This study aimed to explore Cooperative Learning theories and practice by examining the relationships among three aspects: Experience, Practice and Perceptions. The data were from interview records from eight science teachers. As a student-centered active pedagogical trend, cooperative learning has become part of one of the most effective and…

Uncertainties are inherent in education as learners encounter gaps in their awareness of topics, receive new information that potentially conflicts with prior understandings, and grapple with known unknowns in order to construct new knowledge. While researchers have shown that students productively struggling with problematized and uncertain…

As the adoption rate of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) continues to rise in the United States, there is an increasing need for the development of high-quality instructional materials that reflect NGSS and effectively prepare teachers for its implementation. The NGSS aim to foster an understanding of three interconnected dimensions in…

With the 2015 change in science standards to align more closely with the Next Generation Science Standards, as the district STEM coach, I saw a need for professional development that addressed the lack of understanding and skill needed to teach the Science and Engineering Practices, specifically the practice of Scientific Augmentation. This…

Despite reform efforts and calls to accept science as a primary subject in elementary school curriculum and instruction (NRC 2007, 2012), science is still often neglected, deprioritized, minimally taught, or taught through traditional methods where teachers and textbooks are the gatekeepers of knowledge (Banilower, 2019; Banilower et al., 2018;…

Research states that elementary educators do not possess the adequate pedagogical content knowledge necessary to teach science effectively (Baumgartner, 2010; Lewis, 2017) The purpose of this mixed method study that took place at a public land-grant university in a large metropolitan city in the southern area of the United States was to gather the…

Traditional science instruction typically follows an initiation- response-evaluation format and privileges curriculum reflective of Western, male, white, middle-class values, and knowledge which sometimes tends to exclude Black and Latinx students. This qualitative instrumental case study explored how a White male seventh-grade science teacher in…

Nebraska is committed to pursuing a new vision for science education based on "A Framework for K-12 Science Education" (NRC, 2012), that advocates for rigorous, high-quality science education for all students. Following an ambitious four year timeline, Nebraska is working to develop new assessments aligned to and designed for these…

This study explores how K-8 critically conscious dual-language science teachers (CCDLSTs) working with bilingual learners (BLs) practice their critical consciousness via the four tenets of dual-language education: ideological clarity, pedagogical perspective and clarity, access for all, and equitable spaces (IPAE). This study is informed by the…

Achieving widespread scientific literacy has been a longstanding goal of US science standards, requiring that students and teachers possess contemporary nature of science (NOS) conceptions. However, NOS conceptions are repeatedly found to be wide-ranging or 'naive', resulting in regular efforts by science education researchers to hone, or…

Limited research has been done on the implementation of experiential learning to align with science and engineering practices. This research project developed an instrumental case study to examine the efficacy of an experiential education framework for teaching and learning water science and engineering practices in the elementary science…

This dissertation looks at how responsiveness towards students' science ideas and teachers' understanding of responsive teaching provides opportunities for sensemaking and learning. For this study, I served as the primary science instructional coach for three upper elementary teachers at different schools for at least one school year. We engaged…

In 2013, California became one of the first states to adopt the rigorous Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). However, the current state of science instruction does not support the conceptual shifts of the NGSS, which call for consistent science instruction K-12, increased inquiry, subject integration, as well as science instruction that…

The purpose of the transcendental qualitative phenomenological research is to describe the characteristics and strategies of teachers who share the same experiences in teaching science, a non-assessed content, in a high-stakes assessment environment at the third and fourth grade levels. Teacher curriculum choices are dictated by the need to…

This quantitative study was designed to investigate if relationships existed between elementary science teachers' self-efficacy toward science teaching, schedule structure (self-contained or departmentalized), experience level of teachers, amount of time dedicated to science instruction, and student achievement on a standardized science…