Local implementation of science reform efforts in part relies on science teacher leaders (STLs) to improve science instruction in classrooms and beyond. The lack of science-specific professional learning resources drives STLs to act as boundary spanners to locate resources outside their local context to fill that gap. Museums and other informal…

Cultivating in preservice science teachers (PSTs) the competence required to teach scientific models and modeling is a valued outcome of teacher preparation programs. However, science teacher educators face inherent tensions when designing and implementing teacher preparation experiences to achieve this outcome. In this systematic review, we first…

This ethnographic cross-case study examines five teachers' year-long efforts to implement practice-based physics instruction within the unique organizational context of a no-excuses charter network. The teachers were attempting to adapt their didactic, rigid, and compliance-based instructional approach to include more opportunities for students to…

In this paper, we build on a growing body of research on practical measurement for educational improvement, contributing a conceptualization of the organizational functions of measurement in processes of persistence and change. Our work is grounded in theoretical understandings of micro-institutional change that foreground processes of…

The vast and rapidly growing amount of science education research makes it challenging for researchers to navigate and synthesize developments across the field, particularly concerning broad concepts evolving along divergent paths. To address this issue, a novel review methodology employing bibliometrics and network analysis was tested to identify…

Theorizing and exploring teacher learning contexts is critical to understanding reform-based instructional changes. Research on professional learning, organizational contexts, and science reform has grown over the years, particularly since the unveiling of the Framework for K-12 Science Education in the United States. In this article, the authors…

Affect and emotions matter to science learning. They also matter because they are integral to science identity formation and sense of belonging. This study aims to foreground the epistemic and affective character of laboratory work in higher science education by conceptualizing it as epistemic practice, in which students activate their body and…

This qualitative case study delved into students' understanding and positioning while they participated in solving an authentic, conceptually-based problem in a high-school chemistry class. Verbal and nonverbal cues, particularly gestures, offered broader awareness of students' engagement in sensemaking during the learning experience. The…

Teachers are members of school district organizations that have their own organizational culture and climate. We differentiate a school or district as an organizational cultural context from the broader community cultural context or individual sociocultural background; it stands as an intermediate context with effects that may differ from the…

Science teachers struggle to implement and sustain new curricular ideas from professional development (PD) experiences. These PD opportunities are crucial for enacting real-world changes to teaching practice and address pressing global challenges, such as the teaching and learning of socioscientific topics nested in school communities.…

Both evolution and climate change have broad scientific consensus, and yet they are the most contested scientific concepts in the US K-12 education system. This study aimed to explore trends in proposed US state legislation employed from 2003 to 2023 by anti-evolution and anti-climate change education movements to constrain the teaching of these…

The implementation of equity-oriented reforms is never simply a technical matter: it involves directly engaging with the norms and politics responsible for reproducing inequitable opportunities and outcomes, and with efforts to promote educational justice. To date, there has been little research on how leaders in science education navigate the…

Although teachers have opportunities to learn about many things through teaching experience, we know little about how they develop science subject matter knowledge in this setting. With both limited opportunities to learn science subject matter knowledge before becoming teachers and minimal science professional development available while working…

In primary science education, inquiry-based science instruction stands out as an optimal learning environment for fostering domain-specific content and procedural knowledge. Recognizing the effectiveness of different forms of teacher guidance, there is an ongoing debate about the planning of high (structured inquiry) and low (guided inquiry)…

To specifically add to the literature on Black girls cultivating their science genius, Black women science teachers 'talk back' by sharing and developing their own narratives about being a science-curious young Black girl and how they use that experience to actualize their vision for liberatory science teaching. This international, qualitative…