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This chapter outlines the contents of Preparing Secondary STEM Teachers to Teach in America's Urban Schools. The volume begins with an overview of the teachHOUSTON STEM teacher education program in Chapter 2 and is followed by an account of the collaboration that took place between a Physics professor and a teachHOUSTON Physics teacher educator and its impact on STEM teacher preparation in Chapters 3-4. Chapters 5 and 6 include discussions about formal and informal learning opportunities and include a narrative of a student's experience on how the Noyce Internship Institute contributed to their STEM teacher learning. In Chapters 7–9, readers learn about the influence of parents, teachers, and professors on students' entry into and decision to work in the STEM and/or STEM education field, with an emphasis on those in STEM teacher education. Chapter 10 highlights the value of scholarship grants; Chapter 11 addresses the growth and development of teachHOUSTON, the impact of the scholarships awarded to many of its students and traces where its graduates currently are teaching in order to demonstrate that teachHOUSTON has fulfilled its mission. The final chapter of the book reflects on teachHOUSTON as a secondary urban teacher education program and summarizes significant points that have led to its success.

Collaborations between faculty from the teachHOUSTON program and physics department have led to an increase in the number of highly qualified physics teachers produced by the University of Houston. Faculty were able to systematically build the physics teacher preparation program through the following endeavors: streamlined degree plans, a physics inquiry course, an internship program, a scholarship program, and induction activities for the first three years of their teaching degrees. This has resulted in preparing approximately three physics teachers annually. Prior to this collaboration, the University had not produced any physics teacher graduates in the previous decade.

teachHOUSTON is a university-based secondary STEM teacher preparation program that addresses the critical need for highly qualified STEM teachers in Texas and across the country. STEM teachers are prepared through early and ongoing field-based teaching experiences and rigorous research-based instruction that integrates content and pedagogy provided by faculty members who have extensive teaching experience in public schools. teachHOUSTON serves the fourth largest city in the United States, along with its satellite communities and has many noteworthy features which are mapped in this chapter. Particular attention is paid to inquiry-based learning, student-centered instruction, and culturally responsive pedagogy as well as the improvements in the program based on the collaboration between physics and teachHOUSTON faculty.

Scant attention has been paid to the influence of professors on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students' learning and lives at the tertiary level. To fill this void, this chapter examines the influence of professors on students' entering and remaining in the STEM disciplines and pursuing STEM careers within the context of six funded STEM grants in the southern United States. We examine professor–student interactions using the students' storied experiences as the fodder for our narrative inquiry. We present narrative exemplars from which the following themes emerged: (1) agency as a student and agency as a human being, (2) development of students' multilayered identities, and (3) professors' engagement of themselves in their interactions with students. A discussion of learner-centeredness and professors' professional development in higher education concludes this study of professors' influence on students' learning and intended careers.

In order for students of any age to compete in a globalized, ever-changing society, it is imperative that those in leadership roles reflect the needs of the communities they serve. Part of service in any capacity requires critical self-reflection and consistent assessment of “who is missing from the table,” in addition to conversation toward progress, social justice, and the transformation of antiquated ideologies and ways of knowing. As members of minority and historically marginalized groups reflect the majority of global citizens (Colby, S. L., & Ortman, J. M. (2015). Projections of the size and composition of the U.S. population: 2014–2060. U.S. Department of Commerce: Economics and Statistics Administration. Retrieved from https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2015/demo/p25-1143.pdf), a paradigm shift is needed so that students, leaders, and learners can exist in an environment that supports critical and cognitive approaches to the absorption of knowledge. Utilizing Black Feminist Thought, a framework was created to not only identify racially and ethnically diverse women in educational leadership, but to provide a “roadmap” or guide for the sustainability of these leaders in the academy as well as in P-12 school systems. A Black female scholar and a Black male working in secondary and higher education provide a guide to assist those working as educators, administrators in the spaces of secondary and higher education. This narrative provides information that will provide an avenue for the exposure, experiences, and equity for Black women in education to be at the forefront of educational reform.

This is the second section of a two‐part study of employee engagement. The first part, in the previous issue (Vol. 42, No. 5, 2010), explored the literature that places this study in context. The key aim of the study is to assess the main factors encouraging or preventing employee engagement, focusing specifically on staff employed within nine Toyota branches of the RRG Group.

The main methods used to investigate employee engagement were: assessing the qualitative data through attitudinal surveys, analyzing complete customer satisfaction (CCS) scores and telephone interviews with previous employees who had voluntarily resigned between January and June 2009.

The business has been called the RRG Group Limited which operates within the UK Motor Retail Industry and was acquired by the Top Fortune 500 Japanese Corporation Marubeni in 2000. The Group employs approximately 650 and consists of 19 dealerships that are located in the North West of England, comprising Lexus, Peugeot, Mazda and Toyota franchises, in addition to two Accident Repair Centres. The Group is now one of the largest Toyota retail groups within Europe. The main conclusions are that engagement levels across the nine RRG Toyota franchises appear fairly high within the majority of the branches. However, there are key factors which appear to be preventing engagement at particular branches which need to be addressed in order to improve engagement such as communication, remuneration, the branch induction process and work/life balance.

The primary recommendations include leadership development for management in certain skills, a focus on fostering a two‐way conversation with employees and finally to continuously monitor and evaluate practices through annual attitudinal surveys and setting realistic action plans in order to make improvements.

The nature of the challenge for management in securing engagement and improving work performance is explored.

This is the first of two papers that concern employee engagement, this one aims to review the literature and the second, to be in the next edition, aims to look at a detailed study at a large UK motor vehicle retailer the RRG Group.

The aim was to assess the main factors encouraging or preventing employee engagement, with specific reference to those employed within certain branches. The methods used were: assessing the qualitative data through attitudinal surveys, analyzing complete customer satisfaction (CCS) scores and telephone interviews with former employees.

Research suggests that employees are fairly constant in how involved they are in their jobs and organizations, or how alienated they have become. However, it is more realistic to assume that reactions to work fluctuate over a period of time. The link between employee engagement and work performance is explored.

The second part will, in the next edition, discuss with reference to research in the motor retail sector the key role of management in creating and maintaining an engaged workforce.

The fluctuating nature of engagement is explored in the context of the management role in enhancing work performance.

This research examines the influence of parents on students studying the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines and entering STEM careers. Participating youths were awarded scholarships from large funded US grant programmes. Cases of two graduate students (one female, one male) and one undergraduate student (male) are featured. The first two students in the convenience sample are biology and physics majors in a STEM teacher education program; the third is enrolled in computer science. National reports emphasizing the importance of parents on their children's education are presented, along with diverse international literature. The use of narrative in STEM curriculum and narrative inquiry in STEM research are also documented. Experience, story, and identity form the study's conceptual frame. The narrative inquiry research method employs broadening, burrowing, and storying and restorying to elucidate the students' academic trajectories. Incidents of circumstantial and planned parent curriculum making surfaced when the data were serially interpreted. Other noteworthy themes included: (1) relationships between (student) learners and (teacher) parents, (2) invitations to inquiry, (3) modes of inquiry, (4) the improbability of certainty, and (5) changed narratives = changed lives. While policy briefs provide sweeping statements about parents' positive effects on their children, narrative inquiries such as this one illuminate parents' inquiry moves within home environments. These actions became retrospectively revealed in their adult children's lived narratives. These small stories, while not generalizable, map how students, shaped by their parents' nurturing, enter the STEM disciplines and STEM-related careers through multiple pathways in addition to the identified pipeline.