STEM disciplinary faculty have been an integral part of the Math and Science Partnership programs’ efforts to reform mathematics and science education. Selecting – that is, identifying and recruiting – STEM disciplinary faculty to participate in the work of an MSP is not always a formal process. Selecting STEM faculty who are likely to be successful in roles related to deepening teacher content knowledge requires an understanding of the factors that characterize effective STEM faculty participants and an awareness of strategies that facilitate recruitment of such faculty.
Practice-based Insights on Selecting STEM Disciplinary Faculty
Advice from experienced MSP program leaders offers guidance to those involved in selecting STEM disciplinary faculty for involvement in MSP efforts to improve mathematics and science education. Through a systematic process, a number of MSP program leaders completed an online survey. MSP-Knowledge Management and Dissemination project staff organized advice derived from the survey into a series of insights. MSP program leaders are invited to review and provide written reflection on the 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:
- Deep content knowledge is necessary but not sufficient: Identify STEM faculty who are able to make the content accessible to teachers
- Passion about teaching matters: Seek STEM faculty who are committed to excellence in teaching
- Flexibility is key: Look for STEM faculty who are open-minded and collaborative
- Interest is not enough: Seek STEM faculty who have the time to devote to MSP activities
- When you can’t have it all: Prioritize selection factors based on roles that STEM faculty will play
- Tap your networks: Use personal contacts and other strategies to identify prospective faculty
- Repeat as needed: Selecting STEM faculty is an ongoing process
Selecting or identifying STEM disciplinary faculty to participate in MSP efforts to improve mathematics and science education involves understanding factors that are important to success in these roles and knowing about effective strategies for selecting STEM faculty. While selecting STEM disciplinary faculty may happen primarily at the outset of an initiative, like the MSP, the process is ongoing as the initiative evolves.
Experienced MSP program leaders offer advice about selecting STEM faculty, as expressed in the insights below. After reviewing these insights, you will be provided with opportunities to share your own experiences with identifying STEM faculty. The information you provide will be included in the analysis of insights and examples from other practitioners as this website is periodically updated.
Insight: Deep content knowledge is necessary but not sufficient: Identify STEM faculty who are able to make the content accessible to teachers
Clearly, STEM disciplinary faculty possess content knowledge of their discipline, and this knowledge is critical to their success in deepening the content knowledge of teachers and teacher leaders. Possessing content knowledge, though, is not enough. As an MSP program leader noted, “I believe our faculty all have the content knowledge; the key is finding those faculty who can effectively communicate that knowledge with a diverse range of learners.”
An important factor in selecting STEM disciplinary faculty is identifying those who are adept communicators of that knowledge to teachers and teacher leaders. This means that STEM disciplinary faculty must have “highly flexible content knowledge”, because they “need to be able to pass smoothly back and forth between the concrete and abstract. This characteristic is not one that STEM departments consciously value, but it is one that is critical in this kind of work.” In order to help teachers and teacher leaders deepen their content knowledge, STEM disciplinary faculty need, for example, to “be able to explain simple basic physics (motion, energy, etc., even in life science contexts) without introducing misconceptions by over-simplifying.” As one MSP program leader commented,
I would advise others to make sure the STEM faculty member is able to explain mathematics in a way that is understandable to teachers, is willing to consider the teacher’s point of view, and is willing to establish a relationship with the teachers. In the past, we had STEM members who knew the math but had difficulty explaining it so teachers could make sense of it, without feeling they were dumb.
STEM disciplinary faculty need to understand what it means to communicate important knowledge without making their teacher and teacher leader audience feel that they are inadequate. This challenge is particularly difficult when the teachers and teacher leaders with whom they work will most likely represent a wide range of prior knowledge, from those with very limited STEM coursework to those with quite extensive content backgrounds. The goal is to identify STEM disciplinary faculty who not only have a deep knowledge of their discipline, but can make the content accessible to teachers and teacher leaders.
Insight: Passion about teaching matters: Seek STEM faculty who are committed to excellence in teaching
STEM disciplinary faculty who are successful working in MSP programs are people who care deeply about teaching; they are passionate about their university teaching and they are passionate about teaching teachers and teacher leaders. As one MSP program leader suggested, with regards to identifying prospective faculty for MSP work, “Focus on people you know to be outstanding teachers.”
