PG Sentinel: UMD, PGCC and Montgomery College Receive Grants to Educate STEM Teachers for the Long Haul

The PG Sentinel recently featured a College of Education (COE) project. The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a grant to COE for support of a project that will provide resources for undergraduate students to participate in early teaching experiences. The project is entitled "Engaging Community Colleges in Recruitment of Secondary STEM Teachers Through Early Field Experiences."

Congressmen Steny H. Hoyer announced the funding (MD-05) along with Anthony Brown (MD-04) and Jamie Raskin (MD-08) and Senators Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD).

In a joint statement in the feature the senators and congressmen are quoted as stating "Passionate, well-prepared teachers are crucial to our students' success. We need educators who can champion STEM learning and engage our students on these important subjects."

Also in the feature, Dr. Anisha Campbell had this to add "The University of Maryland had a secondary STEM certification pathway that transformed in 2014 because we took all the Uteach model that originated at UT Austin. Once we did that, we've been working on increasing our numbers of STEM teachers that we produce each year."

The joint venture allows the schools to push for three different initiatives when it comes to STEM educators, encouraging students to consider a career as a STEM teacher, increasing awareness of STEM teaching as an option and creating pathways from community college courses into university STEM teacher preparation programs.

Dr. Anisha Campbell is the Associate Director of the Terrapin Teachers program.