Science and Mathematics Education Commons^™

From Becoming To Being: How Stem Teachers Develop Leadership Identities, Kelsey Quaisley, Wendy M. Smith, Brett A. Criswell, Rachel Funk, Anna Hutchinson

Secondary Education Faculty Publications

The development of STEM teacher leadership identity empowers K-12 teachers to make changes to improve teaching and learning. Identity development might not be productively supported in all school settings, however. Hence, external professional development programs should offer opportunities to supplement this identity development. We construct and propose a Can't-to-Becoming-to-Being model to describe STEM teacher leadership identity development as a progression of stages from weak to strong identity. Using interview data over two points in time with 127 STEM teacher leaders, we illustrate four stages of development: Can't, Can, Should, and Being. We also elucidate the conditions that teachers identify as …