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TARIN H. WEISS, ALLAN FELDMAN, DOLLY E. PEDEVILLANO and BRENDA CAPOBIANCO THE IMPLICATIONS OF CULTURE AND IDENTITY: A PROFESSOR’S ENGAGEMENT WITH A REFORM COLLABORATIVE ABSTRACT. In this study, part of a larger United States project investigating K16 teachers and science reform, we seek to understand how a science professor’s participation in a large-scale reform effort affects her conceptions of teaching, teachers, and reform. The topic in this study concerned how the professor’s teaching identity was modified and cre- ated by the reform effort as she mediated her participation. A multiple-method approach utilizing (a) semi-structured interviews/correspondences with four students and the profes- sor, (b) classroom observations, and (c) field notes, comprised the data collection. Results indicated that, although the professor was inclined to “try out” new teaching strategies in her classroom, the project failed to create pedagogical dissonance thus leading to her lack of desire to accommodate a more inquiry-based pedagogy. KEY WORDS: I NTRODUCTION The past half-century has seen a multitude of efforts to improve science teaching in the United States (e.g., American Association for the Advance- ment of Science, 1993; National Science Foundation, 1996; National Re- search Council, 1996). Yet, based on state, national, and international examinations, reform efforts have yet to influence teacher practice enough to reach the national goal of science for all. In this project, our goal has been to understand what happens when K16 teachers participate in a large- scale reform effort. We seek to understand how their participation in a science education reform effort affects their conceptions of teaching and teachers, and their development as teachers. We consider factors such as the participants’ knowledge, beliefs and experiences; and institutional ide- ologies, structures, policies and practices. In this paper we report on the findings while paying particular attention to the transformation of our re- search paradigm to increase both the validity of our findings and their value to educators. In this study, we posit that the curricular and pedagogical reform efforts of a group can lead to the creation of a culture in which the identities of International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education 1: 333–356, 2003. © 2004 National Science Council, Taiwan. Printed in the Netherlands.

The Implications of Culture and Identity: A Professor's Engagement with a Reform Collaborative

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TARIN H. WEISS, ALLAN FELDMAN, DOLLY E. PEDEVILLANOand BRENDA CAPOBIANCO

THE IMPLICATIONS OF CULTURE AND IDENTITY:A PROFESSOR’S ENGAGEMENT WITH A REFORM

COLLABORATIVE

ABSTRACT. In this study, part of a larger United States project investigating K16 teachersand science reform, we seek to understand how a science professor’s participation in alarge-scale reform effort affects her conceptions of teaching, teachers, and reform. Thetopic in this study concerned how the professor’s teaching identity was modified and cre-ated by the reform effort as she mediated her participation. A multiple-method approachutilizing (a) semi-structured interviews/correspondences with four students and the profes-sor, (b) classroom observations, and (c) field notes, comprised the data collection. Resultsindicated that, although the professor was inclined to “try out” new teaching strategies inher classroom, the project failed to create pedagogical dissonance thus leading to her lackof desire to accommodate a more inquiry-based pedagogy.

KEY WORDS:

INTRODUCTION

The past half-century has seen a multitude of efforts to improve scienceteaching in the United States (e.g., American Association for the Advance-ment of Science, 1993; National Science Foundation, 1996; National Re-search Council, 1996). Yet, based on state, national, and internationalexaminations, reform efforts have yet to influence teacher practice enoughto reach the national goal of science for all. In this project, our goal hasbeen to understand what happens when K16 teachers participate in a large-scale reform effort. We seek to understand how their participation in ascience education reform effort affects their conceptions of teaching andteachers, and their development as teachers. We consider factors such asthe participants’ knowledge, beliefs and experiences; and institutional ide-ologies, structures, policies and practices. In this paper we report on thefindings while paying particular attention to the transformation of our re-search paradigm to increase both the validity of our findings and their valueto educators.

In this study, we posit that the curricular and pedagogical reform effortsof a group can lead to the creation of a culture in which the identities of

International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education 1: 333–356, 2003.© 2004 National Science Council, Taiwan. Printed in the Netherlands.

334 TARIN H. WEISS ET AL.

its participants are, to varying degrees, altered. The values, beliefs, andbehaviors of participants offer insights into the potency of the reform ef-fort’s goals. This paper begins the work of describing the identity of ascience professor participating in the created culture of a large science andteacher education reform effort (called the Collaborative). Specifically, thestudy characterizes the professor’s experience utilizing the assumptionsthat her participation lead to the creation or modification of her identity (asan educator) that affects how she thinks about teachers and teaching andher beliefs and/or actions.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

In our original conceptualization, we drew upon four bodies of research onteaching and teacher education. The teacher knowledge perspective (e.g.,Shulman, 1986) suggests that teacher expertise is related to what teach-ers know. The teacher reasoning perspective (e.g., Fenstermacher, 1986;Schön, 1983) assumes that teachers are knowledgeable professionals whoreflect on their practice and make deliberate decisions about their goalsand actions. Teaching is seen from the sociocultural perspective as a con-textualized activity in which teachers’ beliefs, goals, behaviors, and theirsociocultural milieu are assumed to interact dialectically (e.g., Tobin &McRobbie, 1996; Clandinin & Connelly, 1992). The ‘teaching as a way ofbeing’ perspective recognizes that teachers are people in the role of teacher,who act as teachers, and teach in educational situations. It is through theirbeing in these situations, with their web-like structures that extend notonly through time and space, but also across human relations, that teacherscome to understand others through a hermeneutic interpretation of theirinteractions (Feldman, 1997; Stengel, 1996).

Our intent was to combine views from these perspectives into multi-faceted constructions of participants’ knowledge, reasoning, socioculturalinteractions, and ways of being. As we began to do this through data collec-tion and analysis, we developed a theoretical framework that ties togetherthe sociocultural and way of being perspectives by focusing on culture andidentity.