This kind of passion about teaching is especially evident in a STEM faculty member’s willingness to question and reflect upon his/her own teaching practice. Said one MSP leader:
Reflection is one of the most important qualities that emerged, and generally this was revealed by faculty who were more critical of their own performances as teachers than their student evaluations indicated. In other words, in some cases these were very popular professors with their own students, but they didn’t rest on that — they were continually questioning and searching.
Another MSP leader commented that “STEM faculty need an intellectual curiosity about teaching and learning that leads them to be involved in the research aspects of the MSP and results in their own learning, not just bestowing their content wisdom on K–12 teachers.”
Similar passion for teaching was evident in a STEM faculty member’s track record in teaching in “new, innovative ways,” using pedagogy that showed a conscious effort to teach content to diverse learners or with new strategies.
A passion for teaching may also be expressed in a STEM faculty member’s prior experiences working with teachers, in programs that put STEM faculty in schools with teachers or in settings where teachers and teacher leaders comprised a substantial number of the students they were teaching. These encounters may have been through structured programs, similar to an MSP initiative, or in any of a number of university-based outreach efforts to K–12 education. While some MSP program leaders believed that STEM faculty should show a passion about K–12 education from the get-go, others noted that such an interest could develop “as a result of getting to know teachers when they first taught a class.” What was most important, in these leaders’ view, was identifying STEM disciplinary faculty who were passionate about teaching.
Insight: Flexibility is key: Look for STEM faculty who are open-minded and collaborative
Being open-minded and committed to collaborating with others are important factors to consider in identifying potential STEM disciplinary faculty who can be successful in MSP efforts. According to MSP leaders, these factors were indicative of STEM disciplinary faculty who could appreciate the importance of teachers’ contexts when it came to deepening their content knowledge.
MSP program leaders noted that STEM faculty who are respectful of teachers and their experiences, and who can recognize how those experiences are similar and different from their own, made particularly important contributions to MSP work. One MSP program leader commented that “having people (at all leadership levels) who had mutual respect/appreciation of each other’s knowledge base and classroom practice, in order to have collegial relationships, seemed to be the most important thing for us.” Others indicated that it was important for STEM disciplinary faculty to approach their work with a willingness to understand the world in which teachers operate, considering that they might be “crossing cultural borders” to enter the world of K–12 education. As one MSP program leader explained, “STEM faculty need humility or the opportunity to develop humility. They need to be willing to be in the classrooms to see what is really at play and what mathematical preparation and maturity exists in the schools we have.” Another MSP leader noted that they had to drop STEM disciplinary faculty from the project who were not able to truly listen to the teacher/teacher leaders in order to understand the constraints under which they operate.
This stance of open-mindedness was manifested in a willingness to collaborate with others – with other MSP program leaders, with other STEM disciplinary faculty, with teacher leaders who were partners in delivering professional development or courses, and with teachers themselves. Rather than approaching MSP work as a “solo gig”, it was important that prospective STEM disciplinary faculty see their roles in terms of joining a team and taking advantage of opportunities to work collaboratively. Said one program leader, “Collaboration and respect for each others’ strengths was critical — faculty had to view the teachers/teacher leaders as partners.”
Insight: Interest is not enough: Seek STEM faculty who have the time to devote to MSP activities
Many MSP program leaders noted that it was important to clearly communicate expectations for STEM disciplinary faculty roles within the MSP, particularly with regard to anticipated time requirements. Delineating the types of roles STEM faculty might expect to fill as well as the nature of expertise desired by STEM faculty in those roles were all part of communicating expectations when STEM faculty were identified and selected.
In identifying prospective STEM disciplinary faculty for MSP work, many MSP leaders noted that a faculty member’s tenure status mattered. There were clear advantages to working with tenured faculty, who did not experience the same kind of pressure to engage in research and publish as did their not-yet-tenured colleagues. Accordingly, tenured faculty members were more able to commit to the teaching and outreach to teachers and teacher leaders that were central to their roles in MSPs.
