Teacher Learning in Changing Contexts: Perspectives from the Learning Sciences 2022009977, 9780367562663, 9780367562670, 9781003097112

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series Information
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Contributors
Teacher Learning in Changing Contexts: Introduction
Part I: Designing Opportunities for Teacher Learning
Part II: Teacher Learning Through Co-Design
Part III: Teachers Embedded in Larger Systems
References
Part I Designing Opportunities for Teacher Learning
1 Engaging Teachers in Dialogic Discourse Practices: Challenges, Effective PD Approaches, and Teachers’ Individual Development
Engaging Teachers in Dialogic Discourse Practices: Challenges, Effective PD Approaches and Teachers’ Individual Development
What Are Key Features of Dialogic Discourse?
Designing Effective PD Approaches to Foster Teachers’ Dialogic Discourse Practice
Transforming Authoritative Discourse Patterns Through Open Questioning and Productive Follow-Ups
Situating Teacher Learning and Reflection in Everyday Teaching Practice
The Dialogic Video Cycle (DVC)
The Dialogic Instructional Program (DIP)
Evaluating the Impact of the DIALOGUE Study: Changes in Teachers’ Discourse Practice and Effects On Student Learning
Summary of Findings From DIALOGUE I
Findings From DIALOGUE II: Investigating Teachers’ Individual Development During PD
Sample and Study Design
Rating the Quality of Teachers’ Discourse Practice
Predicting Teachers’ Individual Changes in PD Based On Their Starting Conditions
Changes in Students’ Learning With Regard to Teachers’ Individual Change
Challenges and Recommendations
Acknowledgements
References
2 Teachers Learning to Implement Student Collaboration: The Role of Data Analytics Tools
Teachers Learning to Implement Student Collaboration: The Role of Data Analytics Tools
Teachers Learning to Monitor Student Collaboration
Data Analytics Tools as Modeling Tool
Data Analytics Tools for Providing Overview
Teachers Learning Through Inquiry Into Their Practice (Teaching Analytics)
Discussion
References
3 Anchoring Science Professional Learning in Curriculum Materials Enactment: Illustrating Theories in Practice to Support ...
Anchoring Science Professional Learning in Curriculum Materials Enactment: Illustrating Theories in Practice to Support ...
Supporting a Classroom Culture of Figuring Out for All Students
Embedding Professional Learning in the Context of Curriculum Enactment
Design Principles for Curriculum-Based Professional Learning
Illustrating Principles in the Design of OpenSciEd Professional Development
Design Principle 1: Student Perspective
Design Principle 2: Images of Classroom Instruction
Design Principle 3: Contrasting Curricular Cases
Teachers’ Experiences With OpenSciEd Professional Learning
Design Principle 4: Cycles of Enactment
Discussion
References
4 Professional Development for STEM Integration: Analyzing Bioinformatics Teaching By Examining Teachers’ Qualities of ...
Theoretical Considerations
Supporting Teachers On STEM Integration
Bioinformatics as a Case of STEM-Integrated Curricula
High-Quality PD Experiences and Adaptive Expertise
Methods
Context
Population
Data Sources
Data Analysis
Results
Lower Levels of Flexibility and Deep-Level Understanding in Teachers’ Adaptive Expertise
Challenges in Implementing Project Activities
Discussion
Acknowledgements
References
Part II Teacher Learning Through Co-Design
5 Learning By Design: Nourishing Expertise and Interventions
Introduction
Purpose
Teacher–Researcher Collaboration
Theoretical Framework
The Zone of Proximal Implementation (ZPI)
Interventions Within the ZPI
Teacher Expertise For and Through Design
About This Research
Guiding Question
The Rationale Behind PictoPal
What Teachers Designed and Implemented
Nine Studies Offering Insights About Teacher Learning By Design
Results of the Retrospective Analysis
Learning By Design: Nourishing Expertise
Feasibility
Participation
Talk
Learning By Design: Nourishing (Understanding Of) Interventions
Value-added
Clear
Compatible
Tolerant
Conclusion
Revisiting the Guiding Question
Discussion
The Role of Pedagogical Beliefs and Values of Teachers in Design and Implementation
Ownership and (Teacher Learning About) Technology Integration
How Teachers Approach and Learn From Collaborative Design
Support Required By Teacher Design Teams for Learning to Flourish
Future Research
In Closing
Acknowledgements
Statements
References
6 Co-Design as an Interactive Context for Teacher Learning
Co-Design as a Context for Teacher Learning
Co-design in Project READI: A Context for Teacher Learning
Design Space
Implementation Space
Cases of Teacher Learning: Science and Literature
Case 1: Tracing Learning of a Middle School Science Teacher
Three Dimensions of Teacher Learning
Summary
Case 2: From Reading Literature to Literary Interpretation
Tracing Teacher Learning
A Design Architecture for Adolescents’ Literary Reasoning
Reflecting On Enacting the Nine-Week Module: Three Problems of Practice
Summary
Discussion
References
7 Teacher–Researcher Collaborative Inquiry in Mathematics Teaching Practices: Learning to Promote Student Discourse
Teacher–researcher Collaborative Inquiry in Mathematics Teaching Practices: Learning to Promote Student Discourse
Background
Theoretical Framework
Interactions as a Site for Learning
Reflection as a Tool for Learning
Cycles of Inquiry as a Process for Learning
Methods
Participants
Context of the Case Study
Context of Teacher Learning: The Inquiry-Cycle Process
Data Analysis
Data Analytic Methods
Findings
Fall of Year 1: Text- and Teacher-Centered Lesson
Fall of Year 2: Student Agency Emerging
Winter of Year 2: Students as Agents of Their Own Learning
Summary and Reflections On Crystal’s Learning
Discussion
Note
Acknowledgments
References
8 The Role of Teacher Beliefs, Goals, Knowledge, and Practices in Co-Designing Computer Science Education Curricula
Acknowledgements
Teacher Participation and Learning in the Codesign of Elementary Computer Science Curriculum
The Equity Challenge
The Challenge of Teacher Professional Learning in CS
Codesign: Leveraging Teachers’ Assets in Computer Science Education
Analytic Focus: Making Teacher Assets Visible in Codesign and CS Lessons
Methods
RPP Background and Design Objectives
Methodological Commitments
Participants and Roles
Design Processes and Data Collection
Data Analysis
Findings
Overview of Findings
Shifts in Jill’s CS Education Practices: Design and Implementation Outcomes
Teacher, Beliefs, Goals, Knowledge, and Practices in CS Education Codesign
Beliefs and Goals About Equity in CS Education
Pedagogical Practices and Knowledge
Approaches to Professional Learning
Discussion and Implications
References
9 Teacher–Researcher Co-Design Teams: Teachers as Intellectual Partners in Design
Theoretical Framework
Teachers as Transformative Intellectuals
Teacher Professional Development
Teachers as Designers
The Present Study
A Co-Design Teacher Professional Development Program
The PARRISE TPD Program
Methodology
Participants
Instructional Context
Adopting a Hybrid Co-Design Approach
Structure of the Co-Design TPD
Teachers as “Learners”
Teachers as “Designers”
Teachers as “Innovators”
Teachers as “Reflective Practitioners”
Data Collection
Teachers’ Professional Needs
Co-design Discussion Themes
SWOT Analysis of Teachers’ Co-Designed Modules
In-depth Individual Interviews
Data Analysis
Findings
Becoming Intellectual Partners in Design
Theme 1: Connecting Theory and Practice -Reunification of “Making” and “Doing”
Theme 2: The Development of a Learning Design Community
Theme 3: Alignment of TPD Goals With Teachers’ Needs
Discussion
Author Note
References
10 Engaging Teachers in a DBIR Community to Develop ICT-Enabled Problem-Solving Skills
Introduction
Collaborative Problem Solving Skills
Research Practice Partnerships (RPPs)
DBIR
Scenario Based Design in Solving Complex Problems
Methodology
Participants From DBIR Community
SBD Process
Design and Procedure
Stage 1: Driving Question
Stage 2: Interview Conversations
Stage 3: Analysis
Stage 4: Two Most Uncertain Drivers
Stage 5: Plotlines
Stage 6: Stories
Stage 7: Application
Measures
Online Collaboration Platform and ICT Tools
Data Collection and Analysis
Findings
Teachers’ Problem-Solving Skills
Teachers’ CPS Behaviors in SBD Process
Discussion
Conclusion
References
Part III Teachers Embedded in Larger Systems
11 Design-Based Implementation Research as an Approach to Studying Teacher Learning in Research-Practice Partnerships ...
From Studying and Supporting Teacher Learning to Expansive Learning: The Dynamics of Learning in Research-Practice ...
The Theories We Use and the Ones We Need to Study Teacher Learning
Theorizing Teaching and Its Improvement as Principled Adaptation and Improvisation
Expanding the Context of Teacher Learning Beyond the Classroom
Bringing Theory and Practice Across Levels Together
Research and Development to Test and Refine New Theories of Learning in Context
The Scaled Impact Project: Studying How Teachers Make Sense Of, Adapt To, and Challenge Policies
The SEFA Project: Joint Inquiry to Investigate How to Promote Equitable Participation in Class
Infrastructuring Assessment Project: A Series of Initiatives and Studies Focused On Changing District-Level Assessment ...
Possibilities and Necessary Expansions of DBIR for Studying Teacher Learning
References
12 Design for Multilevel Connected Learning in Pedagogical Innovation Networks
Introduction
Multilevel Connected Learning for Scalable Educational Innovations
The MultiLevel MultiScale (MLMS) Model of Connected Learning
Architecture for Learning as the Object of MLMS Interaction Analysis and Design for Infrastructuring
The Research Context
Design of the Network Architectures for Learning
Supporting Teacher Learning for SDL-STEM Innovations
Fostering Leadership Capacity at School and Network Levels
Case Selection and Data Sources
Learning Journey of Teachers and School Leaders in School A
The Evolving Within-School Architecture for Learning in School A
Co-evolution of School A Teachers’ SDL-STEM Practices With the Within-School and Network-Designed Architectures for Learning
Discussions
References
13 Teachers’ Expansive Framing in School-Based Citizen Science Partnerships
Introduction
Initiating Multi-Sector Partnerships in School-Based Citizen Science
Involving Teachers in School-Based Citizen Science Partnerships
School-Based Citizen Science as an Arena for Design-Based Implementation Research
Boundary Crossing
Research Aims and Objectives
Methods
Data Collection and Analysis
Findings
First Iteration Findings (Case Study A)
Identification
Coordination
Reflection
Revisions Made for the Second Iteration’s Design
Second Iteration Findings (Case Studies B and C)
Expansive Framing Leading to a Growing Sense of Meaning
Productive Agency to Initiate New Citizen Science Projects
Conclusions
To Realize the Potential of MECS for Teacher Professional Development, Scientists Should Be Fully Involved in All Boundary ...
Teachers’ Participation in MECS Affords Opportunities for Expansive Framing and Productive Agency
Implications and Future Directions
Acknowledgements
References
Commentary
Interacting and Intersecting Contexts of Teacher Learning: Next Steps for Learning Sciences Research
Cross-cutting Themes
Challenge 1: Creating Infrastructures to Support and Sustain Teacher Learning
Challenge 2: Supporting Adaptive Teaching Through Lifelong Professional Learning
Challenge 3: Repositioning Teachers and Researchers in Educational Improvement Research
References
Index

Citation preview

TEACHER LEARNING IN CHANGING CONTEXTS

New to the Routledge Advances in Learning Sciences series, this book highlights diverse approaches taken by researchers in the Learning Sciences to support teacher learning. It features international perspectives from world class researchers that exemplify new lenses on the work of teaching, encompassing new objects of learning, methods and tools; new ways of working with researchers and peers; and new efforts to work with the systems in which teachers are embedded. Together, the chapters in this volume reflect a new frontier of research on teacher learning that leverages diversity in the content, contexts, objects of inquiry, and tools for supporting shifts in instructional practice. Divided into three sections, chapters question: • • • • • • •

What new pedagogies and knowledge do teachers need to facilitate student learning in the 21st century? How do learning sciences’ tools, strategies, and experiences provide opportunities for them to learn these? What role do teachers play as co-​designers of educational innovations? What unique affordances does co-​design afford for teacher learning? What do teachers learn through engaging in co-​design? How do teachers work and learn as part of interdisciplinary teams within educational systems? What might it look like to design for teacher learning in these broader organizational systems?

Uniquely highlighting how cycles of reflection and co-​design can serve as important mechanisms to support teacher learning, this invaluable book lays the groundwork for sustained teacher learning and instructional improvement. Alison Castro Superfine is Co-​Director of the Learning Sciences Research Institute, and Professor of Mathematics Education & Learning Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She conducts research on the learning of practicing and prospective mathematics teachers in a variety of learning environments.

Susan R. Goldman is a Distinguished Professor and Founding Co-​Director of the Learning Sciences Research Institute, University of Illinois at Chicago. She conducts research on teacher and student learning commensurate with the critical discourse and reasoning competencies needed for effective functioning and well-​ being in the 21st century. Mon-​Lin Monica Ko is a Research Assistant Professor at the Learning Sciences Research Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She examines how teachers, curriculum materials, and students work together to support meaningful science learning in secondary science classrooms.

ROUTLEDGE ADVANCES IN LEARNING SCIENCES Series Editors: Mike Sharples, Chee-​Kit Looi, and Keith Sawyer

The Routledge Advances in Learning Sciences book series is a high quality and trans-​disciplinary international series publishing cutting edge research. The term “learning sciences” covers research and development in the understanding of how people learn and the design of novel environments for learning. Contributing fields include cognitive science, computer science, educational psychology, neuroscience, anthropology, and linguistics. Titles published within the series take a broad and innovative approach to topical areas of research, are written by leading international researchers and are aimed at a research and post-​g raduate student audience. Teacher Learning in Changing Contexts: Perspectives from the Learning Sciences Edited by Alison Castro Superfine, Susan R. Goldman, and Mon-​Lin Monica Ko For more information about this series, please visit: www.routle​dge.com/​Routle​ dge-​Advan​ces-​in-​Learn​ing-​Scien​ces/​book-​ser​ies/​RALS

TEACHER LEARNING IN CHANGING CONTEXTS Perspectives from the Learning Sciences

Edited by Alison Castro Superfine, Susan R. Goldman, and Mon-​Lin Monica Ko

Cover image: © Getty Images First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Alison Castro Superfine, Susan R. Goldman and Mon-​Lin Monica Ko; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Alison Castro Superfine, Susan R. Goldman and Mon-​Lin Monica Ko to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-​in-​Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data Names: Castro Superfine, Alison, editor. | Goldman, Susan R., editor. | Ko, Mon-Lin Monica, editor. Title: Teacher learning in changing contexts : perspectives from the learning sciences / edited by Alison Castro Superfine, Susan R. Goldman and Mon-Lin Monica Ko. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2023. | Series: Routledge advances in the learning sciences | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2022009977 | ISBN 9780367562663 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367562670 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003097112 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Teachers–In-service learning. | Teachers–In-service learning–Research. | Teaching–Methodology. | Teaching–Methodology–Research. Classification: LCC LB1731 .T41864 2023 | DDC 370.71/1–dc23/eng/20220425 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022009977 ISBN: 978-​0-​367-​56266-​3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-​0-​367-​56267-​0 (pbk) ISBN: 978-​1-​003-​09711-​2 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/​9781003097112 Typeset in Bembo by Newgen Publishing UK

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments  List of Contributors  Teacher Learning in Changing Contexts: Introduction  Susan R. Goldman, Alison Castro Superfine, and Mon-​Lin Monica Ko

x xii 1

PART I

Designing Opportunities for Teacher Learning  1 Engaging Teachers in Dialogic Discourse Practices: Challenges, Effective PD Approaches, and Teachers’ Individual Development  Ricardo Böheim, Ann-​Kathrin Schindler, and Tina Seidel 2 Teachers Learning to Implement Student Collaboration: The Role of Data Analytics Tools  Anouschka van Leeuwen and Nikol Rummel 3 Anchoring Science Professional Learning in Curriculum Materials Enactment: Illustrating Theories in Practice to Support Teachers’ Learning  Katherine L. McNeill, Renee Affolter, and Brian J. Reiser

13

15

35

47

viii Contents

4 Professional Development for STEM Integration: Analyzing Bioinformatics Teaching by Examining Teachers’ Qualities of Adaptive Expertise  Susan A.Yoon, Jooeun Shim, Katherine Miller, Amanda M. Cottone, Noora Fatima Noushad, Jae-​Un Yoo, Michael V. Gonzalez, Ryan Urbanowicz, and Blanca E. Himes

69

PART II

Teacher Learning through Co-​design 

91

5 Learning by Design: Nourishing Expertise and Interventions  Susan McKenney, Joke Voogt, and Paul A. Kirschner

93

6 Co-​Design as an Interactive Context for Teacher Learning  Susan R. Goldman, Allison H. Hall, and Mon-​Lin Monica Ko 7 Teacher–​Researcher Collaborative Inquiry in Mathematics Teaching Practices: Learning to Promote Student Discourse  Kathleen Pitvorec, Alison Castro Superfine, Susan R. Goldman, and Christopher Fry 8 The Role of Teacher Beliefs, Goals, Knowledge, and Practices in Co-​designing Computer Science Education Curricula  Kimberley Gomez, Ung-​Sang Lee, and Amy Berkhoudt Woodman 9 Teacher–​Researcher Co-​design Teams: Teachers as Intellectual Partners in Design  Eleni A. Kyza, Andria Agesilaou,Yiannis Georgiou, and Andreas Hadjichambis 10 Engaging Teachers in a DBIR Community to Develop ICT-​Enabled Problem-​Solving Skills  Xiaoqing Gu and Hongjin Xu

112

136

158

175

196

PART III

Teachers Embedded in Larger Systems  11 Design-​Based Implementation Research as an Approach to Studying Teacher Learning in Research-​Practice Partnerships Focused on Equity  William R. Penuel, Carrie D. Allen, Eve Manz, and Sara C. Heredia

215

217

Contents  ix

12 Design for Multilevel Connected Learning in Pedagogical Innovation Networks  Nancy Law and Pak On Ko

238

13 Teachers’ Expansive Framing in School-​Based Citizen Science Partnerships  Maya Benichou,Yael Kali, and Yotam Hod

256

Commentary 

277

Interacting and Intersecting Contexts of Teacher Learning: Next Steps for Learning Sciences Research  Mon-​Lin Monica Ko, Alison Castro Superfine, and Susan R. Goldman Index 

279

287

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The inspiration for an edited volume on teacher learning from the perspectives of the learning sciences developed over multiple conversations among the three of us about a convergence on the need to better articulate how teachers develop the knowledge and practices needed to facilitate students actively engaging in learning. We were seeing this emphasis in research emerging from the multiple fields in which each of our own work was embedded, i.e., mathematics teacher education (ACS), science (MLK), social sciences (SG), and efforts to employ technology-​ based tools in educational settings (all three of us). It was also reflected in the James S. McDonnell Foundation commitment to major funding for a new research program focused on Teachers as Learners. And for the first time ever, teacher learning was called out as its own track in the ICLS 2020 conference. Papers in this track discussed teachers’ professional learning occurring not just as implementers of researcher-​developed learning environments but as participatory co-​designers and facilitators of instruction. At the same time research-​practice partnerships (e.g., design-​ based implementation research, networked improvement communities) were emerging as critical to teachers being able to spread and sustain new forms of practice beyond a single classroom. The series of which this volume is a part, Advances in the Learning Sciences, seemed to be an ideal context for bringing together an international group of researchers in the Learning Sciences who have been individually and collectively wrestling with facilitating teacher learning, supporting the enactment of that learning in the context of classrooms, and attending to the institutional practices that proliferate (or hamper) uptake beyond a single classroom. We are indebted to each of the chapter authors for their commitment to this project. Their high quality research and the insights stemming from it significantly advance conceptualizations of what teachers need to learn and the challenges of learning it as well as methodologies and analytic strategies for mining interactions among and with teachers and other stakeholders

Acknowledgments  xi

in educational systems.The implications of this work for further advancing learning sciences perspectives on teacher learning and systemic change are far reaching. We are also extremely appreciative of the careful scrutiny that each of the authors put forth as reviewers of other chapters in the volume. Their attention to the overall aims of the book helped to sharpen the themes and key takeaways from each section. With their expert help, we have been able to ensure that teachers and teacher learning have remained the front and center concerns of the volume. Finally, every chapter speaks to the phenomenal dedication of the teachers and school partners that have engaged in the research and development enterprise working side by side with learning sciences researchers to advance an educational agenda that furthers the accomplishments of students, teachers, and other educational practitioners. Clearly, the work reported in this book would not have been possible without their willingness to work with researchers to take up new tools and practices in their classrooms. They have dedicated countless hours, contributed numerous ideas and suggestions, shared their instructional practices, and engaged in inquiry and reflection that furthered both researchers’ and teachers’ learning. It has been a humbling process for which we are incredibly grateful to have had access. We look forward to continued opportunities to learn together. Alison Castro Superfine, Susan R. Goldman, and Mon-​Lin Monica Ko November 2021

CONTRIBUTORS

Renee Affolter is the Co-​ Director of the OpenSciEd Equitable Instruction

Initiative at Boston College where she designs, implements, and researches professional learning. Andria Agesilaou is PhD Candidate at the Cyprus University of Technology.

