The authors synthesize the findings of a research project to extend what is known about educative curriculum materials, or curriculum materials designed with the intent of supporting teacher learning as well as student learning. Drawing on a three-year program of research, including several close observational case studies and a large-scale quasi-experiment, the authors demonstrate how teachers use curriculum materials, what evidence there is of teachers’ uptake of ideas in educative curriculum materials, and what evidence there is of impact on teacher and/or student knowledge. These findings are situated in the literature, and the authors discuss how, taken together, the findings suggest design principles for educative curriculum materials. The authors close with implications for research.

In this article, the authors argue for a design process in the development of educative curriculum materials that is theoretically and empirically driven. Using a designbased research approach, they describe their design process for incorporating educative features intended to promote teacher learning into existing, high-quality curriculum materials. The process entails analyzing a set of curriculum materials, characterizing students’ opportunities to learn through teachers’ enactment of the curriculum materials, and assessing students’ learning outcomes. The authors then describe ways in which both theoretical perspectives and empirical data guided their design, development, and refinement process for educative features to enhance the curriculum materials, and give examples of the resulting features. Given the current policy environment in which there are heightened expectations for science teaching at the elementary level, the authors argue that testing and refining processes for developing curricular supports for teachers is of paramount importance. While the illustrations provided focus on science curriculum materials and instruction, the authors argue that the principles and processes applied generalize to the design of educative features across subject-matter areas.

New reform documents underscore the importance of learning both the practices and content of science. This integration of practices and content requires sophisticated teaching that does not often happen in elementary classrooms. Educative curriculum materials—materials explicitly designed to support teacher and student learning—have been posited as a way to support teachers to achieve these ambitious goals, yet little is known about how elementary teachers actually use educative curriculum materials in their interactions with students. To address this gap, we used qualitative case study methods drawing mainly on videorecords of the enactments of lessons and teacher interviews to investigate how two fourth‐grade teachers enacted a curriculum unit enhanced with educative features. Evidence of language and teaching moves promoted by the educative features was observed in the teachers' enactments. Findings suggest that variation existed in the teacher–curriculum interactions within and across teachers and across the suite of educative features. The teachers drew on educative features that contained representations of teacher and student work to envision possibilities for teaching the lesson while they used other features for identifying main ideas for the lesson. Implications for curriculum developers and teacher educators are discussed based on the patterns found in the teachers' use of the educative curriculum materials. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 53: 422–449, 2016

The purpose of this study was to identify evidence in student work of teachers' uptake of educative features in educative curriculum materials. These are features in curriculum materials designed with the specific intent of supporting teacher learning and enactment. This study was prompted by previous work on educative curriculum materials and the need to determine how teachers' use of educative curriculum materials can influence student learning. Student work from two fourth-grade teachers' enactment of an electric circuits unit was analyzed for evidence of teachers' uptake of educative features, which included characteristics of quality for particular science practices. Findings from the student work revealed that the teachers used many of the supports in the educative curriculum materials, especially those that could be used directly with students. The student work also reflected characteristics of high-quality science practices, which were only supported within the educative features. This study supports and extends other work related to how teachers' use of educative curriculum materials may influence student learning and has implications for supporting teachers' productive engagement in teaching that supports the integration of science content and scientific practices, as emphasized in current reform efforts. # 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 52: 2015

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