In our model, culture consists of the “beliefs, behaviors, and artifactsof a group of individuals that recognizes itself as a unique community”(Schwartz, 1996, p. 9). In our paper we show how the Collaborative ex-hibits the characteristics of culture (Schwartz, 1996) within which students,K12 teachers, and college teachers can participate. Their interactions aspart of the culture shapes their identities (Helms, 1998; Blum, 1999). Weuse identity to refer to the individual human being that is the living con-

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struct of one’s experience (Helms, 1998; Reber, 1995). In Helms’ modelthe sense of self or identity has four dimensions: values and beliefs, ac-tions, others’ expectations, and a sense of the future (1998, p. 829). ToHelms, values and beliefs are at the center of one’s sense of self. They areinfluenced by and influence one’s actions and others’ expectations. Thisdynamic trio interacts dialectically with a vision of oneself in the future.

While we found Helms’ model useful for thinking about an individualteacher’s identity, it lacks a clear connection to culture. Blum (1999) makesthis connection in his model of ethnic identity. ‘Thickly’ ethnic people liveand breathe their ethnicity. They often live in mono-ethnic neighborhoods,have a family life permeated with ethnicity-based rituals, and have friendswho are almost solely from that group. ‘Thinly’ ethnic people partake ofsome aspects of their ethnic culture but often do not live among membersof their ethnic group. Identity ethnicity is primarily a label with little or nocultural content.

Our model uses the ideas of culture, identity and way of being to un-derstand how people are affected by participation in a large-scale reformeffort such as the Collaborative. An education reform effort is seen as away to modify or create culture. When people participate in this new ormodified culture it changes their identity or way of being in relation to thatculture.

THEORETICAL ASSUMPTIONS

This study makes three important assumptions in its effort to characterizea participant’s interaction in a large-scale science, mathematics, engineer-ing and technology (SMET) college-level reform effort (the Collabora-tive). First, it presupposes that the community of individuals (approxima-tely 200) brought together by this grant is part of the Collaborative’s cul-ture of reform-mindedness. Second, characterization of the participants’interaction and involvement in the culture is necessary in order to de-scribe ways that the project impacted teacher practice. Further, it positsthat a participant’s teaching identity is affected by and affects the cul-ture of the Collaborative. Exploring the multidimensional nature of theteacher’s identity offers understanding and implications to the effort ofreforming undergraduate science education. More thorough explanationsof these assumptions follow.

The Collaborative brought together a community of individuals that arepart of a culture and co-created a culture of reformed-mindedness. Thiscommunity is accepted to be, as Blum (1999) states, “a grouping of personswith some degree of organization or a shared, recognized status” that “is

336 TARIN H. WEISS ET AL.

taken to realize some positive value, and not simply to exist as social entityor classificatory group” (p. 135). Such a community exists with a “collec-tive intentionality” through which members have “the capacity to shareintentional states such as beliefs, desires, and intentions” (Feldman, 1997,p. 766). The notion of collective intentionality assists us in consideringthe cornerstone thinking of the Collaborative, that is, a culture of changingand improving science education. Here culture is described using both ofFetterman’s (1989) definitions of the ideas, beliefs, and knowledge char-acterizing a group of people as well as the observable behaviors (patterns,customs, ways of life) of a group. A science education reform culture existsalready in the world and the Collaborative offers a manifestation of itsexistence.

The Collaborative based its efforts firmly in the educational researchliterature supporting a contemporary reformist epistemology to increasestudents conceptual understanding and interest and to foster a higher rate ofinvolvement of marginalized groups in science and math (Yuretich, Khan,Leckie, & Clement, 2001). Reform is regarded as a change for the betteror an improvement. The main venue for reform at the higher educationlevel is through the revision of undergraduate science and math courses atparticipating universities and colleges. Collaborative participants’ courseproposal outlined their intentions toward reform, for example, changingcontent, incorporating collaborative group work, adding discussion sec-tions or laboratories, increasing the number of teaching assistants, length-ening class periods, and incorporating electronic response systems duringlectures.

Successful course reform requires offering new ways for college pro-fessors to envision teaching courses and a shift from traditional methods.D’Avanza (1998), a co-principal investigator of the project, illustrates theCollaborative’s teaching and learning vision as student-centered, inquiry-based, focused on the nature of science and science/math skill develop-ment, and one that promotes an interest in learning and teaching (Table I).The Collaborative taught participants to conceive of the classroom en-vironment as less of a place to transmit knowledge to passive receptivestudents and more of a place where learning is cooperative, active, andnegotiated. It urged participants to consider the “less-is-more” approachwhen re-evaluating important content. Professional development activitiesengaged participants in a variety of experiences toward these ends such asbringing in experts to; describe and model constructivist and collaborativelearning scenarios and project-based instruction; engage participants inactive learning sessions about scientific topics using inquiry-based instruc-tion; and support discipline teams’ discussion, planning, and implemen-

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TABLE I

What does a [Collaborative] course look like? Attributes of students and faculty (fromD’Avanza, 1998)

1. The Learning Community in the Classroom

Students engage in self-teaching.

Faculty recognize that a major aspect of his/her role is to help students learn and not to“teach” them.

2. Fostering Higher Order Thinking

Students develop critical thinking skills.

Faculty can clearly explain the critical thinking skills he/she is trying to develop in thecourse and can explicitly describe the activities that are designed to improve those skills.

3. An Appreciation for the Nature of Science

Students develop improved understanding of the scientific process.

Faculty believe that an important goal of the course in helping students understand whatscience is and what scientists do.

4. Developing Science and Math Skills

Students show gains and interest in math plus reading, writing, and talking about science.

Faculty can explain the skills they emphasize in the course and explicitly how they helpstudents develop these skills.

5. Developing an Interest in Learning and Teaching

Students become more interested in learning and teaching.

Faculty are self-reflective about their teaching and show interest in talking with theirstudents about teaching and learning.

tation of reform strategies. Two-week summer professional developmentsessions were supported by four to six workshops during the academiccalendar, monthly voluntary round-table dinners, and separate institutionfaculty meetings.

In regards to the second assumption, our efforts to understand howa participant’s identity interacted with the Collaborative’s culture wereaided by Blum’s definitions (1999) that characterize an individual as hav-ing either thick identity, thin identity, or identity ethnicity with respect toa particular culture (described earlier). Blum’s framework offers a usefulperspective to our search for meaning in the participant’s involvement inthe project.