Her doctoral thesis focuses on investigating primary school students’ attitudes on personal data privacy and security. Carrie D. Allen is Assistant Professor of Learning Sciences at the University of

North Texas. Her research aims to develop understanding of the various processes through which equity-​and justice-​oriented reform efforts within STEM education become understood, experienced, responded to, and enacted in order to inform the approach to designing learning opportunities for both teachers and students. Maya Benichou is Organizational Psychologist who recently completed her PhD

at the University of Haifa, Department of Learning and Instructional Sciences. She is a member of the Taking Citizen Science to School (TCSS) research center. Maya’s research focuses on the implementation of Mutualistic Ecology of Citizen Science (MECS) innovation in schools via research–​practice partnerships. Amy Berkhoudt Woodman is a Curriculum Development Manager at Code.org,

specifically focused on developing engaging and inclusive CS activities that integrate into other subject areas like math, science, and ELA. Amy received her MA in Education Policy & Leadership at the University of Michigan and has worked in multiple levels of education, spanning from classroom teaching, non-profit management, education policy, and academic research.

List of Contributors  xiii

Ricardo Böheim is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department Educational

Sciences, Technical University of Munich. His research focuses on productive teacher–​student interactions that enhance student motivation, engagement and learning. Amanda M. Cottone is Postdoctoral Associate in the Graduate School of Education

and the Center for Engineering Mechanobiology, University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests span K-​16 science and technology education, and the learning sciences. Christopher Fry is PhD candidate at the Learning Sciences Research Institute,

University of Illinois Chicago. His research interests focus on teacher learning and practices in post-​secondary Career and Technical Education. Yiannis Georgiou is a research fellow with the Media, Cognition, and Learning

Research Group at the Department of Communication and Internet Studies of the Cyprus University of Technology. His research interests focus on the design and investigation of immersive learning environments as well as on teachers’ professional development regarding novel pedagogies and technologies, using co-​design/​ participatory design approaches. Susan R. Goldman is Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences,

Psychology, and Education and Founding Co-​Director of the Learning Sciences Research Institute, University of Illinois Chicago. She conducts research on teacher and student learning commensurate with the critical discourse and reasoning competencies needed for effective functioning and well-​being in the 21st century. Kimberley Gomez is Professor of Education and Information studies at the

University of California, Los Angeles. She investigates the design and integration of equity-​focused, language supported, STEM content and pedagogy, and the use of computational tools, in K-​14 classrooms and institutions. Michael V. Gonzalez is the Associate Director of Basic and Translational Research

at the Center for Cytokine Storm Treatment and Laboratory (CSTL) within the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He develops technologies to gain insights into the genetic and cellular architectures of a number of disorders involving autoimmunity. Dr Xiaoqing Gu is the Head of Department of Educational Information Technology,

East China Normal University. Her research interests include learning science and learning technology, computer-​supported collaborative learning (CSCL), learning analytics and leaner profiling, and Interactive Computer Technology (ICT)-​ integrated pedagogical innovation.

xiv  List of Contributors

Andreas Ch. Hadjichambis is Chair of the European Network for Environmental

Citizenship, Scientific Director (Research Professor) of the Cyprus Centre for Environmental Research and Education (CYCERE), and a Researcher in the Cyprus University of Technology Allison H. Hall is Research Scientist at the Learning Sciences Research Institute,

University of Illinois Chicago. She studies how teachers learn to design and enact instruction to support disciplinary discourse and practices in literary reading. Sara C. Heredia is Assistant Professor of Science Education in the Department of

Teacher Education and Higher Education in the School of Education, University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Her research focuses on the organization and design of science teachers’ professional learning, especially with regard to implementation of equity-​based instructional practices. Blanca E. Himes is Associate Professor of Informatics in the Department of

Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Informatics at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research investigates asthma pathogenesis and treatment using biomedical informatics approaches, including via the use of Electronic Health Record (EHR)-​derived genetics and other omics data to study asthma and other pulmonary diseases. Yotam Hod is Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) at the University of Haifa

Faculty of Education, head of the Educational Technologies Graduate Program, and Director of LINKS Future Learning Spaces. His research attends to humanistic perspectives on learning and cross-​cuts several areas of interest including learning communities, knowledge building, future learning spaces, and identity. Yael Kali is Professor of Technology Enhanced Learning at the University of Haifa

and founding director of two Israeli centers of research excellence—​Learning In a NetworKed Society (LINKS, 2012–​2018) and Taking Citizen Science to School (TCSS, 2017–​2023). Her work focuses on the role of design principles for supporting learning and collaborative design, especially within networks of research-​practice partnerships. Paul A. Kirschner is Emeritus Professor. He studies how to make teaching and

learning effective, efficient, and enjoyable for both teachers and learners. Mon-​ Lin Monica Ko is Research Assistant Professor at the Learning Sciences

Research Institute, University of Illinois Chicago. She studies how teachers, students, and curriculum materials work together to support meaningful science learning in secondary science classrooms. Pak On Ko is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Education and a senior school

development officer at the Centre for Information Technology in Education

List of Contributors  xv

(CITE), University of Hong Kong. She collaborates with teachers from different schools in Hong Kong to advance Science and STEM education and researches teacher learning in this context. Eleni A. Kyza is Associate Professor in Information Society at the Department

of Communication and Internet Studies at the Cyprus University of Technology, where she coordinates the Media, Cognition, and Learning Research Group (http://​mcl.cut.ac.cy). Her research investigates technology-​ enhanced learning environments to support reflective learning and teaching practices. Nancy Law is Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Hong

Kong and the Founding Director for the Centre for Information Technology in Education. She researches technology-​enhanced learning innovations especially as related to implementation and refinement of multilevel network models of innovation. Ung-​Sang Lee is Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Education Studies,

University of California, San Diego. His research examines how school stakeholders’ participation in collaborative design (1) facilitates learning that advances racial justice and equity, (2) facilitates recognition of the assets and knowledge of school stakeholders from minoritized backgrounds, and (3) advances racial justice in schools. Eve Manz is Assistant Professor of Science Education at Boston University’s

Wheelock College of Education and Human Development. Her research focuses on the development of epistemic practices in mathematics and science; that is, supporting students to participate in making and using knowledge in powerful, disciplinary ways. Susan McKenney is Professor of Teacher Professionalization, School Development

and Educational Technology. She investigates these themes related to educational design, and synergistic research-​practice interactions. Katherine L. McNeill is Professor of Science Education at Boston College. Her

research focuses on supporting students with diverse backgrounds in scientific sensemaking. Katherine Miller is a PhD candidate in Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education

in the Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on science teacher professional development in the areas of data literacy, science inquiry, and STEM integration. Noora Fatima Noushad is a PhD student in the Learning Sciences and Technology

program in the Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania. Her

xvi  List of Contributors

research interests span K-​16 science and technology integration and designing environments that foster epistemic agency and civic engagement. William R. Penuel is Distinguished Professor of Learning Sciences and Human

Development in the School of Education and Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Colorado Boulder. He designs and studies curriculum materials, assessments, and professional learning experiences for teachers in science. He works in partnership with school districts and state departments of education, and conducts research in support of educational equity. Kathleen Pitvorec is Research Assistant Professor in the Learning Sciences

Research Institute. University of Illinois Chicago. Her research focuses on K-​8 mathematics teacher learning (specifically related to promoting student agency) and on how teachers take up informal leadership roles as their teaching expertise develops. Brian J. Reiser is Professor of Learning Sciences at Northwestern University. His

research investigates supporting teachers and students in knowledge-​ building science and engineering practices. Nikol Rummel is Professor of Educational Psychology at Ruhr University Bochum.

Her research focuses on collaborative learning, productive failure, and the role of educational technology. Ann-​Kathrin Schindler is Senior Researcher in Medical and Teacher Education

at the Technical University of Munich. Her research focuses on professionalization and change processes for teachers and students in medical education. Tina Seidel is Professor of Educational Psychology at the Technical University of

Munich, Her research interests include development of teacher expertise and professional vision, learning with digital tools and simulations in teacher education, leveraging dialogue practices in classrooms through teacher professional development. Jooeun Shim is a doctoral student in the Learning Sciences and Technology

program in the Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests focus on K-​12 STEM integration through mobile learning, critical computational literacy, and scientific action. Alison Castro Superfine is Professor of Mathematics Education and Learning

Sciences, and Co-​Director of the Learning Sciences Research Institute, University of Illinois Chicago. Her research focuses on teacher learning of both pre-​and in-​ service teachers and on research-​practice partnerships as vehicles for collaborative instructional improvement over time.

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List of Contributors  xvii

Ryan Urbanowicz is Assistant Professor of Informatics in the Department of

Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics, University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on the development of machine learning, artificial intelligence automation, data mining, and computational biology methodologies as well as their application to biomedical and clinical data analyses. Anouschka van Leeuwen is Assistant Professor at Utrecht University. Her research

focuses on the intersection of teaching and educational technology. Joke Voogt is Professor of ICT and Curriculum. She studies the integration of ICT

as well as how it enhances teaching and learning. Hongjin Xu, is a PhD candidate at East China Normal University. His research

focuses on theory and practice of learning transfer, learning science and technology design, and computer-​supported collaborative learning (CSCL). Jae-​Un Yoo is a graduate of the Masters in Learning Sciences and Technology

program in the Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests focus on how teachers are supported in professional development activities for novel instruction in high school STEM classes. Susan A. Yoon is Professor of Education in the Graduate School of Education,

University of Pennsylvania. She has research interests in science and technology education, complex systems, social network and social capital applications, and the learning sciences.

TEACHER LEARNING IN CHANGING CONTEXTS Introduction Susan R. Goldman, Alison Castro Superfine, and Mon-​Lin Monica Ko

Internationally, over the past decade, standards and assessments of student achieve­ ment increasingly emphasize knowledge and skills that require pedagogies other than transmission models (Pellegrino & Hilton, 2012; OECD 2021, 2019). As discussed in these reports, research in educational and learning sciences converges on the importance of students achieving deep understanding of the concepts, principles, and practices of the disciplinary content areas they study. Merely being able to reproduce established facts is insufficient for application to new situations and thus prevents the kinds of innovation and creative problem solving that 21st century society demands. The research indicates that achieving deep learning requires that students engage in developmentally appropriate forms of authentic disciplinary practices, and that they do so in interaction with others (e.g., Dillenbourg et al., 2009; Goldman et al., 2016; Danish & Gresalfi, 2018). Facilitating such learning processes changes not only what teachers teach but how they teach it, including the tools and instructional strategies they employ. Coupled with these shifts in expectations for students, new knowledge is generated on an ongoing basis altering what we know within traditional disciplines and creating impetus for expanding—​and in some cases breaching—​disciplinary boundaries through multi-​, inter-​and transdisciplinary fields. As new disciplines emerge, they pose “on the job” learning challenges for teachers in terms of their own understanding of the content, principles, and representational practices of these emergent fields as well as anticipating how to support student learning of these. Adding further complexity is that teaching is a highly situated activity that requires adaptation to the in-​the-​moment interactions of teachers and students (Borko, 2004; Greeno et al., 1996). Accordingly, teachers need to flexibly apply their knowledge in the dynamic contexts that are classrooms while not compromising on underlying principles that support student inquiry. They need to understand what to do, how to do it and why to do it (e.g., Bereiter, 2014; Brown & Campione, DOI: 10.4324/9781003097112-1

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1994; Darling-​Hammond et al., 2007; Zech et al., 2000). At the same time, teachers operate within complex ecosystems wherein classrooms are embedded in schools located in communities within larger geographical regions, states, nation states, and regions of the world (e.g., Bronfenbrenner, 1994; Cohen et al., 1993). What happens at any one level impacts and is impacted by what happens at other levels of these ecosystems. Thus, whether teachers can act on what they understand depends on the larger contexts in which they are embedded. Although issues of teachers learning to flexibly support student learning amid the organizational dynamics of educational institutions have long been the focus of a variety of educational research (Fullan, 2000; Rowan et al., 1993), the learning sciences brings a different perspective to teacher learning. From its inception, the learning sciences has been concerned with the design of learning environments, often technology based, that would transform recitation-​based classrooms into inquiry-​oriented classrooms in which students engaged as active problem solvers. Researchers engaged in design-​based research (DBR) methodology (see for review Puntambekar, 2018) to create educational activities that positioned teachers not as providers of content information but as guides and facilitators of students’ efforts to make sense of information and apply it to consequential problems posed as inquiry questions. Examples of some of the early products of these efforts include The Adventures of Jasper Woodbury (Cognition & Technology Group at Vanderbilt, 1997), Voyage of the Mimi (Char et al., 1983; Gibbon et al., 1986), Quest Atlantis (Barab et al., 2005), Fostering Communities of Learners (Brown & Campione, 1994), CSILE (Scardamalia et al., 1994), IQWST (Krajcik et al., 2008), and the Knowledge Integration Environment (KIE) (Linn & Eylon, 2011).These projects positioned classroom teachers as implementers of researchers’ designs and various forms of professional development sought to prepare teachers for their role. These efforts quickly brought to light differences in the knowledge and practices teachers needed to transmit information versus the demands of facilitating students’ problem solving and knowledge generation. A perhaps more important consequence of these DBR efforts was that teachers provided researchers with valuable feedback on their tools and materials. Indeed, teachers’ analyses of what worked and their suggested modifications to the designed artifacts and materials were critical to improvements in the designs and their implementations (e.g., Bielaczyc, 2013). These experiences soon gave rise to intentional collaborative design work in which researchers and teachers worked more closely on the entire DBR cycle from design to implementation, reflection, and redesign. Not only did the co-​design process improve learning processes and outcomes for students but participation in the co-​design process seemed to increase teachers’ awareness of the principles underlying instructional designs and their implementations. Nevertheless, these efforts were largely boutique, small-​scale demonstrations that were neither scalable nor sustainable beyond the boundaries of the funded research projects. Seeking ways to address this issue, learning sciences researchers began to embrace a new class of models, Research-Practice Partnerships (RPPs) (Coburn & Penuel, 2016). RPPs showed promise for sustaining inquiry-​based instructional

Teacher Learning in Changing Contexts  3

models and the professional learning opportunities teachers needed to implement them. Examples of RPPs include Network Improvement Communities that draw on principles of improvement science (Bryk, Gomez, Grunow, & LeMahieu, 2015), Design-​based Implementation Research (DBIR) (Penuel et al., 2011), and Change Laboratory expansive learning (Engström, 2007; Engström et al., 1996). These models not only situate teacher learning in the problems of practice within specific teaching contexts, but also attend to the institutional practices and processes that set parameters on what happens in individual classrooms, schools, or networks. Thus, over time, scholarship on teachers and teacher learning has become a more central focus of the learning sciences. This volume brings together learning sciences perspectives on what teachers need to know and be able to do to support students’ learning (Part I), teachers’ learning processes during various forms of co-​ design (Part II), and learning processes for teachers and other participants engaged in designing for systemic change (Part III). Specifically, the driving questions of each section are the following: 1. What new pedagogies and knowledge do teachers need to facilitate student learning in the 21st century? How do learning sciences’ tools, strategies, and experiences provide opportunities for them to learn these? [Part I] 2. What role do teachers play as co-​designers of educational innovations, and what unique affordances does the co-​design afford for teacher learning? What do teachers learn when they engage in co-​design? [Part II] 3. How do teachers work and learn as part of interdisciplinary teams within educational systems, and what might it look like to design for teacher learning in these broader organizational systems? [Part III]

Part I:  Designing Opportunities for Teacher Learning Part I provides examples of various ways in which learning sciences researchers are facilitating teachers’ access to the disciplinary content, practices, and pedagogical knowledge needed to support students’ participation in developmentally appropriate forms of these practices. Central to this facilitation are curriculum and technology-​based tools that provide teachers with the new content and practices with which they are asking their students to engage. The chapters converge on the importance of teachers’ adaptability in the face of dynamic classroom and content demands and the value of teachers adopting an inquiry stance to their own practice. The first two chapters in this section focus on two critical dimensions of classrooms that differentiate active learning environments from recitation environments: dialogic discourse and collaborative inquiry. Both are hallmarks of learning environments that actively engage students in constructing generative knowledge rather than receiving known information. However, research indicates that realizing dialogic discourse or collaborative inquiry in classroom contexts requires that teachers use instructional strategies that are heuristic rather than scripted or procedural. That is, teachers need to monitor and respond to multiple inputs in

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relatively unpredictable conditions. Accordingly, they need to learn to notice what is happening, interpret what it means about student learning, and respond in ways to further that learning. The Böheim et al. (2022) chapter focuses on two features essential to teachers changing their practice to support dialogic discourse: access to instructional tools in the form of discourse moves that support dialogic classroom talk and opportunities to reflect on their practice. In their evaluation of the professional development experiences that they provided, they highlight that uptake and impact on classroom instruction was highly individualized and related to the knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes that teachers brought to the professional development. Their evaluation methodology provides a model for incorporating individual teacher’s baseline data for purposes of identifying what might be expected to change as a result of professional development. In their chapter, van Leeuwen and Rummel (2022) look at ways in which technology-​based data analytic tools can assist teachers in noticing and interpreting students’ behavior in real time, thereby allowing them to make adjustments to facilitate collaborative inquiry within student groups. A second function of data analytic tools is that they can gather data on teachers’ behaviors during instruction and make that available for teacher reflection post-​instruction. Both types of data analytic tools create opportunities for teachers to engage in inquiry into their own practice. Nevertheless, introducing technology-​based tools to support teachers’ work in the classroom also introduces additional learning challenges for teachers in that they need to understand what to do with the data from electronic tools. Efforts to support this learning are also discussed. The remaining two chapters in Part I carry the themes of collaboration, dialogic discourse, and technology tools into two specific science education contexts. McNeill and colleagues (2022) focus on the implications for what teachers need to know and be able to do to engage students in making sense of curricular materials organized around inquiry into science phenomena. They argue that students construct coherence based on the designed curriculum but there can be divergences between curricular coherence as designed and student coherence as constructed.To navigate these tensions successfully and effectively teachers need to attend to what students are saying as they make sense and what this sensemaking implies about trajectories of content learning and engaging with science practices (e.g., modeling, explanation, argument). Doing so typically requires adapting the designed curriculum to further student sensemaking while simultaneously preserving the integrity of the science phenomenon. McNeill et al. report a professional learning program that illustrates four key design principles that enable teachers to build the knowledge necessary to engage in these kinds of productive adaptations to designed curriculum. Finally, Yoon et al. (2022) take up the issue of what teachers need to know to support students learning in integrated STEM disciplines such as bioinformatics. Integrated STEM disciplines arise in response to problems and phenomena that span multiple traditional science disciplines. Teachers typically have established expertise in one of the contributing disciplines but are themselves faced with new learning

Teacher Learning in Changing Contexts  5

challenges as they engage with the phenomena, representational forms, and methodological considerations of the integrated STEM discipline. Yoon et al. report on professional development designed to support teachers with expertise in biology in successfully adapting their instruction to bioinformatics. Successful adaptation was defined in terms of teachers demonstrating flexibility in their instruction, deep level understanding, and reflective practice. A comprehensive professional development experience partially achieved these goals, but deep level understanding of the integrated STEM discipline was a major area in need of additional support. The authors caution the field not to underestimate the depth of understanding of science content and practices specific to integrated STEM disciplines that teachers need opportunities to learn.

