Seeding long-term, sustainable change in teacher preparation programs: the case of PhysTEC
department or school: Science, Faculty of
department or school: Non UBC
department or school: Physics and Astronomy, Department of
data provider: DSpace
identifier citation: International Journal of STEM Education. 2018 Oct 03;5(1):37
rights copyright: The Author(s).
creator: Foote, Kathleen T
creator: Knaub, Alexis V
issued: 2018-10-03T15:36:54Z
issued: 2018-10-03
description: Background: The continuation of teacher preparation activities after a 3-year Physics Teacher Education Coalition (PhysTEC) grant is used as a case study to examine multi-faceted aspects of sustainable change in higher education. Since teacher preparation is outside typical physics departmental activities, success is highly dependent on finding a department and institution who values this cause. Throughout the history of providing grants, PhysTEC has identified ten components of successful sites that they consider during the selection process. In this paper, we retrospectively analyze characteristics of six comprehensive PhysTEC sites, to see how department histories, values, and activities affect long-term sustainability as sites moved from grant funding to matched institutional funding and beyond. Results: The most important components required to sustain these programs were (1) institutional commitment—both financial support as well as intellectual and cultural support for potential teachers—(2) champion, a respected change agent at the university who ensures program success through advocacy and support, and (3) activities that enhance not only the production of teachers but also the undergraduate education activities of the department. Of the six PhysTEC sites, three sites were able to institutionalize the majority of PhysTEC activities into departmental routine. These three sites have departmental leadership and administrators who valued and invested in physics teacher preparation. At these sites, PhysTEC symbiotically supported typical departmental activities including increasing majors, improving courses, and involving undergraduates to support teaching. Two sites were sustaining activities at the time of study but attitudes toward teaching as a profession were mixed so continued sustainability is precarious and reliant on external funding. One site discontinued the majority of PhysTEC activities because of a lack of alignment with a different physics teacher…
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/67306
note: RESEARCH Open AccessSeeding long-term, sustainable change inteacher preparation programs: the case ofPhysTECKathleen T. Foote1* and Alexis V. Knaub2AbstractBackground: The continuation of teacher preparation activities after a 3-year Physics Teacher Education Coalition(PhysTEC) grant is used as a case study to examine multi-faceted aspects of sustainable change in higher education.Since teacher preparation is outside typical physics departmental activities, success is highly dependent on finding adepartment and institution who values this cause. Throughout the history of providing grants, PhysTEC has identifiedten components of successful sites that they consider during the selection process. In this paper, we retrospectivelyanalyze characteristics of six comprehensive PhysTEC sites, to see how department histories, values, and activities affectlong-term sustainability as sites moved from grant funding to matched institutional funding and beyond.Results: The most important components required to sustain these programs were (1) institutional commitment—bothfinancial support as well as intellectual and cultural support for potential teachers—(2) champion, a respected changeagent at the university who ensures program success through advocacy and support, and (3) activities that enhancenot only the production of teachers but also the undergraduate education activities of the department. Of the sixPhysTEC sites, three sites were able to institutionalize the majority of PhysTEC activities into departmental routine. Thesethree sites have departmental leadership and administrators who valued and invested in physics teacher preparation. Atthese sites, PhysTEC symbiotically supported typical departmental activities including increasing majors, improvingcourses, and involving undergraduates to support teaching. Two sites were sustaining activities at the time of study butattitudes toward teaching as a profession were mixed so continued sustainability is precarious and reliant …
has type: Article
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0372511
language: eng
peer review status: Reviewed
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: Springer International Publishing
publisher DOI: 10.1186/s40594-018-0134-3
rights: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
scholar level: Faculty
subject: Organizational change
subject: Change in higher education
subject: Sustainability of reforms
subject: Secondary teacher preparation
subject: Physics teacher preparation
subject: Dissemination
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/67306