PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A team of education researchers led by Daniel Bisaccio, lecturer in education, has been awarded a five-year, $2.2-million National Science Foundation grant for a “Summer STEM Teaching Experiences for Undergraduates (TEU) from Liberal Arts" program.

The TEU program will develop and test a model program that provides undergraduate STEM majors with an immersive summer experience in secondary mathematics or science education. Over five summers, a total of 120 undergraduates (24 per year) will be recruited from a network of 60 liberal arts institutions to take part in a six- to seven-week program that integrates a high quality STEM discipline-specific pedagogy course with a teaching practicum. Twelve students per summer will participate in a mathematics TEU program at Brown and 12 will participate in a science TEU program at Trinity College.

The high school students for the Brown TEU will be drawn from the Providence area and will be taking part in Brown Summer High School. Participating in the Trinity TEU will be students from the Hartford Magnet Trinity College Academy.

“This is a win for for urban education in STEM science,” Bisaccio said. “Undergraduate STEM students will have the opportunity to bring educational pedagogy to practice by teaching STEM science to urban youth. Urban high school students will have at no cost a summer enrichment course in STEM fields. An objective of this grant is to attract a more diverse population of undergraduates into STEM teaching via the TEU experience as well as inspiring underrepresented racial, gender, and ethnic high school student participants into STEM fields.”

Additional researchers on this project include Charles Steinhorn of Vassar College, Victor Donnay of Bryn Mawr, and Maria Rivera of Barnard College.