Part II:  Teacher Learning through Co-​design The chapters in Part II describe researchers’ co-​design efforts with teachers, and the processes that support teacher professional learning. The co-​ design efforts described in the six chapters involved interdisciplinary teams engaged in iterative cycles of design, implementation, and redesign. Each team member brought unique skills, knowledge, and perspectives to the design problems they took on together. Reflection during and after co-​design and implementation was critical to accessing what teachers learned about themselves, their students, and the discipline. Importantly, each chapter examines teacher learning both up close and at a distance, ranging from a focus on the interactive processes that occurred during the co-​design work to retrospective insight on multiple years of iterative rounds of design, redesign, and implementation.The chapters highlight the roles that designed tools and artifacts, disciplinary knowledge and practices, and cycles of reflective and collaborative inquiry play in supporting teacher learning. These analyses also utilize different units of analysis, ranging from an examination of individual teachers within a single classroom to collaborations among interdisciplinary teachers in an online environment. McKenney and colleagues (2022) report on teacher’s involvement in the design and implementation of an early literacy intervention across nearly a decade of design, redesign, and implementation. Through a retrospective analysis of nine mixed methods studies, they demonstrate how teachers’ involvement and contributions refined the design and contributed to teacher learning. Notably, the depth of teacher involvement in the design mattered: active involvement in the design led to feelings of ownership, greater understanding of the principles underlying the design, and resulted in greater implementation quality. Goldman et al. (2022) report on co-​design efforts that aimed to support disciplinary learning in literary reading, history and science. They propose a model for teacher learning that reflects the unique affordances of co-​design for learning processes realized in interactions among participants during all phases of the design cycle. Two case studies—​one of a literature and the other of a science teacher—​are used to document shifts in multiple dimensions of teachers’ instructional practices

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that resulted from teacher and researcher dyads working together over two years. The shifts for both teachers reflect a deepened understanding of the discipline and of the supports students needed to engage with the content and practices. Each case study teacher became increasingly agentive in all phases of the design cycle, despite different trajectories and traversals of the co-​design context. Learning was enabled through opportunities to implement, collaboratively reflect on implementation, and redesign for subsequent implementation. In their chapter, Pitvorec et al. (2022) report a case study of a teacher–​researcher dyad that is drawn from a multi-​year study of elementary math teacher learning. The case study illustrates the role played by reflective discussions about the teacher’s instructional practice in improving her capacity to engage students in productive mathematical discourse. The authors provide evidence that the collaborative discussions in the dyad contributed to shifts in the teacher’s conceptions of key elements of effective mathematics teaching and learning, including student agency and what it means to know mathematics. In doing so, they illustrate how a professional learning context that is proximal to a teacher’s practice and focused on problems of practice relevant to the teacher’s context can promote shifts in the teacher’s instructional practices. Gomez et al. (2022) involved elementary grade teachers in co-​designing computer science (CS) curricula with an emphasis on shifting the focus from coding to using CS techniques to solve problems important to the lives of the students and communities. They report a representative case that spotlights the importance of leveraging a teacher’s existing professional beliefs, goals, and practices, especially those related to the use of equity-​oriented curricula, in helping the teacher make sense of novel disciplines and instructional tools. Through an analysis of interviews and co-​design interactions, the authors make visible how the teacher’s existing disposition and experience with inquiry-​oriented curriculum materials provided a useful framing for supporting teacher learning. Aligned with what McKenney et al. (2022) report, the co-​design process supported the teacher in seeing the deep underlying principles of the novel curriculum and its connections to her existing inquiry-​oriented science and mathematics instruction. In an effort to move towards critical praxis and transformative teaching, Kyza et al. (2022) report on a longitudinal co-​design project that positions teachers as agents of change and intellectual partners in designing instruction. The professional development efforts focused on co-​designing learning environments that would foster a dynamic and inclusive relationship between scientific advancements and societal involvement. Through analysis of interviews with elementary, middle, and high school teachers over a period of two years, the authors present evidence that these extensive and iterative co-​design processes allowed teachers to connect theory to practice, develop a design community that centered teacher’s agentive positioning as intellectual partners, and led to the collaborative design of professional development to address the needs of teachers. Finally, in their chapter, Gu and Xu (2022) examine collaborative teacher learning. The authors describe a DBIR-​focused collaboration to support the development

Teacher Learning in Changing Contexts  7

of teachers’ collaborative problem-​solving skills in an online learning environment. Drawing on the principles of scenario-​based design, the authors examine the ways in which this design approach supported problem-​solving and collaboration among teachers who were teaching different subjects. They illustrate how such a design approach promoted different types of collaborative interactions among teachers, which in turn influenced the design process.

Part III:  Teachers Embedded in Larger Systems Part III presents case studies of design-​ centric RPPs, illustrating different configurations of how teachers work and learn as co-​ designers within larger networks alongside researchers, administrators, and technology developers, and the associated challenges of engaging teachers in these ways.They describe the learning architecture of the co-​design processes while also attending to the larger organizational practices and processes that impact what happens in classroom learning environments. Taken together the chapters in this section sketch a landscape of professional learning opportunities that can empower teachers with respect to supporting students’ engagement in challenging intellectual work that occurs in complex organizational contexts. Penuel et al. (2022) set the stage for the chapters in Part III by arguing that research on teacher learning needs to consider the broader organizational structures, routines and practices within schools, districts and networks in order to translate into larger educational change that promotes more equitable school systems. In their chapter, they bring together theories and research on teacher learning, organizational change, and DBIR to illustrate an approach to studying and supporting teacher learning that brings teachers in as collaborators on the work. The authors illustrate this collaborative approach to research in their descriptions of three different RPPs focused on developing curriculum materials for secondary science. In each partnership, the authors highlight how they bridge a focus on teacher professional learning with broader theories of organizational change. Law and Ko (2022) similarly argue that research on teacher learning should consider not only changes in teacher practice, but also changes in the broader organizational infrastructure of schools and the ways in which those organizational changes contribute to teacher learning. Drawing on DBIR principles, the authors report on their research partnership aimed at fostering teachers’ capacity to design and implement STEM curriculum materials in one school. In their chapter, they illustrate how two levels of co-​design are necessary to scale curricular and pedagogical innovations within schools: teacher co-​design of curriculum and pedagogy and co-​design of the school infrastructure. The authors describe how they co-​designed aspects of the school infrastructure, including participation structures and technologies that supported interactions in the co-​design efforts, which led to changes in teacher learning and eventual scaling of the curricular innovation. Finally, Benichou, Kali, and Hod (2022) explore how collaborative school-​based citizen science partnerships can be leveraged in ways that promote opportunities

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for teacher learning. In their chapter, the authors draw on DBIR principles to illustrate the initial formation phase of the partnership that included teachers, school leaders, researchers, and scientists, stakeholders that work at different levels of school organizations and in other sectors. They illustrate how they co-​designed different mechanisms to promote boundary crossing among the various stakeholders in the partnership in order to promote productive engagement among the partners. The authors particularly focus on the ways in which different boundary crossing mechanisms supported teacher learning, including interactions with scientists and opportunities to reflect on what the work meant to teachers and their students. While it provides rich learning opportunities for students, this chapter illustrates how school-​ based citizen science can also promote productive opportunities for engagement with and learning among various stakeholders within school organizations. The concluding chapter is a commentary in which we take stock of the ways in which answers to the three focal questions for each section intersect and coalesce around themes of reflection and iterative design. We discuss the contributions of the learning sciences research perspectives reflected in the volume to expanding our understanding of what, how, and why reflection is so central to teacher learning, especially in combination with opportunities to act on those reflections. We also consider three challenges implicated by the research reported in this volume: educational infrastructure needed to support teacher as well as student learning; reconceptualizing teaching as involving lifelong professional learning opportunities; and agency and positionality of researchers as well as teachers in research and practice. In doing so, our aim is to promote new conversations within the learning sciences community about conceptualizations of teaching and how teaching expertise may be cultivated in the workplace.

References Barab, S., Thomas, M., Dodge, T., Carteaux, R., & Tuzun, H. (2005). Making learning fun: Quest Atlantis, a game without guns. Educational Technology Research and Development, 53(1), 86–​107. www.jstor.org/​sta​ble/​30220​419. Benichou, M., Kali, Y., & Hod, Y. (202). Teachers’ expansive framing in school-​based citizen science partnerships. In A. C. Superfine, S. R. Goldman & M. -​L. M. Ko (Eds.), Teacher Learning in Changing Contexts: Perspectives from the Learning Sciences. Routledge. Bereiter, C. (2014). Principled Practical Knowledge: Not a Bridge but a Ladder. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 23(1), 4–​17. https://​doi.org/​10.1080/​10508​406.2013.812​533 Bielaczyc, K. (2013). Informing design research: Learning from teachers’ designs of social infrastructure. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 22(2), 258–​311. https://​doi.org/​10.1080/​ 10508​406.2012.691​925. Böheim, R., Schindler, A., & Seidel, T. (2022). Engaging teachers in dialogic discourse practices: Challenges, effective PD approaches and teachers’ individual development. In A. C. Superfine, S. R. Goldman, & M. -​L. M. Ko (Eds.), Teacher Learning in Changing Contexts: Perspectives from the Learning Sciences. Routledge. Borko, H. (2004). Professional development and teacher learning: Mapping the terrain. Educational Researcher, 33(8), 3–​15.

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Bronfenbrenner, U. (1994). Ecological models of human development. International Encyclopedia of Education, 3(2), 37–​43. Brown, A. L., & Campione, J. C. (1994). Guided discovery in a community of learners. In K. McGilly (Ed.), Classroom Lessons: Integrating Cognitive Theory and Classroom Practice (pp. 229–​270). The MIT Press. Bryk, A., Gomez, L., Grunow, A., LeMahieu, P. (2015). Learning to Improve: How America’s Schools Can Get Better at Getting Better. Harvard Education Publishing. Char, C., Hawkins, J., Wooten, J., Sheingold, K., & Roberts, T. (1983). Voyage of the Mimi: Classroom Case Studies of Software, Video, and Print Materials. U. S. Department of Education. Washington, DC. Coburn, C. & Penuel, W. (2016). Research-​practice partnerships in education: Outcomes, dynamics, and open questions. Educational Researcher, 45. 10.3102/​0013189X16631750. Cohen, D. K, McLaughlin, M. W., & Talbert, J. E. (1993). Teaching for Understanding: Challenges for Policy and Practice. Jossey Bass. Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt. (1997). The Jasper Project: Lessons in Curriculum, Instruction, Assessment and Professional Development. Erlbaum. Danish, J., & Gresalfi, M. (2018). Cognitive and sociocultural perspectives on learning. In F. Fischer, C. E. Hmelo-​Silver, S. R. Goldman, & P. Reimann (Eds.). International Handbook of the Learning Sciences (pp. 34–​43). Darling-​Hammond, L., Bransford, J., LePage, P., Hammerness, K., & Duffy, H. (Eds.). (2007). Preparing Teachers for a Changing World: What Teachers Should Learn and Be Able to Do (1 edition). Jossey-​Bass. Dillenbourg, P., Järvelä, S., & Fischer, F. (2009). The evolution of research on computer-​ supported collaborative learning. In Technology-​enhanced learning (pp. 3–​19). Springer, Dordrecht. Engeström, Y. (2007). Enriching the theory of expansive learning: Lessons from journeys toward coconfiguration. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 14, 23–​39. Engeström,Y.,Virkkunen, J., Helle, M., Pihlaja, J., and Poikela, R. (1996). Change laboratory as a tool for transforming work. Lifelong Learning in Europe, 1, 10–​17. Fullan, M. (2000). The meaning of educational change: A quarter of a century of learning. In A. Hargreaves, A. Liberman, M. Fullan, & D. Hopkins (Eds.), International Handbook of Educational Change. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Gibbon, S., & Hooper, K. (1986). The voyage of the MIMI. Learning Tomorrow. Journal of the Apple Education Advisory Council, 3, 195–​207. Gibbon, S. & Hooper, K. (1987). Learning Tomorrow: Journal of the Apple Education Advisory Council, n3, pp. 195–​207. Greeno, J. G., Collins, A. M., & Resnick, L. B. (1996). Cognition and learning. In Berliner, D, C., & Calfee, R. C. (Eds.), Handbook of Educational Psychology (pp. 15–​46). Simon & Schuster Macmillan. Goldman, S. R., Britt, M. A., Brown, W., Cribb, G., George, M., Greenleaf, C., Lee, C. D., Shanahan, C., & Project READI (2016). Disciplinary literacies and learning to read for understanding: A conceptual framework of core processes and constructs. Educational Psychologist, 51, 219–​246. Goldman, S. R., Hall, A., & Ko, M. -​L. M. (2022). Co-​design as an interactive context for teacher learning. In A. C. Superfine, S. R. Goldman, & M. -​L. M. Ko (Eds.), Teacher Learning in Changing Contexts: Perspectives from the Learning Sciences. Routledge. Gomez, K., Lee, U., & Woodman, A. B. (2022). The role of teacher beliefs, goals, knowledge, and practices in co-​designing computer science education curricula. In A. C. Superfine, S. R. Goldman, & M. -​L. M. Ko (Eds.), Teacher Learning in Changing Contexts: Perspectives from the Learning Sciences. Routledge.

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Gu, W., & Xu, H. (2022). Engaging teachers in a DBIR community to develop ICT-​enabled problem-​solving skills. In A. C. Superfine, S. R. Goldman, & M. -​L. M. Ko (Eds.), Teacher Learning in Changing Contexts: Perspectives from the Learning Sciences. Routledge. Krajcik, J., McNeill, K. L., & Reiser, B. J. (2008). Learning-​ goals-​ driven design model: Developing curriculum materials that align with national standards and incorporate project-​based pedagogy. Science Education, 92(1), 1–​32. Kyza, E., Agesilaou, A., Georgiou, Y., & Hadjichambis, A. (2022). Teacher–​ researcher co-​design teams: Teachers as intellectual partners in design. In A. C. Superfine, S. R. Goldman, & M. -​L. M. Ko (Eds.), Teacher Learning in Changing Contexts: Perspectives from the Learning Sciences. Routledge. Law, N., & Ko, P. (2022). Design for multilevel connected learning in pedagogical innovation networks. In A. C. Superfine, S. R. Goldman, & M. -​L. M. Ko (Eds.), Teacher Learning in Changing Contexts: Perspectives from the Learning Sciences. Routledge. Linn, M. C., & Eylon, B. S. (2011). Science Learning and Instruction:Taking Advantage of Technology to Promote Knowledge Integration. Routledge. McKenney, S.,Voogt, J., & Kirschner, P. (2022). Learning by design: Nourishing expertise and interventions. In A. C. Superfine, S. R. Goldman, & M. -​L. M. Ko (Eds.), Teacher Learning in Changing Contexts: Perspectives from the Learning Sciences. Routledge. McNeill, K., Affolter, R., & Reiser, B. J. (2022). Anchoring science professional learning in curriculum materials enactment: Illustrating theories in practice to support teachers’ learning. In A. C. Superfine, S. R. Goldman, & M. -​L. M. Ko (Eds.), Teacher Learning in Changing Contexts: Perspectives from the Learning Sciences. Routledge. OECD (2021). 21st-​century Readers: Developing Literacy Skills in a Digital World, PISA, OECD Publishing. https://​doi.org/​10.1787/​a83d8​4cb-​en. OECD (2019). PISA 2018 Assessment and Analytical Framework. OECD Publishing. https://​ doi.org/​10.1787/​b25ef​ab8-​en. Pellegrino, J. W., & Hilton, M. (2012). Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skill in the 21st Century.National Academy Press. Penuel, W. & Fishman, B. & Cheng, B. & Sabelli, N. (2011). Organizing research and development at the intersection of learning, implementation, and design. Educational Researcher, 40. 331–​337. 10.3102/​0013189X11421826 Penuel, W., Allen, C., Manz, E., & Heredia, S. (2022). Design-​based implementation research as an approach to studying teacher learning in research-​practice partnerships focused on equity. In A. C. Superfine, S. R. Goldman, & M. -​L. M. Ko (Eds.), Teacher Learning in Changing Contexts: Perspectives from the Learning Sciences. Routledge. Pitvorec, K., Castro Superfine, A., Goldman, S. R., & Fry, C. (2022). Teacher–​researcher collaborative inquiry in mathematics teaching practices: Learning to promote student discourse. In A. C. Superfine, S. R. Goldman, & M. -​L. M. Ko (Eds.), Teacher Learning in Changing Contexts: Perspectives from the Learning Sciences. Routledge. Puntambekar, S. (2018). Design-​based research. In F. Fischer, C. E. Hmelo-​Silver, S. R. Goldman, & P. Reimann (Eds.). International Handbook of the Learning Sciences (pp. 383–​ 392). Routledge/​Taylor & Francis. Rowan, B., Raudenbush, S., & Cheong,Y. (1993).Teaching as a non-​routine task: Implications for the management of schools. Educational Administration Quarterly, 29, 479–​500. Scardamalia, M., Bereiter, C., & Lamon, M. (1994). The CSILE project: Trying to bring the classroom into World 3. In K. McGilly (Ed.), Classroom Lessons: Integrating Cognitive Theory and Classroom Practice (pp. 201–​228). The MIT Press. van Leeuwen, A., & Rummel, N. (2022). Teachers learning to implement student collaboration: The role of data analytics tools. In A. C. Superfine, S. R. Goldman, & M. -​L. M.

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Ko (Eds.), Teacher Learning in Changing Contexts: Perspectives from the Learning Sciences. Routledge. Yoon, S., Shim, J., Miller, K., Cottone, A., Noushad, N.,Yoo, J., Gonzalez, M., Urbanowicz, R., & Himes, B. (2022). Professional development for STEM integration: Analyzing bioinformatics teaching by examining teachers’ qualities of adaptive expertise. In A. C. Superfine, S. R. Goldman, & M. -​L. M. Ko (Eds.), Teacher Learning in Changing Contexts: Perspectives from the Learning Sciences. Routledge. Zech, L., Gause-​Vega, C., Bray, M. H., Secules, T., & Goldman, S. R. (2000). Content-​based collaborative inquiry: Professional development for school reform. Educational Psychologist, 35, 207–​217.

PART I

Designing Opportunities for Teacher Learning

1 ENGAGING TEACHERS IN DIALOGIC DISCOURSE PRACTICES Challenges, Effective PD Approaches, and Teachers’ Individual Development Ricardo Böheim, Ann-​Kathrin Schindler, and Tina Seidel

Engaging Teachers in Dialogic Discourse Practices: Challenges, Effective PD Approaches and Teachers’ Individual Development Classroom discourse is a significant vehicle for teaching and learning and a central part of everyday instruction (Cazden, 2001; O’Connor & Snow, 2018). In classrooms, it is through verbal interactions that teachers and students engage with one another, exchange ideas and opinions and co-​construct knowledge and meaning. It was around the 1970s that educational research began to systematically investigate the nature and different kinds of classroom discourse to gain a better understanding of how students learn through verbal exchange (Mercer & Dawes, 2014). The increased interest into classroom discourse was driven by Vygotsky’s work that placed a strong focus on spoken language as a tool and a medium for cognitive development (Vygotsky, 1987). From these years onwards classroom discourse has received a considerable amount of scholarly attention in the educational literature (see Resnick et al., 2015). Researchers identified typical interaction patterns of classroom discourse (e.g., Sinclair & Coulthard, 1975) and provided insights into the amount of talk time that is attributed to the teacher as compared to the student (e.g., Flanders, 1963). Other scholars began to focus on the quality of verbal teacher–​student interactions and the different discourse techniques (e.g., open-​ended questions) or talk moves (i.e., follow-​ups such as revoicing) that teachers use to orchestrate classroom discourse (e.g., Nystrand et al., 2003). These research efforts revealed that classroom discourse is typically closed and dominated by the teacher with students having few opportunities for meaningful engagement (Galton et al., 1999; Nystrand, 1997; Sinclair & Coulthard, 1975). As a result a number of professional development (PD) efforts set out to work with teachers to improve their discourse practice (for an overview, see Mercer et al., 2020; Resnick et al., 2015). DOI: 10.4324/9781003097112-3

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However, looking into more recent research, it seems that little change has happened over the years (Alexander, 2018b; Resnick et al., 2018). Recent characterizations of classroom discourse still point at a teacher-​directed discourse practice wherein students give short and specific answers that are expected to align with the prespecified flow of instruction. In this chapter, we present our own efforts to promote dialogic classroom discourse practices by introducing the DIALOGUE study. The goal of this study was to investigate whether teachers’ discourse practice could be changed through the participation in a year-​long PD program. In the next section, we first discuss key differences between authoritative and dialogic discourse and then introduce the four-​dimensional-​framework of dialogic discourse that was developed within the DIALOGUE study.

What Are Key Features of Dialogic Discourse? Although there are different kinds of classroom discourse in whole class settings (see Alexander, 2018b), more often than not the literature distinguishes between two opposing types of classroom discourse: Recitation and dialogue (O’Connor & Snow, 2018) or authoritative discourse and dialogic discourse (Scott et al., 2006). Recitation or authoritative discourse is associated with a transmission mode of instruction in which the teacher lectures students while directing their attention in an intended direction. Recitation has been described as rigid, closed or teacher-​centered because it is the teacher who provides the content information while students’ contributions are often limited to key words or phrases that coincide with the prespecified view of teacher. During this lecture-​style discourse format teachers tell students what they should learn and use closed questions to test whether students are attentive. The predominant building-​block of authoritative classroom discourse is commonly described by three distinctive steps that include the phases of initiation (I), response (R) and evaluation (E) (Cazden, 2001; Mehan, 1979). In the literature, IRE and recitation are often used interchangeably (e.g., Alexander, 2015, 2018a; Michaels & O’Connor, 2015) because traditional IRE patterns are closed and dominated by the teacher: Teachers initiate (I) the interaction by posing a closed question (“Which theorem is essential when working with right triangles?”), students are expected to give a brief response (R) (“The Pythagorean Theorem.”) and teachers follow-​up on this response with a simple evaluation (E) (“Well done.”). Fundamentally different from this discourse format is dialogic classroom discourse. In line with a Vygotskian sociocultural perspective on learning (Palincsar, 1998; Windschitl, 2002) dialogic discourse allows students to collaboratively progress in thinking through active participation and meaningful exchange with others. The goal is to reach a shared understanding of the content matter through a process of collective sensemaking. Teachers create supportive conditions for dialogic discourse by posing open-​ended questions that elicit elaborate student responses and by encouraging students to engage with one another’s diverse ideas and opinions. Rather than being passive receivers of lectured information, students are expected

Engaging Teachers in Dialogic Discourse  17

to actively participate and co-​regulate the discursive learning process by asking questions, challenging their peers’ (or their teachers’) thinking, contrasting different perspectives and justifying their own reasoning (Alexander, 2018b; Resnick et al., 2018; Scott et al., 2006; Wells & Arauz, 2006). Research into dialogic discourse is not underpinned by a single framework but rather relies on various theoretical perspectives based on the work of Vygotsky, Bakhtin, Bruner, Piaget, Dewey, and many more (for a review, see Kim & Wilkinson, 2019). Besides the diversity of theoretical perspectives, researchers have used a range of different frameworks and labels to describe dialogic approaches to teaching (e.g., accountable talk (Michaels et al., 2008), dialogic inquiry (Wells & Arauz, 2006), exploratory talk (Mercer & Littleton, 2007), academically productive talk (O’Connor et al., 2015), dialogic teaching (Alexander, 2018b), inquiry dialogue (Reznitskaya et al., 2012)). Despite their heterogeneity, these approaches share several common features. Dialogic teaching and learning is understood as a “student-​owned process of shared reasoning” that is elicited and guided by the teacher (Resnick et al., 2018, p. 330). It centers around students’ active engagement in a shared process of knowledge construction through the open exchange of different ideas and perspectives. Alexander’s (2008) conception of dialogic teaching has guided the work of many scholars in the field (see Kim & Wilkinson, 2019) and is closely aligned to the conception of dialogic discourse in our own work. According to Alexander, five core principles define dialogic teaching: it is collective, reciprocal, supportive, cumulative, and purposeful. Alexander also refers to these principles as tests of dialogic teaching (Alexander, 2018a, p. 6) as he argues that classroom discourse that does not meet these principles cannot be dialogic. Indicators of these principles are that “answers provoke further questions and are seen as the building blocks of dialogue rather than its terminal point”, and that “children have the confidence to make mistakes, and understand that mistakes are viewed as something to learn from rather than be ashamed of ” (Alexander, 2018b, p. 42). Inspired by Alexander’s work, we proposed a four-​dimensional-​framework in the DIALOGUE study which served as the theoretical foundation of our PD program and the development of a rating instrument that measures the quality of teachers’ discourse practices (Schindler et al., 2020, 2021). According to this framework, dialogic discourse is characterized as being structured and purposeful (i.e., discursive interactions are oriented toward a clear learning goal), activating and open (i.e., students are meaningfully engaged by either talking or active listening), interactive and cumulative (i.e., knowledge is co-​constructed in a collective learning process between students and teachers), as well as supportive and scaffolding (i.e., students’ learning is guided by careful scaffolds and effective feedback). Descriptions of each quality dimension of dialogic discourse are presented in Table 1.1. In the following section, we elaborate on central design considerations that are commonly found to characterize effective programs that aim at changing teachers’ discourse practice and illustrate how these elements were integrated into the PD program that was developed within the DIALOGUE study.

