Divining the professional development experiences of K-12 STEM master teacher leaders in the United States

ABSTRACT

Despite a need for strong K-12 STEM education globally, professional development systems for STEM teachers in the United States lack coherence or sequenced experiences to recruit, develop, and retain master teachers and teacher leaders in STEM. Still, the United States produces erudite STEM master teachers and effective STEM teacher leaders, which asks the question to how, where, and when these teachers sought out opportunities to develop their teaching competencies and hone their leadership skills to become STEM master teacher leaders. Using an interpretive phenomenological approach, framed by master teacher leadership development, this study examined the lived experience of 10 nationally recognised STEM teacher leaders: Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching awardees and/or alumni of the Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship Program. Participants provided detailed accounts, identifying and scrutinising key experiences in their teaching career that led them to national recognition as an STEM master teacher leader. Five themes emerged from the interpretive phenomenological analysis: the importance of school culture and STEM community, access to professional networks/opportunities, motivation, luck, and reinforcing beliefs. These themes, aligned with international exemplars of teacher professional development pathways, suggest areas of improvement for STEM master teacher leadership within the United States.

KEYWORDS:

• Interpretative phenomenology
• master teacher
• professional development
• teacher leadership
• stem education

Introduction

International discourse among the most industrialised areas of world like Europe (Joyce and Dzoga 2011, Kudenko and Gras-Velázquez 2016), Asia (Kim et al. 2015, Lee et al. 2019), and the U.S. (e.g. NASEM, 2007, NSTC, 2018) extol the importance of developing and sustaining a high-quality primary and secondary system of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. Whether that discourse manifests itself as an economic argument focused on job training in a high-tech world or a call to action for dealing with complex global problems like pandemics or climate change, a strong K-12 STEM education is of national and international importance (Dossey et al. 2016, Marginson et al. 2013; U.S. DoE, n.d.). A key element of an effective STEM education system involves developing and retaining K-12 teachers in STEM areas that uniquely engage with students to grow their STEM knowledge and skills (Kennedy and Odell 2014). Notably, STEM continues to be an ambiguous and amorphous term in the context of curriculum and pedagogy (Erduran 2020, Holmlund et al. 2018;), despite conceptual frameworks (e.g. Johnson et al. 2015, Kelley and Knowles 2016) and teacher professional development (PD) interventions (e.g. Du et al. 2019; Nadelson et al., 2013, Ryu et al. 2019) that promote STEM integration. In pre-college educational systems across the world, students are provided some forms of an integrated ‘STEM’ and/or partitioned by discipline ‘S-T-E-M’ education. In the U.S., national agencies continue to advocate for integrating STEM in K-12 grades (NAE & NRC, 2014), yet research has yielded mixed results (Rinke et al. 2016); studies have found that effective integration of STEM requires that teachers have strong disciplinary content knowledge and pedagogical skills (Brown et al. 2013). Scholars who study STEM integration in American schools have found value in both approaches to STEM, saying, ‘we are not convinced that a single worldwide definition of STEM education is critical … What we do see as essential is that … [there are] opportunities for all their students to attain STEM-related goals’ (Holmlund et al. 2018, p. 1). Regardless of conceptualisation and implementation, there is a global recognition of and consensus on the importance of high-quality STEM-based K-12 educational systems; underpinned by teachers of STEM and/or S-T-E-M providing their students rich classroom experiences.

To develop the K-12 STEM teacher workforce needed to reach the goals set for K-12 STEM education necessitates opportunities for PD throughout their professional careers. This includes pre-service, induction, and in-service training, so teachers may develop the robust content knowledge and pedagogical expertise as a master teacher and the situated leadership skills as a teacher leader in the/a STEM area/s (NRC, 2014, Yow and Lotter 2016). Countries in Europe and Asia have explicit pathways to professionally develop master teachers by offering avenues for teacher leadership (Ho and Tikly 2012, Darling-Hammond 2017). Unlike other comparable countries, the U.S. lacks national-level systems to professionally develop teachers in content and pedagogical mastery as well as leadership skills (Smylie and Eckert 2018). Yet, the U.S. still produces STEM master teachers and teacher leaders, identified through national programmes like the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching (PAEMST) or the Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship (AEF). The PAEMST has been a National Science Foundation (NSF) programme since 1983 and is the highest honour for a U.S. K-12 science and mathematics teacher to receive. The PAEMST recognising 100 master teachers each year, two from each state. The AEF , a Department of Energy (DOE) programme beginning in 1994, similarly selects accomplished K-12 STEM teacher leaders to live in Washington, D.C. for 11 months. As an AEF, teachers work on informing, crafting, or implementing national STEM policy in Congress or advancing STEM initiatives at a federal agency like NASA or NOAA. The NSF (2015) and the NRC (2014) have individually and independently recognised that PAEMST and AEF awardees are premier STEM teachers. Therefore, selection of and participation in these programmes can serve as a proxy measure for master teacher status and outstanding teacher leadership. In this article, PAEMST and/or AEF alumni are referred to collectively as STEM master teacher leaders, a portmanteau that acknowledges both their expertise in STEM teaching and situated teacher leadership. This term is useful as it is these two qualities together that comprise both the PAEMST and AEF nomination and selection criteria. This study examined the lived professional experiences of 10 U.S. STEM teacher awardees with the goal of examining the career trajectories that led to obtain national recognition. Interpretive phenomenological methodology was used to offer insight into the similarities and differences (by demographic and social factors) among these STEM master teacher leaders’ career pathways.

