Kim Pryor: Teacher Training: Does it Translate?

Faculty socialization and development occurs before and during the early career, as faculty gain a sense of identity and belonging in academia. Despite the modern professor wearing many hats, socialization processes often deprioritize teaching development. Still, early-career faculty learn to teach because they must, and do so through myriad means in sometimes divergent contexts: their graduate, other early-career and employing institutions. They also approach teaching from increasingly diverse backgrounds and encounter increasingly diverse students. Colliding faculty and student diversity and lacking teaching development suggests possible tension and stress but also growth as faculty navigate teaching in the early career. Yet the lived process of teaching development is largely neglected in socialization research. This study addresses how early-career faculty are shaped as teachers within an increasingly diverse higher education context. Using interview and document data from faculty at one public 4-year research institution, this qualitative case study probes how early-career faculty conceptualize teaching identity, how they experience teaching development and how these experiences contribute to their development. In addressing these questions, this study elucidates teaching development experiences and outcomes of early-career faculty working at diverse institutions.