A $899,968 grant from the National Science Foundation will allow 75 non-traditional students to return to college in order to become a licensed teacher.
The National Science Foundation established the Alternative Careers in Teaching (ACT!) program to encourage former students with advanced degrees in the fields of science, technology, engineering or mathematics to return to school to earn a teaching license.
Each student will also be endowed a $10,000 stipend.
UW-Oshkosh is a participant in the ACT! program. Last year, Oshkosh was awarded a $599,817 grant, which has also gone toward the program. That grant, plus this year’s, will be pooled, allowing more financial aid to get to more students.
Since most students in this program are going back to school (often a decade or more after gaining their first degree), the grant sets up the stipends in order to allow the applicants to take leave from or even quit their job, according to Michael Beeth, an Oshkosh professor of Education and principal investigator for the grant project.
The stipend is covers the 18-month period where students must teach a class as part of their training.
In order to be considered as an applicant in this program, the student must have a degree in science, technology, engineering or mathematics. The range of available degrees in these fields is quite wide: dozens of subjects in chemistry, computer and information science and engineering, the geosciences, life science, mathematical science, physics, astronomy, psychology and social science are compatible with the ACT! program.
However, the ACT! program doesn’t confer a degree, but a teaching license, according to Tammy Ladwig, assistant professor of Education and co-principal investigator. Ladwig also said that applicants must have at least a bachelor’s degree in order to apply for the program. After finishing the program, applicants will be licensed to teach sixth through 12th grade math or science.
Beeth, who helped collect research justifying the National Science Foundation’s grant for Oshkosh, commended the ACT! program, said, “It’s a direct benefit to the students in this program. At some point in this program they must give up their employment.”
Beeth also believes the program is an inter-college success, and that “people are pleased to see (a partnership between five Wisconsin colleges) on this sort of program.”
Ladwig also favors the ACT! program. She said “test scores in America… in science and math are way behind other countries,” hence the drive to get scientists and mathematicians to become students enrolled in the program.
UW-Fox Valley assistant professor of biological sciences and co-principal investigator Dubear Kroening agreed that the ACT! program was beneficial, saying that “(the United States) is falling behind in math and science education, so we are concerned about getting good people into our K-12 schools to help improve the situation. This is currently a priority in the U.S., as well as in Wisconsin.”
Kroening added that the program “certainly helps others on the campus in a variety of different ways and helps improve the status of UW-Oshkosh and the community in general by providing more math and science teachers to our local area.”
Beeth, Ladwig and Kroening expect the grant to be of great benefit to dozens of non-traditional students at Oshkosh.
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