Locally Adaptable Instructional Materials and Professional Learning Design for Place-Based Elementary Science

Maine Mathematics And Science Alliance, Augusta ME

Investigators

Abstract

This project addresses the growing need for high quality elementary science learning experiences that help students understand their worlds - connecting to landscapes, phenomena, communities, and cultures with which they are familiar. Currently, many curricular units designed for widespread use to meet the expectations of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) do not connect to local phenomena. Units that do incorporate local phenomena are often developed from the ground up by community members, requiring extensive time and resources that are not widely available. To support equitable access to place-based science learning opportunities, this project, in collaboration with BSCS Science Learning, will develop and test a model to support 3rd-5th grade teachers in incorporating locally or culturally relevant place-based phenomena into rigorously tested curricular units that meet the expectations of the NGSS. The project team will develop two units that could be used in any region across the country with built-in opportunities and embedded supports for teachers to purposefully adapt curriculum to include local phenomena. In-person and virtual professional learning experiences will further help teachers who have limited district support for science to incorporate place-based approaches. Participating teachers will range from rural and urban settings in California, Colorado, and Maine to ensure the end products of this project are relevant, scalable, appropriate for a wide range of students across the country. This project investigates how to design instructional resources that value rigor and standardization while at the same time incorporating the cultural relevancy of place. The project goals are to: 1) design, test, revise, and disseminate two locally adaptable instructional resource packages for grades 3-5 science that include educative curriculum materials and supporting professional learning; 2) use design-based research to examine how teachers apply unit resources and professional learning experiences to incorporate local phenomena into the curriculum and their teaching; and 3) examine how the process of curriculum adaptation can support teacher understanding of the science ideas and phenomena within the units, teacher agency and self-efficacy beliefs in teaching science, and student perceptions of relevance and interest in science learning. Data from before, during, and after two rounds of unit enactments will be collected from 50 classrooms per unit across a range of geographic locations. Data will include weekly instructional logs, teacher surveys, measures of teacher self-efficacy and teacher agency and student electronic exit tickets. In addition, six exemplar case study teachers per unit will inform a deeper understanding of the potential of a curriculum adaptation model for incorporating local phenomena. Case study data will include teacher post-enactment interviews, classroom observations, and student focus groups. The design and research from this project will advance the field’s knowledge about how to design instructional materials and professional learning experiences that meet the expectations of the NGSS while also empowering teachers to adapt materials in productive ways, drawing on locally or culturally relevant phenomena. The Discovery Research K-12 program (DRK-12) seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models, and tools. Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed projects. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.