STEM disciplinary faculty have been an integral part of the Math and Science Partnership programs’ efforts to reform mathematics and science education. While it is important for MSP projects to orient and prepare STEM faculty for their particular roles from the start, it is also imperative that ongoing support be provided to STEM faculty over the life of the project to further develop their capacity for the MSP work.
Practice-based Insights on Providing STEM Disciplinary Faculty Ongoing Support
Advice from experienced MSP program leaders offers guidance to those involved in providing STEM disciplinary faculty ongoing support in efforts to improve mathematics and science education. Through a systematic process involving an online survey for MSP program leaders and written reflection on insights derived from the online survey by a number of MSP program leaders, MSP-Knowledge Management and Dissemination project staff organized advice into a series of insights. Insights provided by a group of MSP program leaders with diverse backgrounds and experiences in working with STEM disciplinary faculty and teachers included the following ideas:
- Plan your route — Design professional development for STEM disciplinary faculty based both on where you are heading and on where you are starting.
- Rome wasn’t built in a day — Engage MSP STEM disciplinary faculty first as participants, then apprentices, then leaders of project components.
- Don’t reinvent the wheel — Tap into existing resources to support STEM disciplinary faculty work in your project.
- All of us are smarter than any of us — Don’t underestimate the benefits of collaborative work.
- Trust but verify — Collect (and use) formative evaluation data to refine STEM disciplinary faculty efforts in the MSP.
Research on Involving STEM Faculty in Deepening Teacher/Teacher Leader Content Knowledge
Evidence from a targeted search of the empirical literature suggests that involving STEM faculty is an effective approach to deepening teachers’ mathematics/science content knowledge. Nine research studies were identified that investigated professional development programs that involved STEM disciplinary faculty in deepening teacher content knowledge. Each of the studies reported positive results on participating teachers’ content knowledge.
Initial efforts to orient STEM disciplinary faculty to the work of an MSP lay the groundwork for success in their roles, but as one MSP representative noted, it would be a mistake to think of orientation as “one and done.” Like K–12 teachers, STEM faculty need on-going professional development; MSP projects need to build in opportunities for STEM faculty to continue to develop their capacity for the work over the life of the project. Said one MSP leader, “It is naive to think that they know it at the beginning, and it is impossible to bring them up to speed with just one professional development workshop. As we know, professional development has to be sustained and ongoing to be really useful.”
Often the core team that designed the MSP project and piloted the implementation included STEM disciplinary faculty who had considerable experience in working with K–12 mathematics/science teachers. Typically it was when the projects scaled up their efforts to reach larger numbers of teachers that the need arose for more intensive preparation of STEM faculty.
Experienced MSP program leaders have offered advice about supporting the work of STEM disciplinary faculty as the initiative unfolds. They stress the importance of understanding the needs of STEM faculty in relation to the anticipated work; they highlight the need to have those who are new to their roles start slowly, taking on increasing amounts of responsibility as their skills and confidence develop. They also talk about the need to provide opportunities for STEM faculty to learn from one another, and from those who were involved in planning and early implementation of the MSP activities, as well as from feedback provided by teachers and project evaluators. Their experiences and advice for supporting STEM disciplinary faculty are described in the insights below. After reviewing these insights, you will be provided with opportunities to share your own experiences with providing STEM disciplinary faculty ongoing support. The information you provide will be included in the analysis of insights and examples from other practitioners as this website is periodically updated.
- Plan your route — Design professional development for STEM disciplinary faculty based both on where you are heading and on where you are starting.
MSP projects involve STEM disciplinary faculty in a variety of roles. For example, STEM faculty may be called upon to design courses for teachers/teacher leaders, facilitate investigations and discussions, provide explanations, and/or develop instruments to assess teacher content knowledge. Clearly different tasks require different kinds of knowledge and skills, and individual STEM faculty will bring different prior experiences to a given task. The support provided to STEM faculty needs to be based both on what they will need to do and what they already know how to do.
One of the biggest challenges, MSP leaders indicate, is helping STEM disciplinary faculty understand that teachers’ content-related needs are not the same as those of their undergraduate students. Certainly teachers need to understand the concepts they are charged with teaching, and it helps if teachers know what will come next in the curriculum for their students. However, MSP leaders need to be alert to the tendency for STEM faculty to keep upping the content ante, both in professional development and in developing assessments of teacher knowledge.
STEM faculty may need on-going support in the “how” of working with K–12 teachers as well. Projects that involve STEM faculty in professional development roles shouldn’t assume that STEM faculty are not able to teach well, but neither can they assume that they already know how to work effectively with K–12 educators. In the words of two MSP leaders:
There is an expectation that faculty members involved in the project already had the capability to work with teachers and teacher leaders. I can see now, however, a greater potential for success if an MSP had a significant component on the training of STEM faculty members. § §
It is necessary to do a considerable amount of groundwork with STEM faculty since many of them are experts in their content field, but have relatively little knowledge of the art of teaching, especially teaching teachers. Some have not had any experience doing that.