Finally, the assumption is made that participation in Collaborative leadsto the modification of the participant’s identity as a teacher in the world.More specifically, participants are influenced in ways that affect what they

338 TARIN H. WEISS ET AL.

Figure 1. Helms’ model of teacher identity (1998).

think and believe about teachers and teaching and how they behave aseducators. Of course, such influences may or may not be in line withthe goals and culture of Collaborative. The reformed culture acts on ateacher’s identity and at the same time may be restrained by the teacher’sexisting sense of self. The study accepts the position offered by Helms(1998) that a science teacher’s identity is deeply rooted in her personalrelationship to science and how she sees herself in the world. Thus, iden-tity “comes not just from what a person does, or his or her affiliations,but also from what a person believes, what a person values, and whata person wants to become” (p. 812). Helms believes that an understand-ing about the teacher’s sense of self can lead to understanding about her“curricular choices, pedagogy, and career trajectory” (p. 832). Helms’ con-ceptual model (Figure 1) is used as a framework upon which to situate thewords and actions of the professor under study. This framework guidedour understanding of how the professor made sense of the culture of theCollaborative.

CONTEXT

The setting is one of 15 Collaboratives for Excellence in Teacher Prepa-ration funded by the National Science Foundation to prepare more science

THE IMPLICATIONS OF CULTURE AND IDENTITY 339

teachers, and for them to be more ethnically diverse and better preparedto teach science in elementary and secondary schools. The Collaborativethat was the setting of our study includes the State University, four privateliberal arts colleges, three community colleges, and seven school districts.For studies illuminating other Collaborative K16 educators’ experiencethat vary from the one described in this paper, the reader is directed toYuretich et al. (2001), Davis, Feldman, Irwin, Pedevillano, Capobianco, &Weiss (2003), and Weiss (2001, 2003).

This study focused on a white female biology professor. After complet-ing her graduate work at a prestigious American university, Professor Gal-lagher began teaching college courses in the mid-1980s and secured a fac-ulty position at a research University in the northeastern United States. Anassociate professor, her faculty responsibilities included teaching (65%),extension work, and research (35%). Near to her participation in the Col-laborative, Professor Gallagher had been recognized as a DistinguishedTeaching Professor and during her tenure had published several articlesabout teaching in biological journals.

At the time of the study, Professor Gallagher had been a Collabora-tive member for three years and was revising an introductory-level bi-ology course. She was asked to participate in the study because of hercandid, useful, and sometimes critical questions about the Collaborative’sprofessional development activities.

The course under revision covered fourteen topics related to biology.Students read the required text authored by the professor, newspaper/maga-zine articles, and primary literature. Student work consisted of papers, fivequizzes and a final exam, two verbal reports, and completion of two groupreports. Students utilized the Internet frequently. Five laboratory activi-ties and five small group discussions illustrating the critical concepts andrelated social issues engaged students in a variety of collaborative expe-riences. Professor Gallagher had modified her course by increasing thelength of a single class period and incorporating discussion groups intoclass that reported out opinions and/or summaries of assigned readings.

Professor Gallagher’s class met for an hour and fifteen minutes twicea week. Although individual classes varied greatly, in general, class be-gan with a mini-review session, a presentation of visual aids (books, na-ture samples, artifacts), and a student report. Most commonly, a forty-fiveminute interactive lecture followed during which students were promptedto reflect on their learning and answer questions orally.

Nine women and eleven men, ranging from freshman to senior, wereenrolled in the course. Academic majors of the students varied greatly(education, communication, engineering, business, history, English, biol-

340 TARIN H. WEISS ET AL.

ogy, holistic health, anthropology, journalism, political science, and un-declared). Seventeen students were Caucasian and three were students ofcolor.

METHODS

The methods chosen for this study were those of case study research(Yin, 1989) and ethnography (Erickson, 1986) including the use of semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, student and teacher surveys,and the collection of documents. Observations and interviews were audio-taped and then transcribed for analysis. Data from Professor Gallagher’scourse were collected during the spring 2000 semester and interview/conversation evidence was collected into the fall of 2001.

Two forty five-minute semi-structured interviews and informal conver-sations before and after class were conducted with the professor. Fourstudents (3 females, 1 male) volunteered for forty five-minute interviews.The interviews served to “elicit the participant’s worldview” by “[posing]open-ended questions followed by requests for elaboration” (Rossman &Rallis, 1998, p. 124). The organization of the interviews followed an open-ended and flexible interview protocol (Carspecken, 1996). The protocolutilized concrete lead off questions/scenarios that elicited participants’ im-plicit theories guiding action with follow up questions designed to helpthem generalize and theorize about their answers (Table II). All inter-views were followed up with two-three email correspondences for furtherclarification of participant statements and to elicit additional information.

Fifteen classroom observations were completed that included informalconversations with the professor regarding her thoughts and actions. Fieldnotes during observations consisted of narrative transcripts of the activityand discourse during class. A flexible observation schedule was utilized.All field and observational notes were transcribed.

Data analysis utilized the methods of grounded theory, consisting ofconstant comparison analysis and triangulation (Cronin-Jones, 1991;Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1990) and the constructionof understanding through the use of long and serious conversations asresearch (Feldman, 1999). Data were analyzed throughout the study forregularities, patterns and assertions (statements describing patterns). Thedata were continuously re-organized and analyzed as new data was col-lected. Research meetings, during which data and concepts were discussedwith other project researchers, guided the data analysis.

The data analysis procedure began with the first author’s developmentof coding categories through an iterative process comparing all data sources

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TABLE II

Semi-structured interview protocols

Professor interview Student interview

Topic Domain: College/Work Focus Topic Domain: College/Work Focus

Tell me about your life at (the college) –what is a typical day like for you?

Tell me about your life at (the college) –what is a typical day like for you?

Covert Categories: roles, major interest,jobs, hobbies and clubs, academiclikes/dislikes, present goals and activities,future goals and activities.