As one MSP leader reflected, “It became clear, early on, that most of the faculty that became involved were tenured. This gave them the freedom to become involved without worries about how this involvement would affect their roles at the university.” While impacting institutions of higher education was a goal of the MSP program, many MSP program leaders noted that changing policies to put a greater value on the kind of teaching represented in the MSPs was a work in progress. Without such policies in place, many program leaders found that it was helpful to recruit from among tenured faculty, even as these same program leaders also worked to make it more possible for not-yet-tenured faculty to be able to participate in the MSPs.
Other projects made distinctions within the ranks of tenured faculty. One MSP program leader commented that “our MSP had good success with some senior faculty who were good teachers, but no longer research active. Some of them clearly enjoyed finding another way to be productive besides research.” Another noted that, in their MSP, they tapped emeritus faculty. As with tenured STEM disciplinary faculty, emeritus professors do not have the pressure to “grind out the grants” and may be more invested, at this point in their career, in teaching.
Still other MSP programs looked to STEM faculty who were working outside the tenure system. Said one MSP leader, “I found that the more effective faculty were instructors not on the tenure track. They were Ph.Ds and had been active in bench research at some point in their careers, but at this point their focus is teaching.”
This is not to say that MSPs avoided not-yet-tenured faculty for roles in MSP work. Many commented on the contributions that non-tenured faculty made in MSPs, despite disincentives for involvement. One MSP suggested capitalizing on the support offered by tenured faculty to ensure the participation of non-tenured faculty. “Finding a senior, tenured faculty member who is excited about your project is priceless! Not only can this faculty member help ensure department support for the project, but their participation can both implicitly and explicitly make it OK for young, tenure-track faculty to express interest and participate.” This may be especially effective when working with small IHEs, because the MSP can provide a sort of virtual group of colleagues across institutions.
As a sustainability strategy, program leaders in one MSP reflected that it was critical to “involve non-tenured teachers in some activities, if the life of your grant is such (at least 5 years) that they could join in the latter part of the project.” In this way, the MSP would be developing a pipeline of STEM disciplinary faculty that might rely more heavily on tenured faculty, but also identify and invite not-yet-tenured faculty for involvement.
Insight: When you can’t have it all: Prioritize selection factors based on roles that STEM faculty will play
There are many factors that matter in selecting STEM disciplinary faculty for MSP roles, but it is unlikely that MSP program leaders will be able to identify faculty who demonstrate all of these attributes. Therefore, it is necessary to prioritize factors that matter most in a particular MSP.
Prioritizing among the desired qualities of STEM faculty is pragmatic and reflects the actual decisions MSP project leaders must make. However, care should be taken to avoid limiting STEM disciplinary faculty members to roles that emphasize only one of these factors, particularly if the MSP hopes that STEM faculty will eventually take on additional responsibilities. STEM faculty members may be reluctant to move into other roles or acquire new skills after they have been placed in a role that plays to their strengths. Project leaders should be sure to not define the roles too narrowly so that STEM faculty will be able to develop in areas where they are not as strong and possibly serve in other roles on the project in the future.
Deep content knowledge aside, there was little consensus about priorities among MSP program leaders. In reflecting on various factors for identifying STEM disciplinary faculty, MSP leaders put roughly equal weight on passion about teaching, open-mindedness and collaboration, and tenure status. What was clear, though, is that an MSP needed to consider for itself whether certain factors were more important than others in their particular contexts, and work to identify STEM faculty who demonstrated those desired capacities.
Insight: Tap your networks: Use personal contacts and other strategies to identify prospective faculty
Identifying STEM disciplinary faculty for MSP roles is less about conducting a public job search, and more about using existing networks of those who know what individual STEM faculty members could bring to MSP work. Chief among the strategies was identifying STEM faculty through the personal contacts of MSP program leaders.
Many MSP program leaders recounted the success they had in tapping their own networks of contacts to identify STEM disciplinary faculty and invite their participation in the MSP. This network can include STEM departments and university math and science outreach centers. This strategy offered the advantage of being able to talk to and directly recruit STEM faculty members. It was, as one MSP program leader noted, “a ‘one at a time’ process of identifying a colleague that I thought was an outstanding teacher and visiting with her (or him) and discussing whether they might be interested.” The end result was the chance “to ‘feel out’ where they [STEM faculty members] stand on the conditions that are important to the project. Generally, STEM faculty members are candid and it is easy to learn fairly quickly if there is interest.”
