We describe the development, design, implementation, and preliminary classroom results of an innovative curriculum, "Focus on Energy," that supports learning about energy in Grades 4-5. The curriculum is grounded in the concepts of science as practice, model-based reasoning, and learning progressions, and builds on students' pre-existing…

Whereas science teachers often express initial enthusiasm about the student-centered, reform-oriented instructional strategies they encounter in professional development (PD), they rarely adopt them in practice. One possible obstacle is a mismatch between these strategies and teachers' beliefs about what is possible and desirable in their…

Flourishing in today's global society requires citizens that are both intelligent consumers and producers of scientific understanding. Indeed, the modern world is facing ever-more complex problems that require innovative ways of thinking about, around, and with science. As numerous educational stakeholders have suggested, such skills and abilities…

We explored whether existing curricula can be adapted to increase students' skills at comprehending and learning from diagrams using an intervention delivered by regular middle-school teachers in intact classrooms. Ninety-two teachers in three states implemented our modified materials over six curricular units from two publishers: "Holt"…

Low teacher self-efficacy is an important factor constraining the teaching of science at the elementary level. This study was designed to investigate the effectiveness of particular sources of efficacy information for enhancing the science teaching self-efficacy of practicing elementary teachers. Twelve teachers participated in an intervention…

Following the argument that an explicit focus on teacher thinking is an important outcome for professional development (Capps, Crawford, & Costas, 2012; Desimone, 2009), the research presented here examines the impact of one form of professional development, Research Experiences for Teachers (RETs), has in shaping teachers' beliefs and…

Project-based science curricula can improve students' usable or meaningful understanding of the science content underlying a project. However, such curricula designed around "performances" wherein students design or make something do not always do this. We researched ways to design performance project-based science curricula (pPBSc) to better…

As part of a 5-year professional development intervention aimed at improving science and literacy achievement of English language learning (ELL) students in urban elementary schools, this study examined fourth-grade students' science achievement across a 3-year (2005-2008) implementation of our professional development intervention consisting of…

In evaluating the success of teacher development programs, valid and scalable measures of teaching practice are needed. We have developed and validated the Science Lesson Plan Analysis Instrument (SLPAI) for quantitative evaluation of teacher-generated multiday lesson plans. This paper presents the SLPAI as a complement to surveys and classroom…

The purpose of this 2-year study was to investigate Malawian teacher educators' perspectives and dispositions toward teaching about ecological sustainability issues in Malawi, a developing country in sub-Sahara Africa. This study was embedded in a larger theoretical framework of investigating earth systems science through the understanding of…

This paper examines the images middle school students have of science and technology, the workplaces, and the relevant professions. It also describes the effect on these images caused by an instructional initiative, "Investigation into Science and Technology" (IST), designed to introduce students to science and technology in the "real life."…