Covert Categories: major interest, jobs,hobbies and clubs, academic likes/dislikes,present goals and activities, future goalsand activities.

Topic Domain: Past and PresentExperiences with Science and Teaching

Topic Domain: Past and PresentExperiences with Science

Describe how you came to be a professorat the college.

Describe a typical science college courseyou are in or have been in.

Covert categories: past/presentexperiences with science, in school andout of school experiences, family/mentorinfluences, teaching and learningexperiences.

Covert categories: past/presentexperiences with science, in school andout of school experiences,attitudes/motivations to learn/barriers tolearning, influential science people.

Topic Domain: Introductory Level Course Topic Domain: Teaching and Learning

Describe your hopes and intentions for thecourse.

What are you learning in this course?What does it mean to learn something?How does teaching affect learning?

Covert categories: course change, globallearning objectives, teaching objectives,teaching style, potential issues orproblems, logistics.

Covert categories: students’ personal viewof teaching and learning, why studentenrolled in course, is learning relevant, canstudent learn science/be a scientist.

Closing: Is there anything else you wouldlike to say concerning the topics we havediscussed?

Closing: Is there anything else you wouldlike to say concerning the topics we havediscussed?

as they were collected. Theoretical perspectives emerged concerning Pro-fessor Gallagher’s engagement with the Collaborative leading to questionsconcerning the personal, structural, and institutional conditions constrain-ing her interest and participation. Through monthly meetings with theproject’s researchers (fall 2001), a sociocultural perspective developed.This perspective focused the characterization of our findings and lead us toask questions and search for frameworks and models that would illuminateour emerging interest in the interplay of the Collaborative’s culture andparticipants’ identities.

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FINDINGS

This study, as originally conceived, sought to identify and understand theeffects of participation in the Collaborative. By conceiving of the studyin this way, we found ourselves defaulting into a technical research ori-entation (Habermas, 1971) in which the Collaborative causes participantsto change in some way. We rejected this approach early on for severalreasons. First, it was not valid. Because of the diffuse nature of the re-form effort, few of the participants were involved in the Collaborative inthe same way. The resulting atomization of the population of participantsinto sample sizes of one or a few made it impossible to use a statisticalapproach to make generalizations from the sample to the population. Moreimportantly, this orientation seeks to identify causes and effects rather thanto make meaning of the situation, which was our goal. Finally, early on inour data collection and ongoing analysis, we began to see evidence that theway that participants self-identified in the Collaborative did not necessar-ily correspond to their roles or level of participation in the Collaborative.As a result we developed a theoretical framework in which an educationreform effort, such as the Collaborative, can be thought of as a culture, andparticipation in that culture results in modifications in one’s identity, whichthen affect beliefs and actions.

Involvement in the Culture

Data analysis reveals that the professor in this study can be considereda Collaborative member with “thin ethnicity.” This, according to Blum(1999), means that she “partakes” of some aspects of the culture withoutliving in it or attending its “school” with other members. Involvement inthe culture is not “very salient in [her] daily existence.” Participants with“thin Collaborative ethnicity” have attended the requisite workshops andfollowed the procedures to gain membership into the culture. They agreethat students should learn in effective environments, but only partially em-brace the Collaborative’s interpretation of how educational reform shouldlook. These members do not interact with the project at a high level. Ev-idence for grouping the professor as described above is embedded in herinterviews, classroom observations, and analysis of classroom materials asthe following quotes illustrate.

I have to tell you as a participant in [the Collaborative], my impression as a person sittingin the audience [is] if you’re not doing these formal things, your teaching is bad. That is theimpression they give me. And I’m sure it’s the impressions of a lot of the other faculty andwhen you send those things out and nobody responds, I think people just are so turned off.Because, I don’t know about the other people, but I know what I put into my teaching, and

THE IMPLICATIONS OF CULTURE AND IDENTITY 343

know what works and what doesn’t work, and I’m always looking for new ideas – that’swhy I used the jigsaw, I said, “Oh, this is perfect, I’ll try that.” And you know what, I reallyliked how it worked and I’m going to do it again. And every time I talk to anybody whoteaches, I’m always looking for stuff I can steal and use that would be good. But don’t tellme that I have to be doing these things or I’m not doing good teaching . . .

So, I really liked some of the speakers that came in from the outside and tried some thingsthat I liked a lot. I wanted to hear what things they tried and what works and what doesn’twork, and I did not want to be given a check sheet and told that if I’m not doing this and Ireally didn’t want to be told that if I’m lecturing – I mean, it really got that I didn’t want tocome anymore.

In addition, she described how she considered the Collaborative’s pro-fessional development ideas more as enhancements to her teaching than areform of her pedagogy.

I think it might have been better, this is hindsight now, but if they had said, given us a sortof laundry list and talked a little bit about it, kinds of things to try, because I think we alldon’t want to have especially a course of just lecture, we all would like student interactionand student participation and stuff, there’s no doubt about that. So, I would’ve gotten moreout of it if they had said, here’s a whole bunch of little things that you could try, and thenhave people come back, and in a group situation, have them talk about they tried it and whatthe plusses and minuses were. Because, you are giving up time, you are giving up contentwhen you have to make those decisions, and maybe the benefits outweigh it, maybe it’sworth it, if you can shorten what you’re saying about stuff, let them read it, and if it’s sogood and the kids liked it so much. Rather than come in with the idea that, you know,you’ve got to reform your teaching and this is the only way to do it.

Categorizing Professor Gallagher as a Collaborative member with “thinethnicity” raises questions about her identity as an educator and how shemediated the Collaborative’s influence on her sense of self. To begin ad-dressing these issues, we consider identity through Helms’ conceptualframework.

Professional Identity

Professor Gallagher’s teaching identity is characterized using the model ofprofessional identity developed by Helms (1998). Excerpts from her in-terviews and informal discussions offer a glimpse into how her values andbeliefs, actions, other’s expectations, and future self/society constitute howshe sees herself as a teacher and a person in the world. This glimpse offersus critical understandings about her involvement in the Collaborative.

