U.S. elementary teachers are responsible for instruction across the disciplines of biology, Earth science, chemistry, physics, and engineering, and they are expected to demonstrate competency in all five areas while implementing NGSS-aligned pedagogical practices. This nonexperimental correlational study examined elementary science education five years after the implementation of NGSS, with a focus on elementary teachers' content knowledge, disciplinary self-efficacy, and their self-reported practices in teaching scientific phenomena, science and engineering practices, and crosscutting concepts. The theoretical framework for this study was based upon Bandura's social cognitive theory as it relates to personal agency, self-efficacy, and professional behavior regulation. Elementary teachers (N = 80) in grades K-5 from three school districts of varying socioeconomic status completed a survey measuring preparedness and confidence in science content knowledge and NGSS. Bivariate Spearman correlations revealed that science and engineering self-efficacy was a factor in the quality and quantity of NGSS-aligned instruction, and self-efficacy in teaching engineering had the strongest correlation with the frequency of three-dimensional learning and collaboration among students. Further inferential analyses indicated that incorporating science and engineering practices and student collaboration had the strongest correlation with elementary teachers' engineering self-efficacy, while the amount of instructional time dedicated to science had insignificant correlations with all predictors, suggesting it is related to external factors independent of teacher confidence and preparation. These results suggest that preservice requirements for elementary education certification should include graduate-level science coursework grounded in NGSS and geared toward elementary teachers, and professional development for elementary teachers should focus on engineering skills and design.
The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into education presents both opportunities and challenges, particularly in inquiry-based and context-sensitive science classrooms. Although commercial AI tools are increasingly available, it remains unclear how teachers can move from passive consumers of technology to active designers of AI-mediated instruction. This position paper proposes two professional competencies needed for teachers to maintain and enact expertise in AI-enhanced environments, digital integration competency and automation design competency. Digital integration competency refers to teachers' ability to collect, connect, and analyze educational data for instructional purposes. Automation design competency refers to teachers' ability to design digital automated workflows that are aligned with pedagogical goals. Both competencies depend on data preparation and require teachers to exercise professional judgment in evaluating and transforming instructional data. This conceptualization extends the TPACK framework by addressing the practical demands of AI integration in science teaching. These competencies support teachers' professional agency, responsible innovation, and capacity to resist the risks of technological colonization in the age of AI. Drawing on classroom examples, international policy frameworks, and current research, this paper offers a conceptual foundation for rethinking teacher expertise in AI-integrated science education. It ultimately reimagines the teacher not as a passive user of technology, but as a designer of AI-supported instructional environments.
Choosing the optimal method for teaching scientific concepts to students presents a significant challenge for researchers. If teachers are unaware of the common difficulties students encounter in understanding scientific topics and in selecting the most effective learning methods, education will not succeed. This study examines the impact of project-based learning on the academic attitudes and engagement of student-teachers in Physics classes. The research utilizes a semi-experimental design with a two-group time series approach. This involves one measurement before the intervention and two measurements after the intervention for both experimental and control groups. Here we focus on student teachers studying physics at Farhangian University in Iran, who are concurrently teaching as interns in schools. For this study, two classes of student-teachers were selected using a convenience sampling method and then randomly assigned to either the experimental or control group. Initially, both groups were evaluated through questionnaires assessing academic attitude and engagement. During the academic year, students in the experimental group participated in 14 sessions of project-based learning, while the control group received traditional teacher-centered instruction. After the training, both groups completed posttests using the same assessments, and a follow-up test was administered one month after the intervention. The results of the repeated measures ANOVA analysis indicate a significant difference between the experimental and control groups in academic attitude (p < .014) and academic engagement (p < .001). This study represents the first implementation of the project-base learning approach in Iran, and the findings confirm its effectiveness in enhancing the academic attitudes and engagement of students.
District science coordinators (DSCs) in the United States are essential in supporting the vision of standards-based science teaching. As leaders, the responsibilities associated with their positions vary and little is known about the practices, attributes, and knowledge (PAKs) they need to engage in their positions. In this study, 19 DSCs were interviewed in order to describe the PAKs they found important in their work. Their responses were inductively coded to identify the salient PAKs essential in their work. The salient PAKs were then rank-ordered by the DSCs to depict which PAKs were considered the most or least important in their work. The rank-ordered PAKs of the DSCs were then compared to national standards for district administrators. This provided insights into the attainment of the standards by DSCs. From this study, there are four important conclusions: 1) DSCs varied in their discussion of PAKs; 2) DSCs differed in their PAKs, which seem to be a result of their assignment and experience level; 3) the PAKs of DSCs varied when compared to the national standards; and 4) more research is needed pertaining to DSC PAKs in order to better support DSC learning.
