This study examines how involvement in four cross-institutional STEM faculty communities of practice is associated with local departmental and institutional change for faculty members belonging to these communities. It is informed by the communities of practice and change in higher education literature and utilizes data gathered through a survey of community members (n = 2,503). The findings reveal engagement experiences and aspects of community design associated with departmental and institutional change related to STEM reform. These findings contribute to recommendations for designing future STEM reform initiatives.
AlleeV. (2000). Knowledge networks and communities of learning. OD Practitioner, 32(4), 4–13.
2.
American Association for Advancement of Science. (2011). Vision and change in undergraduate biology education: A call to action. Washington, DC: American Association for Advancement of Science. Retrieved from http://visionandchange.org/files/2013/11/aaas-VISchange-web1113.pdf
3.
American Association for Advancement of Science. (2015). Vision and change in undergraduate biology education: Chronicling change, inspiring the future. Washington, DC: American Association for Advancement of Science. Retrieved from http://visionandchange.org/files/2015/07/VISchange2015_webFin.pdf
4.
AustinA. (2011). Promoting evidence-based change in undergraduate science education. Washington, DC: National Academies National Research Council.
5.
AustinA. E. (1994). Understanding and assessing faculty cultures and climates. In KinnickM. K. (Ed.), Providing useful information for deans and department chairs: New directions for institutional research (pp. 47–63). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
6.
BlackburnR. B.LawrenceJ. (1995). Faculty at work: Motivation, expectation, satisfaction. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
7.
BeecherT.TrowlerP. R. (2001). Academic tribes and territories: Intellectual enquiry and the culture of disciplines. Philadelphia, PA: The Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press.
8.
BorregoM.HendersonC. (2014). Increasing the use of evidence-based teaching in STEM higher education: A comparison of eight change strategies. Journal of Engineering Education, 103(2), 220–252.
9.
BrownJ. S.DuguidP. (2001). Knowledge and organization: A social-practice perspective. Organization Science, 12(2), 198–213.
10.
ChangJ. (2010). The relationships among participants’ characteristics, perceptions, nature of involvement, and outcomes in strategic community of practice programs in a large electric utility company (doctoral dissertation). Available from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database (UMI No. 3429660)
11.
ChangJ.ChangW.JacobsR. (2009). Relationship between participation in communities of practice and organizational socialization in the early careers of South Korean IT employees. Human Resource Development International, 12, 407–427.
12.
CorboJ. C.ReinholzD. L.DancyM. H.DeetzS.FinkelsteinN. (2015). Sustainable change: A model for transforming departmental culture to support STEM education innovation. Retrieved from the arXiv database.
13.
CreswellJ. W.Plano ClarkV. L. (2011). Designing and conducting mixed methods research (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
14.
DancyM. H.HendersonC. (2010). Pedagogical practices and instructional change of physics faculty. American Journal of Physics, 78, 1056–1063.
15.
DedeC. (2006). Scaling up: Evolving innovations beyond ideal settings to challenging contexts of practice. In SawyerR. K. (Ed.), Cambridge handbook of the learning sciences (pp. 1–37). New York: Cambridge University Press.
16.
FairweatherJ. (2009). Linking evidence and promising practices in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) undergraduate education. Paper for the National Academies National Research Council Board of Science Education. Retrieved from http://www.nsf.gov/attachments/117803/public/Xc-Linking_Evidence-Fairweather.pdf
17.
FontaineM. A.MillenD. R. (2004). Understanding the benefits of communities of practice. In HildrethP.KimbleC. (Eds.), Knowledge networks: Innovation through communities of practice (pp. 1–13). Hershey, PA: Idea Group Publishing.
18.
FurrM. (2011). Scale construction and psychometrics for social and personality psychology. London: Sage.
19.
GappaJ. M.AustinA. E.TriceA. G. (2007). Rethinking faculty work: Higher education’s strategic imperative. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
20.
GehrkeS.KezarA. (2016). STEM reform outcomes through communities of transformation. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 48(1), 30–38.
21.
GoldeyE. S.AbercrombieC. L.IvyT. M.KusherD. I.MoellerJ. F.RaynerD. A.SmithC. F.SpiveyN. W. (2012). Biological inquiry: A new course and assessment plan in response to the call to transform undergraduate biology. CBE-Life Sciences Education, 11(4), 353–363.
22.
GorsuchR. L. (1983). Factor analysis (2nd ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
23.
HammersmithL. (2015, February). Advancing scholarship on active learning spaces through faculty learning communities. Poster presented at the Educause Learning Initiative annual meeting, Anaheim, CA.
24.
HendersonC.BeachA.FinkelsteinN. (2011). Facilitating change in undergraduate STEM instructional practices: An analytic review of the literature. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 48, 952–984.
