This article reports on the results of a planning grant studying the effects of a highly rated curriculum unit on a diverse student population. The treatment was introduced to 1500 eighth grade students in five middle schools selected for their ethnic, linguistic, and socioeconomic diversity. Students were given pre‐, post‐, and delayed posttests on a Conservation of Matter Assessment and measures of motivation and engagement. This quasi‐experiment found statistically significant posttest results for achievement, basic learning engagement, and goal orientation. Analyses of disaggregated data showed that subgroups of students in the treatment condition outscored their comparison group peers (n = 1500) in achievement in all cases, except for students currently enrolled in ESOL. Analysis of video data of a diverse group of four students as the unit was enacted suggests that students entered a learning environment that permitted them to function in different, but consistent ways over time; that is, the frequency of students' manipulation of objects showed a different pattern of engagement for each of the four students compared with patterns of verbal responses such as the use of scientific terms. The results of this planning grant paved the way for a large study of the scale‐up of highly rated curriculum units. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 42: 912–946, 2005

This research is part of a study on scaling-up middle school science curriculum units in a large, diverse public school system. Chemistry That Applies (CTA), a guided inquiry unit based on conceptual change theory and highly rated according to the Project 2061 Curriculum Analysis, was implemented in five middle schools matched demographically with five comparison schools (N = 2,282 students). Eighth grade CTA students outscored their peers overall and when data were disaggregated, with small to medium effect sizes. Of particular interest are students with disabilities in general education science classrooms (n = 202 students with complete assessment records). Those who used CTA significantly outscored their comparison peers on the posttest, with a small to medium effect size.

Readers of the information age increasingly resort to “texts” that are stored, organized, and accessed electronically and rely on symbol systems other than alphanumeric. In schools, multimedia software and hypertexts are increasingly common documents from which students learn. This study sought to document instances of “high” literacy, literate thinking, among elementary school students as they worked with common computer software in the course of their normal school day. Seven distinct forms of engagement emerged to categorize students' work, and these were arranged in order of complexity: disengagement, unsystematic engagement, frustrated engagement, structure-dependent engagement, self-regulated interest, critical engagement, and literate thinking. The taxonomy of student engagement is described with examples. It clarifies other researchers' conceptualizations of high literacy and engagement and integrates them with notions of intrinsic motivation, volition, and self-regulated learning. It also implies new ways for teachers to assess and scaffold student-software interactions to optimize student learning with electronic texts.

This article provides an extended, comprehensive example of how teachers, schools, districts, and external factors (e.g., parental pressure and policy mandates) shape curriculum research in the U.S. It retrospectively examines how three different middle school curriculum units were implemented and scaled‐up in a large, diverse school system. The curriculum materials were cognitively based, hands‐on, guided inquiry units; each focused on a different “big idea” in science. The units met some criteria for instructional strategies rated by the Project 2061 Curriculum Analysis. Using evidence‐based decisions, two of the units were found to be effective and equitable, and went to scale, but one was not effective. However, the course of scale‐up was also affected by a changing policy climate, and proceeded in unpredictable ways, with small scale effects not found at large scale, and experienced teachers less effective than inexperienced teachers. Four years after funding ended, none of the units were sustained within the school district. The interactions between the demands of the units and of the school district's policy environment suggests reasons why this occurred, despite evidence that two of the units were successful with diverse learners. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 49: 305–332, 2012

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