Insights from the Physics and Astronomy New Faculty Workshop: How do new physics faculty teach?

Effective faculty professional development must be participant centered; tailored to the needs and interests of the faculty who engage in it. In order to better understand those needs and interests, we investigate how knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and teaching practice vary among new physics facult...

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Autores principales:	Stephanie V. Chasteen, Rajendra Chattergoon
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	American Physical Society 2020
Materias:	Special aspects of education LC8-6691 Physics QC1-999
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/59668a9ffea84301ad671a87299d27e7
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:59668a9ffea84301ad671a87299d27e72021-12-02T12:17:01ZInsights from the Physics and Astronomy New Faculty Workshop: How do new physics faculty teach?10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.16.0201642469-9896https://doaj.org/article/59668a9ffea84301ad671a87299d27e72020-12-01T00:00:00Zhttp://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.16.020164http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.16.020164https://doaj.org/toc/2469-9896Effective faculty professional development must be participant centered; tailored to the needs and interests of the faculty who engage in it. In order to better understand those needs and interests, we investigate how knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and teaching practice vary among new physics faculty, using surveys of a large sample (n=442) of participants in the Physics and Astronomy New Faculty Workshop (NFW). The “innovation-decision model” guides our understanding of the evolution of faculty teaching practice, and “self-determination theory” and the “theory of planned behavior” inform our understanding of necessary preconditions for that change. We find that most new physics faculty are aware of published teaching approaches, but that this awareness has not increased compared to a decade ago [C. Henderson and M. H. Dancy, Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 5, 020107 (2009)10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.5.020107] and is lower than the experienced faculty in our sample. New physics faculty also value student-centered instruction, are interested in using it, and feel that there is peer support for using student-centered instruction. Some new faculty have experienced student-centered instruction as a student or teaching assistant, as well. They are not confident of their ability to enact such practices, however, showing that self-efficacy is an important target for faculty learning. New physics faculty also reported high levels of use of student-centered practice which were similar to experienced faculty in this study and similar or higher than a study from a decade ago. Overall, our results suggest a continued shift in norms in the physics community, such that most new physics faculty enter the professoriate needing minimal encouragement to try student-centered instruction, having already experienced and experimented with such techniques. We do find, however, that about 20% of new faculty are not as open to student-centered instruction and have not yet experimented with it, and that more of these faculty are at Ph.D.-granting institutions. We propose that the innovation-decision model might be best imagined as cyclical, with faculty moving forward and backwards along stages of the cycle as they experiment with their teaching. We recommend those creating professional development experiences for faculty explore opportunities to support faculty as agentic learners engaged in a process of lifelong learning by helping them develop self-efficacy, agency, and metacognition. One way to accomplish these goals might be to focus professional development on faculty choosing something new to try, and (critically) learning from the experience. We also encourage the field to move away from focusing research and professional development on specific, branded teaching practices.Stephanie V. ChasteenRajendra ChattergoonAmerican Physical SocietyarticleSpecial aspects of educationLC8-6691PhysicsQC1-999ENPhysical Review Physics Education Research, Vol 16, Iss 2, p 020164 (2020)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Special aspects of education LC8-6691 Physics QC1-999
spellingShingle	Special aspects of education LC8-6691 Physics QC1-999 Stephanie V. Chasteen Rajendra Chattergoon Insights from the Physics and Astronomy New Faculty Workshop: How do new physics faculty teach?
description	Effective faculty professional development must be participant centered; tailored to the needs and interests of the faculty who engage in it. In order to better understand those needs and interests, we investigate how knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and teaching practice vary among new physics faculty, using surveys of a large sample (n=442) of participants in the Physics and Astronomy New Faculty Workshop (NFW). The “innovation-decision model” guides our understanding of the evolution of faculty teaching practice, and “self-determination theory” and the “theory of planned behavior” inform our understanding of necessary preconditions for that change. We find that most new physics faculty are aware of published teaching approaches, but that this awareness has not increased compared to a decade ago [C. Henderson and M. H. Dancy, Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 5, 020107 (2009)10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.5.020107] and is lower than the experienced faculty in our sample. New physics faculty also value student-centered instruction, are interested in using it, and feel that there is peer support for using student-centered instruction. Some new faculty have experienced student-centered instruction as a student or teaching assistant, as well. They are not confident of their ability to enact such practices, however, showing that self-efficacy is an important target for faculty learning. New physics faculty also reported high levels of use of student-centered practice which were similar to experienced faculty in this study and similar or higher than a study from a decade ago. Overall, our results suggest a continued shift in norms in the physics community, such that most new physics faculty enter the professoriate needing minimal encouragement to try student-centered instruction, having already experienced and experimented with such techniques. We do find, however, that about 20% of new faculty are not as open to student-centered instruction and have not yet experimented with it, and that more of these faculty are at Ph.D.-granting institutions. We propose that the innovation-decision model might be best imagined as cyclical, with faculty moving forward and backwards along stages of the cycle as they experiment with their teaching. We recommend those creating professional development experiences for faculty explore opportunities to support faculty as agentic learners engaged in a process of lifelong learning by helping them develop self-efficacy, agency, and metacognition. One way to accomplish these goals might be to focus professional development on faculty choosing something new to try, and (critically) learning from the experience. We also encourage the field to move away from focusing research and professional development on specific, branded teaching practices.
format	article
author	Stephanie V. Chasteen Rajendra Chattergoon
author_facet	Stephanie V. Chasteen Rajendra Chattergoon
author_sort	Stephanie V. Chasteen
title	Insights from the Physics and Astronomy New Faculty Workshop: How do new physics faculty teach?
title_short	Insights from the Physics and Astronomy New Faculty Workshop: How do new physics faculty teach?
title_full	Insights from the Physics and Astronomy New Faculty Workshop: How do new physics faculty teach?
title_fullStr	Insights from the Physics and Astronomy New Faculty Workshop: How do new physics faculty teach?
title_full_unstemmed	Insights from the Physics and Astronomy New Faculty Workshop: How do new physics faculty teach?
title_sort	insights from the physics and astronomy new faculty workshop: how do new physics faculty teach?
publisher	American Physical Society
publishDate	2020
url	https://doaj.org/article/59668a9ffea84301ad671a87299d27e7
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Insights from the Physics and Astronomy New Faculty Workshop: How do new physics faculty teach?

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