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1. Job Embeddedness and Professional Support: A Case Study of Science Teacher Retention in One District

   Larkin, Douglas. B. ; Carletta, Liz ; Patzelt, Suzanne. P. ; & Ahmed, Khadija. ( September 2021 , NARST Annual Meeting (Virtual))

   This paper theorizes teacher retention using the framework of job-embeddedness, and analyzes the case of a school district in New Jersey where science teachers have been retained at a much higher rate than most other school districts in the state during the focus period of the study (2007-2018). The research team interviewed 18 individuals in the district, including administrators, novice science teachers, mentor science teachers, retained science teachers, and the induction program coordinator. Other data collected included publicly available district documents, and documentation related to the mentoring and induction efforts provided by the district induction coordinator. The primary goal of the site visit was to better understand the factors that may have influenced teacher retention during the focus period of the data and to also investigate current practices around the mentoring and induction of new science teachers. Four factors were identified as salient to the high science teacher retention rate in the district: 1) collaborative and supportive colleagues in the science department, 2) the overall culture of the school, students, and community, 3) hiring and induction practices, and 4) ample resources for teaching and professional growth. 

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2. Asset and deficit discourses of student ideas in science formative assessment co‐design

   https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21944  

   Fine, Caitlin_G_M ; Furtak, Erin_M ( April 2024 , Journal of Research in Science Teaching)

   The Framework for K‐12 Science Education set an ambitious goal of broadening participation in science learning for all students. Meeting this vision will involve supporting teachers in making meaningful connections with the cultural and linguistic resources their students bring to school; in essence, developing pedagogies that frame these resources as assets important to learning. In this manuscript, we present a qualitative case study of one community of high school science teachers who participated in a year‐long professional learning focused on formative assessment co‐design related to natural selection. Findings show that the process of formative assessment co‐design surfaced both deficit‐ and asset‐based statements about students' contributions. Teachers were more likely to share deficit‐based statements as compared to facilitators, whose statements were more asset‐based. This was particularly true with reference to students' prior knowledge and linguistic resources. At the same time, our analysis suggests that teachers were more likely to share more asset‐based framings of learners when practicing for and reflecting on enactment of formative assessment tasks. These findings suggest that supportive co‐design environments can encourage teachers to take more asset‐oriented views of learners. We discuss the implications of these findings for professional learning and science classroom practice.

    

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3. Standards-Aligned Instructional Supports to Promote Computer Science Teachers' Pedagogical Content Knowledge

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3478431.3499403  

   Basu, Satabdi ; Rutstein, Daisy ; Tate, Carol ; Rachmatullah, Arif ; Yang, Hui ( February 2022 , SIGCSE 2022: Proceedings of the 53rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1)

   The rapid expansion of K-12 CS education has made it critical to support CS teachers, many of whom are new to teaching CS, with the necessary resources and training to strengthen their understanding of CS concepts and how to effectively teach CS. CS teachers are often tasked with teaching different curricula using different programming languages in different grades or during different school years, and tend to receive different professional development (PD) for each curriculum they are required to teach. This often leads to a lack of deep understanding of the underlying CS concepts and how different curricula address the same concepts in different ways. Empowering teachers to develop a deep understanding of CS standards, and use formative assessments to recognize common student challenges associated with the standards, will enable teachers to provide more effective CS instruction, irrespective of the curriculum and/or programming language they are tasked with using. This position paper advocates supporting CS teacher professional learning by supplementing existing curriculum-specific teacher PD with standards-aligned PD that focuses on teachers' conceptual understanding of CS standards and ability to adapt instruction based on student understanding of concepts underlying the CS standards. We share concrete examples of how to design standards-aligned educative resources and instructionally supportive tools that promote teachers' understanding of CS standards and common student challenges and develop teachers' formative assessment literacy, all essential components of CS pedagogical content knowledge. 

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4. Practice, Tensions, and Identity: Boundary Crossing and Identity Development in Urban Teacher Leaders

   https://doi.org/10.1177/19427751221113368  

   Hutchinson, Anna E. ; Schaefer, Jill ; Zhao, Weiqi ; Criswell, Brett ( January 2022 , Journal of Research on Leadership Education)

   This study investigates the identity development of teacher leaders in an, urban school district who participated in a Noyce Master Teaching Fellow, program. We identify tensions that arose from involvement in this, external community of practice (CoP) and changes in teacher leader, meanings and practices in their school CoPs. Qualitative key findings, indicate that as boundary crossers, (1) teacher leader activities surfaced, tensions between CoPs, promoting boundary competence, and (2), participation in an external CoP reshaped their identities, especially as, mentors. Implications include recognizing that external CoPs can support, learning mechanisms for addressing educational issues, for example, teacher, retention. 

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5. Science Teachers’ Negotiation of Professional Vision around Dilemmas of Science Teaching in a Professional Development Context

   https://doi.org/10.1080/1046560X.2022.2136052  

   McCausland, Jonathan ; Jackson, Jennifer ; McDonald, Scott ; Bateman, Kathryn ; Pallant, Amy ; Lee, Hee-Sun ( November 2023 , Journal of Science Teacher Education)

   Learning to teach is a culturally situated activity. As teachers learn, it is important to understand not only what teachers learn, but how they learn. This article describes a qualitative case study of a subset of four teachers’ learning during a professional development surrounding a plate tectonics curriculum. Using qualitative methods, this study tells the story of how the four teachers negotiated professional vision for science teaching around dilemmas that emerged throughout the professional development. By taking a sociocultural perspective on professional vision, researchers can gain insight into how and what teachers learn in professional develop- ment settings because it renders teacher learning complex and nuanced. Additionally, we argue negotiating professional vision parallels sensemak- ing. Sensemaking around science teaching includes grappling with epis- temic issues of science in addition to pedagogy and curriculum. Implications for science teacher education are discussed. Specifically, we argue learning to teach requires teachers to engage in conversations that create opportunities to “get somewhere” in relation to dilemmas they have about teaching. In this way, professional vision is an ongoing process of learning that has no endpoint or ideal articulation of teaching or science. Therefore, by framing professional vision as a process of learning we are able to push back on simplistic descriptions of teaching and science. 

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