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International Journal of STEM Education. 2018 Oct 03;5(1):37
The Author(s).
Foote, Kathleen T
Knaub, Alexis V
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 initiative on campus. Conclusions: Because physics teacher preparation is not often prioritized as a part of undergraduate departmental activities, success emerges when departmental and institutional value systems align with this goal. PhysTEC funding is not enough to create this culture; it must exist prior to funding. Sustaining PhysTEC activities is easier when they are seen as enhancing the undergraduate experience as a whole. The PhysTEC grant helped bring physics teacher preparation to the forefront, and a well-respected champion in a leadership position can help set this tone and advance departmental activities accordingly. This study has implications for sustaining reforms of typically undervalued activities in higher education or secondary teacher preparation programs in any discipline.
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 on externalfunding. One site discontinued the majority of PhysTEC activities because of a lack of alignment with a different physicsteacher initiative on campus.Conclusions: Because physics teacher preparation is not often prioritized as a part of undergraduate departmentalactivities, success emerges when departmental and institutional value systems align with this goal. PhysTEC funding is notenough to create this culture; it must exist prior to funding. Sustaining PhysTEC activities is easier when they are seen asenhancing the undergraduate experience as a whole. The PhysTEC grant helped bring physics teacher preparation to theforefront, and a well-respected champion in a leadership position can help set this tone and advance departmentalactivities accordingly. This study has implications for sustaining reforms of typically undervalued activities in highereducation or secondary teacher preparation programs in any discipline.Keywords: Organizational change, Change in higher education, Sustainability of reforms, Secondary teacher preparation,Physics teacher preparation, Dissemination* Correspondence: kfoote@phas.ubc.ca1Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia, 6224Agricultural Road, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1, CanadaFull list of author information is available at the end of the articleInternational Journal ofSTEM Education© The Author(s). 2018 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, andreproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link tothe Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.Foote and Knaub International Journal of STEM Education (2018) 5:37 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-018-0134-3BackgroundEvery year, the Department of Education and National Sci-ence Foundation (NSF) spend millions of dollars on pro-jects to improve STEM education. While these initiativesaim to create positive and lasting change, the continuationof benefits can be threatened after funding has ceased.Changing departmental demands, competing priorities forfaculty members, and administrative and staff turnover canthreaten reforms, especially when knowledge and expertiseare lost along the way (Coburn 2003; McLaughlin andMitra 2001). Efforts heavily driven by external support canbe temporary solutions that regress when support isremoved (Chasteen et al. 2015). Change is notoriously diffi-cult in realms of public service, such as education, health,and social welfare because improvements may not directlylead to commercial gain (Elwyn et al. 2007). In these indus-tries, it may be especially challenging to encourage peopleto adopt innovative, research-based practices if they lackfinancial or industrial pressures to change.In past studies, we found that hard-to-reverse structuralchanges, such as replacing lecture halls with studio class-rooms like SCALE-UP, are one way to counter this trend(Foote et al. 2016; Knaub et al. 2016). However, mostreforms do not involve structural changes. As funding forhigher education becomes increasingly squeezed within in-stitutions, understanding how reforms, even those outsidetypical departmental priorities, can have a sustained impactwhich is critical to creating meaningful, lasting change.Sustained change often requires more than a change inpractice; it involves aligning the culture with the change,ensuring values, beliefs, and rituals help institutionalize thereform amidst changing administrators, budgets, and staffexpertise (Schein 1985). In this study, we found that cultureand history are a resilient part of a departmental identity. Ifdepartments do not value physics teaching as a profession,the funding is unlikely to change faculty and student atti-tudes. This value system will not emerge from the funding;it must already exist.This study seeks to understand how to align desiredchanges with the local site so change can be executed stra-tegically and efforts can succeed long term. To use anagricultural metaphor, external change agents can widelyscatter information about initiatives relying on chance forthose efforts to succeed; or one could actively seed effortsin fertile soil where growth and further propagation islikely (King 2003; Gannaway et al. 2013). This process in-volves two main stages: first, funding agencies and changeagents need to know how to identify sites that are open tochange and have histories, cultures, and structures thatare aligned with the intended change. Secondly, duringthe grant period, change agents should focus on capacitybuilding in strategic areas that are linked with long-termsustainability that the programmatic efforts continue afterthe grant funded period.While organizational change models are well-establishedin business settings (Real and Poole 2005), less work hasbeen done to articulate and refine models for change inhigher education (Chasteen et al. 2011; Henderson et al.2011). Many of these emerging models lack a unified theor-etical foundation and focus primarily on changing practice(e.g., having instructors use active learning techniques) inteaching and learning. Getting university departments toinvest long-term in producing physics teachers requiresmuch more than a temporary change in practice becauseteacher preparation is outside typical physics departmentalduties in higher education. We argue that to sustain anychange in practice in a resilient way, culture and valuesystems need to align with the change. To avoid failure,sites should analyze alignment before attempting reform.We chose the Physics Teacher Education Coalition(PhysTEC) as a case study because it helps make the roleof value systems in change efforts explicit, because creatingphysics teachers is not a common priority in physics de-partments. Since 2001, PhysTEC has been using NSF fund-ing to help universities develop and transform physicsteacher programs according to national models. They havemodified their application and funding policies to explicitlyfocus on sustainability (Scherr et al. 2014) and now requireapplicants to submit a sustainability plan. For example, thefirst sites were funded for 5 years but current comprehen-sive grants will fund 3 years under the condition of 3 yearsof matched institutional funding. While an in-depth exam-ination of sustainability of early sites has already been com-pleted (Scherr et al. 2014), we study the sustainability ofsites under this new matched funding model, to see howresults compare to the data collected in 2012. We situateour results within change models, so funding agencies andchange agents can structure their application, selection,and implementation guidelines in a way that increases theprobability of sustainable outcomes. We hope to generalizesome of what works well for PhysTEC grants by situatingresults within the change literature to guide efforts of fund-ing agencies, change agents, and leaders in higher educa-tion more broadly.We hypothesized that teacher preparation programswould be difficult to sustain because producingsecondary teachers is outside typical university physicsdepartment missions. “Physics teacher preparation atcolleges and universities generally has an ‘orphan’status, claimed or valued by almost no one, except asa low-priority side-line activity” (Meltzer et al. 2012).The small number of graduating physics teachers canmake the dedication of staff, courses, and resourcesdifficult to justify if secondary education is notvalued. We hope this paper makes an implicit criteriafor change (aligned values) explicit and provides prac-tical exams of how departmental value systems inter-act with change efforts.Foote and Knaub International Journal of STEM Education (2018) 5:37 Page 2 of 16While many physics faculty do not see producing physicsteachers as a responsibility of university departments, thesevere lack of qualified secondary teachers creates a dan-gerous cycle that has significant implications for universitydepartments. As a result of poor (or no) physics instructionin high school, few high school students are inspired topursue further study of physics. This limits the potentialfor physics majors, putting physics degree programs at riskof elimination due to low enrollment. The jobs of physicsfaculty, and the resources allocated to the department, areaffected by students’ experiences in secondary school.Maintaining the status quo has negative implications forphysics as a discipline and the United States’ ability tomaintain scientific and technological competitiveness(Meltzer et al. 2012).For changes to be institutionalized, Gannaway et al.