Enacting reform‐based science materials: The range of teacher enactments in reform classrooms

Abstract

To promote large-scale science education reform, developers must create innovations that teachers can use to learn and enact new practices. As part of an urban systemic reform effort, science materials were designed to reflect desired reforms and to support teacher thinking by addressing necessary content, pedagogy, and pedagogical content knowledge for teachers. The goal of this research was to describe teachers' enactments in comparison to reform as instantiated in the materials. Four middle school teachers' initial enactment of an inquiry-based science unit on force and motion were analyzed. Findings indicate two teachers' enactments were consistent with intentions and two teachers' enactments were not. However, enactment ratings for the first two were less reflective of curriculum intent when challenges were greatest, such as when teachers attempted to present challenging science ideas, respond to students' ideas, structure investigations, guide small-group discussions, or make adaptations. Overall, findings suggest that purposefully using materials with detailed lesson descriptions and specific, consistent supports for teacher thinking can help teachers with enactment. However, materials alone are not sufficient; reform efforts must include professional development and efforts to create systemic change in context and policy to support teacher learning and classroom enactment. ß 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 42: 2005 To promote goals established for student learning, reform efforts in science education have focused attention on classrooms and how teachers can improve their instructional practices. Reformers encourage teachers to use inquiry supported by use of technology tools to promote Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. More information about this work, including the curriculum materials ''Why do I need to wear a bike helmet?'' used in this study, can be obtained from our project's website

The development of preservice elementary teachers' curricular role identity for science teaching

“…Even though they did not perceive curriculum materials to be equally important tools for experienced teachers, they all suggested that curriculum materials were important supports for experienced teachers in two cases: when they were using those curriculum materials for the first time and when they were teaching new content. These findings reinforce the important role curriculum materials play in supporting beginning teachers' practice (Forbes & Davis, submitted for publication;Kauffman, Johnson, Kardos, Liu, & Peske, 2002;Valencia, Place, Martin, & Grossman, 2006), as well as for more experienced teachers in the context of curriculum-based science education reform Fishman & Krajcik, 2003;Roehrig & Kruse, 2005;Schneider et al, 2005).…”

“…While a substantial amount of research has focused on in-service teachers' use of science and mathematics curriculum materials (Collopy, 2003;Enyedy & Goldberg, 2004;Fishman, Marx, Best, & Tal, 2003;Lloyd, 1999;Pintó, 2004;Remillard, 1999;Remillard & Bryans, 2004;Roehrig & Kruse, 2005;Schneider et al, 2005), only recently has research begun to explore preservice elementary teachers' use of and learning from science curriculum materials (Davis, 2006;Dietz & Davis, in press;Schwarz et al, in press). The results presented here extend this research by examining preservice elementary teachers' relationships with science curriculum materials through the lens of identity.…”

Doing the project and learning the content: Designing project‐based science curricula for meaningful understanding

“…Also, it is important to note that we are combining scores across students at different grade levels. One additional caveat about our findings is that we must recognize that teachers sometimes use curricula in a manner different from that which curriculum designers intend (Schneider, Krajcik, & Blumenfeld, 2005). While in our present study all teachers received instruction about which curriculum activities addressed which design challenge, and all teachers reported doing these activities, we did not determine the extent to which teachers did these activities in a manner consistent with the intent of the curriculum design approach.…”

Professional Development for the Integration of Engineering in High School STEM Classrooms

“…However, even with professional development, studies have shown that teachers have difficulty using design-and inquiry-based practices (Schneider et al, 2005). For example, an intricate cognitive system of resolving and rationalizing mechanisms may allow teachers to believe they have incorporated reform practices without actually changing their core beliefs (Yerrick, Parke, & Nugent, 1998).…”

“…These integrative pedagogical skills represent a new and different way of teaching for most practicing STEM teachers and therefore require significant development and support. One promising strategy for supporting teachers in the integration of new pedagogical skills is a professional development system constructed around the use of aligned educative curriculum materials (Ball & Cohen, 1996;Schneider, Krajcik & Blumenfeld, 2005;Singer, Lotter, Feller, & Gates, 2011). Curriculum that is educative ''can offer concrete illustrations of the nature of student understanding important at a given point and how other teachers have reached this level'' (Ball & Cohen, 1996, p. 8).…”