Search for: All records

A teacher’s working context is an important factor in how they make sense of and enact curriculum. Understanding how external factors (e.g. state and/or district policies, school cultural norms) interplay with teachers’ personal resources (e.g. self-understanding, rules of thumb for decision-making) can help identify supports for implementation of increasingly available standard aligned curriculum materials. However, in science education, limited research has explored how curriculum enactments are influenced by this complex interplay. In this qualitative embedded case study, we investigated how four middle school science teachers within the same school district used their internal resources to make sense of external factors when enacting new NGSS-aligned place-based curriculum materials. Data collection occurred over multiple years and included semi-structured individual and focus group interviews, lesson plans, weekly surveys, observations, and memos. Using thematic analysis, we found that a new district-level policy implementing a 6-week science assessment caused differential enactments of the unit, depending on which internal resources teachers drew on to make sense of the curriculum materials. Our findings contribute to further understanding how internal personal resources and external factors support and impede science teachers’ use of curriculum materials in ways that align, or do not align, with recent reform-based learning outlined in the NGSS. 

Abstract BackgroundEcological barriers can shape the movement strategies of migratory animals that navigate around or across them, creating migratory divides. Wind plays a large role in facilitating aerial migrations and can temporally or spatially change the challenge posed by an ecological barrier, with beneficial winds potentially converting a barrier into a corridor. Here, we explore the role wind plays in shaping initial southbound migration strategy among individuals breeding at two sites along an ecological barrier. MethodsUsing GPS satellite transmitters, we tracked the southbound migrations of Short-billed Dowitchers(Limnodromus griseus caurinus)from two breeding sites in Alaska to nonbreeding sites in coastal Mexico. The breeding sites were positioned in distinct regions along an ecological barrier – the Gulf of Alaska. We investigated potential differences in migratory timing, wind availability, and tailwind supportenroute across the Gulf of Alaska between individuals breeding at the two sites. ResultsRoute choice and arrival timing to wintering sites differed markedly between the two breeding sites: individuals departing from the more westerly site left at the same time as those from further east but crossed the Gulf of Alaska farther west and arrived along the Pacific coast of Mexico an average of 19 days earlier than their counterparts. Dowitchers from both sites departed with slight tailwinds, but once aloft over the Gulf of Alaska, birds from the more westerly site had up to twelve times more tailwind assistance than birds from the more easterly one. ConclusionsThe distinct migration strategies and degree of wind assistance experienced by birds at these two breeding sites demonstrates how differences in wind availability along migratory routes can form the basis for intraspecific variation in migration strategies with potential carryover effects. Future changes in wind regimes may therefore interact with changes in habitat availability to influence migration patterns and migratory bird conservation.