Teachers in San Diego State’s Noyce Master Fellowship program worked to improve their craft over the summer with students from a local San Diego middle school.
The Noyce Master Teacher Fellowship, led at SDSU by Dr. Lisa Lamb, allows master’s students to hone their teaching skills through a grant from the National Science Foundation. The extremely competitive program draws hundreds of applications each year, with only 16 teachers selected from both science and math-related fields.
“The program specifically benefits San Diego State students because our master teachers are now able to serve as guide teachers for students in our credential program,” Lamb says of the Noyce Fellowship.
The grant-funded program is now in its third of what is predicted to be six years of study. Those in the program are given ten days of professional development where they turn their focus to areas in math and science that students in middle and high school often focus on or even struggle with. The faculty-led program is taught by Drs. Randy Philipp and Donna Ross – supporting professors in math and science, respectively – as well Drs. Meredith Vaughn, Susan Nickerson, Kathy Williams, and David Pullman.
Over the summer, students from SDSU were able to work with eight middle-school students from Keiller Leadership Academy in San Diego. Students received 90-minute, teaching sessions from Noyce Fellows both in the morning and afternoon for a week. The setting was preferable due to being removed from the everyday stress of trying to teach a particular topic on any given day like it would be in a normal classroom, while still maintaining the setting of a simulated classroom.
While the Noyce Master Fellowship has three years remaining in its grant, a new grant approved last year has made way for the Noyce Scholars and Interns programs, which will be open to undergraduate science majors. For the next three years, Noyce Master Fellows will receive a stipend of $10,000 per year, and will have the opportunity to mentor science and math credential students as well.