Values and Beliefs

Professor Gallagher described her dedication to and enjoyment of her work.She deeply valued her position, expertise, and knowledge and the integralrole that teaching plays in that triad.

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I have [a faculty] assignment that is about two-thirds teaching with the remaining splitbetween research and extension . . . But that’s what I like to do. That’s why I became a[biologist], it’s the extension, applied research. The best thing about it is that it all comestogether, the research I do is to solve problems I see in extension, the teaching I do preparesthese people to go out in the world and then I get to stay in touch with my students becausethey come back or call me on the phone. It’s lovely. It’s just wonderful.

She placed great responsibility on her role as expert in the community andwas compelled to share her expertise with others, guiding them throughteaching. At the outset, this was evident in her voluntary participation inthe Collaborative to improve teaching, explaining that she was “alwayslooking for something new to try.”

A social commitment to prepare students to go out in the world with theknowledge needed to understand the science impacting their lives drivesProfessor Gallagher’s way of being as a teacher. This was evident duringclass from her choice of content to how students learned about relevantissues. For example, students were required to present mini-oral reportsthat revealed their content learning and afforded them teaching opportuni-ties. She focused on the presenter’s knowledge, asking, “What does thatmean?” or “Why did that happen?” She explained her rationale for themini reports this way, “If I can help a student read a science article inthe newspaper or a magazine and think they can understand it, I feel veryhappy.” Students also were introduced to other points of view on recentissues. An expert was invited to speak to students about a bacterial scarein foods, recent newspaper articles on both sides of the genetically-alteredfood issue were read and discussed, and Professor Gallagher constantly ex-horted students to understand the science behind contemporary questionsand not get caught up in emotional hype, telling them that, “You have thepower to choose.” Student interviewees were quick to laud her approach:

Her interest in the subject is what really makes her a good instructor. She is passionateenough about her subject without being wrapped up in her own studies that she is effective.Her love for the subject is evident in the slides, videos, and the current issues she brings into the classroom.

Her enthusiasm for it is a big deal, I think. You can’t help not like her or the class becauseshe’s really excited about everything. That’s really important I think . . . I came into theclass not being very interested at all and I just thought it’s something new I could just learnabout something I know nothing about. I am interested now. I am thinking more, like, Iwant a garden when I get older, how can I? How can I? You know this makes a lot of sense,I’ll make sure to remember to spray no later than – and like things like that, so there’s somerelevance.

Professor Gallagher also believed that it is important for females tosee women scientists – and here we see how she considered her work tobe important from a more critical social perspective. She spoke about the

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difficulty of living a scientist’s life and pondered its amenability to lifetoday. On the other hand, her love of the discipline seemed to overridesuch doubts.

And that’s one reason that I do a lot of teaching, because I like them to see women inscience . . .

But boy, it’s tough, and it’s getting worse. And I think the demands to be a faculty memberin science, or to work in science, is 7 days a week – tremendous burnout. It just is notcompatible with the kind of lives that people want to live . . . I have to think real hard aboutrecommending that life to someone, and that makes me very sad, because I have alwaysseen my role as attracting people to my discipline. And it’s not just my discipline; I thinkscience in general.

I think many early undergrads have no idea what they want to do. I hope that I might sparkthat interest.

As mentioned earlier, Professor Gallagher saw herself as a guide to stu-dents, but not the “guide on the side” promoted by more inquiry-based re-form efforts. In response to a discussion about integrating a more student-centered approach in the course she responded by reading some notes froma talk she gave at a graduate student symposium on teaching:

See what I wrote here, “What is the purpose of the course?” “Why do we need teachers?”Well, all of that stuff’s in the library. They could just go read that. Why do they need me. . . to take away the actions of the teacher what are they left with? Because can everybody. . . go out and read that book and learn everything? That’s why we need teachers.

For her, instruction should be knowledge-based, with serious focus onguiding students’ learning toward acceptable levels of comprehension. Inmany ways, she manifested the cognitive apprenticeship notion promotedby Brown, Collins, & Duguid (1989) out of Lave and Wenger’s (1991)theory of situated learning. They call for allowing students to enter a com-munity of practice as an apprentice and become enculturated into the com-munity. In this way, students observe community members and practiceappropriate language, questioning styles, and behavior. Professor Gal-lagher guides student learning in laboratory activities and directs themto important principles (knowledge) through simple hands-on activitiesfocusing on observation and technique. She describes this approach fromone of the laboratory activities the students conducted:

They cut fungal sclerotia (survival structures) off potatoes and put them on water agar andtook them home to see what would happen. Mycelium grew out from that across the agarwithin 3–5 days. They were supposed to note what happened each day. We had a follow-updiscussion on the 5th day when they brought the plates back, looked at the mycelium undera microscope and then, in a group, tried to write a definition of a fungus based on what theyhad observed and what we had talked about in class. I did this because it is a very difficultconcept for students to understand that a fungus is just a mass of mycelium – no particular

346 TARIN H. WEISS ET AL.

body like a plant or animal. I was pretty happy with how that worked. And I hope they’lllook closely at their potatoes for sclerotia for the rest of their lives.

Counter to how the Collaborative advocated reform, she does not quiteagree that there is a benefit to student-initiated laboratory explorations.In fact, conducting “real” (her emphasis) research, even for undergrad-uate science majors, may be an inappropriate use of time because theydo not yet have enough knowledge or experience (cognitive apprentice-ship’s tools) to be effective. She explained that such experiences are bet-ter for (older) students who can benefit from one-on-one guidance fromprofessors.

To really do research, you need to know what questions to ask. And to do that, you haveto really know your field – what we know, what we don’t know, and what we can find out.The more courses an undergrad can take in their field, the better. Grad school classes areusually very specialized. Undergrads want to know as much as they can about as muchas possible. Research should be on a small enough scale to let them see if they like it, tointeract closely with a faculty member to learn good research techniques and approaches,and to not feel that they have to miss classes to accomplish it.