The complexity of the proficiencies that future science teachers must acquire during their teacher education program often leads to a fragmented experience. Establishing informal collaborations between teacher educators is one of several interventions that can enhance coherence in science teacher education. This article explores how such informal collaborations among teacher educators can support interaction that leads to boundary crossing between teacher educators from school and university. Using video data from a teacher educator workshop, we analyze interactions through the lens of framing to identify, categorize and provide examples of five types of boundary crossings that can appear in such conversations: (1) firm boundaries that cannot be crossed, (2) persisting boundaries that are crossed from one side, (3) persisting boundaries that are approached from all sides, (4) firm boundaries that are not approached, and (5) boundaries that dissolve or are irrelevant. These findings offer insights into the variety of boundary crossing as an interactional phenomenon and opens for improved boundary-crossing conversations in science teacher education, suggesting measures to strengthen such interactions and enhance coherence.
A central aim of science education reform is to support teachers in making space for students' epistemic agency in classrooms. This means positioning students as sense-makers by drawing on their prior knowledge and experiences as resources for meeting disciplinary learning goals. One way to support this is by designing curricula that integrate disciplinary goals (i.e., science content knowledge) and epistemic goals (i.e., students decision-making). However, enacting such curricula is complex. Teachers must navigate long standing power dynamics both inside and outside classrooms to ensure both goals are met. While prior studies have examined how classroom-level dynamics shape teachers' ability to make space for epistemic agency, less attention has been given to how broader school contexts influence teachers' decisions. This paper examines how two high school science teachers implemented the same data literacy curriculum in schools with different institutional priorities. One school emphasized student-driven inquiry: the other prioritized standardized test preparation. The curriculum was designed to integrate disciplinary goals (e.g., analyzing environmental data) with epistemic goals (e.g., choosing how and where to collect air quality data). Drawing on classroom observations and teacher interviews, we show how each teacher's instructional decisions were shaped by their institutional scaffolds and constraints. The teacher in the more supportive environment was able to prioritize both disciplinary and epistemic goals, whereas the other found it challenging to center epistemic in response to institutional pressures. Both teachers made contextually responsive adaptations. We argue that supporting students' epistemic agency requires attending to the school context in which teaching occurs.
This paper presents a program-level framework for practice-based, equity-centered science teacher education that responds to persistent challenges of coherence by organizing opportunities for novice learning across multiple grain sizes of practice. The framework, informed by research on practice-based teacher education, ambitious science teaching, and justice-centered pedagogy, and refined through five years of iterative program development in a graduate-level secondary science teacher education program, organizes novice learning across nested levels of instructional work that range from moment-to-moment discourse moves, to instructional activities, to unit-level design: vision-level elements of ambitious science teaching, rehearsable instructional activities, high-leverage practices, supporting strategies, instructional design strategies, and unit-level instructional sequences. Rather than serving as an intervention or evaluation, the framework specifies how programs can structure repeated opportunities for rehearsal, coached enactment, and analysis of practice in ways that support novices' engagement with ambitious and equitable instruction. Equity commitments are embedded across all design elements, with attention to leveraging students' cultural and community knowledge, positioning all students as sensemakers, and structuring participation for inclusive discourse. The framework complements justice-centered elaborations of ambitious science teaching by offering a coherent program structure within which novice teachers can learn, rehearse, and reflect on increasingly justice-oriented instructional practices over time. Implications for program design, mentor teacher development, and future research are discussed.
While model-based teaching (MBT) has been recognized as a promising instructional approach in science education, few studies have examined how in-service science teachers enact assessment in relation to students' modeling practices. This qualitative, multi-case study investigates the assessment literacy of five secondary teachers within the context of MBT, drawing on data collected before and after their participation in an online professional development course on MBT (OPDC). Data were collected over three months through classroom observations, semi-structured interviews, and teacher-generated assessments. Lessons were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using an assessment literacy framework comprising eight domains. Findings revealed three patterns of teachers' enacted assessment literacy in MBT (ALMBT), ranging from verification-oriented assessment focused on correctness to inquiry-oriented assessment that supported model evaluation and revision aligned with the GEM cycle: (1) Gabriel and Lisa, whose practices reflected a foundational, verification-oriented approach focused on content accuracy; (2) James and Eliana, who demonstrated transitional assessment literacy and showed limited implementation of modeling in the classroom; and (3) Samantha, who exhibited an advanced, inquiry-oriented approach aligned with the Generate-Evaluate-Modify (GEM) cycle. The study contributes to understanding how assessment literacy in MBT (ALMBT) develops among in-service teachers and highlights the need for sustained professional development that links modeling, feedback, and inquiry-based assessment practices.