(2013) proposes sites think about creating climate forchange, engaging key parties, and transferring grant activ-ities to sustainable funding sources. Strategically identify-ing sites where change efforts are aligned with existingdepartmental culture and structures is the first step to-ward investing in meaningful change. While PhysTECdoes have “key components” that they review in applica-tions for funding, this study will shed insight on which ofthose components were critical for the sites studied here.ClimateExplicitly assessing the climate of readiness for change freesa project from being dependent on serendipity and luck.Before embarking on a project, one should consider of thecapacity of people and systems to change, or at least able tobe convinced that change is worthwhile. Assessment of theclimate’s readiness for change begins with understandingthe culture and organizational structures at the sites wherechange is anticipated (Gannaway et al. 2013).As institutions with long-standing missions, universitiestend to value history, traditions, and often institutionalprocesses reinforce existing practices. Universities have aunique leadership structure which can be quite hierarch-ical at the upper levels but is rather decentralized at thedepartmental level with individual faculty having a highdegree of autonomy in certain areas. Despite this uniqueleadership structure, universities share some common fea-tures with other organizations. The broad literature onorganizational change provides some ideas on how to bestchange university culture. In this paper, we decided not torestrict our interpretation by using one change framework.Instead, we draw from a variety of literature with applic-ability to higher education.Organizations have a variety of features that enhancetheir ability to embrace and assimilate new ideas (Pettigrewet al. 1994). Components of receptive context includestrong leadership (Cooper et al. 1998), clear strategicvision, positive administrative relations, visionary people inpivotal positions, a climate conducive to experimentation,and ability to continually assess progress (Anderson andWest 1998; Dopson et al. 2002; Newton et al. 2003;Nystrom et al. 2002; Pettigrew et al. 1994; Van de Ven etal. 1999). Strong leadership is often at the root ofdeveloping a culture where members can break out of theconvergent thinking, take risks, and try new things (Van deVen et al. 1999).Innovations that are compatible with the intendedadopters’ values, norms, and perceived needs are morereadily adopted (Aubert and Hamel 2001; Denis et al. 2002;Ferlie et al. 2001; Foy et al. 2002; Rogers 2010). Thus, theclimate for change also depends on the characteristics ofthe specific proposed project process, and outcome. Whendeciding whether change is worth the effort, people withinthe institution weigh the intended impacts and perceivedbenefits, deciding whether it addresses a perceived need.EngagementEngagement includes the involvement of invested keystakeholders, champions, and change enablers (Gannawayet al. 2013). Kotter recommends that an organization mustassemble a group with power, energy, and influence to leadthe change. The leadership team should include memberswith (1) positional power so opponents cannot block pro-gress, (2) necessary expertise to make informed decisions,(3) sufficient credibility for the organization to enact deci-sions, and (4) leadership to inspire progress (Kotter 1996).Collective leadership improves the chances of arriving atmore complex, complete solutions and eventually achievinga broader impact (Kezar 2013). It also promotes widespreadbuy-in in the face of administrative and staff turnover.PhysTEC defines a champion as a change agent at theuniversity who ensures program success by stepping up asan advocate when support is needed (Meltzer et al. 2012).The champion is usually a faculty member who creates,funds, staffs, and institutionalizes physics teacher educa-tion at their institution. PhysTEC also describes the needfor institutional support, which encompasses a wide var-iety of people from physics and education faculty, as wellas chairs, deans, and upper-level university administration.Deans and upper-level administrators often contributefinancial support and dictate institutional priorities, whilemuch of the student-facing communication happens atthe departmental level.The department translates administrative visionsand priorities into how it affects the daily functioningof faculty. Similarly, departmental norms and rulesshape the ways in which faculty members interpretand enact their roles and responsibilities in relationto the larger university (Seymour 2002; Wieman et al.2010). The early and widespread involvement ofpeople at all levels enhances the success of implemen-tation and eventual institutionalization (Kotter 1996).Foote and Knaub International Journal of STEM Education (2018) 5:37 Page 3 of 16Sustainable transferWe define sustainability using three operational indicators:(1) maintenance of a program’s intended benefits (in thiscase, production of physics teachers), (2) institutionalizationof the program within the department, and (3) capacitybuilding in the local setting (Rabin et al. 2008;Shediac-Rizkallah and Bone 1998). Capacity building is anyactivity that builds durable resources and enables theorganization to continue the delivery of the change afterexternal funding ends. This can involve training of internalstaff, identification of alternative resources, and buildinginternal assets (Shediac-Rizkallah and Bone 1998; Pluye etal. 2004). While we look to see if particular activities aresustained, to understand the importance of these compo-nents, ultimately, producing physics teachers is the goal ofPhysTEC and the basic criteria for sustainability.Jacobs (2002) defines institutionalization as change thathas relative endurance and staying power over a length oftime or that “has become part of the ongoing, everyday ac-tivities of the organization”. Practice becomes institutional-ized when it is routine, widespread, legitimized, expected,supported, permanent, and resilient (Kramer 2000). Threestages that determine the extent of institutionalization are(1) passage—a single event that involves a significantchange in the organization’s structure or procedures suchas transition from temporary to permanent funding, (2)cycle or routine—repetitive reinforcement of the change byincluding it into organizational procedures and behaviors,such as the annual budget and evaluation criteria—and (3)niche saturation—the extent to which the change is inte-grated throughout organization (Shediac-Rizkallah andBone 1998; Pluye et al. 2004; Johnson et al. 2004).Participants and data collectionPhysTECPhysTEC began in 2001 to combat the severe shortageof qualified high school physics teachers as a partnershipbetween the American Physical Society and AmericanAssociation of Physics Teacher with funding from theNSF. Since inception, PhysTEC has directly supportedover 40 institutions to build model programs to educatefuture physics teachers, and PhysTEC-supported siteshave collectively more than doubled the number of grad-uates per year from their physics teacher preparationprograms (Meltzer et al. 2012). Unlike other teacherpreparation programs, the PhysTEC project targetsphysics departments when creating a supportive climatetoward teaching and encouraging embedded activities.Some other teacher education efforts overlap with Phys-TEC efforts, as will be discussed in this study. For ex-ample, UTeach is a STEM education initiative out ofUniversity of Texas at Austin. This initiative started as acollaboration between the College of Natural Sciences, theCollege of Education where they brought experienced“Master teachers” (secondary school teachers) to campusto lead introductory courses and coordinate on-goingfield-based experiences (Petrosino and Dickinson 2003).Since starting in Texas, 46 universities in 22 states partici-pate in UTeach including 2 of the sites in this study(UTeach 2018).The Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program wasfirst authorized by the NSF in 2002 to address the short-age of STEM teachers and professionals (AAAS 2018).This program provides funding to tertiary institutions toprovide scholarships, stipends, and programmatic sup-port to recruit and prepare STEM majors to be physicsteachers. Students who receive scholarships are expectedto teach for 2 years in a high needs school district. All ofthe sites in this study had Noyce funding at some point.This study focuses on comprehensive sites that re-ceived grant funding for 3 years under the condition ofmatched institutional funding for an additional 3 years.PhysTEC sites benefit from not starting from scratchsince the PhysTEC only awards grants to applicants whoalready demonstrate certain features of successfulteacher preparation programs, including a faculty cham-pion, institutional commitment (in terms of matchedfunding), and collaboration with education departments.This study intends to shed insight on which of thesepre-conditions might be more important than others increating sustainable outcomes.Under the grant, comprehensive PhysTEC sites areencouraged to adopt additional components includingrecruiting pre-service physics teachers, offering earlyteaching experiences, advising and mentoring teachercandidates, and connecting graduates to a network of localteachers. Learning assistants, talented undergraduates whohelp support student learning in undergraduate courses,are often used as a way to provide early teaching experi-ences, while enhancing the quality of undergraduate teach-ing (Otero et al. 2010). Often these students participate insupplemental courses in physics teaching methods, wherethey learn pedagogical content knowledge.PhysTEC