Literature review

To begin, international investigations of efficacious K-12 teacher preparation systems provide context to how countries approach professionally developing their teachers. A review of international teacher education systems in Finland, Singapore, and Canada by Darling-Hammond (2017) offered a series of practices for effectual preparation/in-service systems for teacher PD, including the provision of: induction models with robust mentoring systems and reduced teaching loads during early years (Singapore, Canada, Australia); PD in which teachers learn with and from one another (Singapore, Canada, Finland, Australia), and leadership opportunities for expert teachers to inform system-wide initiatives and policies (Singapore). In STEM education explicitly, model countries with centralised education like Finland have sustained mentoring for new STEM teachers, which focus on developing communication and collaboration between teachers and their students (Sislian et al. 2015). In China, STEM teachers attend institutes where they learn and apply experimental learning pedagogies (Harfitt 2018). In stark contrast, the decentralised U.S. education system is comprised of thousands of local school districts, guided by state mandates, that are held mostly accountable for federal dollars tied to compliance (Hill, 2009). Without the structure and coherency of systems like Finland and China, is it unknown what experiences facilitate American STEM teachers to become master teachers or teacher leaders (Fairman and Mackenzie 2015, Cooper et al. 2016). Therefore, the presence of exceptional K-12 STEM teachers despite having absent (for developing master teachers) and incoherent (for developing teacher leaders) PD systems within the U.S. presents an opportunity for research. In what ways did these awardees seek out PD or other opportunities to develop their master teacher leadership? In what ways, if any, are these awardees’ experiences dis/similar? In what ways, if any, did demographic (gender, race/ethnicity) and/or social (recognition they received, disciplinary STEM area taught) enhance or stymie their efforts? These questions are of particular importance as awardees’ responses could suggest possible avenues to enhance equity when designing and implementing PD pathways for future U.S. STEM master teacher leaders.

Conceptual framework

The PD available to K-12 teachers in the U.S. is largely non-specific, inefficient, and piecemeal (Hill, 2009); limited largely by the hierarchical structures of the schools in which they teach (Rutherford 2006). These factors both stymie teachers’ development of content and pedagogical expertise, as well as leadership skills, making it difficult to create effective pathways of PD to develop STEM master teachers, so they may leverage their classroom expertise through actions to promote and sustain K-12 STEM education in the U.S. (Hite et al. 2020). Whereas in Europe and Asia, master teachers have specific and valuable roles in supporting teaching and learning in schools without having to leave the classroom (Bush et al. 2016, Livingston and Flores 2017, Pedaste et al. 2019). Notably, master teachers are defined as teachers who possess exemplary content and pedagogical knowledge which is evidenced through their classroom teaching (Jackson 2012). As such, master teachers are often recruited to participate in teacher leadership activities in the U.S. (Mayo 2002). To show associations within the term master teacher leader, we relate Hunzicker’s (2017) conceptual model of teacher leaders attributes. She described that teacher leaders not only possess master teacher knowledges, but also engage in leadership motivated by a desire to support students and colleagues. These individuals possess dispositions of contemplative reflection, professional risk taking, open communication, creativity, lifelong learning, and humility (also cited in Collinson 2012). Hunzicker found sampled teachers developed their leadership from the milieu of factors and conditions of their personal and professional lives. Generative experiences included cultivating professional growth mindsets and collegial relationships, obtaining nascent leadership experiences to grow in their beliefs as a leader and willingness to take risks, while remaining committed to their students. She noted in her research and model that for some teachers, ‘it [was] difficult for them to view themselves fully as leaders, especially amidst challenging personal circumstances and less supportive school and district cultures’ noting the importance of community and culture in said development (p. 16). This problem is amplified in STEM teacher development, given that previous research focused on teachers as an amorphous whole, rather than their experiences as individuals; how teachers can uniquely lead within their classrooms, their content area (e.g. science, mathematics), and specific professional communities (Council 2014, Fairman and Mackenzie 2015, Cooper et al. 2016). This framework provides insight into the types of experiences (and themes) that may emerge from sampled STEM master teacher leaders.

Methodology

The goal of this interpretive phenomenological study was to identify themes (and subthemes) of the career pathways among 10 K-12 STEM teacher leaders. Interpretive phenomenology was selected for its phenomenological, hermeneutic, and idiographic characteristics, such to understand the varied lived experiences of recognised K-12 STEM master teacher leaders (phenomenology) by asking them to reflect upon generative experiences in their professional development (hermeneutics) that led to their PAEMST and/or AEF recognition. Analysing similarities and differences in lived experience permits a deeper understanding of how personal and social contexts influenced their professional pathways (idiography) towards STEM master teacher leadership. Per Limberg (2000), phenomenological studies illuminate differences in individuals’ outcomes that may be explained through their different means of life experiences; the interpretive approach filters that experience through the persons who, through different experiences, either comparatively or contrastingly arrived at the same phenomena. To explore these teachers’ lived experiences, 10 nationally recognised STEM educators who had won (and participated in) either the PAEMST, and/or received (and completed) the AEF were recruited to participate in the study. The nature of this reputational (McMillan and Schumacher 2001) and purposeful (Limberg 2000) sampling of vetted K-12 STEM teacher leaders (Council 2014) provided assurances that these individuals have experienced the same phenomenon of professional development towards K-12 STEM master teacher leadership. The following research question guided this study: What experiences similarly or dissimilarly shaped the career pathways of recognised K-12 STEM master teacher leaders?

Participants and selection

Interview data was collected, but not reported, as a part of a larger study of PAEMST and AEF awardees (Hite and Milbourne 2018). Over a period of 2 months, listserv announcements and direct email requests to PAEMST and AEF alumni yielded 10 study participants (out of 15 who expressed interest). Participants self-identified as Caucasian (n = 6), Latinx (n = 2), African-American (n = 1), and Pacific Islander (n = 1). Among the five men and five women, eight were AEF alumni, four were PAEMST recipients, and two individuals had received both recognitions. Content area expertise consisted of primary (n = 1) and secondary science (n = 7), technology and computer science (n = 2), and secondary mathematics (n = 2) with a combined 122 years of classroom teaching experience.

