ANCHORING SCIENCE PROFESSIONAL LEARNING IN CURRICULUM MATERIALS ENACTMENT: Illustrating Theories in Practice to Support Teachers’ Learning

Abstract

Current reforms call for all students participating in science and engineering practices to figure out the natural and designed worlds, posing real shifts for many teachers. This chapter explores how to support science teachers in this shift through curriculum-based professional learning—embedding professional learning in the context of teachers’ enactment of curriculum materials that reflect these reforms. The chapter argues that teachers need to develop student-informed curricular sensemaking, including teachers’ knowledge of curricular storylines, knowledge of how students can be positioned as meaningful collaborators, and strategies for navigating the tensions between a planned storyline and attending to student coherence. The chapter includes four design principles for curriculum-based professional learning and illustrates them in a professional learning program for middle school science teachers. They include: (1) Support teachers in taking the student perspective, (2) Support teachers in analyzing images of classroom instruction, (3) Support teachers in examining contrasting curricular cases, and (4). Support teachers in cycles of enactment (plan, enact, reflect). These design principles have been essential for shifting teachers’ vision of science and their classroom instruction to support equitable science sensemaking.