MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — A cohort of Middle Tennessee State University faculty members were recently awarded a $3 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to recruit, retain and develop local science, technology, engineering and math, better known as STEM, teachers into data science educators and leaders in high-need school districts.

The lead principal investigator of the five-year grant project is Gregory “Greg” Rushton, director of the Tennessee STEM Education Center and chemistry professor. 

Rushton explained that since data science is a new field, finding teachers who have the background knowledge to feel equipped to teach it is challenging, which “can lead to either particular classes not being taught or being taught by folks that feel under qualified.”

The Leaders in Education Advancing Data Science (LEADS) project aims to bridge that gap by providing a fully paid for Ed.S. program for 16 fifth through eighth grade math and science teachers that will improve local school districts’ STEM education and understanding of data.

“The goal of this project is really twofold. One is to meet the content needs and the workforce development needs of both our region and of the school systems — that is to provide the school systems with well-qualified, well-trained teachers to carry out instruction and facilitate learning and data science,” Rushton said.

He continued, “But at the same time, we want districts to have the confidence that we’re going to develop teachers that will not just be proficient, but will also be retained in the field, so they don’t have to keep recruiting and training new teachers, and also will help other teachers be better teachers.”

Interdisciplinary approach

Those working alongside Rushton include:

• Ryan “Seth” Jones, associate professor with a research background in data science education in the MTSU College of Education’s Womack Educational Leadership Department and member of the Integrated Data Research Team.
• Kevin Krahenbuhl, director of a MTSU College of Education Ed.D. program that works heavily on research and training with local school districts.
• Keith Gamble, director of the MTSU’s interdisciplinary Data Science Institute and an economics and finance professor in the Jennings A. Jones College of Business.
• Kate Miller, research associate at The Concord Consortium with education and experience in science teacher education and professional development for data literacy and data science education.

One aspect that sets this project apart is its interdisciplinary approach, Rushton noted. 

“One of the great things is just to recognize the diverse and complementary skillsets that our faculty and programs offer to each other, and it’s nice to see the interdisciplinary skillsets and interests align to achieve something that we likely could not achieve separately from each other,” he said.

Jones shared similar thoughts, “I just think that’s exciting — a place like MTSU to be building that sort of collaborative work.”

‘Empowered teachers empower students’

The LEADS initiative aims to not only improve students’ data literacy but also to train other middle grade teachers to become leaders in their schools and districts. Their training and subsequent leadership will improve STEM education not only in their classrooms, but the entirety of K-12 schools in their area.

“That’s the teacher leadership piece — where teachers that are competent are not just staying in their own classrooms working with their own kids, they’re also reaching outside their classroom walls to empower other teachers with the need of skillsets so that they can be proficient, and they can also be retained in the field,” Rushton said.

Chris George, coordinator of assessment and data for Murfreesboro City Schools, one of the district partners, emphasized his support for the program, “I think it’s about empowering teachers with opportunities that will continue to grow their impact on their students and colleagues.”

“One of the things that my Director of Schools, Dr. Trey Duke, says is that every child deserves a healthy, supported and well-trained teacher. Empowered teachers empower students,” he continued.

The teachers will act as a mediator between the classroom and the district with support of a designated liaison who coordinate with MTSU throughout the five-year process.

George emphasized the strong tie between his district and MTSU’s College of Education, “One of our goals is to recruit and retain strong teachers from MTSU … It will also serve as another opportunity for both the district and the university to lead initiatives that positively impact all levels of education.”

Implementation of the project

In the first two years, the program focuses on the coursework required for the teachers to obtain their graduate degree. In years three to five, the teachers will implement this knowledge in their classrooms and districts.

“We’re going to spend this fall building the partnerships. In the spring, we will recruit the cohort of teachers, and then we will launch the program with formal coursework and informal community development in the fall of 2025,” Rushton said. “We’ll work with them for several years. After formal coursework, they’ll earn a graduate degree here through our College of Education, and then they’ll develop their own leadership projects in their schools and districts.”

