Understanding how facilitators adapt to needs of STEM faculty in online learning communities: a case study.

Background: Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs) and Faculty Online Learning Communities (FOLCs) are ways to support STEM faculty implementing research-based curricula. In these communities, faculty facilitators take on the role of sharing expertise and promoting discussion. However, as members gain more experience, their needs change from addressing logistical to pedagogical issues. Hence, facilitators need to change their practices in response. However, there is little research on the mechanisms of faculty facilitator change. In this article, we provide a case study of a specific STEM FOLC facilitator and demonstrate the usefulness of a teacher change model to investigate facilitator change. Results: Guided by our adaptation of the Interconnected Model of Professional Growth (IMPG), we conducted interviews with FOLC facilitators, and selected a case facilitator who reported changes in facilitation goals and strategies over time. The model helped us identify specific areas of change and potential mechanisms for these changes. Using themes of change identified in the case facilitator interview, we developed coding schemes to analyze his FOLC meetings over a 2-year period. We found empirical evidence from multiple data sources, including FOLC meetings and facilitator reflections, that supported the change themes, including: changing his role as an "expert" by sharing his own expertise less and drawing on others' expertise more frequently, changing his response to members' comments by jumping in to answer less frequently and withholding his own responses more often to encourage member sharing, and a change in group discussions towards less logistical and more pedagogical conversations. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that the IMPG can be fruitfully adapted to study facilitator change. A diagrammatic representation of the IMPG provides a description the types of change the case facilitator experienced and the factors that supported those changes. We discuss how the methodology used to analyze facilitator actions in FOLC group meetings may be useful to study other types of professional growth. Finally, because our analytical model allowed us to identify mechanisms of facilitator change, we describe the implications and provide suggestions to support facilitators in other faculty community groups. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40594-022-00371-x.

The Taxonomy of Opportunities to Learn (TxOTL): a tool for understanding the learning potential and substance of interactions in faculty (online) learning community meetings.

BACKGROUND: While many research-based instructional strategies in STEM have been developed, faculty need support in implementing and sustaining use of these strategies. A number of STEM faculty professional development programs aim to provide such pedagogical support, and it is necessary to understand the activity and learning process for faculty in these settings. In this paper, a taxonomy for describing the learning opportunities in faculty (online) learning community meetings is presented. Faculty learning communities, meeting either in-person or (increasingly) online, are a common form of professional development. They aim to develop the pedagogical and reflective skills of participants through regular meetings centered on conversations about teaching and learning. RESULTS: The tool presented in this paper, the Taxonomy of Opportunities to Learn (TxOTL), provides a structured approach to making sense of the dynamic interactions that occur during faculty learning community meetings. The origins and development of the TxOTL are described, followed by a detailed presentation of the constructs that make up the TxOTL: communicative approach used in a conversation, the concepts developed, and the meeting segment category. The TxOTL characterizes the learning opportunities presented by a faculty learning community conversation through describing the content of the conversation as well as how participants engage in the conversation. Examples of the tool in use are provided through an application to a faculty online learning community serving instructors of a physical science curriculum. A visual representation used to compactly display the results of applying the taxonomy to a meeting is detailed as well. These examples serve to illustrate the types of claims the TxOTL facilitates. CONCLUSIONS: The TxOTL allows one to examine learning opportunities available to a faculty learning community group, analyze concept development present in their conversations, track change over time in a given group, and identify patterns between meeting segment categories and communicative approaches. It is useful for researchers as well as facilitators of these STEM faculty professional development groups. The taxonomy is most applicable to faculty (online) learning communities, with limited use for workshops and K-12 professional development contexts. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at (10.1186/s40594-021-00301-3).

Analyzing a faculty online learning community as a mechanism for supporting faculty implementation of a guided-inquiry curriculum.

BACKGROUND: Adoption and use of effective, research-based instructional strategies (RBISs) for STEM education is less widespread than hoped. To promote further use of RBISs, the propagation paradigm suggests that developers work with potential adopters during the development process, and provide ongoing support after adoption. This article investigates the impact of a faculty online learning community (FOLC) as a professional development mechanism for supporting faculty adopting a research-based curriculum. A FOLC uses video conference technology and online platforms to connect geographically dispersed faculty with similar backgrounds (e.g., physics faculty) and supports their teaching development. In the context of a specific FOLC, this article seeks to determine the outcomes the FOLC achieves, and how. RESULTS: Analysis of a FOLC meeting identified opportunities for rich, complex social interaction centered on the research-based curriculum. By functioning as a sounding board for ideas, a space to share experiences, a source of affective support, and a venue for troubleshooting, the FOLC mediates the achievement of a range of outcomes related to implementation of the curriculum. Survey results indicate that members feel a sense of community in the FOLC and that it provides encouragement through teaching challenges. Further results indicate participants' increased confidence in using the curriculum; familiarity with the curriculum structure and content; increased knowledge of pedagogical techniques; reflection on teaching practices in the curriculum; and use of pedagogical techniques aligned with the curriculum's core principles. Emerging evidence supports more distal outcomes, including student learning, persistence in using the curriculum, reflection in teaching practice across courses taught, and use of research-based pedagogy in other courses. CONCLUSIONS: The propagation paradigm emphasizes the need for ongoing support for adopters of RBISs. The FOLC model provides participating faculty with ongoing support through participation in a community and is an effective support mechanism for adopters of a research-based curriculum. In this study, FOLC members are increasing their knowledge and use of pedagogical techniques in the curriculum-specific course and beyond. This is facilitated by the opportunities in the FOLC for troubleshooting, idea sharing, and receiving encouragement through challenges. This model has the potential to support adopters of additional educational innovations. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40594-020-00268-7.

A framework for analyzing interdisciplinary tasks: implications for student learning and curricular design.

The national conversation around undergraduate science instruction is calling for increased interdisciplinarity. As these calls increase, there is a need to consider the learning objectives of interdisciplinary science courses and how to design curricula to support those objectives. We present a framework that can help support interdisciplinary design research. We developed this framework in an introductory physics for life sciences majors (IPLS) course for which we designed a series of interdisciplinary tasks that bridge physics and biology. We illustrate how this framework can be used to describe the variation in the nature and degree of interdisciplinary interaction in tasks, to aid in redesigning tasks to better align with interdisciplinary learning objectives, and finally, to articulate design conjectures that posit how different characteristics of these tasks might support or impede interdisciplinary learning objectives. This framework will be useful for both curriculum designers and education researchers seeking to understand, in more concrete terms, what interdisciplinary learning means and how integrated science curricula can be designed to support interdisciplinary learning objectives.

Unusual low-energy phonon dynamics in the negative thermal expansion compound ZrW2O8.

An infrared study of the phonon spectra of ZrW2O8 as a function of temperature which includes the low-energy (2-10 meV) region relevant to negative thermal expansion is reported and discussed in the context of specific heat and neutron density of state results. The prevalence of infrared active phonons at low energy and their observed temperature dependence are highly unusual and indicative of exotic low-energy lattice dynamics. Eigenvector calculations indicate a mixing of librational and translational motion within each low-frequency IR mode. The role of the underconstrained structure in establishing the nature of these modes and the relationship between the IR spectra and the large negative thermal expansion in ZrW2O8 are discussed.