25.
HurtadoS.EaganM. K.PryorJ. H.WhangH.TranS. (2012). Undergraduate teaching faculty: The 2010–2011 HERI Faculty Survey. Los Angeles, CA: Higher Education Research Institute, UCLA.
26.
KezarA. (2011). What is the best way to achieve broader reach of improved practices in higher education?Innovative Higher Education, 36(4), 235–247.
27.
KezarA. (2014). How colleges change: Understanding, leading, and enacting change. New York, NY: Routledge.
28.
KezarA.GehrkeS.Bernstein-SierraS. (2017). Designing for success in STEM communities of practice: Philosophy and personal interactions. The Review of Higher Education, 40, 217–244.
29.
KezarA. J.LesterJ. (2011). Enhancing campus capacity for leadership: An examination of grassroots leaders in higher education. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
30.
LaveJ. (1988). Cognition in practice: Mind, mathematics and culture in everyday life. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
31.
LesserE. L.StorckJ. (2001). Communities of practice and organizational performance. IBM Systems Journal, 40(4), 831–841.
32.
McDermottR. (1999). Learning across teams: The role of communities of practice in team organizations. Knowledge Management Review, 2, 32–36.
33.
McDonaldJ.StarC.(2008). The challenges of building an academic community of practice: An Australian case study. In Engaging communities: Proceedings of the 31st HERDSA Annual Conference, Rotorua, July 1-4, 2008 (pp. 230–240). Rotura, New Zealand: HERDSA.
34.
MeyersL. S.GamsG.GuarinoA. J. (2006). Applied multivariate research: Design and interpretation. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
35.
MillenD. R.FontaineM. A. (2003, November). Improving individual and organizational performance through communities of practice. In Proceedings of the 2003 International ACM SIGGROUP conference on supporting group work (pp. 205–211). New York: ACM.
36.
MillenD. R.FontaineM. A.MullerM. J. (2002). Understanding the benefit and costs of communities of practice. Communications of the ACM, 45(4), 69–73.
37.
National Research Council. (2003). Improving undergraduate instruction in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
38.
NeumannA. (2009). Professing to learn: Creating tenured lives and careers in the American research university. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins Press.
PriceM. (2005). Assessment standards: The role of communities of practice and the scholarship of assessment. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 30, 215–230.
Rabe-HeskethS.SkrondalA. (2012). Multilevel and longitudinal modeling using stata, volume 1: Continuous responses (3rd ed.). College Station, TX: Stata Press.
43.
Sànchez-CardonaI.Sànchez-LugoJ.Vèlez-GonzàlezJ. (2012). Exploring the potential of communities of practice for learning and collaboration in a higher education context. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 46, 1820–1825.
44.
SeymourE. (2002). Tracking the processes of change in US undergraduate education in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology. Science Education, 86, 79–105.
45.
SeymourE.HewittN. M. (1997). Talking about leaving: Why undergraduates leave the sciences. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
46.
SingerS. R.NielsenN. R.SchweingruberH. A. (2012). Discipline-based education research: Understanding and improving learning in undergraduate science and engineering. Washington, DC: National Research Council of the National Academies of Science.
47.
SteinertY.MannK.CentenoA.DolmansD.SpencerJ.GelulaM.PrideauxD. (2006). A systematic review of faculty development initiatives designed to improve teaching effectiveness in medical education. Medical Teacher, 28(6), 497–526.
48.
StewartT. (1996, August5). The invisible key to success. Fortune, pp. 173–176.
49.
SunalD. W.SunalC. S.WhitakerK. W.FreemanL. M.OdellM.HodgesJ.EdwardsL.JohnstonR. A. (2001). Teaching science in higher education: Faculty professional development and barriers to change. School Science and Mathematics, 101(5), 246–257.
50.
SupovitzJ. A. (2002). Developing communities of instructional practice. Teachers College Record, 104, 1591–1626.
51.
Van WykJ. (2005, July). Communities of practice in academic library: A run on the wild side? In Proceedings of the 5th International Conference of Animal Health Information Specialists (pp. 97–102).
52.
WeimanC.PerkinsK.GilbertS. (2010). Transforming science education at large research universities: A case study in progress. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 42(2), 6–14.
53.
WengerE. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning as a social system. Systems Thinker, 9(5), 2–3.
54.
WengerE. (2007). Communities of practice: A brief introduction. Retrieved January14, 2009, from http://www.e.com/theory/
55.
WengerE.McDermottR.SnyderW. (2002) Cultivating communities of practice: A guide to managing knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
56.
ZboralskiK.SalomoS.GemuendenH. G. (2006). Organizational benefits of communities of practice: A two-stage information processing model. Cybernetics and Systems: An International Journal, 37, 533–555.
