Building Cultures of Collaboration That Promote Instructional Change

Background: National calls to improve engineering education have prompted educators to explore ways to implement change. We need a better understanding of how research-based instructional strategies (RBISs) are sustainably adopted among faculty. Prior studies indicated that developing collaborations and a shared vision among faculty facilitates adoption, but few studies demonstrate successful efforts to create these collaborations. Purpose/Hypothesis: We seek to understand the process of developing a culture of collaboration among STEM faculty interested in implementing instructional innovation in engineering and to characterize the process of how the STEM faculty community of practice (COP) develops and functions. To achieve this, we investigated two research questions: 1) How do participants describe their experience in the SIIP – a program designed to promote and support collaborations around teaching innovation? 2) What patterns and themes emerge in the experiences of participants? Design/Method: We applied an exploratory phenomenological approach, using semi-structured interviews with 12 STEM faculty members across academic ranks. Interviews were analyzed using a thematic analysis process with multiple rounds of coding. Results: The participants’ experiences revealed that social capital and shared accountability support building a collaborative culture among engineering faculty engaged in instructional innovation. The community of practice provided organizational support and resources to STEM faculty that enabled community behaviors including knowledge sharing about teaching. Conclusions: Building a community of practice among STEM faculty for education reform requires invested faculty, structural support by the institution (e.g., instructional initiatives programs), and a collaborative environment. Recommendations are provided for building a local version of a STEM faculty learning community committed to improving instruction.