Culturally Responsive Elementary Science Teaching

课程教材不是供教师遵循的脚本，而是他们在决定如何调整教材以适应特定背景下与特定学生一起使用时发挥作用的工具。事实上，为了确保教师能够为所有学生，特别是来自边缘群体的学生提供公平的学习体验，适应是必要的。教师的适应对教学和学生都有很大的影响，对课程驱动和以公平为中心的教育改革干预措施有相当大的影响。虽然研究人员已经开始确定教师课程适应的模式，但关于哪些类型的适应支持学生学习，或者教师适应材料的能力如何随着时间的推移而发展，我们知之甚少。大多数目前的研究只提供了教师课程实施的快照--通常是他们第一次使用材料--而不是连续的课程制定。由于研究表明，教师至少需要两次反复使用课程材料，才能有目的地、熟练地使用课程材料，因此需要进一步研究，以了解教师的适应能力如何随着使用课程材料的经验而变化。这个项目将提供关于教师适应课程材料的能力如何随着时间的推移而发展的宝贵知识，并对课程开发、专业发展和促进文化响应教学的教师教育努力具有影响。这个在DRK-12课程教学链中的II级探索性项目旨在更好地了解教师如何通过最初的实践和课程材料的后续制定来发展定制教学方法的能力和意愿，以满足不同学生群体的标准和需求。这项工作将填补目前文献中的空白，并有助于全面了解教师如何发展能力，以便以推进公平科学教学目标的方式使用课程。该项目的总体目标包括：1)为K-6教师实施高质量的以实践为基础的专业发展模式；2)开展一项全面和严格的研究计划，以审查教师对课程内容的习得适应与适应文化的教学设计能力之间的联系；以及3)向各种利益攸关方传播项目成果，以产生更广泛的影响。在三年的时间里，这个项目将与30名小学教师、30名职前教师和大约1700名学生一起工作。将提供专业发展，向教师介绍探索Salish海(ESS)课程，该课程利用当地环境中的海洋现象来帮助学生达到下一代科学标准。通过审查四部连续颁布的课程材料，该项目将深入了解教师发展课程背景知识(CCK)的过程，以及课程如何发挥作用，使学生在特定背景下参与科学思想和实践，这对教师如何将CCK与文化响应性教学(CRI)联系起来具有一定的意义。通过集体案例研究方法，研究人员将记录和研究小学教师如何培养适应课程内容以适应学生文化需求的能力，以及发展CCK在这一过程中所起的作用。这项工作将有助于更好地理解在基础科学中“适应文化”意味着什么，并通过开发适应文化适应课程的丰富背景介绍来推动实践，以便与具有相似背景和目标的利益攸关方分享。该项目由发现研究预科-12项目(DRK-12)资助，该项目旨在通过研究和开发创新资源、模型和工具，显著提高预科-12学生和教师的科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)的学习和教学。DRK-12计划中的项目建立在STEM教育的基础研究和先前的研究和开发工作的基础上，为拟议的项目提供了理论和经验上的证明。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Curriculum materials are not a script for teachers to follow, but a tool over which they exert agency as they make decisions about how to adapt the materials for use in their specific context with their particular students. Indeed, adaptation is necessary in order to ensure that teachers can provide equitable learning experiences for all students, particularly those from marginalized groups. Teachers' adaptations make a significant impact on both instruction and on students, and can have a considerable effect on curriculum-driven and equity-focused education reform interventions. While researchers have begun to identify patterns in teachers' curriculum adaptations, little is known about which kinds of adaptations support student learning or how teachers' capacity to adapt materials develops over time. Most current studies provide only a snapshot of teachers' curriculum implementation--often their first use of the materials--as opposed to successive curricular enactments. Because research indicates teachers need at least two iterations with curriculum materials in order to use them purposefully and skillfully, further research is needed to understand how teachers' adaptations change with experience using curriculum materials. This project will contribute valuable knowledge about how teachers' capacity to adapt curriculum materials develops over time, and has implications for the development of curriculum, professional development, and teacher education efforts to promote culturally-responsive instruction. This Level II Exploratory Project in the Teaching Strand of the DRK-12 program seeks to better understand how teachers' capacity and willingness to customize instructional approaches to meet standards and the needs of diverse student populations develops through initial practice and successive enactments of curriculum materials. This work will address current gaps in the literature and contribute to an overall understanding of how teachers develop the capacity to use curricula in ways that advance the goal of equitable science instruction. The overarching goals of the project include: 1) implementing a high-quality practicum-based professional development model for K-6 teachers; 2) conducting a comprehensive and rigorous program of research to examine associations between teachers' learned adaptations of curriculum over successive enactments of materials and pedagogical design capacity for culturally responsive instruction; and 3) disseminating project outcomes to a variety of stakeholders to produce broader impacts. Over three years, this project will work with a cohort of 30 elementary teachers, 30 preservice teachers, and approximately 1700 students. Professional development will be provided to introduce teachers to the Explore the Salish Sea (ESS) curriculum, which utilizes marine phenomena in the local environment to help students meet the Next Generation Science Standards. By examining four successive enactments of curriculum materials, the project will provide insight into the process by which teachers develop curricular context knowledge (CCK), but also how the curriculum functions to engage students with science ideas and practices in particular contexts, which has implications for how teachers connect their CCK to culturally responsive instruction (CRI). Through collective case study methods, the researchers will document and examine the ways in which elementary teachers develop the capacity to adapt curriculum materials to be culturally responsive to their students, and the role that developing CCK plays in this process. This work will help develop a more robust understanding of what it means to be 'culturally responsive' in elementary science, and to advance practice by developing context-rich representations of culturally responsive curriculum adaptation to share with stakeholders with similar contexts and goals. This project is funded by the Discovery Research preK-12 program (DRK-12) that 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.