Sara Heredia

Sara Heredia’s research focuses on teacher learning of science education reform in high-stakes accountability contexts. Specifically, she wants to understand how organizational processes at the school and district level impact how science teachers make sense of new practices introduced during professional development. Her analyses focus on teacher interactions during professional development meetings to highlight the social and linguistic resources science teachers draw on to make sense of what they are learning and, in particular, how they attend to problems when implementing new practices given the local constraints of their working environment. Prior to attending the University of Colorado, Boulder, Heredia worked as a middle school science teacher in New York City (NYC). Heredia participated in the Urban Advantage Middle School Science Initiative, a professional development partnership between middle schools and informal science institutions in NYC. This partnership provided Heredia with the material and social resources to incorporate authentic inquiry practices with her students. As an adjunct professor at City College in NYC, Heredia worked with middle school science teachers teaching outside of their licensing area to provide content instruction and classroom support to incorporate inquiry activities with their students as part of a Math Science Partnership. She was also a New York City Teaching Fellow. Heredia received her BA in Biological Sciences from the Department of Environmental, Population, and Organismic Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder and her MA in Secondary Science Education from The City College of New York.