I do think students benefit from seeing real experiments – where we don’t know for surewhat will happen . . . They benefit in seeing how an experiment is planned, how we decidehow to take and record data, how we put in replications for statistical analysis. And simplethings like keeping things clean and organized and ready for each step. Probably the mostimportant thing they can learn is how to decide what question needs to be answered andwhat information is needed to answer that question. As always, I think this is a one-on-one teaching experience where a student gets to know a faculty member better – how theyapproach their work, how they feel about it.

At the same time, she felt constrained by institutional factors and stu-dent attributes that limited her ability to offer students a more inquiry-based science experience.

This is the first year that I have taught the course Tuesday–Thursday with a longer block oftime. I needed to get a sense of what they could do with the more formal lab exercises anddiscussions and how long those would take. I have some other ideas that I would like to trytoo. One of the problems is preparation of lab materials. There is no [teaching assistant] forthe course. And in a course like this, there are students who are really out of it, no matterhow hard I try. That’s one of the challenges – the disparity in attendance, interest, andability. I’m trying to balance the use of time for gaining some knowledge, understandingand interest in the subject vs. exploring on their own.

Professor Gallagher’s beliefs and values about her responsibility as anexpert and teacher in the community and need to guide students’ scientificliteracy and interest in science influence her actions. In the next section wedraw out actions that further portray her teaching identity.

THE IMPLICATIONS OF CULTURE AND IDENTITY 347

Actions

Professor Gallagher acted on her values and beliefs about her position,knowledge, and expertise in biology in a variety of ways. For one, shecreated highly interactive lectures and hands-on guided observations ofnatural phenomena in a non-threatening learning environment. Field tripsand daily presentations of subject-related samples and objects belayed herbreadth of interdisciplinary knowledge and desire to connect with and mo-tivate her students. In addition, she supported the enterprise of teachingthrough classroom routines by privately mentoring pre-service teachers inher class and affording them credit for extra teaching.

During interviews, Professor Gallagher stressed the importance ofdownplaying her power, being fair, and making students feel that they cansucceed. She explained how these beliefs played out with students:

I think one of the problems in these classrooms is, and it’s not strictly sex-related, but it’spower. And how professors intimidate students and they do it deliberately, and they makeit a challenge to learn . . . And I never understood that, but that is a real negative factor inclassrooms . . . That’s why I give them a review sheet, I give them an answer sheet, I givethem an old exam, because the goal’s to learn it. And there’s plenty to learn. The game isn’tthat you can pass a test with a trick question . . . And I eliminate all competition; becausethey can all have an A. And that way they’ll work together, because the goal is to learn thestuff. I refuse to curve, I never have to. I always give them plenty of time, and if they’vegone through the course they ought to be able to answer the questions.

Her students repeatedly commented on her ability to downplay classroompower and how it fostered their motivation to learn.

She’s more like a peer than a professor. She doesn’t have the really typical, “I’ve writtena book, I’ve done this, I’ve done that. I’m on all these committees.” She doesn’t have thatattitude which a lot of professors do. Which makes me more inclined to listen to her, tocare about what she says, instead of just blowing her off and she’s on her high horse.

One of things I like about the class is that she’s very encouraging. One of the things shekeeps on saying is, “See you guys already know this.”

Data from field notes reveal that Professor Gallagher solicited studentideas and questions every three–five minutes during the mini-review at thebeginning of class and during lecture. She posed questions that investigatedstudents’ knowledge and comprehension as well as the ability to apply,analyze, and synthesize information (Bloom, 1956). Table III exemplifiesthe types of questions and/or interactions that were posed in class. Theexamples show how she supported students’ attempts to answer simplerecall-type questions as well as challenged them to apply and analyzeinformation. Students responded most often to her questions only afteradditional prodding on her part. When asked why students did not respond

348 TARIN H. WEISS ET AL.

TABLE III

Examples of teacher-student interaction/questioning

Continuum ofquestioninglevels

Example questions and professor/student interactions during lecture

Knowledge andcomprehension

Professor: Why do you think the plant needs to protect the xylem andphloem?

−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−→

Male student: Because . . .

Professor: Give me examples of genetic engineering that you knowabout? [no response] I’ll put categories on the board and we’ll gothrough it.

[Students begin to offer ideas once categories up]

Professor: Give me examples of genetic engineering that you knowabout.

Professor: So, what’s missing? [showing poster of apple rust tocompare to wheat rust]

Male student 1: No sexual reproduction.

Professor: No, it’s here [she explains].

Male student 1: No red spores.

Professor: Right, no repeating stage, so what’s that mean forcontrol?

Male student 2: Get rid of juniper, it’s monocyclic.

Female student 1: What lowers carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?

Professor: Good question, what decreases CO2?

Male student 1: Plants.

Professor: Right [talks about ocean].

Female 1: I’m sorry, I have another question.

Professor: No no, go ahead, don’t apologize (smiles).

Female student 1: I don’t understand the role of the rhizosphere . . .

Professor: [draws a simple picture of one root on board] It is theregion on the surface of the roots where food leaks out . . . [a fewstudents coughing] This is the sickest class I think I’ve ever taught.With all the coughing and sneezing and the radiator going, I feel likeI’m yelling (smiles). Anything else?

Female student 1: Why do soil fumigants . . .

Professor: These gases used to be used in World War II (explainshistory of use and need to use them up somehow). Now in Californiathey’re experimenting with giving soil electrical shocks, usingplastic sheeting to heat soil, to kill off nematodes.

Male student 2: Why heat? Why not cold?

Professor: Just a little heat does it [explains more].

THE IMPLICATIONS OF CULTURE AND IDENTITY 349

TABLE III

(Continued).

Continuum ofquestioninglevels

Example questions and professor/student interactions during lecture

−−−−−−−−→

Professor: The idea of needing to grow all of your food yourself, it’sscary. Farmers are going out of business every year – and last yeararound here we had a drought, how did it affect our food?

Female student: Food was more expensive?

Application andanalysis

Professor: Was it? My bill was not much higher. The last thing onour mind when we go shopping is “will there be food atStop-N-Shop?” What else?−−−−−−−−−−−−−−→

Professor: Why do we care if something causes mutation? Why arewe concerned? [waits for answer, no responses, smiles and saysquietly] Don’t you know? Don’t you care?