Data collection

At the core of phenomenology, and this current research study, human experience was the focus (Limberg 2000). Specifically, interpretation using ‘the accounts produced by a comparatively small number of participants’ (Larkin et al. 2006, p. 103). Therefore, the interview protocol was intentionally open-ended, in which the interviewer asked the interviewee a single focus question: please describe your professional journey (including critical moments that occurred in your development or person(s) that shaped you) in becoming a K-12 Master Teacher Leader in a STEM discipline. Semi-structured interviewing is an ideal modality when the purpose is to have individuals revisit lived experiences through memories (Crotty 1998, Lauterbach 2018). This type of protocol facilitated the co-creation of information between the researcher and participant, as well as provide an opportunity for the interviewee to provide additional context to the researcher’s interpretation of their lived experiences (Wimpenny and Gass 2000) during their discussion. To prompt the co-creation of information, the interviewer asked interviewees to continually think-aloud about their lived experiences, an effective strategy for interview-based interpretive phenomenological data collection (Lauterbach 2018) and collecting qualitative data from master teachers (Feldon 2007). From these think-aloud exercises, the interviewer listened intently such to follow up on points raised within the interview, especially on critical career moments. Each participant consented to one, 60-minute online interview with a single researcher that was audio recorded and transcribed. Video conferencing was both timely and ideal as ‘online data collection helps [to] create a nonthreatening and comfortable environment … provides greater ease for participants discussing sensitive issues’ (Creswell 2013, p. 159). As prior award recipients, interviewers’ subjectivity and reflexivity were useful in establishing rapport and guiding discussions with participants.

Data analysis

Per Larkin et al. (2006), interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) has two analyses: first is a phenomenological analysis on the experiential claims made on a phenomenon from participants’ lived experiences and second is an interpretive analysis to position aspects of their lived experiences within a wider context. The latter affords a critical analysis of how experiences are filtered through demographic and social factors of their lives. Together, these two analyses provide a more comprehensive picture of individual and collective attributes for a robust IPA. To engage in the first aim, interview data was analysed in a constant comparison fashion in two phases. Phase one focused on exploring emergent themes in individual interviews, while phase two focused on emergent themes across interviews. This system allowed the analysis to ‘identify and describe people’s various conceptions of the phenomenon under study in a limited number of categories … [creating] a set of categories of description and the structural relationship between [them]’ (Limberg 2000, pg. 58). Among the 10 interviews, 229 codes (N = 10, M = 23, SD = 6) aggregated into five central themes: 1) school culture and STEM community; 2) professional networks and opportunities; 3) motivation; 4) luck; and 5) reinforcing beliefs. A sixth category captured any other experiences that did not fit in the five central themes. A full description of the code book, including each theme and subtheme, is found in Table 1.

Table 1. Description of codebook including emergent themes and subthemes

Emergent Themes and Subthemes			Description of Theme and Subtheme
1. Importance of School Culture and the STEM Community		This theme captured the importance of culture and community to a teacher’s success and development, including both school communities, larger STEM communities, and formal/informal communities that seemed relevant to the teacher leader.
1.1	Had a supportive culture in early years of teaching	Description of a supportive school culture during her/his formative years that helped her/him grow into an effective educator. Evidence includes, but were not limited to: supportive mentoring, supportive administration, and quality PD activities.
1.2	Engaged in continuous improvement /reflective practice as critical to success	Description of, directly or indirectly, the importance of reflection and continuous improvement to her/his success as an educator. Teacher may also talk about a culture of continuous improvement. Evidence includes holistic references to reflection, or specific incidences (e.g. National Board Certification).
1.3	Had experiences with communities that led to different perspectives	Description of having worked with different communities, which might mean teaching in different schools, or possibly working in different industries. Evidence of experience living and/or working with different communities.
2. Access to Professional Networks and Opportunities		This theme captured the importance of professional networks to the success/development of the teacher leader. This includes evidence of teachers’ professional networks playing a critical role in their respective professional teacher-leadership journeys.
2.1	Knowing the right people	Description of a critical relationship, or relationships, that opened up new opportunities in teacher leadership. Evidence includes having served as a mentor; or describing a colleague that would inform him/her of opportunities; being embedded in a culture and/or mindset that facilitated access to PD opportunities.
2.2	Facilitating Opportunity (for themselves)	Description of an experience that ultimately opened up the door to new and more experiences; having the ability to create opportunities and/or learn more (networks) about opportunities that led to participation in that opportunity.
2.3	Holding prior authentic STEM experiences	Description of STEM experiences that are authentic to the field. Evidence includes: taking graduate coursework and/or graduating with a STEM degree; participation in a Research Experience (either pre-service or in-service) for Teachers (RET) programme; writing scientific articles.
3. Motivation		This theme captures the role of an individual’s sense of motivation behind her/his becoming a teacher-leader. This includes evidence of how the teacher-leader him or herself was the driving force in their professional choices and journey.
3.1	Being altruistic	Evidence that the teacher is motivated by a sense of helping others, service, or some other altruistic motivation (i.e. neither driven by financial gains nor social status).
3.2	Being self-motivated or a self-starter	Evidence that the teacher has an ‘entrepreneurial’ attitude, taking risks, and seeking out opportunities or doing things in a self- motivated fashion.
3.3	Being motivated by students and student relationships	Evidence that students and student relationships are a primary driver of the teacher’s professional journey. Teacher may talk about using students as a significant indicator in evaluating her/his professional efficacy, or may talk about the importance of student relationships to her/his career.
4. Luck		This theme acknowledged the success of the teacher-leader was a function of luck or timing. Includes evidence that opportunities arose through chance.
4.1	Was in the right place and at the right time	Description of critical experiences that were a function of luck and/or timing. Evidence includes getting a job at a school that gets a particular grant, which provided additional experiences that would not have likely happened without the grant.
4.2	Receiving information from (outside network)	Description of procuring critical information outside of her/his formal networks.
4.3	Privilege in having access to time and/or funding for PD	Description of having access to time/resources is a critical component of teacher development. (We use the word privilege to draw out the inequities between different educational environments: some teachers are privileged to have time/money for PD, others are not.)
5. Reinforcing Beliefs		This theme captured the importance of teacher beliefs. Evidence includes experiences that gave her/him a sense of empowerment; or the ability to engage in teacher leadership through validation, confidence, and/or a strong sense of teacher identity.
5.1	Being validated	Description of critical experiences that served to recognise and validate the teacher’s professional experiences.
5.2	Feeling confident	Description of critical experiences that served to bolster the teacher’s confidence in her/his leadership abilities.
5.3	Affirmation of individual and/or collective teacher identity	Description of how the participant’s confidence was rooted in a sense of collective identity; providing evidence that their confidence stems from of her/his professional network and peer groups.
6. Other Codes		This code captured any utterances that seemed important/relevant to a teacher’s professional journey, but did not fit extant themes.
6.1	Lack of a supportive leadership culture	Description of a school environment that stifled leadership and leadership opportunities. Note: This is opposite of code 1.1.