Talking with STEM faculty, while helpful, was not all that was involved in selecting faculty for MSP work. It was important to know the nature and success of their university teaching, the extent of their prior involvement in MSP-like initiatives involving teachers or teacher leaders, and their previous outreach efforts in K–12 education. This is another example of how direct knowledge of prospective STEM disciplinary faculty’s work, gained through personal contact by MSP program leaders or trusted colleagues, was important in identifying STEM disciplinary faculty for MSP work.
A variation on the strategy of personal contact by MSP program leaders was utilizing the current cohort of STEM faculty, active within the MSP, to reach out to colleagues for involvement in the next cohort of STEM faculty. This strategy had the advantage of sustaining personal contact – now from current STEM faculty involved in the MSP, to prospective STEM faculty – and capitalizing on what is known about the prospective faculty members’ experience and interests. The current faculty could share experiences with and answer questions from prospective faculty to make the MSP work more clear and accessible. Some MSP program leaders noted that they also used advertising within the university and other “get out the word” strategies as a supplement to maximizing their personal contacts among STEM disciplinary faculty.
A strategy cited by a number of MSPs for identifying STEM disciplinary faculty was inviting their participation (prior to selection) in some kind of MSP activity. This informal invitation gave the prospective faculty members the opportunity to observe or participate in MSP activities, and gave MSP program leaders the chance to see prospective faculty members in a setting similar to what they would be in as part of their MSP work. One MSP program leader characterized this as a “courting process”, and noted that “it is important to have some preliminary steps that do not imply a long-term commitment on either side.”
Insight in action
Faculty from one MSP participated in teaching seminars, informal meetings with teachers, and as observers and participants in teacher workshops where they didn’t have a primary teaching role. All these activities contributed to helping the leadership identify productive roles for different faculty members. Based on faculty interactions at the meetings they attended, as well as their level of time commitment, some faculty were asked to participate mainly as content or resource experts, while other faculty that showed a desire to learn from the partnership’s K–12 and other partners were encouraged to take on ever expanding and deepening roles in the building and planning of the partnership.
Other examples of activities in which prospective STEM faculty members might participate were MSP informational meetings in schools, classroom observations, or playing a support role in a professional development session. Such opportunities offered these faculty members authentic MSP experiences, to help them understand the vision, roles and expectations of the MSP, and gave MSP program leaders the chance for more sustained engagement with faculty members to better understand their interests and capacities.
Insight: Repeat as needed: Selecting STEM faculty is an ongoing process
It is more productive for MSP project leaders to think of identifying and selecting STEM disciplinary faculty as a continuing process, rather than viewing it as something that occurs once, at the beginning of an initiative. Roles for STEM disciplinary faculty are likely to evolve over the course of the MSP, in reaction to the changing needs of the project and also in response to the emerging strengths and interests of STEM faculty. As a result, new faculty may be added to a project, and existing STEM faculty may need to be re-assigned to new roles or adapt to a changing role. In some cases, the involvement of STEM faculty members who no longer have the interest or necessary skills to work on the project may be reduced or phased out.
Whether anticipated or unforeseen, the needs of an MSP project will likely change from its inception. Project leaders can respond to these changes by reflecting on the STEM disciplinary faculty and the roles they play. As one MSP leader observed, “The roles of the faculty changed significantly over the years, based on the needs of the project. We all ended up doing something different than what we were doing when we started.” Another leader recounted of his MSP’s selection process:
Faculty were initially selected with a goal of expanding teacher content knowledge in STEM by having disciplinary faculty working with them on an ongoing, multi-year, basis. As the project evolved, some faculty became uncomfortable with their role. They left the project. The faculty that were recruited, and more importantly, those who remained, evolved with the project. An important aspect in these projects is having faculty who can grow and adapt.
Involvement in an MSP project offers STEM faculty an opportunity for growth, and their skills and interests may evolve during the course of the project. Thus, STEM faculty may be able to move into different roles as they grow within the project. This growth can be facilitated by initially placing STEM faculty in roles that would expose them to a variety of perspectives on K–12 teaching.
If you are interested in how these practitioner insights were collected and analyzed, a summary of the methodology can be found here.
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.