has changed their list of components over theyears to prioritize activities that do not typically exist atuniversities. For example, they used to include “coursetransformation” because that was linked to demonstratinghigh-quality teaching practices that could attract moremajors, which expanded the number of potential teachers.Now, the listed components have more direct impacts onproducing physics teachers. While each site adopts keycomponents as a part of the grant, sites are encouraged toimplement them according to their local context, takingadvantage of institution-specific resources and expertise(Scherr et al. 2014; Chasteen et al. 2018).Recent requests for proposals for new sites explicitlyask for sustainability plans, and all awardees featuredhere (except CSU-LB) committed upfront to sustainFoote and Knaub International Journal of STEM Education (2018) 5:37 Page 4 of 16their programs for three or more years beyond the Phys-TEC award period. Expectations for sustainability weremuch less clear at the beginning of the project, which in-cluded several sites in the first sustainability paper (Scherret al. 2014). We wanted to see whether explicitly mandatingsustainability plans and matched funding (for institutionalcommitment) lead to significantly different sustainabilityoutcomes compared to when data was collected in 2012,where some awards were given prior to this requirement.In the first sustainability report, with data collected in2012, Scherr et al. (2014) found that seven out of the eightsites sustained or expanded production of physics teachers.All seven of these sites had both a faculty champion andinstitutional motivation and commitment, by design of theselection criteria. Institutional motivation includedexamples such as fulfilling the institutional mission, servingregional needs, improving the local reputation of theinstitution, supporting strong members of the faculty, andnational recognition. They found that every site thatsustained an increase in production of physics teacherscontinued recruitment efforts, “providing evidence that re-cruitment is necessary for sustaining increases in teacherproduction” (Scherr et al. 2014, p. 8). Scherr et al. (2014)found that sustained activities tended to be those that fit inwell with normal departmental interests and responsibilities(e.g., LA program to support undergraduate teaching),while other activities (e.g., secondary outreach) tended tobe reduced or eliminated.The one site that did not sustain activities had little sup-port for physics teacher preparation prior the grant. Sincethe grant, the university’s teacher certification program waseliminated and the colleague in the department of educa-tion retired when the department closed. The grant wasused to fund a marketing campaign, course transformation,and undergraduate teaching experiences within the univer-sity. The course transformation, teaching experiences, andrecruiting has continued, but students would need to re-ceive a certificate through another avenue so the number ofteachers has dropped, as well as mentoring opportunities.Our study seeks to revisit the long-term sustainabilityof sites after changes were made to require matchedfunding. We will generalize and situate findings withinthe larger change literature.The sitesWe investigated the six PhysTEC comprehensive sites whohad completed funding by 2014 and who were not featuredin the 2014 sustainability report (Scherr et al. 2014). Theyear 2014 was chosen so that the post-funding period be-tween 2014 and 2017 could be studied to investigatelong-term sustainability. All six sites that met these criteriaparticipated. These sites are described in Table 1 usingtheir Carnegie Classification. Five of the six sites are at least3 years post-grant funding and have thus faced two fundingtransitions (from grant to institutional funding, then be-yond required matched funding). While the sixth site(VTech) is still technically within the institutional fundingperiod, they took steps to institutionalize changes with sus-tainable funding sources which justified their inclusion inthis study. The sites are a mix of research universities andmasters colleges, some of which historically specialized inproducing teachers (Towson and CSULB).As seen in Table 1, the sites are a diverse group of re-search institutions and masters colleges of varying sizes.For example, CSULB and Towson have no PhD programwhich means they cannot recruit graduate students toserve as teaching assistants in reformed courses, laborator-ies, and tutorials. Conversely, the high research focus ofUMN, VTech, and BU may have implications for howmuch time research faculty can devote to teaching andhow teaching is valued and rewarded. The high level ofvariability makes quantitative comparisons difficult becausethe circumstances, initial conditions, and contextual differ-ences of site vary dramatically. That is not the purpose ofthis paper. Instead, we aim to provide qualitative descrip-tions of how each site navigates the change process in lightof its unique strengths and challenges, and can leveragestrategic aspects of its identity, culture, and history to cre-ate permanent transformation. Each institution will be de-scribed in more detail in subsequent sections of the paper.Data collectionWith the help of the PhysTEC leadership, we reached outto at least two key informants (including the champion inthe physics department) at each institution, conducting atotal of eleven interviews. The second person we talked towas often a champion in education (at VTech, CSULB,UMN, and BU). At Towson, we talked to two science edu-cators in the physics department. We had not originallyplanned to interview TIRs because we expected them toexecute and implement the vision developed by cham-pions, faculty members, and administrators. However, inthe case of two sites (BU and VTech), the TIRs ended upstaying more than the year recommended by PhysTECand took a leadership role in ensuring the continued exist-ence of their position as well as supporting other PhysTECefforts. In these cases, when the TIR became an active ad-vocate and creator of change, we felt their perspectiveswere relevant to our research questions.The hour-long telephone interviews highlighted key fac-tors that our interviewees perceived as important. Inter-viewees were asked open-ended questions about thecontext (e.g., events that motivated applying for PhysTEC,allies in education and higher administration), implemen-tation (e.g., grant activities, challenges, successes), andtransfer (e.g., grant components that had been maintainedduring transitions, future outlook). The interviewer usedfollow-up questions to obtain specific details about theFoote and Knaub International Journal of STEM Education (2018) 5:37 Page 5 of 16interviewee’s experiences. The common interview proto-col was adjusted to the interviewee’s role, e.g., slightlydifferent for teachers in residence (TIR) compared to thedepartment heads. Interviews were transcribed foranalysis.Interviews were supplemented and cross checked witha variety of documentation most of which was submittedto PhysTEC throughout the grant period, which involvedthe perspectives of external and internal stakeholders.While the interviews are short, this documentationprovides incredibly valuable information about details ofhow the grant unfolded over time. Documentationincluded annual, midyear, and data reports, as well asnotes from external site visits conducted by the APSPhysTEC staff. The documentation and interviews weretriangulated to explore the history, evolution, stresses,opportunities, motivations, and constraints on physicsteacher preparation at each site.Data analysisIndividual interviews were transcribed, reviewed, and sum-marized with structured note-taking. Interviews at the sameinstitution were compared and crosschecked with PhysTECdocumentation (including annual and midyear reports) anduniversity websites to ensure consistency. Both researchersseparately summarized the interviews and documentedcomponents of the change process and aspects related tosustainability. We compared our notes, resolved any dis-crepancies, and typically combined responses in a morecomplete summary. Finally, interviews were comparedacross institutions to highlight thematic findings.The PhysTEC team and featured sites checked these find-ings for accuracy. Furthermore, the documentation submit-ted to PhysTEC over the grant period was validated by itsmembers before being viewed by us. We sent the draft ofthis manuscript to each site for further verification.ResultsIn “PhysTEC” section, we provide a brief synopsis of eachsite that describes their relevant history leading up to thegrant, how they used PhysTEC funding, and whether theywere able to maintain teacher production, institutionalizeactivities, and further build capacity to internalize changesafter funding ended. In “The sites” section, Table 2summarizes these results.Synopsis of each site’s grant activities and sustainabilityoutcomesBoston UniversityBoston University (BU) is a private, urban, R1 institutionand was the first PhysTEC site in New England. Theprincipal investigators (PIs) on the PhysTEC grant wereTable 1 Carnegie classification of sites and approximate number of faculty in physics departmentName Code Fraction of undergraduatesat institutionMasters (M) college/doctoral(D) programNumber of faculty inPhysics DepartmentBoston University BU Majority D- highest research activity 45California State University- Long Beach CSULB High M 22Middle Tennessee State University MidTenn Very high D- moderate research activity 15Towson University Towson Very high M 27 (includes astronomyand geoscience)University of Minnesota UMN Majority D- highest research activity 65 (includes astronomy)Virginia Polytechnic Institute andState UniversityVTech High D- highest research activity 36Table 2 Summary table of sustainability at sites, with “black” indicating strong sustainability, “gray” indicating tentative sustainability(for example, dependent on another source of external funding). “Maintenance” refers to continued production of physics teachers.