The second part of the analysis, the interpretive analysis, warranted exploration of the similarities and differences within participants’ individual and collective lived experiences vis-à-vis the phenomenon with demographic (e.g. gender, race/ethnicity) and social (e.g. STEM content area, recognition programme) factors. This second part of the analysis is important, given that U.S. teachers have had both similar and different lived experiences to the shared phenomenon of Coronavirus facilitated interruption to the K-12 school system (see Reich et al. 2020). To that end, five by five chi-square analyses were conducted to ascertain potential differences between the four factors. This comparison provides insight into what factors, if any, facilitated significantly dissimilar lived experiences among the sampled STEM teacher leader professional development pathways.

Trustworthiness

To establish trustworthiness in this research, efforts were made for credibility, dependability, conformability, and transferability (see Guba and Lincoln 1994). First, leveraging phenomenology as the philosophical and methodological lens for the collection, organisation, and interpretation of data lent to this study’s credibility and dependability. Since clarification of data occurred during the interview itself, member checking was not employed. For data analysis, Inter-Rater Reliability (IRR) was conducted as a means to ‘mitigate interpretative bias’ and ‘to maintain consistency of the coding’ (Walther et al. 2013, p. 650). IRR was calculated using the Miles and Huberman (1994) method of summing and dividing dis/agreements. The first round of interaction between two coders yielded 69% agreement. A third coder re-coded areas of disagreement between coders 1 and 2, finding that the sources of disagreement were within subthemes and utterances with more than one code assigned. With corrections to the code book, a second round of interaction among three coders produced 95% agreement, exceeding the Miles and Huberman (1994) threshold of 80% agreement. The length and open-ended nature of the interviews provided a thick description of their career trajectories, providing elements of transferability, whereas an audit trail citing direct quotations with the convention of identifying the participant source (P1-P10) and location in the transcript (the line number in transcript) was established for dependability. Purposeful recruitment of participants recognised by national agencies (Council 2014, NSF, 2015) aids in credibility and transferability of findings.

Results

The goal of this research study was to explore the lived experiences (career pathways) of 10 individuals who had attained the phenomenon of becoming a K-12 STEM master teacher leader. Summary results are found in Table 2 and parsed by demographic and social factors.

Table 2. Summary results of coding for participants 1–10 by social (Recognition programme, STEM discipline taught) and demographic (Gender, Race/Ethnicity) factors

Themes and Subthemes	Frequency Among 10 Participants (N = 229)	Recognition Programme		STEM Discipline		Gender		Race/Ethnicity
		AEF (n= 6)	PAEMST^a (n= 4)	Science (n = 6)	Maths^b (n = 4)	Male (n = 5)	Female (n = 5)	White (n = 6)	Non-White^c (n = 4)
1	80 (35%)	46	34	41	39	31	49	50	30
1.1	23	15	8	15	8	5	18	17	6
1.2	35	18	17	17	18	15	20	22	13
1.3	22	13	9	9	13	11	11	11	11
2	62 (27%)	34	28	39	23	27	35	37	25
2.1	18	10	8	11	7	7	11	9	9
2.2	29	`7	12	20	9	16	13	18	11
2.3	15	7	8	8	7	4	11	10	5
3	42 (18%)	27	15	23	19	20	22	24	18
3.1	8	5	3	5	3	3	5	4	4
3.2	20	12	8	11	9	9	11	13	7
3.3	14	10	4	7	7	8	6	7	7
4	25 (11%)	15	10	8	17	10	15	10	15
4.1	12	7	5	6	6	4	8	7	5
4.2	1	1	0	0	1	1	0	0	1
4.3	12	7	5	2	10	5	7	3	9
5	19 (8%)	8	11	15	4	8	11	15	4
5.1	8	5	3	7	1	2	6	7	1
5.2	6	2	4	3	3	4	2	3	3
5.3	5	1	4	5	0	2	3	5	0
6	1 (<1%)	0	1	1	0	1	0	1	0
6.1	1	0	1	1	0	1	0	1	0

^aIncludes participants 8 and 10 who were both PAEMST and AEF awardees.

^bIncludes participants as Technology (Participant 2) and Computer Science (Participant 5).

^cIncludes participants who identified as African-American (Participant 2), Pacific-Islander.

(Participant 3), and Latinx (Participants 4 and 7).

The largest category of responses (35%) regarded the importance of school culture and the STEM community, followed by reported access to professional networks and opportunities therein (27%). About one-fifth of coded utterances related to motivation (18%), whereas one-tenth was on luck (10%) followed closely by reinforcing beliefs (8%). The final category, of one single code (utterance) comprised less than 1% of the coded data set.

