Understanding how facilitators adapt to needs of STEM faculty in online learning communities: a case study.

Background: Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs) and Faculty Online Learning Communities (FOLCs) are ways to support STEM faculty implementing research-based curricula. In these communities, faculty facilitators take on the role of sharing expertise and promoting discussion. However, as members gain more experience, their needs change from addressing logistical to pedagogical issues. Hence, facilitators need to change their practices in response. However, there is little research on the mechanisms of faculty facilitator change. In this article, we provide a case study of a specific STEM FOLC facilitator and demonstrate the usefulness of a teacher change model to investigate facilitator change. Results: Guided by our adaptation of the Conclusions: Our findings suggest that the IMPG can be fruitfully adapted to study facilitator change. A diagrammatic representation of the IMPG provides a description the types of change the case facilitator experienced and the factors that supported those changes. We discuss how the methodology used to analyze facilitator actions in FOLC group meetings may be useful to study other types of professional growth. Finally, because our analytical model allowed us to identify mechanisms of facilitator change, we describe the implications and provide suggestions to support facilitators in other faculty community groups. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40594-022-00371-x.