This paper is part of the special issue on Teacher Learning and Practice within Organizational Contexts. Shifting instructional practices in elementary schools to include more equitable, reform-based pedagogies is imperative for supporting students' development as science learners. Teachers need high quality professional development (PD) to learn…

Science teachers struggle to implement and sustain new curricular ideas from professional development (PD) experiences. These PD opportunities are crucial for enacting real-world changes to teaching practice and address pressing global challenges, such as the teaching and learning of socioscientific topics nested in school communities.…

The aim of this study is to develop more understanding about strategies to support teachers' professional development in curriculum innovations, in which pedagogy and content change simultaneously compared to the conventional curriculum. A pre-existing framework, including strategies for professional development, was adapted, implemented, and…

As the vision in "A Framework for K-12 Science Education" and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) takes hold in schools and classrooms, there is an urgent need for teacher professional development (PD) programs that align with NGSS-designed curriculum materials and address the unique strengths and needs of diverse student…

Instructional shifts required by equitable, reform-based science instruction are challenging, especially in the elementary context. Such shifts require professional development (PD) that supports teacher internalization of new pedagogical strategies as well as changes in beliefs about how students learn. Because of this complexity, many PD…

This study explores the role of conceptual coherence in science teacher learning of science-specific formative assessment. Conceptual coherence refers to the alignment of ideas about teaching and learning and may be difficult with certain teaching practices, like formative assessment, that have a central role in accountability mechanisms in…

We explored how various contextual resources accumulated over multiple years operated together to facilitate a team of high school teachers' sustained and agentive learning after a 4-year research-practice partnership (RPP) grant concluded. Specifically, we examined constellations of resources that promoted the co-evolution of the teachers'…

This study examines the impact of organizational purposes and values on reforming physics instruction to align with a practice-based instructional approach, in a case of engaging in infrastructuring with a no-excuses charter network. The network's instruction was guided by organizational purposes of ensuring predictable academic success and…

Although 20 states have adopted Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), 24 other states have developed their own K-12 science standards based on the same National Research Council (NRC) Framework. Understanding what influences content standards developers, realizing the supports and impediments to implementation they foresee, and knowing their…

Whereas science teachers often express initial enthusiasm about the student-centered, reform-oriented instructional strategies they encounter in professional development (PD), they rarely adopt them in practice. One possible obstacle is a mismatch between these strategies and teachers' beliefs about what is possible and desirable in their…

The creation of specialty science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) Schools has been presented as a way to improve both academic and STEM-related outcomes, particularly in urban school districts where "failing" schools are converted the STEM Schools. This study examines this conversion process through the tenets of critical race…

In this article we studied how community educators' designed for equity in an after school science program. Building from discussions of equity in out-of-school-time (OST) science, this case study offers insight into the role of pedagogy in organizing for dignity and belonging in an after school program. This case study focused on the practices of…

Using findings from a 4-year research and development effort, we propose an updated model of sheltered instruction for science classrooms that leverages the opportunities provided by the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) to better support multilingual learners in middle and high school science. Using data from teacher implementation logs…

The abstract nature of energy encourages metaphorical language. In educational settings, teachers and students use conceptual metaphors subconsciously to express their ideas about what energy is or how it functions in particular scenarios. However, research on scientific analogies and metaphors has predominantly focused on explicit instructional…

This article examines the tensions that arose as teachers, scientists, youth, and community organizers worked to develop a curriculum that was responsive to community concerns and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Within the context of urban heavy metal contamination and building on previous critiques of the standards, we identified…