Culture and community

Over a third (n = 80, 35%) of participants described the importance of their school cultures and larger STEM communities when discussing their PD and career trajectories. The first dimension of this theme emerged from participants identifying early career supports such as colleagues and administrators that helped scaffold their PD through supportive mentoring, having a supportive administration, or high-quality school level PD activities. Said one teacher: ‘I was really lucky to have the department chair that I had when I started. I think if I hadn’t … And also my colleagues, I think that if I hadn’t had those people … I probably wouldn’t have become the teacher that I am’ (P1, L18–20). Another discussed the importance of administrative support: ‘I was at an institution that the administrators were very supportive … they would just say yeah, go for it’ (P7, L115–116). One teacher talked about a key figure in the maths department at her school, who was influential in her early career development:

He is someone who expects faculty members in the math department to not sit still in terms of what they learn, and he’s always fostering creative thought and fostering the idea that we can inspire mathematical curiosity in students. He is very encouraging; he’s got a great network of folks really in an international arena. (P4, L205–209)

These examples highlight a second dimension in having a supportive culture, which was the encouragement towards a reflective mindset that promoted continuous professional growth and improvement. Participants reported developing such a mindset if they had spent their early years (as a teacher) in a school that promoted experimentation and reflection among the faculty.

The second dimension of this theme focused on participants’ acknowledgement of their teaching communities outside of the teachers’ respective schools. One teacher talked about an ad-hoc support community he developed with friends from his pre-service programme: ‘We helped one another survive our first year of teaching, propped one another up, and clued each other into professional development opportunities’ (P8, L12–13). Another teacher referenced an NSF-sponsored programme, in which she was mentored by professional scientists who really bolstered her sense of confidence as a teacher leader:

the professors seemed to see something in me that I didn’t know that was there, and theyeventually became mentors and encouraged me to come back a second year, and I wasable to bring a team of teachers with me from my school this time. (P10, L40–42)

In both dimensions, participants cited relevant others, both internal and external to their teaching context, that nurtured and nourished their development as master teachers and teacher leaders.

Networks and opportunities

Approximately one-fourth (n= 62, 27%) of teachers described the role of networks in facilitating PD opportunities that often led to more opportunities and larger networks. In most instances, teachers described a specific relationship, or a specific person, who served as a catalyst for future PD opportunities. For the maths teacher above, that person was her mentor who happened to be a national figure in mathematics education. Her mentor’s contacts opened up PD opportunities for her that she may not have had otherwise. Most of AEF participants reported finding out about the programme through a personal contact; often that contact was an AEF alumnus. Participants related how being an AEF led to a substantial increase in their professional networks, which opened up new professional development opportunities. Said one teacher:

‘[AEF] was a game changer and it just opened all these doors … the ability to present at conferences, internationally … to sort of get the gospel out of STEM education’ (P2, L156–158). The reliance on personal networking (rather than professional networking) as seen with the AEF example exemplifies the piecemeal nature of American pathways of PD for STEM teachers. Had that AEF alumnus not been in the participant’s extant networking circle, they may have never known of this opportunity that afforded them the preparation and validation to expand their professional networks both vertically (to other teachers) and horizontally (to practitioner and researcher audiences). This observation of preparation and validation is supported by participants who spoke about leveraging their networks to achieve professional goals: ‘the size of my network increased … exponentially. So, it’s the size of the network that increases … the ability to activate parts of your network to achieve certain goals’ (P7, L156–158). That same participant later explained how he employed his professional network for help with grant-writing. Grant writing is arguably an atypical activity to classroom teachers and requires mastery of STEM content, superb written communication skills, and coordinating efforts within collaborative teams (as outcome of his networking activities). The final type of opportunity consistent throughout the interviews was having a prior authentic experience in STEM, such as: being an undergraduate STEM major, taking graduate coursework in STEM, working in a laboratory, participating in a Research Experience for Teachers (RET) programme, or publishing papers from STEM research. One teacher, a second-career teacher who had been a bench biologist, talked about how that experience primed him to create a biotechnology programme:

I was able to get into the ground floor of this brand-new STEM focused high school …

[it was] a very perfect position, because … I had already had eight years of these wet labskills under my belt, so that was a natural fit for me (P2, L21–23).

From these experiences, many participants leveraged what they gained from their networks and the opportunities they afforded to manifest additional opportunities for themselves and their students, establishing a positive feedback loop.

Motivation

Participants attributed motivation (n= 42, 18%) as a factor that promoted their development as a STEM master teacher leader. Within the motivation theme, subthemes of altruism, service, and a commitment to students were central to a STEM master teacher’s ethos. The first example of this theme was sourced from a computer science teacher with 20 years of teaching service. They shared that prior to the national emphasis on coding that: ‘… it’s changing now, but historically if you’re a computer science teacher, you did it against all odds. Nobody asked you … you had to sit there and say … I’m going to go out and find out how to do it’ (P5, L430–434). That same teacher later described how a self-induced pedagogical shift, occurring early in her career, was a formative experience that aided her later in figuring out how to be an effective computer science teacher:

The biggest change I made in the classroom is when I first started teaching, I was doing the [same] old … lecturing, until one day I found that I was asleep doing it. I started working more on project based learning and … melded the two of my classes [computer science and journalism] and came up with a [new teaching] model. (P5, L70–77)

In reflecting on her practice, she realised the importance of making changes and felt motivated and empowered to make those changes. In part, some of the motivational aspects reported stemmed from wanting to know how to best serve their STEM students. This was evident from another participant who shared the importance of a having a student-centred focus and how that focus informed her decision-making in the classroom:

I’m trying to change all the time, but I always stop and talk to kids … even just this year, I learned something from a student because she thought about something very, very differently. I’ve been teaching a long time and never heard anybody talk about this concept in this way, and she was – It was correct … that to me is what ultimately makes you a master teacher is to keep your eyeballs on the students. (P4, L560–565)

In becoming a STEM master teacher, participants described how they could gain additional knowledge and skills beyond the purview of the classroom to grow in their leadership skills. One teacher, who was enrolled in a PhD programme, described the reasoning behind their pursuit of higher education; they believed that STEM master teachers should be actively seeking avenues to grow and share their knowledge with other STEM teachers:

it would be really good as master teachers to be able to share the knowledge that you’ve learned and be able to contribute to the growing literature … share this [knowledge] with others for the ultimate goal, which is becoming a positive contributor to society. (P3, L360–364)

Notably, participants’ motivation to engage in PD activities, especially outside of the classroom, evoked among them a sense of taking risks. Evidence of risk-taking was noted in starting self-initiated projects (e.g. grant writing) and seeking out non-compulsory opportunities to grow as a teacher leader (e.g. developing and delivering PD for teachers). Notably, engaging in risk was more common amongst the AEF respondents than PAEMST, which may be an artefact that acceptance and completion of the AEF requires fellows to live in Washington, D.C. and perform a task that is not classroom teaching (e.g. serving as congressional staffer or agency analyst) yet still focused on K-12 STEM education. One teacher remembered how their AEF experienced pushed them out of their classroom-based comfort zone and required them to draw upon a prerequisite level of internal fortitude in order to be successful in their new role:

For most fellows, that we’re all very different, but in some ways we’re also risk takers, and in that sense we’re all kind of the same because the fellowship requires you to take a lot of risks. So, it takes a certain kind of person to take that leap. (P7, L420–425)

This risk involved leaving the classroom and their community to apply their garnered (master) teacher expertise within a new context, which allowed them to grow further in their leadership skills.

Luck

Luck as a theme (n= 25, 11%) had been previously mentioned (by Participant 7) and played a key role in participants’ teaching and leadership trajectories. This teacher talked about the significance of his timing with respect to hiring:

Because we were a new programme, everybody wanted to work with us. Everybody wanted to give us things, and have us try new things out … so we became this model school … [I was] just really fortunate to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right skillset. (P2, L35–41)

Other teachers made similar comments about the role of luck and timing in their careers, either being in the right place at the right time or knowing the right person. Said one teacher: ‘… I was pretty lucky I think to get on board after folks had had 15 years to establish the [department] culture, and then I got to jump on the coattails’ (P4, L175–176). Multiple AEF participants identified that purely fortuitous circumstances were what initially informed them of the AEF’s existence, a criticism also found in an AEF programme evaluation (Gareis et al. 2011).

Another facet of luck related to privilege; participants recognised having access to resources, including time, enabled them to pursue meaningful PD opportunities. One teacher worked at a school that had received an NSF grant to write their own textbook and the royalties the school made from the sale of that book paid for their travel to professional conferences (P4, L64–66). Another teacher talked about participating an external (to the district) PD experience that was fully funded: ‘… if that experience had costed my district a dime, it never would have happened’ (P10, L216–218). It is worth noting that administrative supports, referenced in the culture/community theme, were too cited a form of privilege (P9, L51–52).

Reinforcing beliefs

The final theme related to how teachers’ reinforcing beliefs (i.e. validation, confidence and affirmation of their teacher identities) influenced their master teacher leadership trajectories (n= 19, 8%). Some teachers described the importance of validating experiences as the ‘external validation [that] helped take the edge off that intense self-criticism: after National Boards, the Presidential Award, and the Einstein Fellowship, I felt that, you know maybe I am doing something right’ (P8, L79–80) and for others how their ‘principal saw me as a STEM education leader, but I never really saw myself as a [leader] … It didn’t dawn on me that I was a STEM educator and good one until having that validation of getting the fellowship’ (P10, L391–396).

Validating experiences were also linked to increased confidence and a sense of empowerment and affirming identity. For example:

My development as a master teacher is how I grew confident enough to become a teacher leader, something I would not have predicted early on in my career … I had a hand in crafting a national K-12 ed policy: [giving me a] huge boost of confidence and sense of empowerment as a result of that experience. (P8, L31–34, L120–121)

Not only were validating experiences contributing to participants’ confidence and empowerment but also to the individual’s and/or the collective’s sense of a teacher-centred identity. This dual identify amplified their networking and leadership skills:

I met other K-12 STEM teachers who thought like me, not angry about teaching and administration, but rather wanting to be change agents in their schools and communities. This network became important to me, not only to keep me motivated in my goals of teacher leadership, but also as community of support and teacher leader expertise [with] mentoring. It was here [how] I learned how to receive and conduct good professional development and share best practice. (P9, L47–50)

These reinforcing beliefs provided participants a means to have a greater impact. For example, referencing the AEF as ‘more [than] a confidence booster … [and] having this huge network of … teachers to connect with … knowing that you’re a part of this esteemed group that gives you access to so many more teachers to make a grander impact is really valuable’ (P10, L540–544).

The second aim of IPA is to illuminate shared and disparate lived experiences among those who have experienced the same phenomenon. Table 2 provides similarities of lived experiences among participants and Table 3 displays differences found among the five themes.