18  Böheim, Schindler, & Seidel TABLE 1.1  Dimensions of dialogic discourse as proposed by the DIALOGUE study; see

Schindler et al., 2021 Quality dimension

Description of dimension

Structured and purposeful

Though open and dialogic, classroom discourse is structured and oriented toward a clear learning goal so students can follow the flow of discursive interactions and align their contributions with respect to the underlying goal of instruction.

Activating and open

Dialogic discourse centers around students’ active engagement referring to both verbal participation and active listening. To trigger elaborate student responses that require students to explain or justify their thinking, teachers initiate discourse patterns through open and cognitively demanding questioning.

Interactive and cumulative

Dialogic discourse patterns reflect on discussion chains of teacher–​ student and student–​student interactions. Teachers follow-​up on students’ responses to foster reasoning and to encourage students to take up and build upon their peers’ contributions. Learning and meaning making are based on the co-​construction of thoughts and ideas among students. Teachers provide careful scaffolds and effective feedback to guide students’ learning. Mistakes are considered as valuable learning opportunities to jointly inquire where misconceptions arise from.

Supportive and scaffolding

Designing Effective PD Approaches to Foster Teachers’ Dialogic Discourse Practice Incorporating dialogic discourse practices into everyday teaching requires carefully designed PD programs because no matter how promising dialogic discourse may appear in theory, its implementation into teaching practice is challenging (Howe & Mercer, 2016; Osborne, 2015). In the past two decades a considerable number of researchers developed PD programs to enhance dialogic discourse practices in everyday classrooms (e.g., Alexander, 2018a; Kiemer et al., 2015; Sedova et al., 2016; van der Veen et al., 2017). PD programs that specifically aim at changing teachers’ discourse practice often draw attention to two central design elements: Introducing a set of practical talk tools that help teachers shift their discourse practice and engaging teachers in systematic reflection about their discourse practice through collaborative analyses of classroom practice.

Transforming Authoritative Discourse Patterns through Open Questioning and Productive Follow-​ups Many PD programs that aim at enhancing teachers’ discourse practice, introduce tools and practices to help teachers make substantial changes in how the IRE

Engaging Teachers in Dialogic Discourse  19

(initiation–​response–​evaluation) pattern is realized. With regard to the initiation (I) of interaction patterns, teachers are encouraged to reflect on the type and cognitive level of their questions. To foster elaborate thinking and interactive exchange among students, teachers need to incorporate more open-​ended and authentic questions during classroom discourse (i.e., questions that allow multiple answers) (Applebee et al., 2003; Nystrand et al., 2003). Open questions not only allow students to share different ideas and perspectives but they also provide room for “longer contributions in which [students] express their current state of understanding, articulate ideas and reveal problems they are encountering” (Mercer & Littleton, 2007, p. 33). However, posing open questions alone does not transform IRE patterns into productive discourse. Besides initiating more open forms of inquiry (I), it is teachers’ feedback or follow-​up behavior that matters substantially. Rather than evaluating students’ responses (E), teachers can engage in a process called “uptake” (Nystrand & Gamoran, 1991). Uptake means that teachers incorporate students’ responses into follow-​up questions. One of the most prominent synopsis of such follow-​up moves has been proposed by O’Connor and Michaels (see Michaels & O’Connor, 2012, 2015; O’Connor & Michaels, 2019). These follow-​up moves (which the authors call productive talk moves) transform triadic IRE patterns into chains of meaningful interaction as teachers encourage students to (a) expand their contribution (e.g., So, are you saying that…?), (b) listen to one another (e.g., Who can repeat that? or Who can put that into their own words?), (c) dig deeper into their own reasoning (e.g.,Why do you think that? or Explain your thinking/​reasoning), and (d) work with one another’s ideas (e.g., Do you agree or disagree, and why?) (O’Connor & Michaels, 2019, pp. 7–​8). O’Connor and Michaels’ talk moves have been implemented in many recent PD programs (e.g., Alexander, 2018a; Chen et al., 2020; van der Veen et al., 2017). In line with this research, the PD program designed within the DIALOGUE study similarly addressed the role of open-​ended and authentic questions and introduced a repertoire of talk moves through which teachers can follow-​up on students’ responses. Moreover, teachers participating in the DIALOGUE PD program learned about various student-​centered talk activities such as think-​ pair-​share, classroom debate, four corners format or fishbowl. Open questions, talk moves, and talk activities were introduced as central tools that trigger change in teachers’ discourse practice and promote discourse formats that are facilitated—​not dominated—​by the teacher. However, simply handing teachers a list of tools and practices is unlikely to foster effective change in the classroom. Michaels and O’Connor (2015) argue that “the simple deployment of talk moves does not ensure coherence in classroom discussion or robust student learning” (p. 344). Teachers, therefore, need opportunities to reflect on the specific pedagogical situation to learn how open questions, productive talk moves, and student-​centered talk activities can be integrated into their everyday teaching.

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Situating Teacher Learning and Reflection in Everyday Teaching Practice The PD literature emphasizes that teachers need opportunities to reflect on and receive feedback about their practice as they incorporate new pedagogies into their teaching (Darling-​Hammond et al., 2017). Influenced by a situative perspective on learning (e.g., Brown et al., 1989), PD researchers emphasize that teacher learning is a collective process that should be situated in authentic contexts of everyday teaching practice (Koellner & Jacobs, 2015). For this reason, PD programs incorporate artifacts of practice such as student materials, transcripts, or videos to situate teacher learning in problems of classroom practice. Within the DIALOGUE study, we developed two different PD programs that used different strategies to situate teachers learning in everyday teaching practice: The first program (Dialogic Video Cycle) used video recordings of teachers’ own practice, while the second program (Dialogic Instructional Program) used text-​based examples and simulated teaching scenarios as artifacts of practice (see Figure 1.1).

The Dialogic Video Cycle (DVC) In recent years, PD programs have increasingly used video recordings of classroom instruction to foster teacher reflection and facilitate teacher learning (Gaudin & Chaliès, 2015; Major & Watson, 2018; Santagata & Guarino, 2011; Sherin & Dyer, 2017). The Dialogic Video Cycle (DVC) is designed to integrate video recordings into systematic cycles of lesson planning, teaching and video-​ based reflection (Gröschner et al., 2015). The DVC consists of three interconnected workshops that center around video recordings of teachers’ discourse practice. In the first workshop, teachers collaboratively work on their lesson plans and discuss ways to implement dialogic discourse practices into their teaching (e.g., how to incorporate authentic and open-​ended questions or how to ensure that students learn from one another’s contributions). To capture teachers’ implementation of the planned lesson, teachers are videotaped in their classroom. During workshop 2 and workshop 3 teachers reflect on their discourse practice based on video excerpts selected by the facilitator. This video-​based reflection is moderated by PD facilitators who use guiding questions to focus teachers’ attention on key aspects of dialogic pedagogy (e.g., “How does [teacher] encourage students to link their ideas?”, “How does [teacher] react to student mistakes?”, “How does [teacher] encourage all students to contribute to the ongoing discussion?”).

The Dialogic Instructional Program (DIP) The second PD program, the Dialogic Instructional Program (DIP), consists of two full day workshops. First, teachers learn about current evidence on classroom discourse and the central role of dialogic discourse to promote student learning. Next,

newgenrtpdf

The Dialogic Video Cycle PD Program Lesson planning Integrating productive discourse practices into lesson plans

Teachers videotape their lesson

Reflection I

Reflection II

Facilitated reflection on teachers’ discourse practice

Facilitated reflection on teachers’ discourse practice

Reflection I

Reflection II

Facilitated reflection on teachers’ discourse practice

Facilitated reflection on teachers’ discourse practice

Lesson planning Integrating productive discourse practices into lesson plans

Teachers videotape their lesson

The Dialogic Instructional PD Program Workshop 1

Workshop 2 Input - Learning about talk moves and talk activities as tools to facilitate dialogic discourse Activities - Applying talk moves in simulated teaching scenarios

Activities - Collective analysis of discourse patterns and teacher questions using text vignettes

Debriefing - Reflection and discussion about implications for own discourse practice

Debriefing - Reflection and discussion about implications for own discourse practice

School year

FIGURE 1.1  Overview

of Dialogic Video Cycle PD program and the Dialogic Instructional PD program

Engaging Teachers in Dialogic Discourse  21

Input - Learning about research findings on discourse patterns - Introduction to dialogic discourse practices

22  Böheim, Schindler, & Seidel

facilitators introduce a list of tools and practices (open questions, productive talk moves and student-​centered talk activities) that help promote dialogic pedagogies in everyday teaching. Following this instructional part, teachers engage in several activities to deepen their understanding and reflect on the meaningfulness of the presented discourse tools. For example, written protocols of classroom discourse are collaboratively analyzed to discuss the type and cognitive level of teacher questions or the quality of talk moves that teachers use to follow-​up on student responses. In addition, teachers engage in simulated teaching scenarios, wherein teachers learn how to integrate dialogic discourse practices into their own teaching. For example, teachers moderate discussions among other PD participants and are encouraged not to evaluate responses but to incorporate these responses into productive follow-​up questions. Finally, during debriefing, teachers reflect on their experiences, discuss difficulties, and derive implications on how to make changes to their own discourse practice when returning to the classroom. The workshops of both programs were spread over one school year (see Figure 1.1). They were designed in accordance to the core principles that are known to characterize high-​quality PD, such as providing room for teachers to build an interactive learning community in which they work together, providing plenty of opportunities for teachers to actively engage in highly contextualized learning settings or associating the targeted teaching practice with subject-​specific content and pedagogies from teachers’ classroom contexts (Darling-​Hammond et al., 2017; Desimone, 2009). Implementation checks of PD workshop analyses revealed that both programs incorporated core principles of effective PD such as content focus, coherent and active learning, and collaborative participation (Hauk et al., submitted).

Evaluating the Impact of the DIALOGUE Study: Changes in Teachers’ Discourse Practice and Effects on Student Learning To evaluate the impact of the DIALOGUE study, we captured data with multiple methods (video recording and self-​reports) and from different perspectives (observers, teachers, and students). The DIALOGUE study consisted of two consecutive project phases (DIALOGUE I 2011–​2014 and DIALOGUE II 2016–​2020) with PD interventions taking place during the school year 2011/​2012 and 2016/​2017. In the following section, we will summarize the central results from DIALOGUE I and provide a more elaborate overview of the findings from DIALOGUE II (for an extended overview of DIALOGUE I, see Pielmeier et al. (2018)).

Summary of Findings from DIALOGUE I A central focus of DIALOGUE I was the development and evaluation of the Dialogic Video Cycle (DVC) (Gröschner et al., 2015). Here, we gathered important insights on the role of the workshop facilitator who guides teachers’ collective learning process and fosters productive exchange among participating teachers

Engaging Teachers in Dialogic Discourse  23

(Gröschner et al., 2014). Besides establishing a set of productive “facilitation moves” (Gröschner et al., 2014), video analyses of PD workshops pointed at the importance of a positive learning atmosphere and productive conversation culture to establish a professional teacher learning community (Alles et al., 2019). In DIALOGUE I, we worked with ten teachers who taught at German middle or high schools. Six teachers participated in the DVC while four teachers served as a control group (i.e., their PD program did not address classroom discourse). Results revealed a positive impact of the DVC on students’ learning perceptions (N =​226 students), including cognitive (e.g., elaboration strategies) and motivational (e.g., interest) aspects of student learning (Kiemer et al., 2015; Pehmer et al., 2015b). With regard to changes in teachers’ discourse practice, DVC teachers did not seem to pose more open-​ ended questions but they did use more productive feedback moves to follow-​up on students’ responses at the end of the program (Pehmer et al., 2015a). However, analyses of teachers’ individual development revealed a rather heterogeneous picture, emphasizing the fact that teacher learning is a highly individual process and does not follow a simple process-​product logic (Opfer & Pedder, 2011). One reason for varying learning trajectories may be explained by the fact that teachers enter PD programs with varying practice experience, attitudes, and beliefs (Clarke & Hollingsworth, 2002; Kennedy, 2016; van den Bergh et al., 2015).This variability in teachers’ development was further investigated during DIALOGUE II.

Findings from DIALOGUE II: Investigating Teachers’ Individual Development during PD DIALOGUE II set out to examine the variability in teachers’ individual development. More precisely, we investigated the role of teachers’ individual starting conditions and their impact on teachers’ diverse development during PD participation. Effects on student learning and motivation were investigated with respect to the extent to which teachers changed their discourse practice. In the following, we summarize theoretical considerations and central findings from DIALOGUE II published in Schindler et al. (2021) and in Böheim et al. (2021).

Sample and Study Design In DIALGOUE II, we worked with nineteen middle or high school teachers (13 female) who had an average age of 38 years (SD =​8.56) and an average teaching experience of 8.13 years (SD =​6.53). PD participation was voluntary. Each teacher chose one classroom with which to participate in the study, leading to a sample of 450 participating students. Because classroom discourse is relevant across all domains, teachers were invited to participate with a subject of their preference (mathematics, science, or language arts). Teachers participated in either the DVC (N =​10 teachers) or the DIP (N =​9 teachers) program (see 3.2). The intervention included a pretest-​posttest design.To assess teachers’ initial discourse practices all 19 participating teachers were videotaped during one 45-​min lesson at the beginning

24  Böheim, Schindler, & Seidel

of the school year. Teachers did not receive any specific instruction beforehand other than to give a regular lesson by using their typical teaching methods. At the end of videotaped lesson teachers and students filled out questionnaires. Teachers were asked about their attitudes towards dialogic teaching (Osborne et al., 2019) and students reported on their learning perceptions (e.g., motivation, cognitive elaboration) as experienced during the videotaped lesson (Seidel et al., 2005). The same procedure was repeated at the end of the academic year after teachers had completed their PD participation.

Rating the Quality of Teachers’ Discourse Practice To measure teachers’ initial discourse practice and track teachers’ change in discourse practice, we developed a high-​inference rating instrument (see Schindler et al., 2021).This instrument extended the focus beyond quantitative measures (e.g., number of open questions /​productive follow-​up moves) to capture the quality and adaptivity of teachers’ discourse practice in the context of the pedagogical situation (e.g., with regard to the appropriateness of talk moves). The rating instrument operationalized our four-​dimension-​framework of dialogic discourse (see Table 1.1) with 10 items that were distributed across the four quality domains of dialogic discourse: structured and purposeful (three items, e.g., The teacher provides a learning goal to allow for purposeful talk), activating and open (three items, e.g., The teacher provides room for elaboration, student ideas, questions, and thoughts by initiating talk by, for example, open questions), interactive and cumulative (two items, e.g., The teacher follows up on students’ answers and presses for more explanations, ideas, questions, and thoughts) and supportive and scaffolding (two items, e.g., The teacher provides room for mistakes and uses them as learning source and topics for discussion) (for full instrument, see Schindler et al., 2020). To avoid an isolated interpretation of teachers’ discourse practice, the instrument accounted for students’ discourse practice and teachers’ adaptiveness to students’ discourse practice (see Reznitskaya et al., 2016; Hennessy et al., 2016). All videotaped lessons were divided into segments of ten minutes and each segment was rated by two independent raters. Items were rated on a six-​point Likert scale that differentiates between a controlling (0/​1), procedural (2/​3), or adaptive (4/​5) implementation of dialogic discourse practices. •

•

Controlling:Video segments were rated as controlling when classroom discourse was mainly limited to authoritative IRE patterns. In these segments teachers did most of the talking and adhered to their prespecified conversation script while students provided short answers only. Procedural: Video segments were rated as procedural when dialogic discourse practices were (periodically) observed but their implementation was not fully adaptive to the situation. Procedural was rated when teachers created some opportunities for dialogic discourse but still tried to build the conversation around a prespecified conversation script. Students on the other hand did

Engaging Teachers in Dialogic Discourse  25

•

occasionally elaborate on their ideas but the extent to which students were engaged varied across students and situations. Adaptive: Video segments were rated as adaptive when most of the students contributed actively to classroom discourse by sharing their ideas, thoughts, and elaborations. Teachers’ discourse practice was rated as adaptive when teachers were open to integrate students’ diverse ideas into the ongoing discussion and deviate from their conversation script whenever necessary.

The instruments’ evaluation revealed satisfactory reliability scores between raters with regard to common reliability indices including intra-​class correlation coefficient, Cronbach’s alpha, Pearson’s and Spearman’s correlations (Schindler et al., 2021).

Predicting Teachers’ Individual Changes in PD Based on Their Starting Conditions In Schindler et al. (2021), we investigated teachers’ individual starting conditions to better understand teachers’ individual development during PD participation. For this purpose, we used the interconnected model of teacher learning postulated by Clarke and Hollingsworth (2002) as a theoretical framework to conceptualize teachers’ starting conditions across different domains relevant for teacher change. According to Clarke and Hollingsworth, PD programs (as an external stimulus for change) can trigger change in the personal domain (teachers’ individual dispositions such as beliefs or attitudes), the domain of practice (teachers’ professional practice in classrooms) and the domain of consequence (an outcome measure of the change process such as student learning). It is assumed that during teacher learning changes in one domain trigger changes in other domains through a reciprocal or self-​enhancing relationship. In DIALOGUE II, we captured teachers’ individual starting conditions by collecting data with regard to each domain of teacher change (Clarke & Hollingsworth, 2002): (1) With regard to the personal domain we analyzed teachers’ attitudes on dialogic teaching that were captured by teacher questionnaires. (2) With regard to the domain of practice we analyzed teachers’ dialogic discourse practice from video ratings. (3) With regard to the domain of consequence we analyzed students’ learning perceptions that were captured by student questionnaires. Note however, that this differs from Clarke and Hollingsworth’s (2002) definition of this domain. For them outcomes are teachers’ interpretations of outcomes. Taken together, results on teachers’ starting conditions indicated a rather positive picture with regard to the personal domain and the domain of consequence. In contrast, we found rather strong individual differences among teachers with regard to the domain of practice. Results from video rating revealed that six of

26  Böheim, Schindler, & Seidel

the participating teachers showed a controlling discourse practice, seven teachers showed a procedural discourse practice, and six teachers already implemented an adaptive discourse practice. However, these results on teachers’ starting conditions should be interpreted with caution. Because PD participation was voluntary, it may not be surprising that teachers’ attitudes towards dialogic teaching were already positive at the beginning of the program. In addition, teachers were allowed to choose the class in which they were videotaped and this might explain why data on the domain of consequence (i.e., students’ learning perceptions) were also rather positive. It seems very likely that there is a much greater variability when PD participation is compulsorily (Avalos, 2011; Kennedy, 2016) and teachers cannot decide with which class they want to participate. Investigating teachers’ starting conditions served as the empirical basis to predict whether change across the three domains seems likely. To obtain a comprehensive rationale for the expected change in teachers’ learning, we drew on the idea that teachers are most likely to develop in proximity to their current level of competence—​a concept famously found in Vygotsky’s theory of proximal development (1978). For each teacher, we therefore identified individual zones of development with regard to teachers’ starting conditions in each change domain. Scales across the different instruments (i.e., teacher and student questionnaires) were transformed into the same metric applied in the video instrument (controlling, procedural, adaptive). When teachers reached an “adaptive” level (>66% of maximal scale score) in either change domain, further change during PD participation seemed rather unlikely in the respective domain. In contrast, we estimated that PD participation would elevate teachers’ starting conditions to the next highest level when initial scores ranged below the “adaptive” level. With regard to the practice domain, for example, teachers showing an initial controlling discourse practice were expected to change their discourse practice towards a procedural level. The analysis of teachers’ identified zones of development revealed that only one teacher had the potential to change in all three domains. Six teachers were identified as likely to undergo a one-​step change sequence with regard to their practice domain. For seven teachers, we expected a two-​step change sequence: Four teachers were identified as having potential for a change in the practice domain as well as the domain of consequence and three teachers were identified for whom a change in the practice domain and the personal domain seemed likely. For five teachers any further changes seemed not very likely as they already reached the highest zone of development (adaptive) across all three change domains when entering the program. These individual zones of development served as a point of reference for the evaluation of the PD program’s impact on teacher learning. Results showed that most of our teachers’ developments coincided with the expected changes. For example, most teachers who entered the program with a controlling discourse practice were able to change their practice and reach the procedural implementation of dialogic discourse. About half of the teachers starting with a procedural discourse

Engaging Teachers in Dialogic Discourse  27

practice shifted to an adaptive discourse practice in the posttest. In comparison, teachers whose dialogic discourse practice was already adaptive at the beginning of the program similarly achieved high video-​rating scores at the end of the program. DIALOGUE II revealed important insights on why teacher learning differed among teachers and emphasized that starting conditions play a central role to understand teachers’ individual development during PD. Because the sample size of participating teachers was small and their starting conditions were unevenly distributed across PD programs (e.g., four DIP and two DVC teachers had an adaptive discourse practice at the beginning of the program), possible effects of the different PD approaches were not addressed in this study. To investigate systematic effects across PD approaches it requires larger samples of teachers and more rigorous research approaches including randomized controlled trial studies.