“Institutionalization” refers to continuation of PhysTEC activities, such as the TIR, recruitment, pedagogy courses, etc. “Capacitybuilding” indicates that costs and staffing has been internalized by the universityMaintenance Institutionalization Capacity BuildingBUCSULBMidTennTowsonUMNVTechFoote and Knaub International Journal of STEM Education (2018) 5:37 Page 6 of 16a Master Lecturer in Physics and a Clinical AssociateProfessor in Education. Prior to the grant, the PIsworked together to provide professional development toteachers at local schools when the district switched to aPhysics First model where physics is the first high schoolscience course. Because of this project with in-serviceteachers, the PIs started attending PhysTEC meetings,where they met their future TIR and where they wereinspired to apply for the grant and start an LA program.Successes The TIR has been a critical part of BU’s Phys-TEC efforts, actively recruiting students and careerchangers through listservs for physics teaching. Hestarted the Boston University Physics Teachers Networkthat meets on campus five times annually with high par-ticipation (200 teachers on the mailing list) in the localcommunity. The TIR has been involved on additionalprojects to secure external funding, including creatingan online and in-person AP physics course for localschools and Noyce scholarship work.BU’s PhysTEC efforts included expanding their LAprogram, including using LAs to support studio teachingin first year courses. After their PhysTEC funding ended,BU’s LA program has continued to flourish, with fund-ing from the institution to support over 140 undergradu-ates throughout the institution per year. The LAprogram is essentially institutionalized, but the under-graduates view it more as a way to prepare them toteach during graduate school, instead of inspiring themto teach high school. The TIR helped the departmentnavigate the transition to studio teaching, and now thatis also institutionalized.Challenges One of BU’s PhysTEC aspirations was toestablish a teaching track for undergraduates (in addition tothe existing pathway of a Masters of Arts in Teaching),which passed the faculty vote in physics but was ultimatelyvoted down by the School of Education. The PI in physicsidentifies the failed pathway as his biggest regret, but doesnot believe he could have done anything to change theoutcome.While the TIR believes faculty in the physics depart-ment are supportive of his efforts, getting widespreadparticipation in secondary outreach efforts is difficult.BU continues to struggle to recruit undergraduates whofail to see teaching as a prestigious and lucrative career,considering the high tuition for their degree. The co-PIin education developed a two-credit course modeledafter UTeach to give undergraduates an early teachingexperience but enrollments were low.When we first interviewed representatives from BU, thecontinuity of the TIR, who led the majority of PhysTECefforts, was contingent on finding an external fundingsource beyond the Noyce scholarship and digital learninggrant related to developing the online AP physics course.Since then, the faculty champion worked with the TIR tosecure NSF funding to support his continued employment.The PIs have asked for departmental funds to sustainon-campus networking events with their extensive physicsteacher network.Current status Before PhysTEC, BU only graduated onephysics teacher per year. At one point during the grant,they were producing more than five per year. Now, BUgraduates 3–4 teachers per year. We characterize BU asmaintaining teacher production but only moderately insti-tutionalized because funding to keep the TIR, who leadsrecruitment efforts, is dependent on external funding. Theundergraduates at the university and many faculty withinthe department do not view teaching as a prestigious car-eer, the department is not particularly eager to embracesecondary teacher preparation as part of its mission.California State University Long BeachCalifornia State University Long Beach is a public, urban,masters’ institution with an excellent reputation for teachereducation historically. California State University LongBeach (CSULB) produces about 400 elementary schoolteachers a year and has more applicants than they canaccept. The PI in physics became interested in the projectbecause she was disappointed with the quality of her son’sscience education and thought it might help remedy thelow number of physics majors (around ten per year). Shejoined forces with the Chair of Science Education and anundergraduate advisor who was a popular instructor andadvocate for instructional technology to apply for PhysTECfunding.Successes Because the Chair in Science Education hadextensive experience with educational grants, she recom-mended limiting PhysTEC activities to high impact, sustain-able activities with low ongoing costs. Because of this,almost all activities were sustained. The Chair of ScienceEducation, who had the most experience with teacher prep-aration projects explains,We picked… things that I think had the biggestimpact for our local teacher community and for ourprospective teachers and that opportunity to get thenetworking… For our future teachers can be in thesame room with the experienced teachers on asomewhat regular basis, they’re starting to build theirnetwork. They’ve got classrooms they can go to andthey have to do early fieldwork experiences. Now theyknow five or six or ten physics teachers in the area.Specifically, they started a biannual open house—attended by the Provost, monthly demonstration-sharingFoote and Knaub International Journal of STEM Education (2018) 5:37 Page 7 of 16lunches with local teachers and created a monthly news-letter in collaboration with the Southern CaliforniaAmerican Association of Physics Teachers. Initially, ittook time and effort to seek out secondary teachers andcreate interest in these activities. However, once the net-works were established, the logistics for Open Houseevents were arranged, the format of the demonstrationsharing lunches were determined, and it required min-imal resources to continue them, costs that were easilypicked up through some Sumner Foundation fundingonce the grant ended.Since recruiting a qualified full-time TIR was difficult,they chose to have a part-time TIR and did not use the fullcomprehensive funding of $100,000/year. CSULB was theonly site in this sample that was awarded the grant beforePhysTEC introduced the matched institutional funding re-quirement. The part-time TIR started two new courses: aLA pedagogy course and a physics pedagogical contentknowledge course. While PhysTEC usually recommendsfull-time TIRs, CSULB chose to accept less grant moneyfor a part-time position, which also made it easier to re-cruit teachers. The champion from CSULB also believedPhysTEC award helped distinguish physics in the facultyof science and helped secure support from administration.For example, when the grant ended, the position contin-ued with Math Science Teacher Initiative funds from theChancellor’s office.CSULB was able to sustain all the major componentswith slight modifications. Specifically, they reduced the fre-quency of the Open House and newsletter. Looking back,the Physics Chair and PhysTEC champion reflects thattheir highly focused application made it possible to accom-plish activities and continue to do those things after Phys-TEC ended. For CSULB, setting limited, high-impact butrealistic targets resulted in extremely high sustainability.Challenges The hardest part of maintaining PhysTECefforts is funding for 20 LAs salaries per semester. Withencouragement from PhysTEC, CSULB took data toshow that students connect strongly with LAs, pass rateswent up, and attitudes toward science improved. Thisdata has helped secure university funding for now, butthe program may be at risk for being scaled down.Current status Overall, the PhysTEC champion atCSULB—who was Chair until a year ago—believes thedepartment supports all main components and believesit “wouldn’t come down easily” especially because it hasled to an increased number of physics majors.CSULB has been able to maintain the programmaticefforts started during their PhysTEC funding period,graduating around five physics teachers per year, signifi-cantly more than before the grant. They sustain theirpart-time TIR through teaching responsibilities with theLA and physics pedagogical content knowledge courses.We characterize them as institutionalizing changes andcapacity building with PhysTEC through on going recruit-ing, outreach to local schools, and continued employmentof the TIR through LA and physics pedagogy courses.Middle Tennessee State UniversityMiddle Tennessee State University (MidTenn) is a public,suburban institution with moderate research activity. Theeconomic recession and impending budget cuts threatenedthe existence of MidTenn’s physics department. Introduc-tory courses had high drop, failure, and withdrawal (DFW)rates (around 55%), physics majors were few, and they hadnot graduated a physics teacher in over 20 years. Withinthe physics department, there was an obvious need andurgency for change (Kotter and Darius 1997). The PI was afaculty member in physics with an interest in educationwho had been going to