Secondary Master STEM

Teachers’ Tensions with

Transitioning to Remote
Instruction
JEFF RADLOFF, JEFFREY.RADLOFF@CORTLAND.EDU
DOMINICK FANTACONE, DOMINICK.FANTACONE@CORTLAND.EDU
ANGELA PAGANO, ANGELA.PAGANO@CORTLAND.EDU

This material is based upon work supported by the Office of Naval Research, Grant # N000141812735
Transitioning to Remote STEM
• As integrated STEM instruction steadily expands into remote learning
environments, it is important to establish pedagogical best practices that
address the novel challenges associated with remote instruction
• Underpinning these practices is an understanding of how experienced STEM
teachers adapt or leverage their existing pedagogy for remote instruction, as
well as how to best support them as they make these shifts
• In part, this means identifying what tensions, or challenges, that they face
when doing so
Purpose of the study
The current study explores what tensions secondary master STEM teachers (>7yrs
STEM teaching) faced when adapting their instruction for remote STEM teaching.
The purpose of this study is to:

1) To identify and compare teachers’ tensions when adapting their instruction for
remote STEM teaching

2) To characterize these tensions relative to effective in-person STEM instruction

Guiding Research Questions
1. What perceived challenges, or tensions, do
experienced STEM teachers face when transitioning
to remote integrated science teaching
environments?

2. How do these data provide entry points into

meaningful changes to teacher education and
professional development centered on transitioning
to remote science teaching?
Remote STEM Instruction
The prevalence of remote K-16 STEM education continues to increase over time (Levin &
Tsybulsky, 2017), accelerated recently as a result of the pandemic (Neimi, 2020)

However, related professional learning opportunities are lacking (Moore-Adams et al.,

2016), teachers are often placed into online teaching roles without prior training (Dede et
al., 2016), and best practices are still being established (Chen et al., 2018)

While research appears to generally suggest the use of collaborative and active learning
strategies that focus on increasing student access and engagement online (e.g., Keaton &
Gilbert, 2020), more needs to be understood, including about teachers’ tensions with
moving to remote settings
Theoretical Framework: Teacher Tensions
▪ Research has identified various intersecting teacher tensions that surround the
conceptual, pedagogical, cultural, and political aspects of adopting novel science
instruction (Braaten & Sheth, 2017; Radloff & Capobianco, 2019; Windschitl et al.,
2002)
Type Description Example
Teachers questioning whether they are
Deal with epistemic issues pertaining to what
Conceptual teaching in 'the right way' to foster remote
counts as learning and knowledge
learning
Emphasize the navigation of multiple
instructional goals or strategies including Teachers learning to facilitate learning using
Pedagogical
learning to facilitate student engagement with remote learning tools
classroom activities

Encompass recognizing and rectifying Teachers’ gaining self-awareness about their

Cultural changing (teacher and student) roles and new remote teaching roles and expectations
procedures as innovative pedagogy is adopted within remote settings

Teachers grappling with the directions that a

Focus on teacher accountability and
Political teacher gets from their school about how to
institutional conflicts
teach science remotely
Context of the study
• The Advancing Naval STEM Teacher Education (ANSTE) project is a multi-year STEM
targeted partnership between SUNY Cortland and the NYS Master Teacher program
designed to help improve secondary students’ STEM learning and exposure to Naval
STEM careers
• The ANSTE partnership includes:
• Visiting Naval Undersea Warfare Center-Newport, RI to learn about Naval STEM
from researchers
• Teacher involvement in ongoing STEM professional development
• Teachers’ development and implementation of Naval STEM tasks for their own
classrooms
Participants of the study
• Participants in this study included in-service secondary
‘master’ STEM teachers (n = 15; >7 years STEM teaching)
who participated in all ANSTE research and professional
learning activities and regularly utilized integrated STEM
teaching instruction in their own classrooms
• Teachers identified themselves as either White females
(60%) or White males (40%) who worked in rural (40%),
suburban (53%), or urban (7%) school settings

