How science teachers attend to key features of teaching scientific phenomena and the overlap with students' lives is the focus of this study. Our conceptual framework is informed by work on resource pedagogies, which examines how teachers build on students' language and stories of their lived experiences as a meaningful way to build content…

Higher-order Thinking Skills (HOTS) is significant for students and has to be trained and managed well by teachers. This study aims to describe the preparation of biology teachers in learning, to analyze the understanding of biology teachers about HOTS, and to examine the efforts of biology teachers in developing HOTS for high school students in…

Teachers often struggle to utilize reform-based teaching strategies in their first few years of teaching for many reasons (Ball, Thames & Phelps, Journal of Teacher Education 59, 389-407, 2008; Berlin & White, "International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education" 8, 97-115, 2010; Frykholm & Glasson, "School…

In 2013, California adopted the Next Generation Science Standards for California Public Schools, Kindergarten through Grade Twelve (CA NGSS), which set the stage for how science should be taught in every school throughout the state. Since the NGSS represent a change in how science instruction should be delivered, many teachers are now facing the…

In the Italian education system, secondary students (ages 14-19) are confronted with the foundations of quantum physics during the final term of scientific high school (pre-university year). The Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (acronym MIUR) has remarked its importance in the syllabus to address the high school exit…

Recruitment and retention concerns for teachers, particularly in rural school districts and in science, fill the daily news and research literature. The shortage of STEM workers is also another concern as well. Then why do nationally recognized secondary science teachers remain in rural schools with lower salaries, increased responsibilities…

High school physics teachers in the United States are often in a position of isolation, particularly in urban schools where access to physics is relatively limited. This study explored the issue of professional isolation and how it impacted 2 novice urban physics teachers. The a priori framework incorporated aspects of socialization and the…

The "Next Generation Science Standards" (NGSS Lead States 2013) lay out an ambitious agenda for students to simultaneously engage with disciplinary core ideas, crosscutting concepts, and scientific practices. This does not just mean new expectations for teaching; it also requires new formative assessments. In contrast to summative…

Although research and policy suggest science and mathematics teachers should attend to their student's thinking during instruction, our field has inadequately defined what that means in relation to our ultimate goals for the practice. Here I present a theoretical argument that, in making their definitions, researchers should leverage the ways…

Finding ways for all students to engage meaningfully with science and learn to use scientific knowledge and skills to identify and solve personal and community-based problems requires more than making changes to the curriculum students experience in schools. This article describes a methods course, part of a one-year masters level teacher…

Before we can effectively apply specific interventions through professional development, it is important to determine what is occurring in our high school physics classrooms. This study investigated common professional practices in physics teaching among a representative sample group of schools and teachers from a diverse, geographically large…

This study explored the use of classroom physical activity (PA) in secondary science classrooms. To accomplish this, semistructured interviews were conducted with secondary science teachers (n = 11). Interviews were based on the constructs of the social-ecological model. Most teachers reported using classroom PA in some form--in-class breaks,…

This study investigated the degree that Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs) criteria from the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) were included in self-reported teaching practices of twelfth-grade science teachers in Jordan. This study sampled (n = 315) science teachers recruited from eight different public school directorates. The…

This study examines secondary mathematics and science teacher perceptions of teacher leadership during the first year of a professional development program focused on preparing teacher leaders in rural schools. It also begins to offer details as to what content-focused teacher leadership looks like and how teachers in rural schools enact teacher…

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to understand how alternate route first year science teachers' learning experiences gained from their alternate route courses translated into their classroom instruction and facilitated the development of their pedagogical content knowledge. Participants included three first year high school teachers…