Best Practices in Recruiting Pre-service High School Physics Teachers Through Community College Partnerships

Community colleges provide access to higher education at affordable prices and have a highly diverse student population including many first-generation and low-income college students. Thus, recruiting community college students to high school physics teaching careers is a promising way to increase the diversity of future physics teachers. However, the general path to success for community college students to 4-year institutions has significant barriers and pursuing a high school physics teaching certification program after transferring might add several semesters beyond what the student expected. In this workshop, participants will examine common institutional barriers and relate them to the context of transfer students and teacher education programs at their home institutions. We will share organizational structures that inhibit success and discuss some examples of best practices which have had a positive impact on transfer student success. Participants will work in groups to discuss ideas on how to create a relationship with your area community college(s) and what additional work needs to be done to recruit students to high school STEM Teaching. We will present and examine successful practices and nation-wide initiatives.