Student participation in the science practices is more than following directions to conduct pre-determined experiments and analyze data with expected solutions. This requires classroom shifts that increase the epistemic agency of students: increase student involvement and authority in developing science knowledge and practices, rather than the…

Recent instructional reforms in science education aim to change the way students engage in learning in the discipline, as they describe that students are to engage with disciplinary core ideas, crosscutting concepts, and the practices of science to make sense of phenomena (NRC, 2012). For such sensemaking to become a reality, there is a need to…

New reforms in science education call for three-dimensional learning by integrating disciplinary core ideas, science and engineering practices, and "crosscutting concepts" (CCCs). These reforms defined the new term, crosscutting concept (CCC), as a lens that has explanatory power across disciplines. To describe how researchers are…

Many conversations surrounding improvement of large-enrollment college science, technology, engineering & mathematics (STEM) courses focus primarily (or solely) on changing instructional practices. By reducing dynamic, complex learning environments to collections of teaching methods, we neglect other meaningful parts of a course ecosystem…

Drawing from intersectional feminist scholarship, we communicate how Salina and Marelis, both women of color, teach science for social justice in the face of significant institutional challenges. Theorizing from their experiences and practices, we articulate a feminist praxis for school science, which includes (1) building community and…

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), a reform effort "for states, by states," advances ambitious ideals for elementary science teaching, but the fate of these ideals will depend in part on the engagement of state science coordinators (SSCs). This article explores the responses of SSCs to NGSS in a purposeful sample of 18 US…

Recent reforms in K-12 science education call for curricular materials that are designed to be "coherent for students." This form of coherence arises when the classroom community sees their science work as addressing their questions and problems. In enactment, the teacher sometimes has to improvise from the planned trajectory of the…

Equity-focused calls for elementary education reform recognize the importance of student and teacher translanguaging, yet nuances of how this process unfolds in early childhood science is an underexplored area. This study examines young plurilingual children's participation in science investigations, with a view toward understanding how open-ended…

Teachers participating in curricular reforms, especially reforms based on constructivism, are expected to bring about change in their teaching approach. This is often a difficult, complex and intensive process, and demands a radical reculturing of the classroom. This is also the case for social constructivist reforms in chemistry education, which…

Science inquiry is an important part of educational reform focusing on improvements to pedagogy. Developing students' capacities and understandings about the design and conceptualization of scientific research informs contemporary curriculum and teaching practices. Although "objectivity" is regarded as a fundamental aspect of scientific…

In the socioscientific issues (SSI) classroom, students need to cross the border between the subcultures of science (i.e., school science vs. everyday science). Traditional school contexts tend to present science as positivistic knowledge and unshakable truth unaffected by sociocultural factors. In contrast, everyday science, including SSI, is…

Around the world, there have been curricula reforms involving the incorporation of the inquiry-based teaching and learning strategy in secondary school science education in general and in practical work in particular. Research in inquiry-based practical work (IBPW) has focused, for example, on aspects of the strategy itself, on teacher…

This study explores how physics teachers in a high school negotiate the relationships between individual and collective agencies in the context of the on-going curriculum reform in China. Drawing on Bandura's social cognitive theory, the study employs ethnographical methods including observation, interviewing, and the researcher's and teachers'…

While research on and development of evidence-based instructional practices (EBIPs) in STEM education has flourished, implementation of these practices classrooms has not been as prolific. Using the teacher-centered systemic reform model as a framework, we explore the connection between chemistry instructors' beliefs about teaching and learning…

Recent education reforms including the "Next Generation Science Standards" emphasize integrating engineering into K-12 science instruction. Although prior studies have characterized engineering design (ED) in K-12 settings, no validated protocols attempt to characterize ED integration in secondary science classrooms. The present study…