Abstract
Much work in physics education research (PER) characterizes faculty teaching practice in terms of whether faculty use specific named PER-based teaching methods, either with fidelity or with adaptation; we call this research paradigm the "teaching-method-centered paradigm." However, most faculty do not frame their teaching in terms of which particular named methods they use, but rather in terms of their own ideas and values, suggesting that the teaching-method-centered paradigm misses key features of faculty teaching. These key features include the productive ideas that faculty have about student learning and faculty agency around teaching. We present three case studies of faculty talking about their teaching, and analyze them in terms of two theoretical frameworks: a framework of teaching principles (How Learning Works) and a framework of faculty agency (Self-Determination Theory). We show that these frameworks well characterize key features of faculty teaching practices and agency, and can be combined in a new paradigm for modeling faculty teaching which we call an "asset-based agentic paradigm." We therefore encourage physics education researchers to move beyond the teaching-method-centered paradigm and think about faculty teaching using an asset-based agentic paradigm.
Highlights
Developers in physics education have created research-based teaching methods, materials, tools, and strategies, often named and branded with identifiable labels such as Peer Instruction [1], Tutorials in Introductory Physics [2], or SCALE-UP [3]
“research-based teaching method” expansively to describe any method, strategy, curriculum, tool, or even course structure, that is based on research in physics or science education, and that is recognizable by a particular name
We choose the How Learning Works (HLW) framework because (i) its principles come from a review of a large body of theoretical and empirical research, (ii) these principles apply across disciplines and are focused on higher education, (iii) its features are generally aligned with teaching principles more commonly used in physics education research (PER) [10,48,57], (iv) the framework is relatively parsimonious, and (v) the framework aligns reasonably well with the teaching ideas faculty shared with us in interviews
Summary
Developers in physics education have created research-based teaching methods, materials, tools, and strategies, often named and branded with identifiable labels such as Peer Instruction [1], Tutorials in Introductory Physics [2], or SCALE-UP [3]. “research-based teaching method” (or “teaching method” for short) expansively to describe any method, strategy, curriculum, tool, or even course structure, that is based on research in physics or science education, and that is recognizable by a particular name.1 This encompasses the (overlapping) lists of RBISs, active learning instructional materials, EBIPs, and teaching methods on PhysPort. Activities share a goal that faculty should implement teaching methods, in order to help more students learn physics more effectively This goal stems from a paradigm we term the “teaching-method-centered paradigm.”. The central claim of this work is the following: An assetbased agentic paradigm well characterizes key features of faculty’s productive ideas and agency around teaching that the teaching-method-centered paradigm tends to miss. Dancy et al note that “Faculty (like students) make sense of new information [about teaching] through their existing ideas” [23]
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