Noyce STEM Teacher Education Partnership (NSTEP)

Hood College’s Noyce STEM Teacher Education Partnership (NSTEP) is a collaborative project that provides scholarships for students interested in teaching a STEM subject in middle and/or high school. Hood College is partnered with Frederick Community College (FCC) and Frederick County Public Schools (FCPS) in Maryland to increase the number of qualified STEM teachers who are skilled in culturally relevant practices and desire to work in high-needs schools.

Students desiring to become secondary teachers of biology, chemistry or mathematics may be interested in exploring the benefits of becoming a Hood NSTEP scholar. Hood NSTEP will provide scholarships and specialized programming to students in the final two years of their undergraduate degree work to complete their undergraduate STEM major and teacher certification requirements. Hood NSTEP will also offer an optional computer science add-on track to address the need for technology teachers in FCPS and across Maryland.

Students transferring to Hood from FCC will be given priority in receiving scholarships.

The goals of Hood NSTEP are to:

• Attract a diverse, high-quality pool of Noyce scholarship applicants;
• Select and prepare 22 highly qualified STEM teachers over five years;
• Provide a tailored mentoring program;
• Obtain stakeholder commitments to implement culturally relevant practice in high-needs schools;
• Support NSTEP graduates during their teaching obligation period; and
• Institutionalize the NSTEP grant program components for the long term.

The major program features of Hood NSTEP are:

• Robust STEM majors for biology, chemistry and mathematics;
• A high-quality secondary teacher preparation program;
• A committed collaboration between a college, a two-year institution and a school system;
• A variety of activities and support mechanisms to prepare secondary STEM teachers specifically to work in culturally relevant ways in high-needs schools;
• Hood College’s strong institutional support infrastructure; and
• Plans for supporting graduates during their initial years of teaching to facilitate retention.

The Hood Noyce STEM Teacher Education Partnership (NSTEP) program is funded by the National Science Foundation’s Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program (DUE 1660640). For more information on Hood's NSTEP Program, contact us at nstep@hood.edu.