Changes in Students’ Learning With Regard to Teachers’ Individual Change PD evaluations typically investigate the overall effect of a program on student learning. However, changes in student learning should only be expected for classrooms in which teachers actually change their practice. Tracking teacher change through video-​analysis in DIALGOUE II generated objective data on the extent to which individual teachers changed their practice. This approach allowed us to investigate changes in student learning in accordance to teachers’ practice change (for further details, see Böheim et al., 2021). Based on the scores obtained from the video ratings, we calculated teachers’ relative changes in their dialogic discourse practice (post-​rating score − pre-​rating score).Teachers, who showed the highest relative changes in their discourse practice, had comparably lower ratings of discourse practice at the beginning of the program. In comparison, teachers who maintained their discourse practice entered the program with the highest rating scores in dialogic teaching (explaining why further change seemed less likely). Regression analyses revealed that changes in students’ perceptions of activation, motivation, and cognitive engagement were related to the extent to which teachers changed their discourse practice: Students whose teachers had strong changes in their discourse practice showed higher increases in their perceived activation during classroom discourse and reported higher increases in their cognitive engagement during classroom learning compared to students whose teachers showed moderate or no change in their discourse practice. In addition, students whose teachers showed strong change in their discourse practice perceived a stronger increase in autonomy support and competence support—​supplementing previous research by drawing attention to the motivational power of dialogic discourse. Taken together, these findings replicate previous research by demonstrating that changes in teachers’ discourse practice provoke changes in student learning. However, they also point to the fact that PD evaluations need to control for the extent to which teachers change their practice when investigating the PD effectiveness on student learning.

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Challenges and Recommendations Implementing dialogic discourse in everyday classroom practice is challenging (Hennessy & Davies, 2020; Osborne et al., 2013, 2015) and requires a set of complex skills that develop gradually through professional guidance, practice, and reflection. Despite encouraging findings on the effects of dialogic teaching, there is still much to learn about how to best support teachers in changing their practice. In this chapter, we focused on the DIALOGUE study, in which we developed and evaluated PD approaches that aimed at changing teachers’ discourse practice.We summarized some of the most important design features that were considered when designing these programs (e.g., learning about talk moves and talk activities, fostering reflection and co-​inquiry of practice, and incorporating core principles of effective PD). However, as demonstrated in our own work, effects of PD participation are not expected to be the same across all teachers. Our findings call for PD programs that account for teachers’ diverse starting conditions and individual learning trajectories. Based on our own work, we summarize some recommendations for further research: •

•

•

•

Tracking teacher change: In the DIALOGUE study, we tracked teachers’ practice change via video ratings. This allowed us to obtain objective information about changes in teachers’ discourse practice and provided a comprehensive rationale of whether or not to expect changes in student outcomes. Tracking teacher change is essential to (a) identify individual learning trajectories and (b) interpret evaluation results accurately. Acknowledging teachers’ heterogeneous starting conditions: Despite the current tendency towards a process-​product logic in PD literature (Opfer & Pedder, 2011), teachers’ professional learning is a complex process, influenced by many factors. We observed substantial differences in teachers’ starting conditions at the beginning of the program. The concept of teachers’ individual zones of development proved to be a valuable concept to better understand for which teachers change was to be expected in the course of their PD participation. Accounting for discipline specific discourse practices: In DIALOGUE we worked with teachers from different subject domains focusing on the generic aspects that are relevant when implementing dialogic discourse practices in the classroom. Future work may complement this research by focusing more on discipline specific aspects of discourse practices. Discipline specific PD approaches could better account for the underlying curricular content when applying dialogic discourse practices in the classroom. Fostering sustained teacher change: Although short-​term evaluation results were promising, the DIALOGUE study did not investigate long-​term effects of PD participation. In order to investigate whether changes in teachers’ discourse practice sustained beyond the duration of a PD program requires additional follow-​up studies. A promising way to foster the sustainability of PD is

Engaging Teachers in Dialogic Discourse  29

•

to complement professionally organized (university-​based) PD workshops by training teachers at local schools or school districts. This would allow teachers to have continued access to expert guidance beyond the funding period of the project. Generating reliable empirical evidence: Although our evaluation results seem promising, findings from the DIALOGUE study should be interpreted with caution because our work is based on a small sample of volunteer teachers. Because motivation is an important predictor of PD’s success (Kennedy, 2016), research conducted with volunteer teachers provides little information about the expected effects of such an intervention when implemented with mandatory participation at scale (Osborne et al., 2013, 2015). As anyone who has tried to recruit teachers for PD participation involving videotaping and scientific data collection may have experienced, bringing PD research to scale is challenging. However, there are some examples of recent research efforts that replicate positive effects of dialogic practices with large-​scale interventions (see for example, Alexander, 2018a). To obtain strong empirical evidence about the effectiveness of fostering dialogic discourse in classrooms requires additional work conducted with larger samples of teachers.

Despite recent PD efforts and the accumulating evidence about the effectiveness of dialogic discourse (Resnick et al., 2015), IRE/​recitation is still the default discourse format in most classrooms (Alexander, 2018b; Hennessy & Davies, 2020; Resnick et al., 2018). One reason for this may be that practitioners still tend to hold on to a transmission view of teaching and learning. A second reason may include that dialogic teaching approaches require valuable class time to create room for students’ extended exploration of ideas and opinions. A third reason may be that teachers need more support on how to incorporate dialogic discourse practices into their teaching. We will therefore need to continue to work with teachers to further analyze these reasons that might prevent teachers from engaging in dialogic discourse practices. To encourage more teachers to engage with the challenging goal of implementing dialogic discourse, teachers need access to carefully designed PD programs. The DIALOGUE study highlights that PD is a powerful tool to foster change in teachers’ discourse practice. Moreover, the study shows that changes towards more dialogic discourse practices are related to changes in student learning and motivation.

Acknowledgements The DIALOGUE project was funded by a grant from the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Grant No. SE 1397/​5-​3 and SE 1397/​5-​1).We would like to thank teachers and students who participated in our study. The DIALOGUE project was conducted in cooperation with Alexander Gröschner, Maralena Weil, Martina Alles, and Maximilian Knogler.

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2 TEACHERS LEARNING TO IMPLEMENT STUDENT COLLABORATION The Role of Data Analytics Tools Anouschka van Leeuwen and Nikol Rummel

Teachers Learning to Implement Student Collaboration: The Role of Data Analytics Tools Collaborative learning (CL) is an instructional strategy in which two or more students work together to find a joint solution to the task at hand (Dillenbourg, 1999). CL is increasingly encountered as part of the standard curriculum in a variety of countries and fits the general movement towards more open-​ended, inquiry-​ based forms of learning (European Parliament, 2015). The effectiveness of CL is dependent on the conditions under which CL occurs (such as group composition), as well as on the actual interaction processes that occur during student collaboration (Janssen & Kirschner, 2020). Teachers play a large role in shaping these conditions and in supporting the collaborative process, and thus can have a large impact on the success of CL (Gillies, Ashman, & Terwel, 2008; Kaendler, Wiedmann, Rummel, & Spada, 2015;Van Leeuwen & Janssen, 2019). The role that teachers play in supporting students’ collaborative learning in the classroom depends on the phase of instructional activity. Kaendler et al.’s (2015) framework for Implementing Collaborative Learning in the Classroom (ICLC) distinguishes between three phases of instruction and outlines the skills teachers need to learn for each phase. In the pre-​active phase, the teacher prepares the CL activity and plans for the concrete implementation of the activity. In the inter-​active phase, students collaborate on the task and the teacher monitors, supports, and consolidates this process. In the post-​active phase, which takes place after the CL activity, the teacher reflects on the previous two phases and makes adjustments for subsequent activities, if necessary (Kaendler et al., 2015). Thus, the skillset teachers need to learn to effectively support students consists of planning, monitoring, supporting, consolidating, and reflecting.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003097112-4

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In this chapter, we focus specifically on the skills required from the teacher in the inter-​active phase, for two reasons. First, the teacher has the most direct influence on the effectiveness of student collaboration in the inter-​active phase (Van Leeuwen & Janssen, 2019). Second, the inter-​active phase is regarded to be the most complex and most demanding phase for teachers, as it is the phase that occurs in the dynamic, often chaotic setting of the classroom in which multiple groups need to be supported simultaneously (Van Leeuwen, Janssen, Erkens, & Brekelmans, 2015; Kaendler, Wiedmann, Leuders, Rummel, & Spada, 2016). Because of the amount of interactions and activities to monitor, there is a likelihood for teachers to be overburdened or for them to feel like they lack sufficient information about all students’ activities. Losing overview is a commonly encountered obstacle for teachers (Gillies & Boyle, 2010). Teachers also need to constantly decide whether their support is needed or whether the small group of collaborating students is in constructive dialogue and is better left to their own devices (Van Leeuwen et al., 2020). Thus, we focus in this chapter on the need for teachers to learn the skills of monitoring and supporting students in the inter-​ active phase. The teacher noticing framework (Van Es & Sherin, 2002) describes the skills of monitoring and supporting in more detail. Monitoring means that teachers first decide which events are noteworthy and deserve further attention (detection), and subsequently, that teachers reason about those events and connect them to broader pedagogical principles (interpretation). During collaborative learning, teachers thus need to learn how to detect meaningful events in terms of knowing what student behavior to look for (Kaendler et al., 2016). Teachers also need to learn to interpret events they have detected and to estimate how to react to them. Recently, data analytics tools have been advocated as a potential way to support teachers in these processes. Data analytics tools open new possibilities for teachers to understand what is going on in their classroom and for increasing understanding and realizing growth in their own role by collecting data (more or less) unobtrusively, and by collecting other types of data than teachers usually have access to. In this chapter we thus define data analytics tools as tools that provide teachers with information about activities in the classroom based on automated collection and analysis of classroom data. These tools can be regarded as artifacts that support teachers directly and thereby support students indirectly (Rummel, 2018): if the teacher is aided to more effectively monitor and support students, students will in turn benefit. In this chapter, we will focus on the potential of data analytics tools to provide teachers with access to (1) the knowledge they need to learn to monitor and interpret students’ collaborative problem solving (learning analytics); and (2) information about their own teaching actions (teaching analytics) to learn to monitor and adjust their own behavior.We will describe each of these perspectives in more detail using empirical examples. Each section not only includes a discussion of how teachers may learn from using the tool, but also the learning teachers need to engage in to effectively make use of the information that data analytic tools provide.

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Teachers Learning to Monitor Student Collaboration Students engage in several types of activities when they collaborate. In the ICLC framework, a distinction is made between collaborative activity (such as building common ground), cognitive activity (such as asking questions and providing explanations), and meta-​cognitive activity (such as planning and evaluating). The quality of the interaction process determines the groups’ effectiveness. It is important that students engage in these different kinds of activities and that they co-​create knowledge to come up with a solution to the task (Weinberger & Fischer, 2006). Teachers thus need to learn to monitor whether collaborative, cognitive, and meta-​ cognitive activities occur in the collaborating groups. Teachers also need to learn to provide timely and adequate support.This task is related to the scaffolding framework (Gillies & Boyle, 2010;Van de Pol et al., 2010) that describes that teacher support is most effective when it concerns adaptive support, that is, support that is tailored to the needs of the students (or groups of students). For teachers to provide adaptive support and to estimate when support can be faded out, accurate monitoring of the situation is essential, as this informs the subsequent step of choice of support. However, research shows that teachers are generally not that well equipped to monitor CL successfully (Kaendler, Wiedmann, Leuders, Rummel, & Spada, 2016) and teaching quality tends to drop as the number of groups to monitor increases (Blatchford, Baines, Kutnick, & Martin, 2001). Dividing and switching attention over multiple groups, and obtaining and maintaining information about groups’ activities all contributes to the load teachers face (Van Leeuwen, Janssen, Erkens, & Brekelmans, 2015). Data analytics tools have two potential functions in the process of teachers learning to monitor their students as relates to the challenges of monitoring collaborations.The first is that data analytics tools may help teachers learn what kind of collaborative student behaviors to look for in the classroom and how to interpret them. The second is that data analytics tools may help ease the load teachers face in terms of collecting and aggregating data from the whole classroom into a clear(er) overview for the teacher. We discuss these two functions below.

Data Analytics Tools as Modeling Tool The first potential function of data analytics tools is that the tool can collect and visualize information about student collaboration that is important to monitor and thereby act as a kind of model for the teacher to learn from. As discussed earlier, students display certain activities during collaboration in the areas of collaborative, cognitive, or meta-​cognitive activities. Teachers need to learn to observe these behavioral indicators to provide adaptive support. Data analytics tools designed for the inter-​active phase of collaboration display indicators of collaborative activity that inform the teacher of whether particular types of activities are occurring. One could say that the selection of indicators that is displayed has a normative function: by being displayed on the tool, the implicit message is that these are important indicators.

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A review of studies on data analytics tools in the specific context of student collaboration (Van Leeuwen & Rummel, 2019) shows that teachers generally find these tools a helpful addition to their practice, and that teachers’ accuracy of pinpointing which groups are in need of support tends to increase because of having access to the information provided by the tool. It is also clear that teachers need to learn how to make use of data analytics tools. Teachers need to be able to interpret the visualizations displayed on the tool, also referred to as data literacy (Mandinach & Gummer, 2016). Furthermore, teachers need to be able to connect the information on the tool to pedagogical principles to establish whether the occurrence of certain student behavior merits further attention (Kaendler et al., 2016). For example, in a study on how secondary school teachers interpreted data analytics tools visualizing students’ social activities (Van Leeuwen, Janssen, Erkens, & Brekelmans, 2014), it was found that teachers interpreted the same event in different ways. One of the visualizations in the tool was whether students showed agreement or disagreement in their discussions.The visualization showed a line moving between the agreement and disagreement axes. In the situation that a group showed constant agreement, some teachers interpreted this as a sign of a good atmosphere in the collaborating group, whereas other teachers worried about the lack of challenging each other’s ideas. Given the need for teachers to learn how to interpret student behavior, data analytics tools can take on a modeling role not only concerning what events to attend to, but also how to interpret them. Generally, a distinction can be made between tools that have a mirroring function (displaying information), an alerting function (alerting to the occurrence of important events), or an advising function (advising on what the occurrence of an event means). In one of our studies (Van Leeuwen, Rummel, & Van Gog, 2019) we developed a mirroring, alerting, and advising version of a data analytics tool and compared how teachers interacted with them. The mirroring tool provided information on six indicators of student collaboration and left all interpretation to the teacher; the alerting tool provided a notification when a group showed deviating behavior in comparison to the other groups; and the advising tool also provided a short text with explanation of what might be going on in the group for which an alert was given. Initially, we compared whether teachers detected different events if they interacted with the three different versions of the tool. There were no differences related to the version of the tool: teachers tended to single out the same groups as the ones in need of teacher support. In a follow up study, teachers were also asked to think aloud as they interpreted the dashboard situations. The temporal patterns in teachers’ interpretation of the dashboards were examined, comparing specifically between the mirroring and advising dashboards. The results indicated that in the advising dashboard, teachers’ attention was drawn to the advice and teachers checked this information first. After that, they looked at all other available information as well.With the advising dashboard, teachers focused more on the relationship between current and previous learning data, to see if the students’ performance was in line with their previous results. With the mirroring dashboard, teachers engaged

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more in explaining the learning data and placed a heavier emphasis on how the students were currently doing. Question generation is an important aspect of the interpretation processes, leading to renewed interest in the learning data. For both types of dashboards, looking at the dashboard data triggered further question generation from the teachers, meaning that teachers started to ask themselves new questions about their students.These results are initial indications that an immediate effect of the dashboards was that teachers learned how to interpret the information and learned to generate new questions about their students and their activities. To the best of our knowledge, no studies have yet looked at whether teachers in the long run adjust their monitoring practices based on interacting with a data analytics tool.That is, the question remains whether teachers adjust their monitoring practices by learning or internalizing what behaviors to look for based on the indicators they saw on the data analytics tool.

Data Analytics Tools for Providing Overview The second potential function of data analytics tools to support teachers is to provide information that is hard if not impossible for teachers to monitor on their own. As was stated before, losing overview is a commonly encountered obstacle for teachers that implement collaborative activities in their classroom (Gillies & Boyle, 2010). Therefore, data analytics tools that visualize the activities of all collaborating groups is not only a way to model what behavior is important to look at, but also a way to capture the activities of all groups at the same time—​something that would otherwise be impossible to do. For tools with this specific function, teachers learning to incorporate them in their practice is especially important, In the process of designing and developing the data analytics tools for teachers described earlier (Van Leeuwen et al., 2019), interviews were first held with teachers to zoom in on what challenges teachers identify when they implement collaborative activities and to gauge teachers’ ideas about the role data analytics tools could play in their practice. One of the key themes that emerged was that data analytics tools could provide insight in two ways. First, insight could be offered by aggregating data from all groups at the same time. The teachers compared that ability to their own limitations as human beings: they cannot be at multiple tables in the classroom at the same time, nor is it easy to keep up with and compare the progress of multiple groups. The second way the tools could provide insight is by offering a different type of information than the teacher has access to in their own observations. In particular, teachers mentioned that having insight into the temporal development of behavior of individual students and of that of the group would make a valuable addition to their practice. If we regard data analytics tools this way, they take on a role of enhancing teachers’ capabilities. That is, the goal of the tool is not for teachers to learn from them, but to take advantage of the tool in their practice by acting as a sort of partner that collects information for them. In this case, we can regard teacher learning in a different way, namely that teachers have to learn how to integrate the role that the

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tool fulfills into their practice and to learn to take on a new role themselves. This need for learning would be especially poignant with data analytics tools that fulfill not only a mirroring but also an alerting or advising function. In the interviews to prepare the design and development of the dashboards described in Van Leeuwen et al. (2019), we asked teachers to respond to storyboards in which the data analytics tools fulfilled various roles. In general, teachers reacted positively and were accepting of the mirroring and alerting tools. This reaction was due largely to the tool leaving the teacher in charge of the process of interpretation and deciding on appropriate action. Teachers were more skeptical of the storyboards in which the tools fulfilled an advising function or even sent automated support messages to collaborating students. In this case, teachers thought that their agency in the classroom was jeopardized. These concerns were voiced much less often, however, when the storyboard showed that the situation was demanding and chaos might ensue. For example, when three groups were asking for help at the same time were, the aforementioned tools were more likely to be deemed acceptable presumably because they acted as a way for students to receive some form of support that would allow them to continue their work until the teacher had time to talk to them. We subsequently investigated teachers’ reactions to the mirroring, alerting, and advising tools in an experimental study as well (Van Leeuwen et al., 2019). As mentioned earlier, we did not find that teachers’ monitoring accuracy was better in any of the conditions. One potential explanation for that finding is that we observed that teachers tended to remain skeptical especially of the advising tool. They tended to check information about all collaborating groups, even if that was not strictly necessary.We hypothesized that teachers may have been hesitant to give away control and that they may have been trying to prove that their judgement was better than that of the tool. For teachers to effectively use data analytics tools, it may require them to alter their stance towards technology and to shift their own identity from the one overseeing and deciding on everything that happens in the classroom, to delegating some of these tasks to a technology partner. Here lies an important direction for future research: to study how teachers learn to integrate data analytics tools into their practice, and how they learn when to consult the tool and when to rely on their own observations. In a recent study, Knoop-​Van Campen and Molenaar (2020) found that teachers showed different patterns of providing feedback to students depending on whether the feedback was initiated by the teacher, by a question from a student, or by looking at the visualizations on the tool. Future research could look further into how and why teachers develop these practices.

