Addressing Beginning STEM Teachers' Needs to Teach in High-Need School Districts

Abstract

Highly qualified teachers with strong STEM backgrounds are needed to teach children, particularly in high-need school districts. One university's teacher preparation program used a constructivist approach to build candidates' technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge to enhance their preparation to teach in classrooms where they are expected to utilize instructional technology effectively. Teacher preparation programs prepare candidates to a certain degree, however, beginning teachers continue to need support. This chapter reports on how prepared these new STEM teachers were to teach and the challenges they faced in high-need school districts. This chapter also discusses the instructional technology provided to these teachers from a federal grant to address some of these challenges. The chapter concludes that beginning STEM teachers benefit from induction supports that 1) provide university-based mentoring, 2) allow them to continue to use strategies and technologies they had access to during their teacher preparation program, and 3) continue to develop themselves as professionals.