2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

A Professional Development Program for Emerging STEM Education Researchers

Presented at Faculty Development Division (FDD) Technical Session 4

In this evidence-based practice paper, we discuss design rationale, implementation and evidence from a professional development program for emerging education researchers (PEER). Many STEM faculty, trained only in disciplinary research, transition into research on the teaching and learning side of their discipline, with transitions occurring after typical formal training opportunities (e.g. grad school, postdocs) are over. There are limited opportunities for professional development when starting education research, and options are highly dependent on home institution type, department priorities, and faculty career stage. The PEER program helps faculty at any institution jumpstart their transition into discipline-based education research. Our goal is to help foster the next generation of STEM education researchers. PEER participants develop quality research projects, engage in targeted experiential work to develop their projects and skills, and collaborate and form a long-term support community of peers, mentors and collaborators. Over the last 8 years, more than 1000 participants have engaged in PEER field schools worldwide.

In this paper, we lay out the guiding principles of PEER: collaboration, responsiveness, communication, and playfulness. We situate the program within existing models for faculty professional development and describe the available modalities of PEER field schools: extended introductory in-person field schools (3-5 days), online or in-person gateway workshops (1.5 hours), and the new advanced in-person field schools (5 days). Each of these modalities is built off collaborative work among participants, blending development of foundational skills in education research with individual progress in their own specific education research projects. Drawing on evidence from interviews and surveys with STEM participants, we demonstrate the impact of different module activities on their professional skills, identity, and self-efficacy. We discuss the affordances and constraints of different formats and implications for faculty professional development. We prefer to present this work through a roundtable discussion, but we are also open to a lightning talk or a poster.

Authors

Shams El-Adawy Kansas State University [biography]

Shams El-Adawy earned her Ph.D. from Kansas State University in 2023. Her dissertation investigated the development of STEM professionals when integrating education research and physics public engagement into their careers. El-Adawy earned her M.S. in Physics from DePaul University in 2020 and her B.A. in Physics and French from American University in 2018.
Christopher A. F. Hass Rutgers University, Camden [biography]

I'm a physics education researcher, and faculty developer. My research has primarily focused on human connections and how our interactions with communities furthers our learning and practice. I typically approach these issues from the perspectives of belongingness theory, groundskeeping, and communities of practice. My interests focus on how the people we are connected to support our persistence and success in careers and professional development, how we engage with ideas at the boundaries of different communities of practice (some of which may be new to us), and (mostly unrelatedly) what people's cognition looks like as they engage with science concepts and problems.
Eugene Y. Vasserman http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2420-4329 Kansas State University [biography]

Eugene Vasserman received his Ph.D. and master's degrees in Computer Science in 2010 and 2008, respectively, from the University of Minnesota. His B.S., in Biochemistry and Neuroscience with a Computer Science minor, is also from the University of Minnesota. His current research is chiefly in the area of
privacy, anonymity, censorship resistance, and socio-technical aspects of security. His research has resulted in over 45 peer reviewed publications in computer science, psychology, and education.
Dr. Mary Bridget Kustusch http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7676-6000 DePaul University [biography]

Mary Bridget Kustusch is an Associate Professor at DePaul University in the Department of Physics and Astrophysics. She is an educational researcher who specializes in studying group interactions and the role of different representations in learning. She also focuses on faculty professional development and is a co-director of the Professional development for Emerging Education Researchers (PEER) Institute.
Dr. Scott Franklin Rochester Institute of Technology [biography]

Scott Franklin is a Professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy and Director of the CASTLE Center for Advancing STEM Teaching, Learning & Evaluation at Rochester Institute of Technology. His education research includes projects on the development of identity and affiliation in physics majors throughout their undergraduate career, and, separately, how physicists express conceptual meaning in mathematical formalism. He has co-directed the PEER faculty development program for four years, integrating emerging research projects into ongoing programmatic activities that seek to improve the retention of first-generation and deaf/hard-of hearing students in STEM disciplines.
Dr. Eleanor C. Sayre Kansas State University and Rochester Institute of Technology [biography]

Eleanor C Sayre, PhD is a Professor of Physics at Kansas State University. Dr. Sayre is a co-Director of the Professional development for Emerging Education Researchers (PEER) program and the Research Director of PhysPort.org. She has over 80 peer-reviewed publications in discipline-based education research. Her lab conducts research on how university faculty members become better at their jobs, including their pedagogical practices as well as their growing expertise in leading research labs. She is passionate about increasing access to the research enterprise to members of historically excluded groups, and building more just and equitable research communities. Outside of work, Eleanor is an avid knitter and potter.

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