Table 3. Chi-square analyses of summary coding results by recognition programme, STEM discipline, gender, and race/ethnicity

Category	Observed Cell Totals (Expected Cell Totals) [Chi Square statistic]
	Theme 1	Theme 2	Theme 3	Theme 4	Theme 5	Row Totals		Chi-Square statistic	p-value
Recognition Programme								2.9478	0.584
AEF	46 (45.61) [0.00]	34 (35.35) [0.05]	27 (23.95) [0.39]	15 (14.25) [0.04]	8 (10.83) [0.74]	130
PAEMST (or both)	34 (34.39) [0.00]	28 (26.65) [0.07]	15 (18.05) [0.52]	10 (10.75) [0.05]	11 (8.17) [0.98]	98
STEM Discipline								11.7725	0.020*
Science	41 (44.21) [0.23]	39 (34.26) [0.03]	23 (23.21) [0.00]	8 (13.82) [2.45]	15 (10.50) [1.93]	126
Maths	39 (35.79) [0.29]	23 (27.74) [0.81]	19 (18.79) [0.00]	17 (11.18) [3.02]	4 (8.50) [2.38]	102
Gender								0.9917	0.911
Male	31 (33.68) [0.21]	27 (26.11) [0.03]	20 (17.68) [0.30]	10 (10.53) [0.03]	8 (8.00) [0.00]	96
Female	49 (46.32) [0.16]	35 (35.89) [0.02]	22 (24.32) [0.22]	15 (14.47) [0.02]	11 (11) [0.00]	132
Race/Ethnicity								7.3299	0.120
White	50 (47.72) [0.11]	37 (36.98) [0.00]	24 (25.05) [0.04]	10 (14.91) [1.62]	15 (11.33) [1.19]	136
Non- white	30 (32.28) [0.16]	25 (25.02) [0.00]	18 (16.95) [0.07]	15 (10.09) [2.39]	4 (7.67) [1.75]	92

Chi-Square Test: Alpha 2-tailed, * p < 0.05.

Chi-square analyses found only one significant result among participants’ responses across the identified themes related to the participant’s STEM discipline (X² (4, N = 228) = 11.77, p < 0.05), indicating there were greater opportunities for master teacher leadership among science teachers compared to mathematics teachers. One mathematics teacher said:

I didn’t have, myself, any mentors or coaching after my first year of teaching, so I didn’t have anyone else to come watch me and give me advice. I had to figure it out on my own, which I think really slowed down my improvement (P6, L175–178).

Their concern was validated by another mathematics teacher, when she spoke about her experiences mentoring new maths teachers as ‘they’re just trying to get their feet underneath them in terms of managing classroom stuff and preparing classes … [I] help them think through a lab or a maths activity’ (P4, L365–370). Although a lack of support was not unique among maths teachers as compared to science teachers sampled, it is worth noting that there were significantly more reports of mastery and leadership (e.g. building, supports, and opportunities) among the four themes of support, access, motivation, and luck from teachers of science than teachers of mathematics. Notably, reinforcing beliefs were not mentioned among the maths teachers sampled.

Discussion

This study examined 10 nationally recognised K-12 STEM teacher leaders’ lived experiences to explore commonalities and differences in their professional development towards STEM master teacher leader status. Findings provided an understanding of how K-12 STEM master teacher leaders emerge from across the U.S., which were grounded within the conceptual framing posited by Hunzicker (2017) for unsystematic in-service teacher leadership development. We found five themes common to their professional development. First was the importance of a strong school culture and STEM community, such they could grow their teaching and leadership skills. Specifically, having the ability to engage in continuous improvement and reflective practices while being supported, and not stymied, by their school community. This was followed thematically by access to professional and opportunities, either through rich prior experiences in STEM or through other opportunities to develop professionally as a K-12 STEM educator and leader. Next, motivation sourced either intrinsically or extrinsically from students helped bolster their careers. Interestingly, luck was the fourth theme in which participants found themselves in a professional context or circle that afforded them opportunities in professional growth. Last, reinforcing beliefs (validation, confidence, and affirmation) bolstered participants’ master teacher leader development in STEM.

To frame this discussion, we return to the comparative study by Darling-Hammond (2017), to explore disparate policies and practices in U.S. teacher education. Given that in-service PD is the last and longest stage of teacher education, there are mirrored experiences from what was reported by participants in this study (as common and beneficial experiences in K-12 STEM teacher leadership development) and what other countries explicitly provide for teacher PD. First, regarding school culture, both teachers in Finland and Singapore are given a great deal of support for advancing their teaching and professional practice within their teaching location. Teachers are provided time and avenues for reflective decision-making using data, encouraged to visit other school communities to experience different contexts and share best practices. We find that Canada’s intentional incorporation of peer observation and coaching feeds into the altruistic nature of teaching we found in his study; teachers in Singapore are even compensated for their desire and service as mentor, coach, or specialist. Internationally, efforts to connect teachers are not through luck; Finland has provided an immense financial investment in teacher professional networks ensuring teachers are connected and supported. This is affirmed in research by Baker‐Doyle and Yoon (2011) who found teachers in the U.S. did not organically build teacher networks, suggesting the importance of nationally led efforts to create connections. Further, in motivating teachers with advanced roles in curriculum and assessment, this validates the worth of Finnish teachers as professionals, cultivating reinforcing beliefs of their ability in their career. Darling-Hammond added that Finnish teachers receive more pay and are encouraged to pursue doctoral degrees through their growth ladder, both of which were also cited as reasons that AEF alumni left classroom teaching after their fellowship year (Gareis et al. 2011). She also credited Singapore for having a leadership-based career ladder for teachers, within and outside the classroom. She reported that Australia and Canada have mechanisms for teacher leaders to interface with policy-makers to demonstrate and share their teaching expertise and situated knowledge, such to advance education within their respective countries. In sum, she found that by ‘enabling [a] teacher to continue to grow, learn and be excited about their work depends on both ongoing high-quality learning opportunities and career opportunities that enable them to share their expertise in a variety of ways’ (p. 303). Like those we sampled, when afforded empowering environments, validating systems, institutionalised investments, and explicit pathways to engage in and support their professional growth, teachers were able to professionally develop into STEM master teacher leaders. The present research helps to tangibly operationalise the Smylie and Eckert (2018) conceptual model of teacher leadership by building capacity and practices evidences how reinforcing beliefs propels teachers into a cyclical nature of seeking out more ‘activities and experiences that promote them’ (p. 562).

