Tariq Akmal, chair of the department of teaching and learning at WSU Pullman, is the principal co-investigator for the Noyce scholarship program
William Hall, assistant professor of mathematics education at WSU Pullman, is a co-principal investigator.
Kristin Lesseig, associate professor of education at WSU Vancouver, is a co-principal investigator.
Math scares a lot of people. But for a fortunate few, math is clear and beautiful and helps people make everyday decisions. If only those fortunate few could teach the rest of us to appreciate and be comfortable with math.
WSU Pullman and WSU Vancouver are working on it, thanks to a four-year, $1.18 million National Science Foundation grant to prepare up to 24 Noyce Scholars as mathematics teachers. The grant is in its second year, and there are currently 11 students in the program.
The Noyce program at WSU Pullman and WSU Vancouver is working to increase the number of mathematics teachers and to help students appreciate the subject.
The Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program aims to increase the number of math and science teachers, particularly those from historically marginalized groups and who aspire to work in high-need school districts. Math teachers are in short supply. The Washington Professional Educator Standards Board has listed mathematics education as a shortage area in the state for the last 25 years, and the number of teachers receiving secondary mathematics endorsements has been dropping.
“A major goal is to support students from historically underrepresented groups to become STEM teachers,” said Kristin Lesseig, associate professor in the College of Education at WSU Vancouver, “and also to ensure that future mathematics teachers have the necessary skills and commitment to create a more welcoming classroom space.”
“Everyone in the program wants to change the way people think about learning math,” said WSU Vancouver student Katerina Schukin. “We want to be good teachers; we want to make an impact on students not just in the realm of their education but actually make a difference in their personal lives.” Schukin, who became a Noyce Scholar in the fall, is completing her bachelor’s degree in math and will then work on her Masters in Teaching degree.
Three faculty members are spearheading the project. Lesseig at WSU Vancouver is a co-principal investigator, along with William Hall, assistant professor of mathematics education at WSU Pullman. The principal investigator is Tariq Akmal, chair of the department of teaching and learning in Pullman.
The three share a commitment to making math more approachable and helping students become confident in their mathematical abilities. “We are passionate about humanizing mathematics education and thinking about how to better prepare teachers to give all students experiences that challenge them intellectually and foster positive mathematical identities,” Lesseig said.
What the program involves
To be eligible for the scholarships, students must be planning to teach math. Most who have entered the Noyce program are math majors, but students in related STEM fields are eligible too. In addition to taking their regular classes, Noyce scholars also work with virtual mentor teachers— individuals currently working as mathematics teachers in K-12 schools in Washington state and identified as excellent mathematics teachers. Scholars attend monthly workshops on humanizing mathematics—one of several opportunities to network with their peers. Between workshops, they meet in small groups with their virtual mentors via Zoom. In addition to more philosophical discussions, they learn how the teachers establish classroom norms, what kinds of tasks and instructional routines they find effective, and other nuts and bolts of good teaching.
Two current virtual mentors are WSU Vancouver graduates. Kosal Sam taught math and is now dean of students at Cascade Middle School in Vancouver. Arika Byman teaches sixth-grade math at Monticello Middle School in Longview, Wash.
“To create good educators, it takes good
and solid mentorship from veteran staff who understand the intricate layers involved in being an educator,” Sam said.
Community building is a high priority for the Noyce program. That is one reason for the monthly workshops and small group meetings, where students might tell a personal math story or talk about why they want to be a teacher. The program leaders planned a book study and retreat over the past summer and are reading their second book now. Students also attend professional conferences.
Because the Noyce program has been around for 20 years, there is a good-sized community of Noyce Scholars and teachers around the country. “That’s one of the advantages,” Lesseig said. “A Scholar can be connected with the larger Noyce Scholar community.”
“Everyone in the program wants to change the way people think about learning math.”
Why it matters
Teaching is a challenging profession, and having support can make a difference in a teacher’s life and motivation to stick with the job. Just as the Noyce program is designed “to support mathematics teachers to implement practices that attend to students and student thinking in the classroom,” as Lesseig said, it also involves thinking about how to continue supporting teachers in doing that work.
For the Scholars, the support is material as well as inspirational. The Noyce Scholarship provides up to two years of tuition funding at the undergraduate level (approximately $12,000 per year) and/or one year of tuition at the graduate level (approximately $13,500).
Hall, who was a Noyce Scholar at North Carolina State University as a student, said teachers in training need that support. “It’s a significant scholarship that helped fund my human existence while student teaching and figuring out certification,” he said. “This is important because money = food and rent.”
The faculty members involved in the Noyce program are evangelists about the math-teaching profession. “We want to change the narrative around teaching,” Lesseig said. “You can make a reasonable living, and math teachers are some of the happiest people in their jobs.”
And math teachers can take pride in the importance of their work. The mission to humanize math education means helping students realize they can think and reason quantitatively—and that those skills can make their lives and communities better.
“People who study mathematics as a passion often see it as a flexible, creative and ultimately beautiful study of patterns, but this is rarely the perspective of many K-12 math students whose experiences with math have been largely rote and mechanical,” said Byman, a virtual mentor. “This program’s focus on rehumanizing mathematics is a great opportunity for the Scholars to prepare to share a mathematics that is joyful and creative, as well as useful, with their future students.”