At a minimum, MSPs prepared STEM faculty for their roles by describing what was entailed, including the nature of the course/workshop activities; levels of expectations for teacher learning; how much homework should be assigned; and how teacher learning would be assessed. In some cases, this process of explaining the professional development plan occurred on an individual basis, an approach which an MSP leader noted had “significant and obvious drawbacks…If there is the chance to get the entire faculty for the program together at one time, take advantage of that time.”
Although MSP leaders could anticipate some of the preparation needs of the STEM faculty, they recognized that they did not always know what support STEM faculty would find helpful. They recommended querying STEM faculty directly, and then providing the requested assistance.
Ask the STEM faculty if there are specific areas in which they feel a need for professional development and then provide resources (sessions) in those areas. For example: The project provided an (optional) workshop series on designing meaningful group work that was very beneficial to STEM faculty as they designed their courses.
- Rome wasn’t built in a day — Engage MSP STEM disciplinary faculty first as participants, then apprentices, then leaders of project components.
STEM faculty who have had extensive prior experience in working with K–12 teachers may be able to move easily into roles as professional development providers. Others will need opportunities to develop, practice, and hone their skills. A number of MSP leaders described the extensive professional development they provided for STEM faculty, consistent with a gradual expansion of their roles over time. A recommended first step was to have STEM faculty observe both the design process and the implementation of the professional development, to get a sense of what was entailed before taking on responsibility for instruction. Said one MSP leader:
I think it is helpful for new STEM faculty to have the opportunity to observe the teaching team planning process, the interaction between teaching team members, and the actual course before being asked to lead a course or professional development event. I know that this is not always possible, but it is extremely valuable.
One project first had STEM faculty “engage as learners, attending sessions as participants before co-facilitating sessions.” Physicists would investigate biology concepts along with the participating teachers, and biologists would explore earth science ideas, etc., getting a sense of the courses from the learner’s perspective. Others described how they modeled, and later talked about, the kinds of instructional strategies STEM faculty would be expected to use in their work with K–12 teachers, noting that “modeling inquiry-based pedagogy and small group discussions helps scientists experience the value of active learning.”
MSP leaders recommended embedding opportunities for reflection throughout the project. One strategy included setting aside time to debrief after professional development activities, considering what had worked well, and what needed to be improved for future workshops and courses.
We also always had de-briefing sessions as a leadership team following the professional development to reflect on how things went. This structure seemed to support the STEM faculty members in their new role working with K–12 teachers and helped to “bridge” their knowledge so that they didn’t lose their audience.
- Don’t reinvent the wheel — Tap into existing resources to support STEM disciplinary faculty work in your project.
In their efforts to provide on-going support to STEM disciplinary faculty, MSP projects found it helpful to make use of external resources to develop STEM faculty understanding of issues relevant to their roles, e.g., how to deepen teacher content knowledge. Tapping into existing high quality professional development offerings that are aligned with the MSP vision can be more cost effective than designing/implementing your own sessions for STEM faculty and can expose STEM faculty to a broader array of opportunities.
Some MSPs sent representatives to conferences focused on teacher professional development, including those conducted by the Exploratorium and the Teacher’s Development Group. Said one MSP leader:
[MSPs should] provide opportunities for funded attendance at conferences addressing teacher/teacher leader training. I was skeptical of the first one and probably would not have gone, or returned to the next one if they had not been funded. By the time I was through the second annual conference on professional development of teachers, I was hooked.
Other MSPs described the benefits of participating in NSF-funded RETA projects like Facilitating Mathematics/Science Partnerships at the National Academy of Sciences that focused on professional development for faculty.
MSP leaders noted the power of having nationally-known experts meet with STEM faculty and others on the project team, starting with experts who are well respected for their work in science/mathematics, and have expertise in mathematics/science education, before broadening out to include other experts. Initial interactions with such individuals will lend credibility to the MSP’s vision of mathematics/science education and encourage STEM faculty to consider alternative methods of teaching and learning. Said an MSP leader:
It is very important that the resources used are excellent in terms of education approach and credentials as scientists/mathematicians. Once [STEM faculty are] open to the idea that learning can be improved by modifying the ways the content is presented, they become more “tolerant” to hearing from experts in education, psychology and other areas that are helping us understand the best environments and practices that promote learning with understanding.
Some projects arranged to have national experts provide more extended on-site technical assistance. For example, the creators of various professional development resources — e.g., Fostering Algebraic Thinking Toolkit, Developing Mathematical Ideas, Video Cases for Mathematics Professional Development, and the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) Center for Professional Development — worked with STEM faculty and others on the MSP teams on issues of professional development design and implementation. Whether or not the project wound up using the particular materials/approaches in their work with teachers, MSP leaders noted that STEM faculty benefitted from the opportunity to interact with people who have deep expertise and broad experience in professional development.
Other projects capitalized on external resources that were closer to home, utilizing mathematics/science education experts in their own institutions who were not directly involved in the MSP professional development for K–12 teachers.
