we re-instate these 2 Federal programs for LOCAL science teacher PD?