A New “Class” of Undergraduate Professors: Examining Teaching Beliefs and Practices of Science Faculty With Education Specialties

Within higher education, science departments have been making efforts to place more emphasis on improving discipline-specific teaching and learning. One such shift is the increased hiring of science faculty with educational specialties (SFES). Although SFES have begun to multiply in number, there is little published on their teaching ideologies and classroom practices and how they relate to national pedagogical reform efforts. This article highlights the teaching beliefs and classroom practices of a sample of SFES to promote the importance of understanding these attributes in faculty embedded within disciplinary departments involved in improving science teaching and learning. We found that the teaching beliefs of SFES in the sample were consistent with student-centered pedagogies, and their classroom practices were more transitional in nature. Research has shown that alignment of teaching beliefs with practices is vital to the implementation of student-centered teaching and learning.