High-quality formative assessments play a critical role in revealing nuances in student thinking. The Framework and the Next Generation Science Standards offer contemporary strategies for assessing learners in science and engineering. However, teachers in rural settings often face challenges which make it difficult for them to learn about and apply these strategies (e.g. geographic isolation, limited professional learning opportunities, and smaller peer networks). Recognizing this potential disconnect, we built an online professional learning program to help rural teachers access and implement an NGSS-aligned performance assessment task while building supportive collegial networks across geographically distant settings. Participating elementary teachers received online professional learning structured to support a four-part connected process (learn, modify, implement, and reflect) centered on the delivery of a formative assessment task, Planning a Park, in their elementary classrooms. For triangulation, multiple data sources were collected to understand teachers' experiences with the task. Through surveys on preparedness to teach science lessons, self-reported classroom observations, reflections on student performance, and interview responses from a subset of participants, our findings indicate that guided professional learning that fosters collaboration around formative assessment can strengthen teachers' understanding, confidence, and positive affect.
This narrative inquiry examines how three secondary science teachers from Canada, Saudi Arabia, and the United States constituted new professional identities as they assumed the role of a secondary school science department chair. Using positioning analysis and dialogical self-theory as conceptual frameworks, semi-structured interviews were conducted within a three-week data-collection window; interviews were transcribed verbatim and subject to member checks. The analysis focused on how participants accepted, rejected, or amended positions in discourse when negotiating the teacher-chair boundary. Findings indicate that chairs negotiated identities integrating teaching, instructional leadership, and teacher-education functions, and that supportive leadership, collaborative professional learning, and classroom credibility shaped those identity trajectories. Implications include reconsidering selection and support processes for department chairs to prioritize pedagogical credibility and relational leadership. Future research should include mixed-methods research approaches whereby larger samples of department chairs can be effectively compared across appointment models, different schooling contexts, and longitudinal methods to trace identity development over the duration of a department chair appointment.
We investigated how preservice secondary science and mathematics teachers (PSTs) understood and reported enacting equitable core teaching practices to engage multilingual learners in ambitious content and opportunities for rich language learning. We defined these multilingual core practices as including: (a) cultivating a safe classroom community, (b) engaging students in opportunities for rich language, (c) implementing cognitively demanding work, (d) drawing on students' funds of knowledge, and (e) attending to disciplinary language demands and supports. PSTs learned about these five multilingual core practices in relation to four instructional language routines (e.g., Co-Craft Questions & Problems, Stronger & Clearer), intentionally scaffolded opportunities to engage students in content and language learning, in an integrated science and mathematics methods course. We qualitatively analyzed PSTs' individual interviews and written assignments, including their planning handouts and post-implementation reflections, to understand how participants discussed teaching their multilingual learners using multilingual learner core practices in relation to instructional language routines. We found that PSTs saw language routines as helpful in enacting the core practices, particularly engaging students in opportunities for rich language, to attend to their multilingual learners. We also found that PSTs discussed opportunities for rich language as intersecting with implementing cognitively demanding work and attending to disciplinary language demands and supports to enhance language access and create multimodal opportunities for learning. We close with insights into ways teacher educators and their PSTs can effectively use these core practices and language routines to engage multilingual learners in ambitious sensemaking and rich language in science and mathematics classrooms.
Developing students' STEM identities and career awareness within a science discipline can be challenging for teachers as STEM identity extends beyond specific content expertise and traditional pedagogical skills. This study investigated how teachers' STEM identities along with their shared understanding of the goals for including STEM identity activities in a geoscience curriculum unit contributed to the design of classroom activities intended to develop their students' STEM identities. Data for this study includes video recordings from a teacher professional development workshop in which six middle school teachers from a large district in central California explored their own STEM identities, survey data on students' STEM identities, and artifacts from co-designed activities tailored to teachers' classes. Results reveal that teachers' STEM identities significantly influence how they support the development of students' STEM identities. In addition, providing teachers with the opportunity to describe their own STEM identity led to meaningful focus for the co-design process. Finally, while the focus of this workshop was a geoscience unit, this study argues that the co-design process as applied to STEM identity activities can apply to other STEM topics.