PhysTEC conferences for 4 yearsbefore receiving a personalized invitation to apply.The threat of department elimination successfully led tocourse improvements preceding PhysTEC. The physicsdepartment reformed their introductory, algebra-basedclasses using a studio format. Transforming thealgebra-based courses into a studio format fixed the press-ing issue of DFW rates of over 50%. The initial successesand eagerness for recruiting more majors caused them toapply for PhysTEC funding, which inspired further trans-formation in calculus-based courses with Matter and In-teractions (Chabay and Sherwood 2015) curriculum andLAs, which caused further increases in the number of ma-jors. These course reforms helped lower their DFW ratesfrom ~ 55 to 15%.The university decided to distinguish itself as valuable tothe state of Tennessee by rebranding itself as a majorsource of STEM teachers so the new institutional identityaligned with the goals of the PhysTEC grant. In 2010, theinstitution committed $2.5 million dollars to becoming oneof UTeach sites in the state (PhysTEC 2011), concurrentwith the start of the PhysTEC grant and a Noyce Scholar-ship program for prospective physics and math teachers.PhysTEC complemented the department’s efforts to re-cruit more majors in general, by providing a clear potentialcareer path that complemented the university’s effort atrebranding itself as a leader in science education. Thus, thepresident, provost, and dean all highly supported PhysTECthrough verbal encouragement and financial support. Mid-Tenn submitted a PhysTEC application around the sametime as establishing a doctoral program in science educa-tion and hiring a Physics Education Researcher whichhelped build capacity because now the departmental had itsown expert in pedagogical content knowledge.Successes The physics champion leveraged both astate-level interest in producing more physics teachersFoote and Knaub International Journal of STEM Education (2018) 5:37 Page 8 of 16in Tennessee and a departmental-level interest in in-creasing the number of physics majors. PhysTEC coin-cided with the university adopting UTeach and securingNoyce scholarships, a combination that worked well to-gether. There was an advisory group for STEM educa-tion that included the PI for PhysTEC, the dean ofscience, vice president for teacher licensure, chair ofeducation, and UTeach leadership. Because the univer-sity received UTeach funding, PhysTEC negotiated a re-duced $60,000/year award with MidTenn physics. Thisdid not include funds for a TIR, since they had access toa Master Teacher (funded by UTeach) who could fulfillthat role. MidTenn’s PhysTEC efforts involved course re-form, adding a departmental concentration in physicsteaching, marketing materials, LA program, and a pro-gram where high school students visit the campus.Challenges The TIR was deemed a failure because theUTeach responsibilities occupied most of their time andtheir location on the UTeach part of campus meant theywere not a physical presence for physics students. The fullteaching degree requires a whole year of student teachingbefore you can qualify for licensure, which makes it alengthy process for students. Many students jump intoteaching and take classes at night, leading to an underesti-mate of the number of graduated physics teachers.Current status Higher administration continues to besupportive especially since the reformed classes havecontributed to physics having the lowest drop, failure,and withdrawal rates within the faculty of science.The president of the university does not know muchabout the drop, failure, and withdrawal rates but no-ticed the PhysTEC site visits and acknowledged phys-ics as a “program of distinction for undergraduates”.MidTenn maintained many of these activitiesincluding the course transformation and LA programwith university funds. The marketing aspect wasmaintained because once the materials and strategywere developed, the resources remained applicable.The PhysTEC PI is currently the department chair.He spends time inviting high school teachers to cam-pus, in the hopes they will recommend the programto their students. While he believes most PhysTECactivities would continue, he does not know who elsein the department would spend time and energy onrecruiting.We characterized MidTenn as maintaining teacherproduction (2–3 per year), institutionalization of LA pro-gram and course reforms, and moderate capacity build-ing since PhysTEC activities have continued throughdepartmental and UTeach activities.Towson University (Towson)Towson University is a public, suburban, masters’ insti-tution. The Chancellor of the University of Marylandwanted to triple the numbers of science teachers. One ofthe PIs was one of the first science educators embeddedwithin the physics department, hired 11 years of second-ary education experience. This educator partnered withan elementary science education colleague in the depart-ment who had started an LA program years prior. Thedepartment chair had been active in the AAPT, taughtusing innovative strategies, and supported PhysTEC ef-forts as a way to increase physics majors. Their PhysTECefforts included hiring a TIR, marketing materials, andincreasing student recruitment.Successes While it was difficult to recruit a TIR, theyeventually found a veteran teacher who stayed for2 years, was respected by and connected to localteachers, and extensively recruited potentially secondaryeducation majors. The TIR was respected within thephysics department so physics faculty started sendingstudents to talk to him about a future in physics teach-ing. The TIR offered professional development aroundPhysics with Inquiry, a pedagogical innovation, andstarted a newsletter with local teachers.Challenges While they were successful in increasing thenumber of physics graduates prepared to teach, PhysTECefforts have been challenging after grant funding ended.The university adopted UTeach (Brainard 2007) as atop-down decision from the provost, even though thedeans realized that UTeach’s rigid structure may not workwell with the science education expertise located in thephysics department. UTeach was largely based in theSchool of Education and aimed to increase STEM teachersin general (as opposed to physics teachers specifically) witha more rigid structure, where UTeach Masters Teacherswould teach courses that the science educators had taughtin the past. Because PhysTEC efforts were within the phys-ics department, misalignment between program aims andcommunication challenges impeded synergy between thesetwo efforts. According to our interviewees (we did notinterview representatives from UTeach), the two effortsstruggled to find common ground.Current status When PhysTEC ended, supposedly phys-ics would have access to a Master Teacher as part of thesustainability plan. However, UTeach at Towson lacked aMaster Teacher with a physics emphasis, so all the recruit-ing and marketing activities were essentially discontinued.Their LA program, which existed prior to the Phys-TEC funding, was sustained through funding from theDean. However, without a TIR to talk to LAs about highFoote and Knaub International Journal of STEM Education (2018) 5:37 Page 9 of 16school teaching, the interviewees comment that the LAsdo not tend to become secondary education majors.We characterized Towson as not maintaining produc-tion of physics teachers because numbers have dropped topre-PhysTEC numbers. We do not consider PhysTECactivities institutionalized, since without a TIR, LAs arenot associating teaching experiences with teaching highschool. The TIRs play an important role as a physicsteacher ambassador, a positive role model for teachingwho can explicitly encourage students to pursue it as afuture career (Chasteen et al. 2018).University of MinnesotaUniversity of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public, urban,R1 institution. The PI is an astrophysics professor withinterest in physics outreach, the learning assistant pro-gram, and improving physics education. The physics de-partment has a history of outreach, and their physicsdemo road show created a historic connection to localschools, which proved to be valuable in recruiting TIRs.The PhysTEC team involved faculty from physics andastronomy, post-secondary teaching and learning, thecollege of education, human development, as well aslocal schools. Producing teachers was not a need thatwas echoed at the institutional level but they did get uni-versity funding for the LA program.Successes University of Minnesota (UMN) used thePhysTEC grant to fund a TIR, who focused a large frac-tion of their efforts on the LA program. The TIR re-cruited and hired LAs, teaches a science pedagogycourse for LAs, and successfully helped get coursecredits from the LA pedagogy course to count towardthe Master’s degree in teaching. Data was useful to advo-cate to the dean to support the LA program. UMN alsodeveloped a new program “DirecTrack to Teaching”which allows undergraduates to start taking courses tolead to certification.Challenges While students enjoy being LAs, it can bedifficult to find professors who want LAs in theircourses and many LAs are not interested in high schoolphysics teaching.Additionally, faculty attitudes toward teaching are vari-able and there is a perception that “students do not attendUMN to become teachers”, as one interviewee stated. Thisattitude is shared by some faculty and administrators atthe institution, including the director of undergraduatestudies who had some reservations about recommendinghigh school teaching as a career.The challenges were succinctly described in one of thefinal reports: “We are philosophically committed to con-tinuing support of the teachers prepared in our program.However, our resources are currently stretched very thin,both in terms of funding and time.” The PI was writinggrants in collaboration with other departments in hopesof getting funding to sustain the LA program and theTIR position.Current status When we interviewed the PI, the TIRposition had been maintained with department funds bypaying them to support the LA program. However, fund-ing was extremely uncertain and it remains unclearwhether efforts would continue without the PI. The PI ispassionate about science education and outreach, butthe departmental culture does not widely embrace theseas a primary part of its mission.Thus, we characterized this as maintaining productionof teachers and unstable institutionalization becausePhysTEC activities and the TIR employment is contin-gent on continuing to find funding sources.Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State UniversityVirginia Polytechnic Institute and State University(VTech) is a public, rural, land grant, R1 institution. AtVTech, several senior faculty members in leadership posi-tions cared about high school teaching and it aligned withinstitutional priorities. Around the time of application, theVTech president signed a letter to former PresidentObama alongside other land grant universities promisingto address the nationwide shortage of STEM teachers.The Dean of College of Science, and a former chair of thephysics department, started the Physics Outreach Team inthe mid-1990s. This team continued as an established partof departmental activities, creating a precedent of valuingoutreach. The Department Chair applied for PhysTECfunding with a program leader for Science Education.When this Department Chair left the university to pursuea leadership position elsewhere during the grant, theypassed PhysTEC responsibilities to another senior physicsfaculty member. The new PI in physics had a long friend-ship with the colleague in education who had fostered hisinterest in teacher preparation so there was a strongcollaboration between the physics and education depart-ments. Although their PhysTEC team lost a leading mem-ber, there was no significant harm done because of thecollective leadership.Successes Even before PhysTEC, the collaborationbetween departments helped support students transitionfrom undergraduate physics to graduate teacher licen-sure program by funding a Masters in Teaching througha Teaching Assistantship. There were two championswithin the physics department so efforts continuedseamlessly even when the principal applicant moved toanother institution.The PIs on the grant credit much of their success tothe TIR, who was a VTech alumna who had taught for aFoote and Knaub International Journal of STEM Education (2018) 5:37 Page 10 of 16few years prior to returning to VTech as the TIR. BeforePhysTEC funding ended, she became a full-time in-structor in the department in introductory and outreachcourses. Between outreach and LA opportunities, stu-dents are exposed to a wide variety of early teaching ex-periences available to any physics student. The TIRcontinues to be a highly visible resource for any studentscontemplating a career in high school physics teaching.The university switched to studio teaching, and the TIRsupported the transition. Administrative support simpli-fied financial transitions and secured the TIR’s continuedemployment as a departmental instructor.Challenges Since VTech has a rural location, it is diffi-cult for teachers to visit the university for Teacher Ad-visory Group meetings. Now that the TIR has moreinstructional duties, they have less time to visit localschools. It was also slightly difficult to recruit LAs be-cause of busy schedules.Current status We categorized VTech as maintainingteacher production because it continues to meet/exceedthe rate produced during the grant. VTech has institu-tionalized PhysTEC efforts and built capacity by internal-izing costs, hiring the TIR as a full-time instructor, andsupporting potential teachers through Teaching Assis-tantships as they earn their Master’s in teaching.Summary chart of major grant components and sustainedactivitiesIn Table 3, grant activities are often modified to somedegree over time but since it is difficult to quantify the“degree of sustainability,” we chose to divide the activ-ities into “sustained” or “high risk/ not sustained” basedon whether the primary function of the component wasstill being fulfilled at the time of study.DiscussionThe following section highlights key themes regardinghow sites did (or did not) create fertile soil for sustain-able change. As mentioned by King (2003), fertile soil in-volves both (1) favorable pre-conditions and (2) capacitybuilding during the grant period in strategic areas.Connecting PhysTEC to essential departmental dutiesOur study reinforced Scherr et al.’s (2014) conclusion thatsustained activities tended to be those that fit in well withnormal departmental interests and responsibilities (e.g.,LA program to support undergraduate teaching), whileother activities (e.g., secondary outreach) tended to be re-duced or eliminated. The TIR can serve a critical role as aphysical teaching ambassador who explicitly encouragesundergraduates who enjoy early teaching experiences (likebeing a LA) to consider a career in teaching. Withoutsomeone in this role, it may be hard for students to makethis connection themselves (for example, at Towson andMidTenn whose TIR was slightly less accessible with alocation in education).Sites can strategically leverage this affect by con-sciously tying “new” activities to essential departmentaltasks. For example, both VTech and BU started StudioPhysics and an LA program around the same time asPhysTEC. For both institutions, the introductory coursetransformation helped increase student engagement andinterest in physics in general—cutting failure rates andincreasing the number of majors. Attracting more stu-dents into physics creates a bigger pool of potentialteachers; however, the number of teachers does notautomatically increase linearly with the number of ma-jors. For example, undergraduates may enjoy serving asLAs but without explicit encouragement, they may notassociate that with a career in high school teaching.While introductory course transformation is not suffi-cient to increase the number of potential teachers, it can beleveraged for sustainability purposes. Deliveringhigh-quality undergraduate courses falls directly within adepartment’s mission, unlike producing secondary teachers.If the TIR’s expertise can be utilized to lead these efforts, itcan cause an increased reliance on their expertise. Specific-ally, the TIR at VTech had a big role in starting studio andthe LA program. She recruited undergraduates throughmultiple channels and taught courses in physics, physicspedagogy, first year experience, and physics outreach(designed to improve communication skills regardless ofcareer path). She advised the Society of Physics studentsand hosted pizza parties where undergraduates can learnabout outreach opportunities. She had a highly visible rolein the department, impacted essential departmental activ-ities, and VTech made her a full time instructor beforematched funding ended.In contrast, the contributions of the BU TIR couldbe considered “auxiliary” to typical departmentalduties. He did provide advice for starting studio andprovided mentoring for the LAs, but he spent mostof his time recruiting career changers into theMasters of Teaching program and developing anetwork of over 200 local teachers. While these ac-complishments are impressive, a department head ata research institution may not find recruiting futureteachers vital to university operation. The departmentdid not offer to make his role permanent. WhenPhysTEC funding ran out, the continuation of hisposition was dependent on finding external funding.Both VTech and BU were successful in producing overfive physics teachers a year, but because the VTech TIR’sactivities were tightly tied to essential, undergraduate ac-tivities and eliminated the potential obstacle of her beingauxiliary rather than essential, it was easier for VTech toFoote and Knaub International Journal of STEM Education (2018) 5:37 Page 11 of 16Table 3 Sustainability of major grant components. Gray indicates “sustained,” black indicates “high risk/ discontinued.” PT and FT arepart-time and full-time respectively. Blank cells indicate that component was not a significant part of grant activities at that institutionPhysTEC Components BU CSULB MidTenn Towson UMN VTechChampionMaster teacher in Physics Physics faculty member who became Physics Chair during PhysTECPhysics faculty who became chair during PhysTECTwo science educators in the physics departmentAstrophysics professor with interest in outreachDepartment Chair of Physics applied and was replaced by a professor who later became ChairTeacher in Residence (TIR)Sustained FT through NSF grantPT-sustained through teaching LA and pedagogy coursesMaster teacher with physics emphasis sustained FT through UTeach FT but discontinuedPT-sustained through teaching LA and pedagogy courses but sustainability is uncertainFT- hired as full time instructor with teaching duties and moreCollaborationStrong collaboration with education and local schools through extensive, active teacher networkStrong collaboration with education, strong collaboration with local schools through demo sharing and newsletterStrong collaboration with UTeach effortsWeak collaboration with School of Education and UTeach, connection with schools was lost with the TIRGood collaboration with faculty in education, co-PIs on NoyceGood collaboration with colleagues