This paper is part of the special issue on Teacher Learning and Practice within Organizational Contexts. Shifting instructional practices in elementary schools to include more equitable, reform‐based pedagogies is imperative for supporting students’ development as science learners. Teachers need high quality professional development (PD) to learn such practices, but research shows considerable variability in the extent to which teachers implement instructional practices learned during PD. Individual teacher characteristics such as self‐efficacy may influence teacher learning during PD, but only account for part of the variability. The organizational conditions of teachers’ schools and districts may also play a key role in teachers’ implementation of new instructional practices. However, because systematic research in this area in science education is still nascent, it is difficult for districts and PD providers to address organizational barriers to professional learning. To meet this need, we conducted an explanatory mixed‐methods study using surveys (
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Abstract N = 54) and interviews (N = 19) of elementary teachers engaged in equity‐focused, reform‐based science PD, testing the degree to which a conceptually framed set of organizational conditions predicted teacher equity self‐efficacy and instructional practice alignment. Out of the 11 organizational conditions, only teacher professional impact and their sense of autonomy in their instructional practice explained variance in the outcomes. Qualitative findings showed these relationships to be iterative and recursive, rather than linear. Our findings underscore the essential role of teacher professionalism and sense of agency over commonly cited organizational conditions such as materials and labs in supporting teachers to implement more equitable science instructional practices during PD.Free, publicly-accessible full text available July 26, 2025 -
Instructional shifts required by equitable, reform‐based science instruction are challenging, especially in the elementary context. Such shifts require professional development (PD) that supports teacher internalization of new pedagogical strategies as well as changes in beliefs about how students learn. Because of this complexity, many PD programs struggle to foster lasting pedagogical shifts, necessitating further investigation into why some teachers successfully embrace reform practices while others do not. This qualitative study uses a nonlinear, iterative model of teacher learning (Interconnected Model of Professional Growth; Clarke & Hollingsworth, 2002) alongside professional noticing to help understand why elementary teachers in science PD differentially make sense of and internalize new pedagogies. Findings indicate that teachers most likely to adopt reform‐based instructional practices from the PD were those who clearly connected student learning to their instructional moves. In addition, teachers who more actively attended to student sensemaking and productive struggle took up pedagogies from the PD more substantively than did colleagues who attended solely to student engagement and affect. Finally, teachers who attended to and valued novel ideas from students’ lived experiences were more likely to change their beliefs about students’ capacity to learn science, and thus more likely to see the value of instructional practices from the PD. In sum, structuring PD to build on these specific teacher noticing skills can encourage more teachers to move away from traditional, teacher‐directed instructional practice, and more fully support reform‐based instructional practices.more » « lessFree, publicly-accessible full text available May 1, 2025
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The literature on science discourse in K–12 classrooms in the United States has proliferated over the past couple of decades, crossing geographical, disciplinary, theoretical, and methodological boundaries. There is general consensus that science talk is at the core of students’ learning; however, a synthesis of key findings from the expansive literature base is needed. This systematic literature review is guided by a complex systems framework to organize and synthesize empirical studies of science talk in urban classrooms across individual (student or teacher), collective (interpersonal), and contextual (sociocultural, historical) planes. Findings are discussed in relation to contemporary approaches that integrate theories and methodologies to account for the complex phenomena of science discourse, including interacting elements across levels as well as stable and changing patterns that influence students’ access to, and nature of, science talk in urban classrooms. Unresolved questions related to high-leverage, equitable, and sustainable discourse practices; future lines of inquiry that can benefit by drawing from diverse theoretical traditions and mixed methodological approaches; and practical implications for classroom-based strategies to support science discourse are also discussed.more » « less