Teachers Learning through Inquiry into Their Practice (Teaching Analytics) A second major role for teachers supporting successful collaboration is in creating the conditions and offering the support that students need (Gillies et al., 2008;

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Kaendler et al., 2015). In the inter-​active phase, teachers play an influential role in making sure that students display the type of activities that stimulate learning. Teachers need to make a number of decisions concerning the support they offer to students (Van Leeuwen & Janssen, 2019). They need to decide the type of activity for which they are providing support—​metacognitive, cognitive, or social. They need to decide by what means they offer support—​an explanation, direct instruction, hinting or prompting. Finally, they also need to decide when to provide support and when to withhold support. When teachers actively seek to improve their own practice, this is also referred to as teacher inquiry. As Sergis and Sampson (2017) describe, teacher inquiry can be regarded as “a continuous process of investigation, reflection and improvement of teaching practice, based on the collection, analysis and interpretation of diverse educational data” (p. 26). Teachers need information about, for example, their movements in the classroom and the type of support they offered to students to reflect on the effectiveness of their practice and potential need for adaptations (An et al., 2019; Sergis & Sampson, 2017). Teachers’ learning is most effective when it is context-​embedded, i.e., tied to their own practice.Teachers can make use of video-​ observations or peer observations, or methods such as teacher journaling to gain access to information about their own practices. A potential additional resource for teachers’ reflection that complements these methods is to make use of analytics tools (Sergis & Sampson, 2017). As discussed above, the data analytics tools provided teachers with information about their students and aimed at helping teachers learn concerning the skills of monitoring and interpreting classroom events. Data analytics tools can also gather, analyze, and visualize information about the teacher. Such data could offer teachers an additional way to learn how to adjust their own behavior to more effectively support students. Data can be collected about, for example, teachers’ movements in the classroom or teachers’ enactment of a CL session.These data can be displayed as visualizations that can be the object of teachers’ reflections. Data analytics tools open new possibilities for increasing understanding and realizing growth in their own role by collecting data (more or less) unobtrusively, and by collecting other types of data than teachers usually have access to about their own practice. An added advantage is that the data can be fed back to the teacher in real time, allowing for reflection-​in-​action. The new possibilities also mean that teachers need to learn how to make use of them, a topic we discuss later in this section. Below, we first describe an example of a data analytics tool that visualizes teachers’ movements in the classroom to support teachers’ reflection on their own behavior. Research has demonstrated that teacher attention to groups influences their collaboration process and that a certain level of attention from the teacher is needed for fruitful collaboration (Van Leeuwen & Janssen, 2019). An et al. (2019) developed and evaluated a teaching analytics tool termed ClassBeacons that is aimed specifically at supporting secondary school teachers to reflect on their own behavior in the inter-​active phase of student collaboration. It focuses on the need for teachers to learn to monitor their practice in real time (not just reflect on it afterwards) so that

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they can modify it if needed and in appropriate ways.This learning process involves teachers becoming more aware of their practice in real time, a form of learning in action. The teacher behavior that ClassBeacons visualizes concerns the teacher’s proximity to and engagement with the collaborating groups. The system does not assume that all groups should receive equal attention, but it supports teachers in becoming aware of the decisions they make concerning which group to allocate attention to.Via a sensor on the teacher’s back and a small lamp on each collaborating group’s table, the teacher’s position in the classroom and proximity to each group is determined. Based on the teacher’s proximity and the teacher’s positioning, the system interprets whether the teacher is directly engaging with a collaborating group or just standing close by. On this basis, the lamp on the group’s table slowly turns from yellow to green as the teacher has displayed increased engagement with that group. Yellow means that the teacher has not yet engaged with a group, and brighter green means the teacher has repeatedly engaged with the group. The color of the lamps thus directly displays to the teacher how much of the teacher’s attention has been allocated to each group, allowing the teacher to use that resource in a more deliberate way. As An et al. note, the potential benefit of such a system is that teachers can adjust their pedagogical actions during a classroom session based on the information provided. ClassBeacons was evaluated with 11 teachers in secondary education. To introduce the system, the teachers received a leaflet with explanations and were encouraged to ask for further explanations. The teachers confirmed they understood the system. After two classroom sessions of using ClassBeacons and subsequent interviews, An et al. found three types of reflections that the teachers reported related to what they had learned. The first is that the system led to confirmation of ongoing performance, that is, it provided teachers with the feedback that their behavior in the classroom was in line with the behavior they had wanted to display as a teacher. Second, ClassBeacons led teachers to make new sense of ongoing performance, that is, it provided new insights or made teachers aware of their behavior and reasons for displaying that behavior. An example that An et al. mention is of a teacher realizing that she was walking the same “route” through the classroom, spending less time on a group that she thought was displaying “tricky” behavior (p. 7). Third, the system led to teachers modifying their upcoming actions, meaning that teachers made decisions on which group to visit and how long based on the real-​time feedback of the ClassBeacons lamps. An interesting example An et al. mention is of a teacher that changed the plans he made for which groups to focus on in particular (in the pre-​active phase) based on what the lamps were showing him in the inter-​active phase. This teacher thus seems to have been able to act on the basis of information in real-​time and perhaps provide more adaptive support to collaborating students as a result of that.The general finding of increased awareness and deliberation of teaching strategies seems to indicate that ClassBeacons supported teachers as a tool for reflection-​in-​action. Even though the tool itself was quite simple in terms of the underlying analyses, it led to three types of reflection on teachers’ practice.

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The ClassBeacons tool was designed in such a way that using it required little to no learning from the teachers; it had a minimalistic, easy to understand design. Teachers’ data literacy (or lack thereof) is therefore likely to have not played a role in the implementation of the tool. Teachers do need to be able to reason about the information the tool provides them with. Similar to the data analytics tools discussed in the previous section, teachers need to interpret what the data mean in terms of pedagogical principles and whether adjustments are needed, in this case adjustments to the teacher’s own behavior. A common methodology for teacher reflection on their own practice outside of the field of teaching analytics is to host guided reflection sessions, in which teachers together with a professional and/​or colleague reflect on their practice to stimulate learning and growth (Gaudin & Chaliès, 2015; Hansen & Wasson, 2016). A similar set-​up could be used in combination with a tool such as ClassBeacons: teachers could discuss the visualizations of the tool after the classroom session has ended. The tool could thereby serve both reflection-​in-​action and post-​action reflection to support teacher learning.

Discussion In this chapter, we regarded data analytics tools as an additional source for teacher learning and discussed what those tools may have to offer to teachers and what new types of learning it takes from teachers to use data analytics tools.The first perspective we described were tools that offer data about student activities in order to support teacher learning regarding monitoring of students. The second perspective was the development of tools that offer data about teachers themselves so that they may use them as tools to learn about and adjust their own behavior during student collaboration. We thus regarded different types of data analytics tools and the functions they can serve. One the one hand, we discussed data analytics tools that may help teachers learn what kind of student behavior to look for during collaborative activity, and hypothesized that teachers may learn to develop their monitoring practices after working with data analytics tools for a longer period of time. In that case, the need for the tool as a support structure may fade over time. In contrast, we also considered data analytics tool in partnership with the teacher, wherein the tool and the teacher each fulfill their own role. In that case, the tool keeps on maintaining an essential role and is not faded out. This difference in function ties in to the larger idea of the division of labor between teacher and technology (Holstein, Aleven, & Rummel, 2020). Some tools primarily fulfill a function of helping the teacher to acquire new skills and once the teacher has acquired them, the tool will be needed to a much lesser degree, if at all. Other tools take over tasks that are hard if not impossible for the teacher to accomplish and will be integrated into the teacher’s practice. The different functions that data analytics tools can serve also relate to what is required from teachers to learn to work with them. For both perspectives/​functions we discussed, an important skill required from teachers to work with data analytics tools is data literacy (Mandinach & Gummer, 2016), the ability to make sense of

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data, often presented in the form of visualizations.The ease with which teachers can make sense of the visualizations highly depends on the design and development of the tool. A recent report concluded that systems that help teachers “learn and grow” are often not tailored to teachers’ needs (Roschelle, Lester, & Fusco, 2020). “These [systems] often fall short of being usable, friendly, or instrumental for teacher’s work. They fall short of the idea of augmenting the teacher’s intelligence and helping the teacher to grow, and often only make more work for teachers. Much prior investment in AI has been student-​oriented, with not enough exploration of teachers’ needs.” (Roschelle et al., 2020, p. 17). While this conclusion is rather gloomy, in this chapter we have seen examples of analytics tools that were designed with the teacher in mind. They can be regarded as a new stream of tools under the umbrella of human-​centered design (Dimitriades, Martinez-​Moldonado, & Wiley, 2021). Thus, difficulties with sense making of data may be avoided by involving teachers as co-​designers of the data analytics tools (Dimitriades et al., 2021). However, sense making also involves drawing the connection between the events or student behaviors that the data point to and pedagogical principles (Kaendler et al., 2016; Van Es & Sherin, 2002), so that the teacher can determine whether those events need the teacher’s attention.This form of sense making may require further support from the tool itself (for example in the form of an advising tool), or for example from a peer discussion group in which the teacher engages in guided reflection on the data (Hansen & Wasson, 2016). The tools we discussed in this chapter provided data to the teacher during the inter-​active phase as events were unfolding. While these tools allow for reflection on student and teacher behavior as it is happening, for effective learning the use of the tools may need to be combined with (guided) post-​action reflection. Therefore, a suggestion for future research is to look into these possible combinations in more depth. Whether a data analytics tool has a temporary supporting function versus a lasting function in the classroom determines to what extent teachers will need to learn to incorporate the tool into their practices and routines. In this chapter we discussed that teachers may need to shift their ideas or stance towards technology to accept data analytics tools as a permanent partner in the classroom. With some notable exceptions (Knoop-​Van Campen & Molenaar, 2020), this question has not been addressed in research yet. A further idea for future research is therefore to take a longitudinal perspective on the development of partnerships between teachers and technology as they jointly aim to support students’ collaborative activities.

References An, P., Bakker, S., Ordanovski, S., Taconis, R., Paffen, C. L. E., & Eggen, B. (2019). Unobtrusively enhancing reflection-​in-​action of teachers through spatially distributed ambient information. Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems –​Proceedings, 1–​14. https://​doi.org/​10.1145/​3290​605.3300​321 Blatchford, P., Baines, E., Kutnick, P., & Martin, C. (2001). Classroom contexts: Connections between class size and within class grouping. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 71(2), 283–​302. https://​doi.org/​10.1348/​0007​0990​1158​523

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Dillenbourg, P. (1999).What do you mean by “collaborative learning”? In P. Dillenbourg (Ed.), Collaborative Learning. Cognitive and Computational Approaches (pp. 1–​19). Oxford: Elsevier. Dimitriades, Y., Martinez-​ Moldonado, R., & Wiley, K. (2021). Human-​ centered design principles for actionable learning analytics. In:T.Tsiatsos et al. (Eds.) Research on e-​Learning and ICT in Education. Springer. http://​doi.org/​10.1007/​978-​3-​030-​64363-​8_​15 European Parliament (2015). Innovative schools: teaching and learning in the digital era. Retrieved from www.europ​arl.eur​opa.eu/​RegD​ata/​etu​des/​STUD/​2015/​563​389/​ IPOL_​STU(2015)563389​_​EN.pdf Gaudin, C., & Chaliès, S. (2015).Video viewing in teacher education and professional development: A literature review. Educational Research Review, 16, 41–​67. https://​doi.org/​ 10.1016/​j.edu​rev.2015.06.001 Gillies, R. M., & Boyle, M. (2005). Teachers’ scaffolding behaviours during cooperative learning. Asia-​Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 33(3), 243–​259. https://​doi.org/​10.1080/​ 135986​6050​0286​242 Gillies, R. M., & Boyle, M. (2010). Teachers’ reflections on cooperative learning: Issues of implementation.Teaching and Teacher Education, 26(4), 933–​940. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​ j.tate.2009.10.034 Gillies, R. M., Ashman, A., & Terwel, J. (Eds.). (2008). The Teacher’s Role in Implementing Cooperative Learning in the Classroom. New York: Springer. Hansen, C. J., & Wasson, B. (2016). Teacher inquiry into student learning: The TISL heart model and method for use in teachers’ professional development. Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy, 10(1), 24–​49. Retrieved from www.idunn.no/​dk/​2016/​01/​teacher_​in​quir​y_​in​ to_​s​tude​ntle​arni​ng_​-​_​the​_​tis​l_​he​art_​mod Holstein, K., Aleven, V., & Rummel, N. (2020). A conceptual framework for human—​AI hybrid adaptivity in education. In Bittencourt, I., Cukurova, M., Muldner, K., Luckin, R., Millán, E. (eds) Artificial Intelligence in Education. AIED 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12163. Springer, Cham. https://​doi.org/​10.1007/​978-​3-​030-​ 52237-​7_​20. (pp.1–​14). Janssen, J., & Kirschner, P.A. (2020).Applying collaborative cognitive load theory to computer-​ supported collaborative learning:Towards a research agenda. Educational Technology Research and Development, 68, 783–​805. https://​doi.org/​10.1007/​s11​423-​019-​09729-​5 Kaendler, C., Wiedmann, M., Leuders, T., Rummel, N., & Spada, H. (2016). Monitoring student interaction during collaborative learning: Design and evaluation of a training program for pre-​service teachers. Psychology Learning & Teaching, 15(1), 44–​64. https://​ doi.org/​10.1177/​14757​2571​6638​010 Kaendler, C., Wiedmann, M., Rummel, N., & Spada, H. (2015). Teacher competencies for the implementation of collaborative learning in the classroom: A framework and research review. Educational Psychology Review, 27(3), 505–​536. https://​doi.org/​10.1007/​s10​ 648-​014-​9288-​9 Knoop-​Van Campen, C., & Molenaar, I. (2020). How teachers integrate dashboards into their feedback practices. Frontline Learning Research, 8(4), 37–​51. https://​doi.org/​10.14786/​flr. v8i4.641 Mandinach, E. B., & Gummer, E. S. (2016). What does it mean for teachers to be data literate: Laying out the skills, knowledge, and dispositions. Teaching and Teacher Education, 60, 366–​376. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.tate.2016.07.011 Roschelle, J., Lester, J. & Fusco, J. (Eds.) (2020). AI and the future of learning: Expert panel report [Report]. Digital Promise. https://​cir​cls.org/​repo​rts/​ai-​rep​ort. Rummel, N. (2018). One framework to rule them all? Carrying forward the conversation started by Wise and Schwarz. International Journal of Computer-​ Supported Collaborative Learning, 13(1), 123–​129. https://​doi.org/​10.1007/​s11​412-​018-​9273-​2

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Sergis, S., & Sampson, D. G. (2017). Teaching and learning analytics to support teacher inquiry:A systematic literature review. In A. Peña-​Ayala (Ed.), Learning Analytics: Fundaments, Applications, and Trends. Springer, pp. 25–​63. Van de Pol, J., Volman, M., & Beishuizen, J. (2010). Scaffolding in Teacher–​ Student Interaction: A Decade of Research. Educational Psychology Review, 22(3), 271–​296. https://​ doi.org/​10.1007/​s10​648-​010-​9127-​6 Van Es, E. A., & Sherin, M. G. (2002). Learning to notice: Scaffolding new teachers’ interpretations ofclassroom interactions. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 10(4), 571–​596. Van Leeuwen, A., & Janssen, J. (2019). A systematic review of teacher guidance during collaborative learning in primary and secondary education. Educational Research Review, 27, 71–​89. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.edu​rev.2019.02.001 Van Leeuwen, A., Janssen, J., Erkens, G., & Brekelmans, M. (2014). Supporting teachers in guiding collaborating students: Effects of learning analytics in CSCL. Computers & Education, 79, 28–​39. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.comp​edu.2014.07.007 Van Leeuwen, A., Janssen, J., Erkens, G., & Brekelmans, M. (2015). Teacher regulation of multiple computer-​supported collaborating groups. Computers in Human Behavior, 52, 233–​242. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.chb.2015.05.058 Van Leeuwen,A., Rummel, N., & van Gog,T. (2019).What information should CSCL teacher dashboards provide to help teachers interpret CSCL situations? International Journal of Computer-​ Supported Collaborative Learning, 14, 261–​289. https://​doi.org/​10.1007/​s11​ 412-​019-​09299-​x Van Leeuwen, A., Hornstra, L., & Flunger, B. (2020). Need supportive collaborative learning: are teachers necessary or do students support each other’s basic psychological needs? Educational Studies, 1–​16. https://​doi.org/​10.1080/​03055​698.2020.1835​613 Weinberger, A., & Fischer, F. (2006). A framework to analyze argumentative knowledge construction in computer-​supported collaborative learning. Computers & Education, 46, 71–​ 95. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.comp​edu.2005.04.003

3 ANCHORING SCIENCE PROFESSIONAL LEARNING IN CURRICULUM MATERIALS ENACTMENT Illustrating Theories in Practice to Support Teachers’ Learning Katherine L. McNeill, Renee Affolter, and Brian J. Reiser

Anchoring Science Professional Learning in Curriculum Materials Enactment: Illustrating Theories in Practice to Support Teachers’ Learning In this chapter we explore how to support science teachers’ shifts in their practices for supporting students in engaging in science and engineering practices to build and apply explanatory science ideas, as targeted in recent science reforms. We describe strategies for embedding teachers’ professional learning in the context of their enactment of curriculum materials that reflect these pedagogical shifts. We begin by articulating the shifts in teaching and learning in those reforms. We then summarize the arguments for using curriculum materials enactment as a context for supporting teachers’ learning and growth in these teaching practices. We present four design principles for curriculum-​based professional learning and illustrate these principles in the context of a professional learning program for middle school science teachers.

Supporting a Classroom Culture of Figuring Out for All Students Recent reform documents and assessments such as A Framework for K-​12 Science Education (National Research Council, 2012) in the United States, Australian reform documents (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA], 2015) and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA, OECD, 2019) present an ambitious vision for k-​12 science instruction. This vision demands a central role for students to engage in science and engineering practices to build and use science ideas, rather than solely learning about the science others

DOI: 10.4324/9781003097112-5

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have done, a shift we characterize as moving from “learning about” to “figuring out” (Schwarz et al., 2017).This entails situating science learning in real phenomena and problems that connect to students’ lives, moving from rote memorization of science facts to purposeful knowledge construction (Berland, Schwarz, Krist, Kenyon, Lo, & Reiser, 2016). This shift offers opportunities for more equitable sensemaking in K-​ 12 classrooms. Engaging students in common phenomena and encouraging their connections to other everyday experiences offers the potential of providing more equitable learning opportunities for all students. However, to do so requires leveraging the sensemaking resources and experiences that students bring into the classroom (B. A. Brown, 2019; Suárez, 2020; Tan & Calabrese Barton, 2010). Bang and colleagues (2017) define equitable science sensemaking as noticing, leveraging and supporting student resources as the classroom works together to build scientific understandings about problems and phenomena. We add to this notion the idea of coherence from the students’ perspective, in which students partner with teachers to identify questions, co-​construct approaches to investigate them, and decide together what they have figured out (Reiser et al., 2021). When their learning is coherent from their own perspective, students see science work as addressing the questions and problems their classroom has identified (Zivic et al., 2018). One way to support student coherence is through curricular materials that use a storyline approach that engages students with phenomena and problems to elicit their own questions that teachers, with support of curriculum materials, use to guide the trajectory of their sensemaking (Reiser et al., 2021, in press). However, this ambitious vision of figuring out for all students remains an unrealized goal in many classrooms (Banilower et al., 2020). Too often students continue to be positioned as recipients of presented explanations, with authority for knowledge reserved for teachers and textbooks (Ford, 2015). Science investigation may focus on students developing skills (e.g., graphing or applying known equations) and collecting evidence to support an already known science idea, rather than the knowledge-​building work of posing questions that drive investigations, evaluating evidence, and engaging in argumentation (Horizon Research Inc., 2019). This figuring out approach requires shifts for many teachers (Osborne, 2014; Windschitl et al, 2008), challenging how teachers view and approach science learning (Lee et al., 2013; Reiser, 2013). In order to support this vision of figuring out that is coherent for students, teachers need new knowledge, instructional practices, and curriculum to support their classroom instruction. Specifically, we argue that teachers need to develop student-​ informed curricular sensemaking (Cherbow & McNeill, in press). Student-​ informed curricular sensemaking includes teachers’ knowledge of curricular storylines (such as how disciplinary core ideas build over time), knowledge of how students can be positioned to be meaningful collaborators in that idea work (Miller et al., 2018), and strategies for navigating the potential tensions between curricular storylines and student coherence (Sikorski & Hammer, 2017). This knowledge

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includes both knowledge of students’ ideas and resources as well as knowledge of instructional strategies (Kind, 2009; Park & Oliver, 2008). Similar to previous critiques of pedagogical content knowledge (Settlage, 2013), we do not view student-​informed curricular sensemaking as simply declarative knowledge that a teacher absorbs, but rather that “what counts as knowledge is only that which is put to use” (p. 8). Consequently, we think about how knowledge manifests itself in action in a particular context through teaching strategies and teaching moves.