in education that proceeded PhysTECInstitutionalcommitmentContinued support for LA program but sustaining TIR relied on external funding, departmental attitudes toward teaching aren't strongPositive attitude toward teaching, university and departmental funds support ongoing PhysTEC activitiesStrong support from higher education, physics department accepts teaching as legitimate careerInstitution is supportive of the LA program and producingSTEM teachers, but UTeach became the focus instead of PhysTECSome institutional support of LA program but budget cuts threat sustainability, precarious and looking for external fundingInstitution was committed to hiring TIR as full-time employeeLA program & early teaching experiencesSustained-1st time LAs get small stipend (uni funding) & course creditLA program sustained through uni fundingSustained-students get course credit instead of stipendsSustained through uni fundingSustained through uni & external fundingSustained-students get course creditAssessmentConcept tests in core classesData on impact of LAs helped secure continued fundingConcept tests in core classes used to continually monitor changesStruggled to continue to collect convincing data for dean (labor intensive)Induction and MentoringTeacher network meetings Sustained through departmental fundsDemo sharing dinners sustained through departmental fundsSustained through departmental fundsWorkshops for mentor teachers discontinuedChallenging to host events because of rural locationRecruitmentWent from biannual to annual but sustained with department fundsMarketing materials are reused, website maintained by university HS students come to campus 5-6 a year on half days, physics uses this to recruitMarketing materials are reused but most of recruiting ended when TIR leftTIR uses employment to recruit potential teachers from LAs, outreach course and morePedagogical content knowledge (PCK)Started a course in education, LA courseLA and PCK course pay part-time TIR salaryLA course pay part-time TIR salaryFoote and Knaub International Journal of STEM Education (2018) 5:37 Page 12 of 16justify integrating her as a full-time instructor in thephysics department.Institutional commitmentA strategic initiative that enhances the establishedorganizational culture has a high probability of success.When the change conflicts with the organizational cul-ture, culture can diminish the power of the change initia-tive (Mento et al. 2002). Our study found thatdepartmental culture resisted significant changes duringthe grant. UMN and BU’s PhysTEC efforts and sustain-ability continued to be threatened by negative attitudes to-ward teaching as a profession. The three most successfulsites had PIs of PhysTEC serving as department heads atsome point during the grant, where they made sure teach-ing was seen as a valuable potential career path.UMN and BU achieved success during the grantperiod due to extremely motivated individuals who ap-plied for external grants and recruited career changersinto teaching. However, the institutional culture limitedPhysTEC’s impact on undergraduates and threatens on-going sustainability. The notion that undergraduates donot attend these institutions to become teachers stub-bornly persisted. At BU, recruiting efforts failed to gainwidespread acceptance among undergraduates becauseof the high tuition, additional time required for certifica-tion, and bias against physics teaching as a career. Fur-thermore, PhysTEC efforts remained relatively isolatedto a few key individuals who were already invested ineducation. Similarly, at UMN, the TIR says there is somecontinuation of PhysTEC efforts but.we’ve had a really hard time finding a lot of people thatwant to become high school physics teachers at the U.Kids that want to go into high school teaching tend togo to smaller colleges where you can get a license afteryour bachelor’s degree instead of having to get a master’slike you do at the U. That part of it has been difficult,you know recruiting kids that want to be in high schoolteaching that’s just not why kids go to the U.While BU and UMN had some success during thegrant because of dedicated efforts of key players, bothprograms are at a high risk for discontinuation if keypeople leave or without external funding to supportactivities.Status and support of faculty championPhysTEC succeeded when the faculty champion hadenough authority, clout, and/or respect from a researchtrack record (like CSULB, VTech, UMN, and MidTenn)to highlight physics teacher preparation as a valued de-partmental activity. Not coincidentally, the three mostsuccessful sites (MidTenn, CSULB, VTech) had PhysTECPIs that served as department chairs at some point duringthe grant. As departmental leadership, PIs have the influ-ence and funding to help change departmental norms tovalue physics teacher preparation. For example, thecurrent Associate Chair of Physics at VTech states,I think we’re gradually getting most faculty on boardwith the way that these things should be done, andthe current chair of the department certainly likes ourteaching and so, I think the atmosphere and thedynamic within the department is to continue thesethings. Exactly who will do them is not exactlyobvious… I’m not exactly sure how it would work out,but I think that the atmosphere and philosophy of thedepartment has gone beyond some barrier, which Ithink could sustain this even in our absence.None of the sites that struggled with sustainability had aPhysTEC champion in a leadership position, and thechampion might have lacked credibility due to disciplinaryresearch. At BU, the champion in physics was a MasterLecturer. At Towson, the co-PIs were science educators,one of whom was a new employee. At UMN, the cham-pion was research faculty in Astrophysics but did not havea leadership role. Seymour (2001) shows that the researchcredentials of the champion are more effective in persuad-ing other faculty about the worth of a teaching innovationthan either the data that supports its efficacy or video thatdemonstrates its merits or shows that students like it.A unified vision and clear communicationSuccessful sites had clear communication to ensure a uni-fied vision (Chasteen et al. 2018) between physics, educa-tion, and administrative stakeholders (which include theUTeach initiative for two sites). A team approach to changehelps ensure sustainability, but a larger collaboration cancomplicate creating a common vision (for example, withUTeach). At VTech, the initial PI for PhysTEC had shiftedto another university but there was someone in physicswho could step up and maintain momentum. VTech alsobenefitted because this person had a long-standing friend-ship with a colleague in education leading to a tight collab-oration departments. At CSULB, the physics departmenthead knew that her experience with educational initiativeswas limited and worked closely with a colleague in educa-tion to outline realistic, achievable goals.Towson’s historic reputation as a teaching collegeand the long-standing tradition of having science edu-cators within the department seems like fertile groundfor sustained change, but it was not enough to com-pensate for communication challenges and misalignedgoals between PhysTEC and UTeach. This contrastswith MidTenn when the two efforts complementedeach other from the start.Foote and Knaub International Journal of STEM Education (2018) 5:37 Page 13 of 16At MidTenn, the start of PhysTEC overlapped with thestart of UTeach so there was a high degree of collabor-ation from the beginning. The physics department usedthe UTeach Master Teacher to adopt the TIR role in thephysics department. While his office location in theCollege of Education makes him slightly less accessible,the Master Teacher still could provide discipline-specificcoaching and mentoring. The UTeach co-director activelyrecruits students into physics teaching, describing favor-able career prospects and recommending physics as amajor. Similarly, the PhysTEC champion and physicsChair make announcements in introductory physicscourses encouraging students to consider taking coursesin education. While the physics Chair is not technicallyUTeach leadership, he attends monthly meetings and hasa strong relationship with the UTeach director to ensurecontinuity and synergy between programs. Having mul-tiple persons communicate the message to various stake-holders likely contribute to MidTenn’s success.In contrast, at Towson, PhysTEC preceded UTeach andstructural differences made communication difficultbetween parties. Specifically, Towson houses scienceeducation specialists within the departmental discipline.This worked well for PhysTEC where efforts targeted thephysics department but UTeach was based in the educa-tion department on campus which limited interaction withthe science education specialists in the physics department.UTeach offers a standard set of courses through the educa-tion department. In the interviews, the PhysTEC PIs de-scribed feeling like the president implemented a “franchise”structure, without asking for input from themselves. Oneof the PIs explained, UTeach has to.take care of very specific assessment things. So theydidn’t necessarily have time to integrate or thinkabout what we had done before. It was just reallyunfortunate that we had spent three years developingexpertise on physics education and then it justdisappeared as soon as UTeach started.While the physics education specialists tried to attendsome UTeach meetings, it did not lead to productivecollaborations. UTeach prepares STEM teachers in gen-eral and our Towson interviewees did not believeUTeach prioritized recruiting students into high needsareas like physics or chemistry. They