Connecting Curriculum Materials and Teachers: Elementary Science Teachers’ Enactment of a Reform-Based Curricular Unit

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to describe how teachers used and adapted a set of curriculum materials that included opportunities for students to engage in scientific practices. Two-fourth-grade teachers in the same school were observed and interviewed. Findings revealed that teachers enacted almost every type of scientific practice in the curriculum, but in ways that varied from the written curriculum materials. Teacher interviews revealed ways in which the teachers understood the rationale for various scientific practices and how to enact them. These findings have implications for curriculum developers, professional development designers, and teacher educators. The study identifies the need to support teachers’ understanding of scientific practices and why and how to enact them with their students.

Keywords:

• Curriculum materials
• Scientific practices
• Teacher enactment
• Educative curriculum materials

Acknowledgments

We thank all of the members of the research group for their collaboration on this study, through their help in interpreting and analyzing the data, as well as providing insightful feedback. We would like to thank the teachers who participated in this study for their willingness to let us observe their teaching, interview them, and use work from their students, as well as the students themselves. This research is funded by the National Science Foundation (grant number to be provided after peer review). However, any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed here are those of the authors.

Notes

1 The teachers’ subject matter knowledge was not assessed, so we can only provide the teachers’ self-report assessments of their knowledge and preparation to teach life science and the science practices.

2 The total number of steps varies for each teacher, because they each inserted a different number of steps during the unit.

3 Similar questions were asked regarding each of the scientific practices.