I think the way to help the mathematicians gain this knowledge is to have them be mentored by the math education faculty who have the knowledge and K–12 contacts. We have tried this as a pilot by having a group of mathematicians “shadow” the math education faculty who were part of [another MSP project] and this worked very well as a way of introducing the mathematicians to the project § §
There has been considerable co-planning, co-development, and co-implementation in the work of our MSP, and this has provided opportunities both for working with others across disciplinary and institutional boundaries, and for professional development. For STEM faculty involved in middle school science at one of our institutions, we actually had professional development of the STEM faculty by an accomplished member of the School of Education.
- All of us are smarter than any of us — Don’t underestimate the benefits of collaborative work.
Whether planned from the beginning, or added as the initiatives unfolded, MSPs found it helpful to have STEM faculty work collaboratively with others on the project design and implementation. These experiences provided opportunities for STEM faculty to learn from one another and from other project staff, including master teachers, in the context of real work, fostering a culture of continuous improvement. MSP leaders often recommended some kind of team teaching to support STEM disciplinary faculty in their work with K–12 teachers.
In these professional development experiences for teachers, we carefully paired each of the mathematicians with a K–12 teacher leader or math educator to co-facilitate small sections of the course. We tried to do this pairing so that both were comfortable. The role of the teacher leader or math educator was one of the “eyes and ears” of the participants – hearing/anticipating questions/intervening when necessary. § §
Assure that your program has extensive team teaching and collaborative course development… Don’t have a STEM faculty member develop and teach their own course without extensive involvement of lots of others. § §
We also have found the collaboration/co-planning/co-design/co-implementation aspects of our work very important for engaging people and having them value the experience.
Similarly, MSP leaders suggested providing venues for more experienced professional development providers to engage with those who were new to this work. Said one,
An environment where STEM faculty interact regularly with senior project personnel provides natural opportunities for mentoring, encouragement, and support for professional development.
MSP leaders also suggested providing on-going opportunities for collaborative work outside of the context of a particular professional development activity. For example:
The STEM faculty formed a study group and met every week to discuss how to incorporate inquiry in the labs. This was probably one of the most fulfilling parts of the whole project for me. …I highly recommend forming a study group to meet and share ideas regularly. It provided a rich development opportunity
Some MSPs created learning communities that included scientists and mathematicians from different universities. Not surprisingly, MSPs that were geographically dispersed found it difficult to involve everyone in these kinds of learning communities, suggesting a need to “designate specific times for the faculty in the program to meet and discuss their work.”
The faculty that were on campus were able to meet and discuss their work on an informal basis. This turned out to be very productive. The non-campus faculty did not have as many opportunities for this type of interaction.
- Trust but verify — Collect (and use) formative evaluation data to refine STEM disciplinary faculty efforts in the MSP.
MSP leaders note that although “it helps to have lots of conversations ahead of time about the audience,” STEM faculty (and others) will need opportunities to discuss how things are going as the project unfolds, and consider what adjustments might be needed. Using formative evaluation data is a key aspect of identifying problematic areas and making mid-course corrections.
Some orientation is good, but I think it can’t prepare you for the stresses and realities of working with teachers and schools. It’s more important for people to be meeting often to debrief and process the events. § §
We also had a meeting every semester of the STEM faculty at each university to discuss how things were going and what we were planning. These were in addition to workshops and team meetings. The separate STEM faculty meetings were helpful.
MSPs often designed professional development experiences centrally, for subsequent implementation by teams of STEM faculty, mathematics/science education faculty, and teacher leaders. Even when there has been substantial effort to prepare the professional development providers, MSP leaders report considerable variability in quality. Whether on a casual “drop-in” basis, or formal observations conducted by project evaluators, monitoring the quality of implementation is important, especially when people are new to the work. These observations can provide an important window into the types of support needed for STEM faculty as the project moves forward. Said one MSP leader:
As new faculty came aboard after the first few years, … [they] were not well informed about the needs of secondary teachers and students. An on-going rigorous training needs to be implemented for these faculty and we haven’t done this yet. My recommendation would be to implement a fairly substantial training for these faculty, accompanied by follow-up visits into their workshops.
Feedback from project evaluators can also be used as the basis for discussions with STEM faculty about how to tailor their work to the needs of the participating teachers.
The project evaluation provides external pressure and guides collective discussions of scientists and science educators in clarifying such terms as inquiry, inquiry-based discussion, pedagogy, etc. During these discussions scientists learn about education and science educators learn what scientists think is important for teachers to know and teach about their discipline. Consequently, the labs and inquiry-based activities are infused with deeper content and the presentations/lectures of the scientists are infused with more relevance. § §
Our outside evaluator went over the course evaluations with the institute instructors to give them feedback on how the participants viewed the workshops. The evaluation tool (and the questions it asked) provided the instructors with guidance as to what we were expecting to happen during the institutes.
Said one MSP leader, “a well designed system for collecting teacher feedback will help a reflective faculty member get better at working with a teacher audience.”
If you are interested in how these practitioner insights were collected and analyzed, a summary of the methodology can be found here.