Professional Identity Development in Teachers of Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, and Science and Math Education

Much of the science education community has advocated for a new vision of instruction emphasizing inquiry-based teaching (National Research Council, 1996). Unfortunately, as Anderson (2002) notes, many science teachers are not adopting inquiry-based teaching practices for a variety of reasons such as that teachers commonly favor text-book approaches to instruction. To facilitate the adoption of reformed teaching, Luehmann (2007) argues that teacher education must address the development of one's professional identity as a teacher. Unfortunately, little is known about the beliefs, values, experiences, and ways of acting and interacting that teachers in science and related fields use to form their professional teaching identity. Through repeated interviews with 18 graduate students who taught science and related disciplines, this study outlined generalizations defining the developmental trajectory of science educators' professional identity. In general, for less experienced teacher participants, one's own experiences as a student were particularly influential in learning how to teach, while for more experienced teacher participants, coursework, self-reflection, professional development experiences, and the review of professional journals were influential to skill development. Study results generally reflected the trajectory of teacher development (from teacher-centered concerns to student-centered concerns) put forth by Fuller and Bown (1975). More detailed findings indicated, however, that co-teaching experiences may have assisted teachers in moving from more teacher-centered concerns, including a focus on one's personality characteristics and ability to develop and implement engaging instructional activities, to more student-centered concerns, such as adjusting instruction to meet students' needs and facilitating student investigations. Therefore, in this study, participants' co-teaching experiences positively impacted their developing professional identities as inquiry-minded teachers. (Contains 8 tables and 4 footnotes.) [Paper published in: Proceedings of the NARST 2009 Annual Meeting.]