Technological advances in the study of the human genome have led to increased understanding of the complexity of genetic variation and the role of genes and the environment in shaping human phenotypes. Accurate interpretation of modern genetic data will require increased support for science teachers to update their curriculum to teach more complex genetics. In this paper, we analyze the co-design process of one middle school science teacher working with museum educators to develop professional learning activities for science teachers to update their curriculum to include more complex genetics. This representative case study describes the science teacher's organizational sensemaking as she engaged in the co-design process with limited understanding of genetic complexity. We identified the sources of pedagogical and conceptual ambiguity the teacher surfaced and the available resources she leveraged to work through that ambiguity. Sources of ambiguity included a lack of empirically based examples of complex traits to hook students' interest, word choice in the activity, order of activities to support conceptual development, and relationship between genes and the environment in determining phenotype. The teacher leveraged her understanding of how children learn science, the social network of the museum educators, and observations of other teachers engaged in the activity to develop and iterate on her activity design. These findings suggest that co-design teams should surface both pedagogical and conceptual ambiguity related to the teaching of new science content throughout the design process and include opportunities for sensemaking with scientists and other science teachers.
This study utilizes data from TIMSS 2019 to examine teachers' instructional activities, specifically teachers' practices of asking students to present and interpret data in science classrooms. This study uses the hierarchical linear modeling approach. The results revealed that teachers who asked students to present and interpret data were significantly associated with students' performance on the science reasoning items in TIMSS 2019. Findings suggest that specific professional developments can promote instructional activities that enhance students' reasoning, offering actionable insights for science teacher educators designing pre-service and in-service programs. While the findings indicate significant associations, the study's design does not permit causal inferences about how classroom practices or PD content shape students' reasoning. Nonetheless, the results have direct implications for teacher educators developing data-rich instructional approaches to improve students' reasoning in science. Future research should incorporate observational or experimental designs to better understand the mechanisms through which these instructional practices influence student reasoning outcomes.
This article presents a multiple case study examining the teaching experience of four prospective pre-primary teachers (PPTs) in designing, implementing, and assessing teaching proposals aimed at promoting scientific thinking and skills in pre-primary education. The content chosen for this purpose was the surface tension of water. The PPTs implemented their teaching proposals during the practicum in four different classes of 4- and 5-year-olds. Qualitative content analysis was applied to evaluate the PPTs' claims in their practicum reports and final interviews. This analysis provided insights into the PPTs' pedagogical content knowledge, including (i) the instructional strategies implemented in the class, and (ii) the assessment process used both with the children and to evaluate the teaching intervention. From the analysis of the collected data, it can be concluded that PPTs exhibited acceptable levels of mastery of both pedagogical aspects. Thus, they showed considerable creative capacity in selecting a variety of educational resources (models, experimental activities, stories, dramatizations, videos, and drawings) to explore and explain the surface tension property of water from a microscopic perspective. Likewise, all four PPTs were able to assess children's learning as well as the strengths and weaknesses of their teaching interventions.
Climate change threatens the stability of both planetary ecological and sociocultural systems. National and international organizations advocate for advancements in surveillance, contextual acknowledgment, and adaptation methodologies across all tiers and domains, encompassing education. Consequently, this study examines the development of Collective Pedagogical Content Knowledge (cPCK) related to climate change among elementary educators, employing a collective case study approach based on the Refined Consensus Model. This research aimed to integrate professional expertise and skills into a framework focused on climate education. Data were collected through collaborative meetings and the implementation of a teaching sequence designed by an interdisciplinary team. Results show significant improvements in Teachers' Knowledge of content and curriculum related to climate change. However, assessment methods were less developed, revealing gaps that require further investigation. Overall, key components contributing to the formation of cPCK for climate change education emerged, highlighting the role of local context, collaboration, and shared reflection in fostering meaningful teaching and learning processes.
Engaging K-12 science teachers in authentic research experiences has been a promising approach to enhance science teaching and learning. Teacher research experiences aim to bridge the gap between science practices and classroom instruction through immersing teachers in research labs. Building on the previous literature reviews of teacher research experiences, we seek to assess what has changed since previous calls to action in this research area. We report on 39 empirical studies published between 2018 and 2024 that include these types of programs. We have found that while there have been improvements since previous publications, there have also been areas of continued stagnation. We have seen a shift in content areas from natural science to engineering and other STEM fields. The focus areas of many programs include the translation of skills and content gained from these programs into curriculum design, pedagogical knowledge, and classroom instruction. Given the timeframe of the research studies we reviewed, we noted studies where Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) impacted the TRE program structure causing the research components to take place online rather than in-person. One major growth area has been the focus of research on underrepresented minority and rural populations. However, despite previous calls to action, there remains a substantial lack of data-driven research about the impacts of these programs on student outcomes. These findings reveal both promising developments and persistent gaps that require further research.