• Participants had not received any previous professional

development related to remote STEM teaching
Data Collection and Analysis
• Data was collected using survey methods (Creswell & Creswell, 2017)
via a team-developed survey made up of 21 open-ended, multiple
choice, and Likert-style questions aimed at understanding teachers’
perceived tensions with transitioning to remote STEM teaching
• Surveys were implemented during the spring 2020 academic
semester (scan QR code)
• Responses were analyzed using simple statistics and open coding with
an emphasis on teachers’ adaptations when moving to remote STEM
settings (Creswell & Creswell, 2017)
 Results: STEM teachers’ tensions
Cultural:
“I have never been a huge user of tech in my
class...I enjoy the in-person collaboration and
discussion...this was a change from the regular
way of teaching” (Brenda, MS Math)
18%
Conceptual
37% “I faced a lack of time to give deep and
Pedagogical meaningful feedback and...frustration at not
Political having ‘live’ students to interact with and gauge
their understanding” (Rachel, HS Biology)
33%
Cultural
“Our biggest challenge was getting students to
12% engage [online]. We also had the extra challenge
of getting laptops and hot spots to our students. I
work in a district with high poverty” (Mike, HS
STEM)
 Results: STEM teachers’ tensions
Pedagogical:
“The strategy of my course is to have a series of
project-based investigations. Switching to online
instruction meant that...everything had to be
reinvented and accessible on devices from
18%
Conceptual phones to Chromebooks” (Beth, HS Physics)
37% Pedagogical
“Finding ways to make once interactive hands-
Political on lessons the same for diverse in-home
33% situations and user experiences was a struggle”
Cultural
(Caroline, MS Biology)
12%
“I was a hands-on, inquiry-based teacher, and I
find it difficult to be able to implement those
things online” (Lee, HS Physics)
 Results: STEM teachers’ tensions
Conceptual:
“It was hard to know if students did not
understand what I was preparing for them or if
they just were not connecting online at all”
(Terri, MS Math)
18%
Conceptual
37% Pedagogical “Without face-to-face meetings, it was very
difficult to truly assess student understanding...it
Political was difficult to figure out how to address this
33% and what to do next” (Greg, HS Biology)
Cultural

12% “I’m struggling with how to design activities

and submissions to catch and correct errors in
progress” (Diana, HS Engineering)
 Results: STEM teachers’ tensions
Political:
“We were...told to streamline our standards
and...given time constraints on when we could
assign work and require students to be online
[synchronously]” (Gail, MS Biology)
18%
Conceptual
37% “Our district really left it up to the teachers.
Pedagogical They did very little micro-managing other than
to say: Make sure your education is
Political equitable...we were supposed to teach nothing
33% new and only provide paper packets” (Hillary,
Cultural
HS Biology)
12%
“We were told to cover only ‘essential’
standards - which we had to choose” (Kathy, HS
Biology)
Discussion
•Findings revealed that the master teachers faced a range of intersecting
tensions when moving to remote STEM settings

•While similar to those experienced during in-person STEM instruction (e.g.,

Braaten & Sheth, 2017), the majority were unique to remote settings

•Teachers majorly struggled with translating authentic, hands-on explorations

for remote use, digital inequities, and how to formatively assess their students
in the absence of real-time conversations
Implications/Conclusions
• By identifying and characterizing master teachers’ tensions with transitioning to
remote STEM teaching, we aim to illuminate teachers’ own experiences as they can
inform and improve upon existing teacher education and professional development

• Secondary in-service teachers (of all levels of experience) need professional

learning that supports them in reimagining how current instructional strategies may
translate into remote settings

• Professional learning should leverage the knowledge and skills STEM educators
already have, and challenges they face to promote adaptiveness across a range of
modalities (in-person, hybrid, remote, online), resource accessibility (technology,
internet, kits), and learning spaces (virtual classrooms, students’ own homes)
Questions?
Jeffrey Radloff Jeffrey.Radloff@cortland.edu

Dominick Fantacone Dominick.Fantacone@cortland.edu

Angela Pagano Angela.Pagano@cortland.edu