Embedding Professional Learning in the Context of Curriculum Enactment In order to support teachers in this type of knowledge construction, they need opportunities to plan, enact, and reflect with other teachers on their experiences in a specific context (Ball & Cohen, 1999; Firestone et al., 2020; Lampert, 2010). The recommendations for science teacher learning include that professional learning should be linked to teachers’ classroom instruction and include analysis of instruction; include opportunities for teachers to practice teaching science in new ways and to interact with peers in improving the implementation of new teaching strategies; and include opportunities for teachers to collect and analyze data on their students’ learning. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, 2015, Recommendation 4, p. 224 Curriculum materials are one way to support teachers in experimenting with their own practice. Curriculum materials are needed to help teachers make sense of how abstractions like “science practices” and “equity in classroom discourse” play out in real classrooms, providing explicit strategies for tasks that achieve learning goals and guidance for teachers’ interactions with students (Harris et al., 2015; Krajcik, McNeill, & Reiser, 2008). The educative aspects of these curriculum materials can help teachers analyze the more general pedagogical principles reflected in the activities, and help explore cases of these strategies in use (Davis & Krajcik, 2005; Davis et al., 2014) to support teachers in building knowledge beyond just implementing a lesson to flexible strategy use. However, simply providing curriculum materials reflecting target reforms by itself is insufficient. Curriculum materials require effective professional learning support to effectively help teachers realize shifts in classroom practice (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, 2015). Teachers tend to make sense of and interpret new pedagogical ideas through familiar lenses (Spillane et al., 2002). Teachers and coaches may see their existing approaches in this new vision of teaching and learning, which may not completely encompass the shifts. For example, the knowledge building aspects of science practices may be viewed primarily as ensuring that science is “hands-​on,” focusing more on the material aspects

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of the work (Furtak & Penuel, 2019). Thus, professional learning anchored in curriculum materials that provide explicit guidance about teaching with those models is more effective than providing teachers with teaching methods or curriculum alone (Lynch et al., 2019; Penuel & Gallagher, 2009; Penuel et al., 2011). As such, this type of professional learning offers an explicit opportunity to support teachers’ development of student-​informed curricular sensemaking. Furthermore, the very act of enacting new curriculum materials often allows teachers to notice instructional strategies and approaches that they may not have acted upon in the moment (M. W. Brown, 2009; Kazemi & Hubbard, 2008). As teachers become more familiar with the curriculum materials and are provided with opportunities to reflect, they may own and be able to responsively use these resources in the future (M.W. Brown, 2009). Consequently, these cycles of enactment and reflection can support teachers’ knowledge of students’ ideas and resources as well as knowledge of instructional strategies to support a classroom culture of figuring out for all students that they can apply to their own instruction. In the next section, we propose design principles to support the integration of professional learning in the context of teachers’ enactment of curriculum materials.

Design Principles for Curriculum-​based Professional Learning Short and Hirsch (2020) argue that reforms involving new approaches to teaching and learning can be best supported through “curriculum-​ based professional learning”—​professional learning anchored in teachers’ preparation for and enactment of new curriculum materials. Curriculum-​ based professional learning is guided by design principles that explicitly consider teachers’ experiences and needs as well as the intended vision of classroom instruction (Short & Hirsch, 2020). Specifically, in our work we focus on developing teachers’ student-​informed curricular sensemaking which includes teachers’ knowledge of how the curricular storyline builds over time and knowledge of how students can be positioned to be meaningful collaborators in this work (Cherbow & McNeill, in press). We developed four design principles to support teachers in this knowledge development. These principles are grounded in a situative perspective of teacher learning (Borko, 2004) and aim to take on a central challenge in supporting teachers’ professional learning “in, from, and for practice” (Lampert, 2010). Situating teachers’ learning in the practice of teaching can help teachers generalize beyond their work with specific examples to build more broadly applicable strategies (Osborne et al., 2019), such as motivating a lesson from students’ prior questions. Thus professional learning design must attend both to the concrete and specific while broadening out to more general principles. We argue for a practice-​based professional learning that helps teachers understand a general strategy to use in their teaching by seeing concrete examples of the strategy in action, which we illustrate in the next section. Table 3.1 includes four design principles that attempt to realize this goal of anchoring new approaches for teachers in examples of practice that drive the

Anchoring Science Professional Learning  51 TABLE 3.1  Design principles for curriculum-​based professional learning

Design Principle

Description

1. Support teachers in taking the student perspective

Teachers engage in curricular activities (e.g. asking questions, constructing models, sensemaking discussions) from the vantage point of one of their k-​12 students. In a sense, they role play what their students might say, do or feel to better understand their students’ experiences. Teachers watch videos and/​or analyze student artifacts to see an image of what the general instructional strategy looks like in classrooms with diverse students. Teachers experience and/​or reflect on a general instructional strategy in two or more curricular examples. By seeing multiple curricular examples, this helps distinguish between characteristics of the general instructional strategy versus particulars for a specific unit. Teachers engage in cycles of enactment in which each cycle they plan, enact, and then reflect on a curricular unit. These multiple cycles support teachers in applying to and learning from their experiences in their classrooms.

2. Support teachers in analyzing images of classroom instruction 3. Support teachers in examining contrasting curricular cases

4. Support teachers in cycles of enactment (plan, enact and reflect)

development of our professional learning: (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 four design principles support teachers’ development of student-​informed curricular sensemaking. The first design principle, support teachers in taking the student perspective, helps teachers develop knowledge of how a general strategy (like a consensus model discussion) looks, feels, and sounds different from the vantage point of their K-​12 students. This supports teachers in understanding how students can be positioned to be meaningful collaborators in this work. During professional learning, teachers embrace the perspective of one of their students as they engage in curricular activities. They engage in learning activities, as students, attempting to put themselves in the position of their own students. Reiser et al. (2017) argued that supporting change to classroom practice requires helping teachers engage with “multiple lenses” on the shifts they are exploring: “(a) engaging with disciplinary practices as learners, (b) analyzing students’ engagement in these practices, and (c) analyzing pedagogical approaches to support these practices” (Reiser et al., 2017, p. 283). As teachers take on the student perspective, they attempt to anticipate students’ ideas and questions, ignoring what they know as science teachers about “the right answers,” and reasoning through what they can figure out from making sense of the new investigation in light of what their classroom has already figured out. This experience of taking on the student perspective supports teachers in seeing how particular approaches (such as teachers and students partnering to develop questions guiding the unit) play out in teacher-​student interactions, and to empathize with

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how students might feel, speak and think during the unit (Lowell & McNeill, 2020). In this way, supporting the student perspective can help teachers develop knowledge of how a unit can be coherent from the student perspective -​how a curriculum unit can be driven by students’ questions and ideas while still leading to complex understandings of science ideas over time (Reiser et al., 2021). The second design principle, support teachers in analyzing images of classroom instruction, allows teachers to see what a general instructional strategy looks like in a K-​12 classroom. Records of classroom practices, such as classroom videos and student artifacts, provide a powerful context for teacher learning as they allow teachers to examine instructional strategies and student ideas (Borko, 2004). These images of classroom instruction can provide evidence of what is possible as well as offer a productive context to reflect on challenges and strategies to support instructional change.Videos allow teachers to observe science content and teaching issues in real classroom contexts opening up space for conversations about teachers’ own students and classrooms (Roth et al., 2011; Taylor et al., 2017).This supports teachers in developing knowledge to interpret what students say, do, and produce as well as to consider potential instructional strategies that leverage student resources while keeping in mind the curricular storyline. The third design principle focuses on supporting teachers in examining contrasting curricular cases. Although it is important to embed teacher learning in a specific context, there is a tension between the specifics of that context and a more general idea or strategy. We use curricular cases to illustrate strategies in context, but also purposefully include multiple contrasting curricular cases. Using multiple contrasting curricular cases better enables teachers to inductively pull out the key characteristics that are common across the cases to better understand the general strategy. This is important in order to help teachers draw out what is important and general from features that may be particular to the example they studied. This rationale is similar to problem based or case-​based learning strategies in which cases are used to support reasoning from cases to develop general ideas, to illustrate abstract issues in context, and to provide examples of abstract or general ideas that learners can apply to new situations (Kolodner et al, 2003). These contrasting curricular cases can support teachers in generalizing beyond the specifics of each case to pull out essential features, such as instructional strategies they can flexibly implement during their future curricular enactment. The fourth design principle, support teachers in cycles of enactment (plan, enact, and reflect), is central to the idea of situating teachers’ professional learning in their own practice (Ball & Cohen, 1999; Lampert, 2010). Supporting classroom change requires helping teachers try to connect the reforms to their own practice. This is facilitated when teachers can engage in multiple cycles of attempting to take the approaches and try them out in their own classrooms, and then reflecting on them with their colleagues. Thus, we draw on approaches that help teachers analyze and experiment with an approach prior to working with their students, such as rehearsals (Kazemi et al., 2016; Lampert et al., 2013), and combine these with opportunities during the enactment to collaborate with peers and analyze

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artifacts from their own work with students, such as student work (Firestone et al., 2020). This approach builds on earlier arguments for embedding professional learning of new pedagogical approaches for science teachers in enactment and reflection cycles (e.g., Blumenfeld, 2000; Krajcik et al., 1994). From these experiences, teachers learn how to reflect on their own practice and use this information to inform future curricular enactment in terms of both students’ ideas and instructional strategies.

Illustrating Principles in the Design of OpenSciEd Professional Development To illustrate these four design principles, we provide examples from a four-​day introductory professional development workshop designed to support teachers addressing NGSS teaching with middle school OpenSciEd storyline curriculum materials (Edelson et al., 2021). OpenSciEd is a consortium of researchers, developers, and partner states developing open educational resources (OER) based on the Framework and NGSS (www.opensc​ied.org). Initial research suggests the OpensciEd curriculum and professional learning materials support shifts in teachers’ understanding of science instruction away from one in which the teacher pre-​teaches vocabulary or engages students in disconnected hands-​on activities to one in which students are figuring out the science ideas over time as they engage in sensemaking (McNeill, et al., 2020). Furthermore, results from teachers’ enactments highlight promise in students’ participation in sensemaking discussions (Krumm et al., 2020). Teachers’ shifts in their vision of science instruction occurred in part because they wanted to empower student voice and increase equitable opportunities for science in their classrooms (McNeill et al., 2020). We use the first day of the workshop to illustrate each of the first three principles. We will then use an example from the second professional development workshop, approximately four months later, to illustrate the fourth principle. In these sections, we include examples of teachers’ participation in these workshops to illustrate the potential for these design principles in shifting teachers’ knowledge and instructional practices. Table 3.2 provides an overview of the key learning goals for each day of the four-​day workshop. These learning goals include both teachers’ knowledge of how a specific curricular storyline builds over time and knowledge of how students can be positioned to be meaningful collaborators in this work. As mentioned previously, we view this as knowledge in action in a particular context that manifests itself in teaching strategies and moves in a classroom, and not as declarative abstract knowledge statements. Participants included teachers from 6th, 7th and 8th grade recruited as part of the OpenSciEd field trials (Krumm et al., 2020). During each seven hour day, participants spent about two hours in what we refer to as “whole group” where teachers from all three grades learned and reflected together on the storyline approach. These whole group segments occurred at the opening and closing each day. In the middle of the day, the group split into three different groups (6th, 7th, and 8th grade) to work specifically on the unit they

54  McNeill, Affolter, & Reiser TABLE 3.2  Overview of Key Learning Goals for OpenSciEd Introductory Professional

Development Workshop Day 1 Phenomena and Questions

Day 2 Storyline and Coherence

Day 3 Sensemaking Discussions

Day 4 Supporting and Assessing Student Growth

Teachers will Teachers will Teachers will Teachers will understand the understand understand general understand four steps of how students’ strategies for how to characteristics of the Anchoring questions can plan for and facilitate three dimensional phenomenon drive a curriculum a sensemaking assessments routine and how to create a discussion to support and how they using phenomena coherent learning students in digging can use those can support experience for deeper and working assessments to engagement and students. Teachers with others’ ideas. assess and support equitable learning will understand Teachers will student learning. opportunities how to navigate a understand how to Teachers will for all students. specific curriculum use those strategies understand where Teachers will to help students in a lesson in a the assessment understand an move from one specific unit. opportunities are Anchoring lesson to the next. and how to use Phenomenon for them for a specific a specific unit unit. and how it can be used to develop students’ questions.

would teach. In these unit specific segments, participants engaged in key lessons, explored the unit storyline, and reflected on key aspects of the curriculum.

Design Principle 1: Student Perspective To support teachers in developing an understanding of using an anchoring phenomenon to elicit student questions and use them throughout the unit, the professional development uses the design principle of the student perspective. Figure 3.1 includes a slide used to introduce the idea of the student perspective, which we referred to as “student hat” during the professional development workshop. The facilitator explained to participants that they would be experiencing the elements of the anchoring phenomenon first in “student hat” and then reflect on that experience in “teacher hat.” A key goal of professional learning is to help teachers develop an understanding of the anchoring phenomenon routine by experiencing and examining the strategy in action. Figure 3.2 includes the Anchoring Phenomenon Routine Tracker with the four elements of the routine, which teachers used to reflect in “teacher hat”.

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Switching hats Student hat: Thinking like a kid. What do you anticipate a middle school student might think? What might they say? Channel your inner middle schooler.

FIGURE 3.1  Introducing

Teacher hat: Reflecting on pedagogical approach, instructional routines, classroom culture, logistics/supports, NGSS, etc...

student hat and teacher hat

Student hat

Teacher hat

FIGURE 3.2  Introducing

the Anchoring Phenomena Routine Tracker for teacher hat

These four elements (1. Explore the phenomenon; 2. Attempt to make sense of the phenomenon; 3. Identify related phenomena; and 4. Develop questions and next steps) originated in earlier work on the storyline approach (Reiser et al., 2021). These elements are designed to help students focus on what is interesting and perhaps surprising about some phenomenon, grapple with trying to explain it, draw on experiences from their own lives that may be relevant to eventually explaining it,

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and then identifying and organizing the classroom’s questions into a plan of action for the classroom community. In student hat, we asked teachers to channel their inner middle schooler and really try to “think like a kid” in order to experience the anchoring phenomenon routine in the context of a specific unit, Why do dead things disappear over time? (Novak et al., 2019). This unit (referred to as “the Roadkill unit” for short) serves as a “neutral” context to introduce the storyline ideas. That is, it is not a unit any of the three groups of teachers are going to teach in the fall; that unit is the second example that they will encounter in the “Unit Time” breakout groups. In Element 1: Explore the Phenomenon, facilitators asked participants to record what they noticed and wondered (as middle school students) while engaging with the anchor—​watching and discussing a time lapse video spanning eight days of what happens to a dead badger over time. Starting a unit in this manner of noticing and wondering can feel very different for middle school students who may be more used to a curricular unit starting by a teacher saying something like “We are about to start a unit on ecosystems. Can someone tell me what an ecosystem is?” Engaging in this work of taking the student perspective encourages teachers to develop an understanding of how their students might feel and think while engaged in this initial activity including potential student ideas which is essential for the joint navigation work that occurs when enacting the storyline units.

Design Principle 2: Images of Classroom Instruction Next, teachers observed and analyzed video of a teacher’s classroom in which students engaged in the same anchor, which aligns with the second design principle of analyzing images of classroom instruction. Figure 3.3 includes the slide introducing teachers to the classroom in which students shared what they noticed and wondered about the dead badger over time. Watching and reflecting on this classroom video offered teachers an image of what is possible in an actual classroom and evidence that introducing a unit in this way can be engaging and productive for students. After watching the classroom video, the teachers then used the Anchoring Phenomenon Routine Tracker to reflect on this element to consider their experiences in student hat, their observations of students engaged in this work, and reflect on how this general strategy might support figuring out and a classroom culture where all students have access. Engaging in this work encourages teachers to let go of their preconceived notions of what it looks like to introduce a science topic, like ecosystems. Furthermore, it encourages teachers to develop an understanding of how the shared anchoring phenomena experience can increase equity and access by offering an entry point and voice for all students in science, because of the wealth of different rich ideas that can be shared by students.

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Element #1: Explore the Phenomenon ● Watch a Classroom Video ● Small Group Discussion: ○ Notes about what you or the students do ○ How does this support figuring out? ○ How does this support a classroom culture where all students have access?

● Whole Group Discussion: ○ Share out key ideas from your small group.

FIGURE 3.3  Using

classroom video to reflect on the anchoring phenomenon

Design Principle 3: Contrasting Curricular Cases We designed the use of both whole group and unit specific time to address the design principle of supporting teachers in examining contrasting cases. Over the course of this first day of professional learning, each teacher experiences the anchoring phenomena in student hat for two different curricular units (the “neutral context” in whole group and the unit they are preparing to teach). In addition, they discuss and reflect with colleagues who have experienced the anchoring phenomena in two additional curricular units, when the 6th, 7th, and 8th teachers regroup in whole group time. Using these different curricular cases enables teachers to inductively pull out the key characteristics that are common across the cases to develop knowledge of what the anchoring phenomenon routine is and how it supports students’ interest, engagement, and voice during the curriculum, which they can apply to their own teaching. During Whole Group, all teachers engaged in the anchoring phenomenon routine for the unit, Why do dead things disappear over time? This common shared experience helps introduce and ground all of their experiences before being introduced to the unit they will teach in the fall. Then teachers split into three different groups for unit specific depending on their grade level. One group of teachers experienced the 6th grade unit, How can containers keep stuff from warming up or cooling down? In this unit, the anchoring phenomenon was an experiment in which the students observed an iced drink in a regular cup warming up more quickly compared to an iced drink in a fancy cup. The second group of teachers experienced the 7th grade

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unit, How do things inside our bodies work together to make us feel the way we do? The anchoring phenomena for this unit begins with students reading and listening to a case about M’Kenna, a 13-​year-​old girl who seems to be really sick and we aren’t sure why. Finally, the last group of teachers experienced the 8th grade unit, How can a sound make something move? This unit begins with students observing a video of sound from a truck appearing to make a window move in a building across a parking lot. During this unit specific time, all three groups of teachers complete the Anchoring Phenomenon Routine Tracker for their curricular experience. At the end of Day 1, teachers come together in Whole Group to share and reflect on their experiences in the different units. Specifically, teachers are asked to reflect across the contrasting curricular cases for the anchoring phenomenon routine to better understand this key instructional routine. Teachers are encouraged to reason from the cases to develop general ideas of what the anchoring phenomenon routine looks like in practice. In all three contexts students experience an engaging and puzzling phenomenon resulting in interesting noticings and wonderings which help drive the unit forward. Looking across the curricular cases helps teachers develop an understanding of superficial characteristics (e.g. investigation versus video) versus key characteristics (e.g. a phenomena that is not easily explained) of the anchoring phenomenon routine so that they can more flexibly use the instructional strategies in the routine.

Teachers’ Experiences with OpenSciEd Professional Learning During the summer of 2018, teachers in ten different states experienced the four-​ day introductory OpenSciEd professional development workshop as part of the field test for the curricular units and professional learning (Edelson, 2021). The examples in this manuscript come from one state in which 30 middle school science teachers participated. The state department of education recruited the participating teachers to field test the six middle school science units at their grade level. Some of the teachers volunteered to participate while others were selected by the science coordinator in their district. The teachers were recruited from five different school districts. The teachers had a range of years teaching, though many were experienced (24% =​1–​6 years; 52% =​7–​15 years; 24% =​16+​years). The group was largely female (73%) with 24% male and 3% unknown. The ethnic make-​up of the group was 76% White, 7% American Indian/​Native Alaskan, 7% Native Hawaiian/​Pacific Islander, 7% multiracial, and 3% African American. All of the teachers were new to the OpenSciEd curriculum materials and the storyline approach more broadly. All teachers agreed to data collection, which included teacher surveys and videorecording of all four days of professional development. The example here, which uses pseudonyms, is pulled from a larger analysis of this experience (McNeill et al., 2020). To illustrate what teachers were learning, we provide an excerpt from the whole group session at the end of Day 1 discussed above. As shown in Figure 3.3, participants worked in small, mixed grade-​level groups to share what they experienced across

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the three units in their Anchoring Phenomenon Routine. They were then asked to consider commonalities in terms of how this routine supports all students in figuring out and what this means for their own students. After the small group discussion, the teachers shared out in a discussion across all participants: Facilitator:

The conversations are amazing, but let’s hear a few thoughts, things that resonated with your group as you were talking about certain commonalities, or themes around this routine.

Rachel:

So, we tried to really simplify it, or at least I did. Element one, we said it was about the hook, that everyone could relate to. So for me, it was this student that was sick and we were trying to figure out what was going on. For him (indicates another colleague at the table) it was listening to loud music, and (points to the third member) when a coffee gets cold, and why is that happening. So, it was kind of like the individual time to process that. For element two, it felt like there was a lot of communicating ideas, and (inaudible) figuring out some of these things (inaudible) and now we got to ask more questions.You’re like, “This is what you know or you don’t know.” Element three was about making connections to prior knowledge, bigger picture, and revealing questions. And then element four was pinpointing the focal question.

Facilitator:

What do people think of that sort of synthesis of certain elements across?

Mark:

It also starts with, we think, a shared experience, so that it doesn’t matter who’s responding to you, and it wasn’t how exciting an experience they had was. It could be all different levels of outside experience. That shared experience allows everybody some connection.

Facilitator:

Yeah. And I heard some groups talking about, like, everybody could share something they noticed, and even if you don’t really care, you can’t sometimes help yourself but ask a question, right? Because you have this thing in front of you.Yeah.

Catherine:

If it’s a visual or it’s engaging, everybody gets connected and everybody is engaged.

