Middle

This study applies natural language processing and qualitative classroom video analyses to examine classroom discourse. Guided by hybridity theory, which emphasizes the benefits of blending everyday with academic language practices for expanding students’ opportunities to engage with disciplinary ideas, our study systematically identifies how teachers’ and students’ discursive resources operate in science classrooms.

Innovative science curricula aim to transform classroom instruction by emphasizing socio-scientific issues (SSI), student-centered inquiry, and culturally relevant pedagogy. Engaging with new and innovative curricula has the potential to stretch teachers’ instructional practices when they fully commit to implementation, challenging them to navigate tensions between their existing approaches and reform-oriented teaching methods. The Expectancy-Value Theory (EVT) and the Interconnected Model of Professional Growth (IMPG) provide a lens for understanding the motivations behind teacher decisions when implementing such curricula and whether these decisions lead to professional learning. This study applies these frameworks to examine how two middle school science teachers, Andrew and Abby, navigated the implementation of the Grand Challenges (GC) curriculum, balancing the perceived costs, values, and challenges of integrating SSI into their instruction.

Engineering design has been widely implemented in K-12 curricula to cultivate future workforce. In this study, seventh-grade students participated in the Solarizing Your School curriculum, an action-oriented program where they engaged in engineering design processes to tackle a real-world problem related to renewable energy adoption. The study sought to explore how students balanced constraints and criteria in engineering design.

Engineering design has been widely implemented in K-12 curricula to cultivate future workforce. In this study, seventh-grade students participated in the Solarizing Your School curriculum, an action-oriented program where they engaged in engineering design processes to tackle a real-world problem related to renewable energy adoption. The study sought to explore how students balanced constraints and criteria in engineering design.

Over the last decade, reform in science education has placed an emphasis on the science practices as a way to engage students in the process of science and improve scientific literacy. A critical component of developing scientific literacy is learning to apply quantitative reasoning to authentic scientific phenomena and problems. Students need practice moving fluidly (or fluently) between math and science to develop a habit of mind that encourages the application of quantitative reasoning to real-world scenarios. Here we present a student-facing model that challenges students to think across these two fields.

This article describes a middle school energy literacy unit that uses green building science to uncover the important ways in which energy flows between natural and built environments. The place-based unit employs the student’s own school building as a learning tool to examine how light energy and thermal energy relate to the use of electrical energy—and ultimately impact global carbon emissions that result from using buildings every day.

This paper explores the tensions—or discontinuities—that arise when designing for educational improvement at scale through research-practice partnerships (RPPs). Focusing on a statewide mathematics education initiative, the authors examine the complexities of coordinating work across diverse communities of practice and analyze how identity, power, and meaning-making impact collaborative problem definition.

This paper explores the tensions—or discontinuities—that arise when designing for educational improvement at scale through research-practice partnerships (RPPs). Focusing on a statewide mathematics education initiative, the authors examine the complexities of coordinating work across diverse communities of practice and analyze how identity, power, and meaning-making impact collaborative problem definition.

This paper explores the tensions—or discontinuities—that arise when designing for educational improvement at scale through research-practice partnerships (RPPs). Focusing on a statewide mathematics education initiative, the authors examine the complexities of coordinating work across diverse communities of practice and analyze how identity, power, and meaning-making impact collaborative problem definition.