2007 ANNUAL REPORT - cosmos - Bowling Green State University

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Effectiveness Of The NWO Center Recruitment And Retention Of
Students Into STEM And STEM Education Disciplines
The progress of the NWO Center towards fulfillment of its Goal 2 was assessed by (1)
examining the attendance data for the following three NWO activities/events - Future Teacher
Conference, TeachOhio, and OJSHS, (2) reviewing available program documentation, and (3)
analyzing the emic session evaluations data (e.g., written evaluations by the participants). The
evaluation results below are organized by each evaluation question that was researched.
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Goal 2 – Evaluation Question 1: What types and how many students have been
served as a result of the NWO recruiting and retention activities?
TeachOhio: According to the documentation provided by the TeachOhio staff, the program
recruitment goal was almost met. The program staff had to make adjustments to their initial
recruitment strategy for the reasons beyond their control and in response to the diverse needs
of the population of interest. Thus, originally it was planned to recruit only those who had the
appropriate content background to begin teaching in Fall 2006. However, during the recruitment
process, several excellent candidates were identified who did not quite fit the initial inclusion
criteria but wanted to become teachers of science and mathematics. Thus, they were accepted
into the program. Additionally, the initial plan was to recruit 20 Adolescent to Young Adult (AYA)
science and mathematics teacher candidates from non-traditional and underrepresented
populations. Half of these were supposed to be recruited in collaboration with the University of
West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago. However, the main contact person received her own grant
and this recruitment strategy was no longer available to the TeachOhio staff. As a result of the
intensive TeachOhio’s local recruitment efforts (which included advertisements in several
newspapers and newsletters, mailing brochures, involving university faculty/staff and
superintendents into the process, focusing on the needs of local school districts, and holding
information meetings), 16 participants were identified and accepted into the program, of which 8
fit the initial model and taught in 2006-2007, 4 are still taking AEL content classes, and 2 are
teaching on their current licensure and taking content classes under the AEL. One person
dropped out and one switched to a different program, which points to a high retention rate of the
TeachOhio program as well as the right choice of inclusion criteria that enabled the TeachOhio
staff to accept the “right” candidates.
Additional evidence of the success of the recruitment strategies (i.e., that the “right” candidates
were accepted) comes from the examination of the professional development attendance data.
Thus, for the Inquiry Series sessions, attendance ranged from 81% to 100% across seven
sessions, with the average attendance of 91%. The reasons for non-attendance by very few
participants included having parent-teacher conferences, taking a content course, or fulfilling
another TeachOhio Program requirement that conflicted with the Inquiry Series sessions. All
TeachOhio participants attended the Symposium. Two participants who still had to take content