About the National Center for STEM Education
The National Center for STEM Education is built on the conviction that strengthening STEM teaching is critical to expanding opportunities for students and building the nation’s long-term STEM capacity. The U.S. needs more well-prepared STEM teachers entering classrooms, more practicing teachers supported to grow throughout their careers, and stronger systems that connect universities, schools, policymakers, industry partners, and communities around shared responsibility for STEM learning.
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Our work is grounded in a simple premise: Preparing more students for STEM opportunities requires stronger STEM teaching and teacher preparation.
Addressing the full system
Demand continues to increase in fields such as engineering, biotechnology, advanced manufacturing, healthcare, computer science, and artificial intelligence, yet too many students do not experience STEM learning in ways that help them see its relevance in their lives and how it can be applied to solving real problems. At the same time, the country continues to face challenges in recruiting, preparing, and supporting STEM educators.
What distinguishes the Center is our focus on addressing the full system of STEM educator development, from recruiting future teachers to supporting practicing educators, studying what works, leveraging innovations in STEM, strengthening partnerships, and helping shape the policies and investments needed to achieve and sustain impact. Rather than working only through individual programs or isolated initiatives, the Center is designed to connect educator preparation, professional learning, emerging STEM workforce needs and opportunities, and cross-sector partnership into a more coherent national effort.
Our roots
The National Center for STEM Education builds on nearly three decades of work that began with UTeach at The University of Texas at Austin. Through collaboration between the Colleges and Education and Science, UTeach demonstrated that STEM majors could be attracted to teaching, prepared through a customized, discipline-based pathway paired with undergraduate STEM degrees, and supported in ways that improve teacher retention and student learning.
The UTeach Institute extended that work nationally, supporting universities across the country as they implemented and sustained STEM teacher preparation programs. Over time, that work grew beyond preservice preparation. The Institute expanded into professional learning, curriculum support, computer science education, and data and evaluation, as well as cultivating durable communities of practice for educators and university partners. Those efforts created a strong foundation of evidence, implementation experience, and national relationships.
The Center is the next step in that work.