Personal and Professional Growth Realized: A Self-Study of Curriculum Design and Implementation in a Secondary Science Classroom

Figures & data

Table 1 Overview of our action-research-based curriculum.

Unit	Description
1: Selecting a research topic	Students select research topics of interest to them, form groups with other students who have related interests, and think about how their action research projects might connect to concepts they have been learning in their environmental science course.
2: Developing a research plan	Students develop detailed research plans, which include goals for their research, some background information on the topic, investigable research questions, a plan for data collection, as well as a preliminary time line for the proposed project.
3: Collecting and analyzing data	Students execute their data collection plans, as well as begin to organize and analyze their data.
4: Formulating findings, sharing   results, and taking future action	Students formulate their findings, using the claim-evidence-reasoning framework to address their research questions, and groups make their findings public at a school research symposium. In addition, groups generate tentative plans for future action and include those plans in the public dissemination of their work.