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This paper examined changes in students' biological reasoning, scientific sensemaking, valuing of science, and fascination in science over the course of a school year after their teacher participated in one of the two professional development programs. One professional development (PD) group emphasized teacher collaboration in revising materials for their classroom, while the other emphasized revision of materials without collaboration among teachers. Results from repeated measures ANOVA showed improvements in students' biological reasoning from the beginning to end of the school year when in classrooms led by teachers who participated in the collaboration-focused PD. Students' scientific sensemaking, valuing of science, or science fascination remained stable across the school year across both PD groups. 

Science Education has transitioned to science proficiency-- students are to gain the ability to engage in sense making about the natural world (National Research Council [NRC, 2012])--learning to “figure things out” (Passmore, 2014). One emerging area of focus is the emotional work students participate in during science sense making. There is growing recognition that these emotions are not just unnecessary by-products of scientific work, but rather they are part-and-parcel of doing science, as these emotions are part of what “instigates and stabilizes disciplinary engagement” in scientific pursuits (Jaber & Hammer, 2016b, p. 189). The research question that guided this study is: What is the teacher's role in reframing moments of epistemic vexation, so students experience productive meta-affect in the science classroom? After reviewing video footage and student and teacher interviews, three themes emerged: (1) Without reframing from the teacher during moments of epistemic vexation, students disengage from sense-making, (2) Productive meta-affect is more likely to occur when students understand why the teacher allows for failure to connect ideas or understand scientific concepts, and (3) When the teacher does not reframe moments of epistemic vexation, students build solidarity and reach out to each other for emotional support in developing productive meta-affect. 

Current reform efforts in science education focus on creating environments where students grapple with and negotiate their own understandings and mechanistic explanations of scientific phenomena by using their knowledge of disciplinary content and science practices. In order to support this reformed vision, effective professional development (PD;) for science teachers is critical. If PD is to shape teachers’ practice, teachers must experience a change in attitudes and beliefs. The research presented here explores the epistemic orientation of two secondary science teacher cohorts who were supported in a longitudinal professional development study. The epistemic orientation toward teaching science survey was administered at three time points for each cohort and paired sample t-tests were performed to analyze composite and dimensional scores. Our analysis revealed that change in epistemic orientation occurred for teachers who engaged in two years of supportive PD, but that one year of support was not sufficient to engender change in epistemic orientations. These findings further support the need for continuous, high-quality, longitudinal PD when the goal is a shift in science teachers’ epistemological beliefs and teaching practices. 

As part of a larger study focused on supporting high school biology teachers' use of productive science talk, this study compares the use of two different observation protocols, the RTOP and the IQA-SOR. Reviewing a year-long data set of video observations collected from classrooms of teachers participating in the larger professional development study, the two validated instruments produced significantly correlated scores of different scales based on the unique structure of each tool. We posit this demonstrates that both instruments can be useful for analyzing classroom instruction intended to emphasize productive science talk. However, the instruments do possess unique structural and theoretical qualities that warrant this study to understand the insights afforded by each. The similarities and differences emerging from each are explored in the presentation and how they impact the analyses. These considerations can be helpful for scholars who research in-service teacher learning as classroom implementation and impact on student learning activities are general outcomes that most professional development research endeavors to explore. Further, considerations of what a particular observation protocols’ foci include will be necessary so that continued research on teacher learning works to make science learning through discourse accessible to all learners. 

Reform efforts targeting science instruction emphasize that students should develop scientific proficiency that empowers them to collaboratively negotiate science ideas as they develop meaningful understandings about science phenomena through science practices. The lessons teachers design and enact play a critical role in engaging students in rigorous science learning. Collaborative design, in which teachers work together to design, enact, and reflect on their teaching, holds potential to support teachers’ learning, but scarce research examines the pathways by which collaborative design can influence teachers’ instructional practices. Examining the teaching and reflective thinking of two science teachers who engaged in collaborative design activities over two years, we found that their enactment practices became more supportive of students’ rigorous learning over time, and that they identified collaborative efforts with teacher educators and partner teachers to plan lessons and analyze videos of instruction as supportive of their learning to enact rigorous instruction. 

This study explores the epistemological framing dynamics in one middle school biology classroom and how those dynamics shape students’ collaborative sensemaking in science. We trace how the teacher’s instructional moves shaped students’ framing, and the ways in which that framing influenced students’ learning. Our analysis shows that while the teacher framed small group argumentation activities as spaces for students to generate and negotiate ideas, brief but influential moves at the end of the lesson, which emphasized the correct answer, undermined students’ sensemaking and intellectual authority. These findings have implications for the design of teacher education highlighting the need to promote teachers’ awareness of the impact of their instructional moves in terms of how students frame their efforts in the classroom.