Viewing STEM Teacher Leadership Through a Communities-of-Practice Lens

• In Event: Noyce Research Results: Addressing Preparation, Effectiveness, and Retention of STEM Teachers in High-Need School Districts

Abstract

Objectives: Our collaborative research project involves a multi-site study to examine the influences of STEM teacher leadership development and support on the persistence and professional trajectories of Master Teaching Fellows (MTFs) in eight Noyce programs across the country. A crucial concern of our work is that all eight of the programs function as external training grounds for teacher leaders. Put another way, all eight programs serve as external communities of practice (CoPs) -- external to the school systems in which the fellows operate and, therefore, the school CoPs. This allows us to explore such issues as (1) What are the forms of joint enterprise, mutual engagement, and shared repertoires within these programs and how do they impact the professional identities of the MTFs? and (2) What are the boundary objects and what are the natures of the border crossings that affect the transfer of meanings and practices between the MTFs’ Noyce and school CoPs?

Theoretical Framework/Rationale: Smylie and Eckert (2018) and Campbell et al. (2019) have put forth frameworks to model certain features of teacher leadership. They are complementary in that Smylie and Eckert’s framework describes organizational structures associated with teacher leader development, and Campbell et al.’s framework illuminates how teacher leaders engage in their work in relation to social structures. While valuable contributions to the field, these frameworks only describe aspects of teacher leadership internal to the school system. Our research involves a multi-site study of eight Noyce Track 3 programs that function as external training grounds for teacher leaders.

Methods: Project leaders analyzed the data corpus holistically to describe the project context and its foundational boundary or focus, features of the project that were instrumental in developing teacher leadership identify and skills, and the significance of those outcomes in regards to how and whether participants crossed out of the initial CoP into new ones within their schools, communities and even larger educational communities. Five vignettes are provided as case exemplars of the patterns identified for that project as the primary synthesis of data.

Data: Data sources for this study include surveys, interviews, and observations of MTFs engaging in leadership and within CoPs.

Results: While there are variations in projects, analysis of vignettes demonstrates common project features that support successful teacher engagement in various CoPs to have broad impacts. For example, all projects provide participants with a cementing agent that provides them space to develop and grow. The initial cementing agent often, but not always focuses on pedagogy. Several projects, including USC and MTU emphasized that it is not necessarily “what” teachers do that makes them leaders but rather “how” they engage in activities. This was accomplished in diverse ways (reflection, scaffolding, feedback).

Scholarly Significance: Implications are that these project features may help teachers move from the Noyce CoP and develop new ones in their schools, districts. We argue these features help teachers develop the confidence to act alone and see themselves as part of a more amorphous, less distinct/defined CoP.

Authors

• Amanda L. Gonczi, Michigan Technological University

• Brett Criswell, West Chester University of Pennsylvania

• Wendy M. Smith, University of Nebraska - Lincoln