lost their TIR whenPhysTEC funding ran out, workshops for mentorteachers stopped, outreach decreased, and the pedagogycourse has also faded over time. While Towson doeshave a thriving LA program funded by the university,without a TIR, students do not tend to connect being anLA with pursuing physics teaching as a career.Situational and structural differences between Towsonand MidTenn contribute to the results but these examplesdemonstrate the importance of meaningful collaborationand aligned vision when trying to create synergistic con-nections between two funding initiatives.LimitationsStudying educational reform attempts is inherently difficult,due to their complexity and highly contextual nature. His-tory, culture, interactions, internal and external events arean integral part of the change literature and cannot be ig-nored. No amount of empirical research will lead to a sim-ple recipe for a fool-proof change strategy that works at allinstitutions. We are not suggesting that sustainability canbe achieved by exactly replicating what worked elsewhereor by following a simple sequential process. Instead, wewanted to communicate that change is a process that startsby analyzing whether the climate will support the change.Throughout the paper, we included insights from avariety of change literature under the belief that the fieldneeds to consider reforms from multiple frameworksthat were developed in diverse contexts. As Sidorko(2008) points out,Perhaps the key to successfully implementing changemodels lies not so much in following themprescriptively (although many of their authors advisethis as the best method), or as a panacea, but in theability to implement them selectively and adaptively inorder to best match the culture and environment ofthe organization (p. 316).The case studies and change model presented here areincluded so reformers increase their awareness of pos-sible ways to cultivate fertile ground for sustainablechange from the start.While our data was acquired over time and we havetried to ensure that our data reflects multiple perspectives,these case studies reflect a small number of people andevents. While we spoke to multiple people at each institu-tion, the perspectives reflected here are still limited.ConclusionA central claim of this paper is that sustainable changerequires a climate that aligns with the reform. Successfulsites realized PhysTEC could be a solution to institutionalneeds, such as producing more majors, increasing the qual-ity of undergraduate education, and providing more careeroptions for graduates. This climate includes both valuesand culture. Values are explicit or implicit expressions ofthe “desirable” that influence individuals’ means and endsof action (Kluckhohn 1951; Berson et al. 2008). Valuesaffect how events are interpreted and can influence theamount and type of information that people process. Cul-ture represents the shared perceptions and orientations to-ward meaning within the specific domain of departmentalFoote and Knaub International Journal of STEM Education (2018) 5:37 Page 14 of 16activities, which tend to be relatively dynamic and sensitiveto external influences (Berson et al. 2008). Whenchampions individually valued teacher preparation were inleadership positions, they could create a shared sense ofmeaning around how these activities could enhance exist-ing activities and set up structures to embed these valueswithin the departmental culture.If the organization or champions in leadership rolesdo not value teacher preparation, grant funding willlikely not change that. While BU and UMN successfullyrecruited career changers for teaching certification, theattitude that students do not attend those universities tobe teachers persisted, and led to precarious sustainabil-ity. Having a well-respected faculty champion in a stra-tegic position who supports teacher education can helpincrease visibility of the cause and set up structures tofurther the cause (for example, with hiring and promo-tion). Reform activities that simultaneously benefitundergraduate education and physics teacher prepar-ation are easier to sustain, partially because of alignmentaround a unified vision that encompasses the reform.The PhysTEC grant provided resources to sites thatwere primed to flourish. The grant brought financial re-sources, prestige, and support to bring physics teacherpreparation to the foreground. The selection criteriafunds sites already have some ingredients for success: adepartmental champion, support of the physics depart-ment head, a collaboration with the School of Education,and a commitment from higher administration in theform of matched funding. PhysTEC supports sites in de-fining their vision, providing advice and connecting sitesin a supportive community.A common vision and collaboration is important forwidespread buy-in. The weakest point for sustainability ofthese programs seems to be attracting new champions tothe cause, so a “team effort” to reform is advantageous(Chasteen et al. 2018). While a larger team may make itharder to come up with a unified vision, it can protectagainst faculty and administrative turnover and involvemore widespread buy in. Interviewees from MidTenn,VTech, and CSULB all said that PhysTEC has become en-grained in the departmental culture but interviewees couldnot name who would undertake the PhysTEC activities intheir absence. Beyond that, sustaining teacher preparationprograms is possible and the presence of all of theseelements help.Interestingly, the sustainability in our study (with threesites institutionalizing changes, two maintaining teacherproduction for the moment and one discontinued) doesnot appear to be a significant improvement over whatwas reported by Scherr et al. (2014). In Scherr’s et al.(2014) study, out of eight sites, four further increasedteacher production, three maintained an increase andactivities at one institution were largely discontinued.While we cannot claim statistically significant changes insustainability under the new funding structure becauseof small numbers in this qualitative study, it seems thenew requirement for a sustainability plan does notnecessarily change the potential for sustainability thatexisted before the requirement. The matched fundingrequirement does ensure commitment from higheradministration, increasing the likelihood that physicsteacher preparation is valued by the institution. How-ever, it seems more important to assess the generalattitude students and faculty members have towardteaching as a profession. The PhysTEC team should alsocomprise of people with enough position power to pro-mote this cause within the departmental value system,enough expertise to make informed decisions aboutwhat activities to invest in, and enough credibility andleadership to inspire progress (Kotter 1996).Although this study examined the PhysTEC reform,we believe results may apply to sustaining other reformsthat hope to advance undervalued activities at univer-sities. A key message is change agents should focus onseeding reform efforts at sites where further growth andpropagation is likely. The change must align with theexisting departmental and institutional culture and awell-respected champion can help further advance thechange. Activities should be undertaken strategically tosupport existing departmental activities as well asfurthering the reform effort.AbbreviationsAAPT: American Association of Physics Teachers; LA: Learning Assistant;NSF: National Science Foundation; PhysTEC: Physics Teacher EducationCoalition; TIR: Teacher In ResidenceAcknowledgementsThanks to Monica Plisch and Renee Michelle Goertzen for their assistance,ideas, and connections to the PhysTEC sites and documentation. Thanks toPhysTEC who provided funding for transcription. Much gratitude to thePhysTEC champions, faculty, and staff who participated in the interviews.FundingPhysTEC provided funding to transcribe interviews.Availability of data and materialsPlease contact author for data requests.Authors’ contributionsKF and AK both researchers contributed to study design, data collection,and analysis. KF was the primary author of the transcript with AK writing theresults section and contributing in other places. Both authors read andapproved the final manuscript.Ethics approval and consent to participateWestern Michigan University evaluated the human ethics proposal andfound this study exempt from further review.Consent for publicationAs part of the IRB, our interviewees gave us consent to publish.Competing interestsThe authors declare that they have no competing interests.Foote and Knaub International Journal of STEM Education (2018) 5:37 Page 15 of 16Publisher’s NoteSpringer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims inpublished maps and institutional affiliations.Author details1Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia, 6224Agricultural Road, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1, Canada. 2Department of Physicsand Astronomy, Biomedical and Physical Sciences, Michigan State University,East Lansing, MI 48824, USA.Received: 3 May 2018 Accepted: 12 September 2018ReferencesAAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science). 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Article
eng
Reviewed
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Springer International Publishing
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Faculty
Organizational change
Change in higher education
Sustainability of reforms
Secondary teacher preparation
Physics teacher preparation
Dissemination
Seeding long-term, sustainable change in teacher preparation programs: the case of PhysTEC
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