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To deliver instruction consistent with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), especially with the inclusion of engineering, teachers need a high level of self-efficacy. Professional learning can foster self-efficacy, but short-term interventions have been found to have a limited impact on teachers’ instructional practices. The present study examines survey data collected from elementary teachers who were participating in a year-long NGSS-aligned professional learning program that was extended by professional learning communities (PLCs) and other supports. Experts led a 5-day institute which modeled shifts called for by NGSS (e.g., equitable, discourse-rich, phenomena-based) and provided teachers with opportunities to experience next-generation instruction. Participants (n=150) were recruited from rural communities, so, being mindful of historic challenges with access to professional learning, the institute in summer 2023 and the PLC sessions were delivered online. Four surveys were administered during 2023-2024, including a pre-, immediate post-, and delayed post-intervention surveys that captured teachers’ self-efficacy and outcome expectations related to science and engineering teaching and learning (T-STEM). We found teachers pre-intervention responses were more favorable for science, initially, but significant growth in engineering occurred throughout the period of study. Importantly, we also found evidence that ongoing supports, like PLCs, helped to sustain professional learning outcomes. 

Despite the intent to advance engineering education with the NGSS, teachers across all grade levels lack confidence in their engineering content knowledge and pedagogy (Hammack & Ivey, 2019). This dilemma is exacerbated by a lack of quality NGSS-aligned curricular materials that integrate science and engineering at the elementary grades— currently, only one elementary unit reviewed by Achieve has received an NGSS Design Badge that includes engineering (NextGenScience, 2020), and these materials are especially unavailable in schools serving high-needs students (Banilower, 2019). Implementation research now acknowledges that contexts and conditions can, and often do, affect the enactment of innovations and that “improving education requires processes for changing individuals, organizations, and systems” (Century & Cassata, 2016, p. 172). Due to geographic location and, often, smaller collegial networks of teachers who teach science, and engineering, rural schools encounter acute challenges in recruiting and retaining teachers (Arnold et al., 2005) and providing content-specific Professional Learning (PL) (Harmon & Smith, 2007). The goal of this NSF DRK12 multi-institution project is to longitudinally investigate the impacts, sustainability, and costs of NGSS implementation, especially in rural contexts. Our approach differs from most interventions in that it is tailored to rural educators in grades 3–5 and offers curriculum-agnostic, fully online PL that supports teachers in utilizing resources and phenomena found in their local contexts to develop and implement engaging, NGSS-aligned engineering instruction. Our intervention began with a five-day (i.e., weeklong) online PL experience in the summer of 2023 for grades 3–5 teachers in each of four western states. Examples of PL sessions provided include: (1) an overview of three-dimensional learning and phenomena-based instruction; (2) a deep dive into the NGSS Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs); (3) instructional practices that encourage equitable student participation and epistemic agency; and (4) building understanding and comfort with NGSS-aligned engineering and design-based instruction for the elementary grades. The initial intensive PL experience had immediate positive impacts on grades 3–5 teachers’ attitudes and efficacy for teaching engineering. We are now exploring how modest supports influence the sustainability of these changes. Over the 2023-2024 academic year, we are providing teachers with a menu of modest supports including: three 90-minute-long online PL meetings each semester, materials for teaching a locally focused engineering design task, and access to a variety of electronic supports (e.g., Google Classroom Site, shared resources). The fall semester online meetings have focused on supporting teachers to identify connections to science and engineering in their school’s community and how to develop NGSS-aligned engineering design tasks that connect to their local communities. Teachers will be implementing their engineering lessons during December 2023 and January 2024. 

Abstract BackgroundIn taking up educational technology tools and student‐centered instructional practice, there is consensus that instructors consider the unique aspects of their instructional context. However, tool adoption success is often framed narrowly by numerical uptake rates or by conformity with non‐negotiable components. PurposeWe pursue an alternative ecosystems framing which posits that variability among contexts is fundamental to understanding instructors' uptake of instructional tools and the ways their teaching trajectories develop over time. Design/MethodThrough a multiple‐case study approach using interviews, usage data, surveys, and records of community meetings, we examine 12 instructors' trajectories to illustrate the dynamic uptake of a technology tool. ResultsCross‐case analysis found that instructors' trajectories are tool‐mediated and community‐mediated. We present five cases in detail. Two foreground ways that instructors gained insight into student learning from student responses in the tool. Two illustrate the role played by the project's Community of Practice (CoP), an extra‐institutional support for deepening practice. The final case illustrates the complexity of an evolving instructional ecosystem and its role in instructors' satisfaction and continued use. ConclusionsUse of the educational technology tool perturbed ecosystems and supported instructors' evolving trajectories through mediation of instructor and student activity. Instructors' goals guided initial uptake, but both goals and practice were adapted using information from interactions with the tool and the CoP and changes in instructional contexts. The study confirms the need to understand the complexity of the uptake of innovations and illustrates opportunities for educators, developers, and administrators to enhance uptake and support diversity goals.