Overall the themes do align, at least in part, with scholarship on effective PD systems in international contexts (e.g. Darling-Hammond 2017). These teachers did experience supportive communities early in their careers, akin to the induction/mentoring systems of Singapore and Canada. In many cases, teachers cited supportive mentors and school cultures that supported their early career development. Being immersed in a positive school culture is important, as it aligns with positive cultural perceptions of educators in countries like Finland, which suggests that local school culture can act as a bulwark against larger, negative cultural messages about teachers. Within such a positive and reinforcing environment, the sampled teachers became exemplary from their access to rich PD opportunities, particularly in leadership, as they progressed in the profession akin to their international peers (like Singapore).

The chi-squared analysis demonstrated uniformity in experience across most categories, including both programme type and gender. The sole category of significant difference was among maths and science teachers. In each of the five themes, teachers of mathematics reported fewer experiences in their professional development towards teacher-leadership, with no reinforcing beliefs discussed when compared to teachers of science sampled. Past president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Dr Linda Gojak has stated that mathematics is the last letter and the forgotten quarter of K-12 STEM education (StemCON 2014). This sentiment may extend to leadership as well, provided that most reform efforts in the U.S. are targeted towards mathematics teachers such to fill vacant positions (Ingersoll and Perda 2010) and stem their high levels of attrition (Keigher 2010, Ingersoll et al. 2012). With so much attention on leadership at the beginning of the mathematics teacher pipeline (Martin and Gobstein 2015) and focusing solely on instructional leadership (Green and Kent 2016), these strategies may have led to a dearth of leadership opportunities later in maths teachers’ careers and those available outside of the classroom.

Conclusion

The goal of this interpretive phenomenological study was to identify themes that characterised the career pathways of 10 K-12 STEM teacher leaders in the U.S. The originality of this study stemmed from the largely absent and incoherent American PD system for teachers and how some persist to receive national recognition. Their lived experiences offer examples to how STEM teachers have thrived in the profession despite an abject lack of national and institutional supports. Hence, research on this population of nationally recognised STEM teachers, at the pinnacle of their professional performance, offers insights into what a PD system should provide and when to support STEM master teacher leader development (Galosy et al. 2017, Velasco et al. 2021).

Given the highly situated nature of teacher leadership to the teaching environment, which includes colleagues, students, and context (Smith et al. 2017), it is understandable that the primary themes for advancing teacher PD pathways were cited within the context of school; teachers’ motivations to be a better teacher for his/her students as well as wanting access to means to better support and help other teachers (altruism). This research suggests these nascent supports, at the school level, were vital in establishing career pathways for STEM master teacher leaders. There must be greater emphasis on schools to provide foundational opportunities for teachers of STEM from which to grow their careers. Whereas luck and the associated privileges of being at the right place, at the right time, with the right persons, were particularly salient. Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that teachers who excel, in spite of their surroundings, experience some degree of luck, privilege, and timing. However, the presence of luck as a common theme amongst these sampled teachers raises the question of how many other STEM teachers have the capacity to be ‘lucky enough’ to become master teacher leaders. The socially constructed (versus scientific) notion of luck suggests inequity (Gromet et al. 2015), as ‘luck gives systematically different outcomes for individuals with different starting points. This is important in explaining different probabilities of ruin and exposure to risk among the rich and the poor’ (Coram 1998, p. 129). In the findings of this study, luck was not seemingly random; rather their ‘luck’ stemmed from a specific sequence of events and building generative experiences towards master teacher leader status. We found this ‘luck’ began from the school in which participants initially chose to teach (with a supportive culture and colleagues) and the STEM subject they taught (given that science teachers had significantly more opportunities than mathematics teachers). These events led to specific networks and the opportunities therein, all the while fostering their motivation, validation, and confidence to seek out more PD in master teaching and leadership (i.e. professional development), leading to their national recognition. This conclusion is further supported by the fact that participants reported that an unsupportive local school culture and discouraging colleagues had directly stymied their development in becoming a STEM master teacher leader. Barth (2001) had described that the ‘greatest obstacle to their [teacher] leadership comes from colleagues …’ and if teachers should persist in their leadership purists, ‘their reward is the disapprobation of fellow teachers and administrators, who wield an immense power to extinguish a teacher’s involvement in school leadership’ (p. 446). He goes on to opine that such environments make teachers risk averse, as ‘in the world of teacher leadership, danger abounds … [as] ours is a cautious profession, top to bottom. To distinguish – or even to appear to distinguish – oneself from the rest places the teacher at risk’ (p. 446). Despite this article being penned 20 years ago, the lack of trust remains, preventing teachers from growing into leaders and professionals (Tschannen-Moran 2009, Kilinc et al. 2015). Given the wide variation of schools within states and districts, national leadership is essential to pave and maintain avenues for teacher PD in STEM education within the U.S.

The findings from these sampled STEM master teacher leaders’ experiences provide a blueprint for the construction of PD, among teachers of STEM, to obtain master teacher and teacher leader status. Given the significant difference between teachers of science and mathematics in their career trajectories suggests a larger disparity in opportunities among STEM teachers, which warrants further research. Notably, not every master teacher wins the PAEMST or leader leaders receive an AEF, yet the assembling and sequencing of PD experiences from awardees may provide pathways for targeted PD opportunities. Further research warrants exploration of more and differently identified K-12 STEM teacher leaders to ascertain how their professional experiences reflect or refute those within this study, especially in regard to gender and STEM discipline taught. These efforts will garner a better understanding of how uneven experiences stymie the agentic actions of teachers pursuing STEM master teacher leadership pathways.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).