Female student 1: It can cause chromosomal change.

Female student 2: Mutations can cause cancer.

Analysis Professor: What is the biggest disadvantage of steaming?−−−−−−−−→

Female student: It takes too long.

Professor: OK. But how do you make steam? Come on guys, I knowit’s almost spring break? (smiles) So, what about [geneticengineering] makes you uncomfortable?

Synthesis andevaluation

Professor: Why do we use graphs? In science, you always seegraphs – what does it tell you that my words don’t?

Male student: We see it.

Professor: What else?

Professor: What if you owned the Bt gene – how should you beusing it? If you were the Environmental Protection Agency, what areyour concerns on how to use this?

more, a female interviewee explained that they were not accustomed tobeing asked questions:

Because really in all classes, not all – most classes, you don’t get asked questions. Yousit there and you listen and since she asks these questions its like, “Oh, what do I sayto this?” You know the answer, and you know that she knows you know the answer butyou’re not going to say it because what if it’s a trick. It’s still that you are really distrustfulof professors because they don’t ask questions, that’s in the rulebook: you don’t talk tostudents outside of class, you don’t talk to them in class, you just lecture. I like the way sheasks questions, it actually does make me think more. And sometimes I’ll take the questionsout of class and I’ll go look it up . . . we’re just not used to it. If we had done this in every

350 TARIN H. WEISS ET AL.

class we’d be shouting out the answers. It’s not her fault. We’re just completely really notused to it.

Another commented on the professor’s effective way of bringing out whatthey knew:

. . . I think she very skillfully brings out what we do know and she organizes it in a verycoherent fashion. And in fact we do know a lot of this stuff, we’ve had it before, or it’ssomething we’ve absorbed from the background but that she really helps to bring it to theforefront which I think works very well.

Professor Gallagher acted on her breadth of knowledge and love of thediscipline in variable ways. She often displayed her knowledge and won-derment through the many interdisciplinary artifacts (books, magazines,and articles about biology/history, biology/folklore, and current issues;biological societies’ mugs, T-shirts, posters; unique samples of fruits andvegetables) that were highlighted during class. In addition, she asked ques-tions of herself during lecture – following a discussion of wheat croprotation and nutrient depletion wondering rhetorically, “How to feed sixbillion people and growing in this unstable system?”

Other’s Expectations

Through the lens of this study, Professor Gallagher’s frustrations with theexpectations of her research and educational reform-minded colleaguesplace her in quite an enigmatic situation. She explained how her depart-ment does not value the practical nature of her research with the extensionservice or her long-time focus on teaching. At the same time, the Col-laborative urged educators to spend time reflecting on their practice andimplementing innovative teaching strategies.

The university seems to be changing their expectations for promotion to focus on grantmoney and publications. However, the Trustee-approved promotion guidelines indicatethat people should be evaluated according to their job description. I am fulfilling the re-sponsibilities for which I was hired, and I think I have accomplished for more than wouldbe expected given my teaching and extension responsibilities. So, I hope that I will beevaluated according to the written guidelines despite the warnings I have received fromsome of my administrators.

. . . don’t tell me that I have to be doing these things or I’m not doing good teaching. That’sa very offensive approach.

It seems as though Professor Gallagher was at the center of a tug-of-war between two epistemologically estranged forces. Yet, she continuedher work in ways that were self-edifying, useful, and supportive to thoseshe hoped to impact.

THE IMPLICATIONS OF CULTURE AND IDENTITY 351

Future Self/Society

In the midst of these conflicts, Professor Gallagher had a clear sense of herfuture as a researcher and educator. She described the cyclical connectionof the various aspects of her job and how they continued to connect forher personally and professionally. She will continue to pursue venturesand collaborations with professional organizations that “keep me going.”And, she will continue to act on her intent to make her students, especiallyelementary education majors, feel successful and scientifically literate.

One thing I try to do is to show them that they actually know a lot of science and that itis as much a part of life as any other area. It always bothered me that people would moreor less brag about their ignorance of science when they would be embarrassed to say thesame thing about art or literature. Some basic knowledge of science is part of being aneducated person. But many people have become intimidated and close their minds to it. Itry to reopen them and help them see it every time they go to the grocery store or out for awalk.

And I am especially anxious to find a way to get more people who want to be elementaryteachers in my class. I think most of them are very afraid of science, and I would like toboost their confidence in their own abilities and also give them ideas about how easy it isto give science to their students. They don’t have to know all the answers and they don’tneed complex equipment.

Embedded in these quotes is Professor Gallagher’s confidence abouther place as a scientist and educator in the scientific community. As ascientist she is used to dealing with multiple problems and hypotheses.She is confident that her knowledge and goals will continue to lead herto make personally and professionally edifying decisions about researchand teaching, saying that, “You know, you’ve got to do what you think isimportant, what you think you can do. I know what my strengths are; Iknow what I can do well.”

CONCLUSION

Professor Gallagher speaks candidly about her conflictive relationship withthe Collaborative – one in which she shares its goal of improving practiceyet balks at its methods and practical assumptions about her need for pro-fessional development. While she did align herself with other participantsmotivated to improve their practice she was not at the outset dissatis-fied with her pedagogy. Successful teaching and course development hadvalidated her practical teaching theories (Feldman, 2000) and gave her a“hard won sense of expertise” (Helms, 1998, p. 832). The Collaborative’sworkshops, seminars, and discussions did not create pedagogical issues for

352 TARIN H. WEISS ET AL.

her (Feldman, 2000; Gess-Newsome, Southerland, Johnston, & Woodbury,2001). That is, she did not deeply question her beliefs about what or howintroductory-level students should learn science. Thus, she engaged in theculture more to assimilate ideas and resources to enhance her teachingthan to transform it. Additionally, because of the Collaborative’s perspec-tive that broad reform of college SMET teaching was necessary and theexplicit ways in which it acted on that position, she became increasinglyfrustrated with the misalignment of her needs and interests and those ofthe project.

