Case Study: Context Interactions & Physics Faculty's Professional Development

TL;DR

This case study explores how physics faculty's professional development is influenced by their specific contexts, revealing complex interactions that shape their teaching growth over time.

Contribution

It introduces a faculty-centric framework to analyze the nuanced role of context in physics instructors' professional development.

Findings

Context elements significantly influence faculty development

Faculty leverage their expertise to adapt teaching strategies

Different contexts lead to diverse growth trajectories

Abstract

This paper investigates the interactions between context and professional development of physics instructors in a case study of two physics faculty. A phenomenological-case study approach was used to analyze two physics faculty at different institutions over a year and a half using three semi-structured interviews each. The data enabled the identification of relevant context elements; and the impact of these elements on physics faculty was explored by adapting a framework that examines instructors' professional development. The analysis shows that both case study subjects used their physics expertise and growing understanding of their context to develop their physics teaching. However, this growth was enacted differently given the nature of their context, highlighting instructors' strengths in navigating their local context to improve their physics teaching. The results show the subtleties of how context has a salient, complex, and evolving role in moderating faculty's professional development. By taking a faculty-centric approach, this paper broadens the community's awareness of the ways physics instructors develop their physics teaching. This work contributes to a relatively new lens by which the physics community views, discusses, and supports the professional development of physics faculty.