The Ed.S. program is built around an existing degree program in educational leadership, Jones said. Krahenbuhl explained the goal is that after the teachers receive their graduate degrees, that six of the 16 teachers will transition to the Ed.D. program funded in part by NSF, however, the doctorate is not required for this program.

Partnering with local districts

This project is conducted in partnership with Cannon County Schools, Bedford County Schools, Murfreesboro City Schools, Warren County and Williamson County as well as support from The Concord Consortium. The districts met with the MTSU LEADS faculty at a grant luncheon on Oct. 30 in the College of Education Building.

Rushton explained the reasoning for their selection of school districts for this program, which are primarily located in rural areas, “There are two main kinds of systems that need the most support — that is ones that are in urban settings that have students that come from backgrounds where there might be some disadvantages and that they are needing additional support and also those in rural areas which oftentimes struggle to recruit and retain folks in those distal areas.”

The program is designed to coordinate with teacher’s existing schedules, meaning that when they need to go to class rather than teaching, the grant will pay for substitute teachers.

In addition to the graduate degree being fully covered by the grant, teachers will receive a $10,000 stipend per year and the districts a $1,500 honorarium for their project support. The only thing asked from teachers is to stay in a role where they are in the classroom at least 50% of the time, rather than moving into administrative roles.

“This partnership will allow Murfreesboro City Schools to provide participants with on-going leadership growth while also continuing to strengthen their craft as educators,” George said. “We realize that leadership in education does not always have to be about moving into an administrative role.”

David Butler, vice provost for research and dean of the College of Graduate Studies, expressed that not only does the grant develop more qualified teachers in the region, it also shows “how MTSU is an excellent community partner with K-12 education in the state and particularly in the larger Nashville MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area).”

Research and past data education projects

Both Rushton and Jones past research and projects led to LEADS. In 2010, Rushton directed this same program through NSF in Atlanta for seven years. 

“I felt like Middle Tennessee was also a place where teacher leadership was needed, and I also thought that I’d learned enough from that previous project that we could design a program that could have as good or even better results as the last time,” Rushton said.

In 2020, Jones worked on a project funded by NSF where he worked with middle school math and science teachers to improve the teaching of data, and he explained that the research he gathered from that project directly affected why they chose to work with middle schools again in this project.

“Middle school teachers oftentimes are organized in terms of cross-disciplinary teams, so they can collaborate across disciplines,” Jones said.

“The need is pretty high in all those areas (K-12), but middle school is high because you have a lot of teachers that haven’t been provided a whole lot of training around data modeling and statistics inference, and so they’re being asked to do pretty hard things with their students, sophisticated things,” Jones continued. “We want to be coming in there, providing support, so that they feel like they’re more equipped to do those things.”

Jones later noted, “In my mind, I just imagine classrooms in these districts where sixth, seventh and eighth grade kids are engaging in investigations, are really making sense of data, growing in their ability to do that over time and then they take those skills with them in the future into high school, college and in their homes.”

Looking ahead

Rushton explained that there’s still an opportunity for this to spread to lower and upper grades, “The extent to which this project directly impacts teachers at the high school and elementary grades is really up to both the teachers and the districts over the course of this program … so, that could be just where we stay in middle school, or it could have impacts at higher and lower grades.”

George discussed the changing landscape of education, “We know that the benchmarks for being ‘college and career ready’ are always changing. It is important that we provide our teachers with opportunities for continued growth, so they can prepare their students for whatever post-secondary opportunities they pursue when they graduate.”

Butler mirrored these thoughts, “This is a mechanism for us to bring data science to middle school teachers in the partner districts, so that benefits us as an institution by having qualified students eventually make their way up through the pipeline to the university.”

He continued, “And at the same time, it helps the teachers have the skillsets needed to keep abreast of what’s happening in terms of skills, so they don’t fall behind for what the students need to further their education and move up into high school and eventually to college.”

To learn more about the LEADS project, visit tsec.mtsu.edu/leads/.  

Learn more about MTSU’s research and grant opportunities through the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs at https://w1.mtsu.edu/research/.

— Maddy Williams (Maddy.Williams@mtsu.edu)