Further analysis of her “way of being” as a teacher (Feldman, 1997)aided in describing the reasoning and origins underlying her thin identifi-cation with the culture of the Collaborative. This was accomplished usingHelms’ (1998) framework for understanding a science teacher’s identityand Feldman’s (2000) model of practical conceptual change. UtilizingHelm’s framework identified the critical components of the professor’steaching identity, namely, values and beliefs, actions, other’s expectations,and future self/society. Thinking about her identity in this way offers acompelling perspective on the professor as a teacher.

This analysis reveals that the professor had a highly developed iden-tity as a scientist and educator. She greatly values her role as an educatorand how it meshes with other components of her faculty responsibilities,namely, university extension work and applied research. She describeshow her research solves the problems she encounters in extension work,and how her teaching prepares students to go out work in the scientificdiscipline she esteems. The power of her sense of balance and purpose asa teacher and scientist lays the foundation for the practical paradigms thatguide her thinking and actions in the classroom. She will not modify herfocus on teaching to please the department head. She values collaborationand practical applications of knowledge over more esoteric purposes andmethods of scientific research. And though she describes a hegemonicstructure in her department that may devalue and dismiss her work, shemaintains outside professional contacts and develops strategies that sup-port her sense of self as a scientist and educator.

Her way of being as a teacher places a great mandate on her pedagogy.Making students feel successful in science and increasing their generalscientific literacy guides her thinking and actions in the classroom. Be-cause she is successful in science, she feels a great responsibility to “do”for the students. Her pedagogy employs knowledge-based instruction inorder to escort students’ ideas and learning toward correct and useful con-ceptualizations of scientific information. However, as mentioned above,her lectures are not pedantic. Loaded with hypothesis posing and ques-

THE IMPLICATIONS OF CULTURE AND IDENTITY 353

tioning techniques, her interactive lectures operate as very high level asteacher-guided discussions.

Here we see how her constructions of being a teacher, scientist andperson in the world offer her meaning and relevance. Her notion of whatgives her work and life meaning act as a practical paradigm (Feldman,2000) that will not accommodate alternative ideas for how she should(a) focus more on pure research, or (b) strictly adhere to the Collaborative’sadvocacy of reform. With respect to the latter, her focus on making stu-dents to feel successful in science and promotion of their scientific literacyis grounded in their acquisition and appropriate presentation of scientificknowledge based on her expectations. It is not so much that she disagreeswith the importance of engaging students in inquiry, it is more that, forthese introductory-level students, she fails to see it as a fruitful endeavor.

We suggest that Professor Gallagher’s engagement with the collabora-tion both changed and validated her identity as a teacher. On the surface,she assimilated some new teaching strategies and accepted them as usefulways to promote learning. However, such change was always within hervalue and belief system of what is important to teach and how it should betaught. In that way, strategies and perspectives that promoted her teachingphilosophy were accepted while others were disregarded. As an alreadyself-proclaimed member of a culture aimed at improving science educa-tion, she adhered to time-proven methods and strategies for teaching sci-ence. The Collaborative’s influence, in a way, strengthened her convictionsabout effective science teaching.

The Collaborative, at many levels, failed to understand the nature ofProfessor Gallagher’s pedagogical and epistemological commitments. Itwas unable to access her values and beliefs about teaching and her senseof self as a science teacher and person in the world. As a result, she neverexperienced pedagogical dissonance in ways that required her to questionor change deeply held beliefs about knowledge-based instruction and herrole as teacher. However, the Collaborative proceeded with her profes-sional development as if she had become dissatisfied with her practice,thus increasingly alienating her purpose for joining the project in the firstplace. Professor Gallagher interacted with the project on her own terms,“thinly” associating with it on conditions more practical than ideolog-ical. She assimilated practices that suited her teaching goals and styleand rejected others. Over time, she became more disenchanted with theinitiative’s inability to respect and understand her hard-won sense of thenature and purpose of science education and the Collaborative was unableto meaningfully and collaboratively engage her in sense-making about thenature of reform-driven science instruction.

354 TARIN H. WEISS ET AL.

IMPLICATIONS

In this paper we have shown that our model of reform as culture acting onparticipants’ identity and way of being adds value to the way we under-stand the reform of undergraduate science teaching. In the study presentedhere, we have our model to understand why even when people are drawn toa reform effort because of the similarity between its goals and theirs, theyultimately decide to dissociate from it. By envisioning the reform processas the creation of culture, and teacher change as identity change, we exposewhat may be the largest impediment to changing how science is taught inhigher education: In current reform efforts we are not just asking profes-sors to change what they do; we are asking them to change who they are.

The study has three generative implications for higher education sci-ence reform efforts. First, it demonstrates the need for such efforts toemphasize and make explicit the values and beliefs embedded in a partic-ipant’s teaching identity (Helms, 1998) as a means to interpret the natureand degree of her/his cultural engagement (Blum, 1999) with the project.In turn, this requires that the goals of the reform effort be explicit andopenly negotiated amongst participants alongside the practical day-to-dayexpectations of pedagogical change, teaching, research, and service re-sponsibilities. Second, valuing and honoring the good teaching done byprofessors prior to and during their participation in a reform effort is nec-essary to make the integral link between the theories embedded in scienceeducation and praxis. Finally, related to that, our research suggests thatin order to engage professors in meaningful professional development,project activities should be explicitly situated in the participant’s context ofteaching and being a teacher (Feldman, 1997). Our research suggests thatit is important for reform advocates to provide professors with a space forshared critical reflection to promote understanding of the deeper practicaltheories guiding pedagogy and change (Weiss, 2003), and for the advocatesto create dynamic relationships with professors that operate through col-laborative meaning-making and mutual respect for each other’s values andbeliefs. One way to do this is to engage professors in collaborative actionresearch (Feldman, 1996; Weiss, 2003), although we believe that any sit-uations that result in faculty engaging in “long and serious conversations”(Feldman, 1999) about their practice will have similar effects.

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School of Education,University of Massachusetts at Amherst,Lederle Grad Research Tower,710 N. Pleasant St.,Amherst, MA 01003–9306, USAE-mail: [email protected]