In this discussion, we can see that engaging in this professional learning helped teachers develop an understanding of the anchoring phenomenon and how it can support engagement and equitable learning opportunities for all students. For example, Rachel synthesizes the four elements highlighting her understanding of the general structure. Mark and Catherine then share their understanding of engagement and equity through comments such as “That shared experience allows everybody some connection” and “everybody gets connected and everybody is engaged.” As the discussion continues, we see teachers continue to connect to their own practice as they wrestle with how to implement these big shifts.We see in these comments their developing knowledge of student-​informed curriculum sensemaking as they struggle with the tension between building disciplinary core ideas and positioning students as meaningful collaborators in that idea work in relation to time.

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Facilitator:

What are some other things that you talked about at your tables that you might have seen as patterns across the units?

Bill

Just an observation that we had in our first group and in our new multi-​grade level group is that it seems long. The first three days worth of activities -​I think I might want to try and cram into one or two days.

Facilitator

Yeah, don’t do that (laughs)

Bill

Yeah -​I realize that -​(laughs). But that was a pretty universal response.

Facilitator

Sure, yeah. So we talk about going slow to go fast because look at what we have now, right? We have this system of questions and ideas for investigations, and we have a path forward that it took us a while to get, but now we can sort of keep coming back to it over and over again. Did other people have a similar reaction? Like, “oh that took a long time –​ I don’t know how we’re going to do that?”

Andrea

I mean, yeah, it was that, but it was also kind of a nice progression within all of it, like one thing we discussed at our table was the opportunities we had to get behind our thinking.You have at least a little bit of experience with (the phenomenon), but then it’s like you get your individual think time, your small group pair time, and then your big group, consensus time, and then it kind of keeps cycling through that pattern, so not only does it become something you expect what’s going to happen next, but I think it also gives the direction for everybody to have something to bring to the table.

Here we see that Bill was able to articulate a tension about the amount of time required for the first lesson, which includes the anchoring phenomenon routine. His desire to “cram into one or two days” instead of three days budgeted in the lesson plan suggests that this new way of introducing a science unit may not feel worth the time to him. The facilitator acknowledged this tension and invited others to weigh in. Andrea agreed with this challenge, but then pushed back on it. She identified that taking the time to engage in this extended launch was important to support all students because it allowed “for everybody to have something to bring to the table.” Her comment connects back to one of the key teacher learning goals for Day 1 focused on how phenomena can support engagement and equitable learning opportunities for all students (see Table 3.2). Our design intent was to craft a situation in which teachers compare different implementations of anchoring phenomena in order to support teachers in naming concerns such as this from the outset, so that they can continue to debate and address them with their peers throughout the PD. In general, providing concrete examples via engagement from the student perspective, analysis of video and what this looks like in real classrooms, and then comparing across curricular cases supported teachers in developing an understanding of the Anchoring Phenomenon Routine as well as allowing them to articulate both the shifts and challenges inherent in this work.

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Design Principle 4: Cycles of Enactment

G6 Unit 1

Teach Grade 6 Unit 1

G7 Unit 1

Teach Grade 7 Unit 1

G8 Unit 1

Teach Grade 8 Unit 1

Summer Institute

FIGURE 3.4  OpenSciEd

Prof. Learning Community Support during enactment

Shared teaching issues

Instructional approach

The overarching OpenSciEd professional learning model includes multiple experiences for teachers over time in cycles of enactment that include planning, enacting and reflecting. Previous research suggests that effective professional learning requires sufficient duration in terms of both total hours, but also over time (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, 2015). Professional learning can provide a catalyst for changes in teachers’ instruction, but teachers need the opportunity to try those new instructional strategies in their classrooms and reflect on them with their peers in a supportive environment (Knight-​Bardsley & McNeill, 2016). Figure 3.4 includes the OpenSciEd model of curriculum based professional learning over time. This model illustrates that after the initial summer institute (plan) teachers then enact their first unit while simultaneously receiving support from their professional learning community (enact). After completing that first unit, the teachers then come together for a two day professional development workshop during which they debrief and reflect on their first enactment (reflect) as well as engage in and learn about unit two (plan) before enacting it (enact). As such, the teachers engage in multiple cycles of enactment focusing on planning, enacting and reflecting to support shifts in beliefs and instruction over time. As part of the ongoing cycles of enactment, teachers who attended the four-​day introductory OpenSciEd professional development workshop and then implemented their first unit, returned for a two day workshop where they prepared to teach a new unit. On day one of this “Round 2” workshop, teachers reflected on their enactment of their first unit using a list of five “Key Instructional Elements” to guide their discussions: phenomena based, coherent for students, driven by evidence, collaborative and equitable. Then, teachers engaged in the Anchoring Phenomenon Routine for their new unit at their grade level. In the afternoon, teachers came back to whole group and reflected on the experience, first in small group, and then in a full discussion. An excerpt from the whole group discussion illustrates the connections teachers made as they reflected on their prior enactment and how their understanding of both curricular storylines and coherence for students continued to grow.

G6 Unit 2

Teach Grade 6 Unit 2

G7 Unit 2

Teach Grade 7 Unit 2

G8 Unit 2

Teach Grade 8 Unit 2

Debrief, Prep. Unit 2

Prof. Learning Community Support during enactment

Model of curriculum-​based professional learning over time

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Facilitator:

Andrea:

Tammy

Facilitator Tim

Melissa

What about in terms of similar and different? Doing this a second time, what do you feel like you’ll be able to leverage what challenges do you think might come up? How does this feel in terms of that? In general I feel better. Like, I’m not going to lie, after the four days over the summer, and I said this to my group, I was like “what on earth just happened? What am I doing?” (laughter) And it doesn’t help that biology is not my strong suit-​like I studied rocks in college. My degree is in geology. So it’s like I had to rely very heavily -​I’ve worked with Tammy, who has a stronger background in bio and chemistry stuff, so I’ve been relying heavily on her for the first parts of it. I’m feeling better and more confident as I’m moving through it, as well. I just finished lesson ten, and I, and even looking back on timing and pacing, I, again, I think that what we heard in general is that it’s taking a little bit longer than I felt we were all expecting and not in a bad way, it’s just that it’s taking a little bit longer than we’re all expecting. But even looking back in a couple things that I, how I can adjust to make it better, to condense some stuff a little better, and I’m feeling a lot more confident. But we still have [the state science test] coming up, so we still have to hit some other standards somewhere in between here, so the time crunch is making us a little anxious. Tim, did you want to add something? Yeah. So in the sixth grade, I think the real benefit is one of the questions that was left on our DQB board from sound was “how do speakers work?” And that dovetails right into this year, so that’ll be really nice. I think having some of the routines already established is nice, but on the other hand, I also worry about students going home, and (thinking) “we know where this is going”. Because we have already done this before. And I wonder If they’re still going to be motivated the way they were the first time because it was kind of something new to them… For me, I think it’s kind of reverse. They love the thermal energy unit … And one student said, “this topic is sooooo interesting,” and I never had a student in fifteen years say heat transfer was sooo interesting (laughter). And they didn’t want me to give them any answers because they wanted to figure it out. They were having a lot of fun with it. And then when we finished that I started moving back into the curriculum and trying to think of how to come up with an anchoring activity and try to make it as engaging and exciting, so it felt like there was a flow. And I started to get there, but clearly I’m not a curriculum developer, even if you try to make some adjustments here and there, and so I feel like that I kind of went back to how some of the lessons that I had before and it feels like the energy level is here (gestures with her hand to show low). So I feel like then getting back into something that I feel confident in that’s been vetted, the student’s energy is going to be much higher because they love doing science this way.

In this discussion we hear teachers making connections to their own concrete experience enacting the curriculum with their students, which supported their own learning. We can hear the teachers voicing concerns they had after the first

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professional development workshop and how they now have greater buy-​in and can see potential that they could not necessarily see when it was new and they had not yet implemented. For example, Andrea speaks to the fact that the very act of implementing the curriculum with her students and the support of her colleague, Tammy, has made her feel “better and more confident as I’m moving through it.” She noted her own agency to make modifications to address the challenge of timing now that she and her students have a better understanding of the routines and approach. For example, she discussed “how I can adjust to make it better, to condense some stuff a little better, and I’m feeling a lot more confident.” These comments connect to a greater understanding of the curricular storyline and how the science ideas build over time. For change in practice to happen, teachers need opportunities to reflect on new strategies they are enacting with their peers in a supportive environment. Because they have all had the opportunity to enact a unit, they can openly share their experiences and concerns and learn from the experience of their peers like we see in the exchange between Tim and Melissa. Tim shares that while he is excited about the connection to the next unit he is concerned that students might not be as engaged because “I wonder If they’re still going to be motivated the way they were the first time because it was kind of something new to them.” Melissa was able to draw off of her own experience implementing the unit with her students to offer an alternative view that students were very engaged and “they didn’t want me to give them any answers because they wanted to figure it out” and how their energy was lower when she had to return to more traditional curriculum. Melissa’s comment reflects an understanding of how students can be positioned as meaningful collaborators in this work to increase engagement and access. These exchanges suggest that the opportunities for teachers to engage in cycles of enactment in which they plan during professional learning, enact a curricular unit, and then reflect during professional learning support teachers in applying and learning from their experiences in their classrooms.

Discussion Implementing recent reform efforts in science education that call for creating a classroom culture of figuring out for all students is challenging and teachers need support (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, 2015). Without appropriate professional learning experiences, teachers may simply relabel their current instructional strategies with reform-​oriented terms, instead of engaging in instructional transformation (McNeill et al., 2017; Spillane et al., 2002). Anchoring professional learning in curriculum materials offers promise to support teachers in this work, because it is directly linked to their classrooms.Yet all curriculum-​based professional learning is not equivalent and needs to be guided by design principles (Short & Hirsh, 2020). The four design principles we describe and illustrate in this manuscript (student perspective, images of classroom instruction, contrasting curricular cases and cycles of enactment) have been essential for

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supporting teachers in shifting their vision of science and their classroom instruction. Professional learning informed by these design principles helped teachers better understand a general strategy to use in their teaching by seeing concrete examples of the strategy in action. Experiencing aspects of the curriculum in “student hat” and seeing videos of classroom enactment provided images of what is possible. Furthermore, examining contrasting cases as well as using the curriculum in their classrooms further illustrated these abstract ideas in context as teachers wrestled with what these changes meant for their instruction and their students. This juxtaposition of the general strategy with the concrete example supported teachers in instructional transformation. Yet we also learned as part of this work that supporting teachers in developing student-​informed curricular sensemaking is challenging. During the four-​day introductory workshop, a number of teachers were uncomfortable particularly during the first two days. At first, teachers questioned how students could be meaningful collaborators in this work while also developing complicated science concepts (McNeill, et al., 2020). The excerpt from the Round 2 workshop highlights the importance of the plan, enact and reflect cycle as teachers’ understanding and comfort with the instructional design shifted over the cycle. Similar to Osborne and colleagues (2019), we argue that this highlights the importance of situating teachers’ learning in the practice of teaching over a sustained amount of time. Significant changes in teachers’ understanding and practice require extended support and reflection. Furthermore, when enacting the curriculum and reflecting on the experience, one case study teacher raised concerns about how to respond to students’ emergent ideas while still aligning with the storyline in the curriculum (Cherbow & McNeill, in press). This raises questions about how to design curriculum based professional learning that supports teacher customization and highlights the multiplicities of enactment of a unit. Curriculum enactment should not be prescriptive, but rather a “participatory relationship” between the teacher, curriculum materials, students and context (Remillard, 2005). Particularly with this vision of figuring out for all students, teaching involves more than simply following the steps in lesson guides (McNeill et al., 2018). The commitment to eliciting and building on students’ ideas and engaging students in knowledge-​building practices means that teachers’ work with students must be sensitive to the ideas and arguments that emerge in their classroom. Steps to enact the discourse-​rich approaches cannot be scripted; instead, they require teachers to develop new teaching practices to orchestrate classroom discourse through which students engage with their peers and reach consensus as a learning community (Cherbow & McNeill, in press). Meaningful learning requires teachers customizing instructional materials through careful planning and the many in-​ the-​ moment teaching decisions that arise when enacting these materials. Future research should investigate professional learning explicitly focused on teachers’ customization to support equitable student sensemaking.

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4 PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR STEM INTEGRATION Analyzing Bioinformatics Teaching by Examining Teachers’ Qualities of Adaptive Expertise Susan A. Yoon, Jooeun Shim, Katherine Miller, Amanda M. Cottone, Noora Fatima Noushad, Jae-​Un Yoo, Michael V. Gonzalez, Ryan Urbanowicz, and Blanca E. Himes

Recognizing that few real-​world problems can be solved using a single scientific discipline, educational researchers have increasingly focused on how to integrate STEM subjects in K12 curricula (NRC, 2014). Nadelson and Seifert (2017) defined integrated STEM as an approach involving “conditions that require the application of knowledge and practices from multiple STEM disciplines to learn about or solve transdisciplinary problems” (p. 221). Proponents of a more integrated approach to the canonical, compartmentalized delivery of individual STEM subjects cite a number of benefits to student learning. These include the ability for students to readily apply knowledge in real-​world contexts that often require a synthesized understanding of multiple STEM concepts; workforce preparation for multidisciplinary exploration practiced by most STEM professionals; and increased interest and participation through inquiry and problem-​solving investigations (Chai et al., 2019; Chalmers et al., 2017; Gardner & Tillotson, 2018; Li et al., 2019; Nadelson & Seifert, 2017; NRC, 2014). However, to achieve these benefits, recent research has pointed to a need both for more studies on how to build teachers’ expertise in STEM integration (e.g., Dare et al., 2018) and for more professional development opportunities for this purpose (Brand, 2020; Wang et al., 2020). Research that does exist on STEM integration as well as on our chosen case of bioinformatics demonstrates that high school teachers face challenges in pedagogy, content knowledge, and confidence (Brand, 2020; Chai et al., 2019; Chalmers et al., 2017; Kelley et al., 2016; Machluf et al., 2017; Rubinstein & Chor, 2014). To support teachers’ competence in these areas, PD researchers need theoretical perspectives that can be translated into instructional models that highlight how and why teachers are experiencing challenges. Effective PD characteristics, as advanced DOI: 10.4324/9781003097112-6

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by reviews of the PD literature (e.g., Darling-​Hammond et al., 2017; Desimone & Garet, 2015), can provide some details about an adequate instructional model to use for designing PD. However, the unique transdisciplinary integration required of teachers when implementing curricula on topics such as bioinformatics necessitates that they become expert in more than one discipline and, furthermore, understand how to authentically integrate disciplines to solve real-​world problems (English, 2016). These conditions add further complexity in supporting teachers. This pivot from expertise required for instruction in one familiar discipline to instruction in more than one discipline at least one of which is less familiar can be viewed as a shift from routine expertise to adaptive expertise.Where routine experts are able to achieve some level of skill and knowledge such that they are efficient in performing tasks in practiced domains, adaptive experts are able to apply skills and knowledge such that they can effectively perform tasks in new domains (Reimann & Markauskaite, 2018). Adaptive expertise is a particularly salient theory in our research in that the most natural fit for bioinformatics concepts is in the domain of biology. Indeed, most of the existing research on bioinformatics teaching at the college level has been conducted in biology courses (e.g., Mulder et al., 2018). In this chapter, we report on a recent PD implementation project investigating teaching enactments of a STEM-​integrated curriculum involving the emerging field of bioinformatics. Defined as a “rapidly-​ developing discipline integrating mathematical and computational techniques with biological knowledge to analyze genetic information” (Duncan et al., 2016, p. 1), bioinformatics is exactly the type of STEM-​integrated topic that requires content knowledge and pedagogical expertise in multiple content domains. In this research, we were interested in understanding the major challenges that teachers faced in integrating bioinformatics activities into their high school biology courses. We detail efforts to build on known characteristics of high-​quality PD (Darling-​Hammond et al., 2017) that ultimately fell short in terms of supporting adept instruction in the classroom. Through an adaptive expertise lens, we demonstrate the extent to which a small cohort of science teachers were able to translate PD experiences into their teaching contexts. We interpret data collected through classroom observations and teacher interviews that illustrate why teachers experienced challenges, and we conclude with design strategies for PD to support teachers in developing expertise for bioinformatics and STEM integration. Ultimately, the aim of this research is to lobby for the importance of attending to teachers’ adaptive expertise for instruction of STEM-​integrated curricula to extend what we know are essential features of high-​quality PD.

Theoretical Considerations In this section, we provide more information about the need for studies on teacher knowledge and teaching supports necessary for STEM-​integrated instruction. This is followed by a review of recent research on teaching bioinformatics in high school settings and then a brief description of the conceptual framework underpinning

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the study that includes literature on high-​quality professional development and adaptive expertise.

Supporting Teachers on STEM Integration Because STEM-​integration is an “embryonic field” in K12 education (English, 2016), there are few studies that can inform our understanding about how best to support teachers in teaching with STEM-​integrated curricula (Dare et al., 2018). Those that do exist suggest a lack of theoretically grounded perspectives for studying teacher knowledge (Chai et al., 2019) as well as a need for more research on high-​quality PD opportunities (Brand, 2020; Wang et al., 2020). However, some research has highlighted areas of teacher learning and instruction that seem essential to focus on in PD experiences. Brown and Bogiages (2019), for example, found that teachers need assistance in making connections across disciplines explicit for students. Chalmers et al. (2017) found that often STEM-​integrated lessons emphasize some content more than others; thus, they recommended that teachers offer equal opportunities for students to learn about the multiple domains. Furthermore, the aforementioned lack of training in more than one scientific knowledge domain, and few examples of how to teach in an integrated way (Brand, 2020; Dare et al., 2018), has led to low teaching confidence outside of teachers’ core content areas (Kelley et al., 2016). These are important aspects of teacher learning and instruction to focus on in terms of supporting teacher knowledge and confidence because students struggle to make meaningful connections between the knowledge domains on their own (Nathan et al., 2013). Students also tend to apply a narrow perspective when understanding a scientific issue, focusing mainly on their local contexts rather than on understanding global patterns in the service of developing more generalized knowledge (NRC, 2014). Importantly, however, student learning does improve when teachers can construct clear links between different domain-​specific representations and patterns (Nathan et al., 2013).

Bioinformatics as a Case of STEM-​Integrated Curricula As noted earlier, one field of research in which STEM professionals work with knowledge domains that are fully integrated and rely on deep understanding of the various knowledge areas (NRC, 2014) is bioinformatics. Bioinformatics is a rapidly expanding field that employs powerful computational capabilities, data-​ intensive methods, and biological and environmental theories and applications to develop solutions to major societal issues such as medical therapeutics and human engineered environmental degradation (e.g., Azad & Shulaev, 2019; Ju & Zhang, 2015; Levine, 2014). Currently, the field of bioinformatics faces a workforce shortfall because there are not enough workers who are proficient in the required integrated knowledge and skills (Mulder et al., 2018). Initial efforts to reform biology curricula to encompass more computation and data investigations focused on undergraduate-​and graduate-​level education (Sayres

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et al., 2017). Recently, science and education researchers have called for including bioinformatics concepts in high school learning (e.g., Machluf et al., 2017). In general, there is agreement in the literature that because of the complexity and rapid evolution of bioinformatics approaches, curricula should be inquiry-​based, enabling students to take ownership of learning products (Machluf et al., 2017). Curricula should also be tied to STEM content already being taught; allow for multiple entries for learning; and support meaningful, real-​world problem solving and application (Form & Lewitter, 2011; Machluf et al., 2017). Bioinformatics knowledge should also be demonstrated through the development of learning artifacts, which may include computational analyses and visualizations of bioinformatics data generated from topics embedded in the curricular content (Form & Lewitter, 2011; Huang et al., 2013). Not surprisingly, however, studies that have investigated the viability of incorporating bioinformatics in high school curricula have revealed challenges that arise from a lack of curricular resources and a lack of teacher knowledge (Machluf et al., 2017; Rubinstein & Chor, 2014). In addition to the more general issues in supporting teachers’ content knowledge, when implementing bioinformatics lessons teachers must develop knowledge of genetics, environmental science, public health, statistics, and computer science. For bioinformatics pedagogical content knowledge, teachers need support in working with real-​world messy data (Kelley & Knowles, 2016), which is typically not a focus in traditional high school biology courses (Kjelvik & Schultheis, 2019). We also know that most teachers do not have specialized training in data science (Lee & Wilkerson, 2018), which is critical in creating explicit connections between common biology topics and those required to engage in bioinformatics research (Aydin-​Gunbatar et al., 2020).

High-​Quality PD Experiences and Adaptive Expertise Focusing on effective curricular resources, increasing teacher exposure to those resources, and building teacher knowledge have been central to efforts in PD research for some time. For example, Darling-​Hammond and colleagues (2017) specified the following seven effective strategies from an extensive review of 35 studies spanning three decades of research: (a) focusing on disciplinary content, both the concepts and pedagogies; (b) addressing how teachers learn through active learning and sense-​making; (c) enabling collaboration among teachers; (d) using models of effective instruction; (e) offering coaching and expert support; (f) providing dedicated time for feedback and reflection on practice; and (g) ensuring sustained duration of PD participation. Desimone and colleagues outlined a similar set of core features of effective PD, particularly with STEM teachers, that are aimed at supporting the development of teacher knowledge and pedagogy (i.e., content focus, active learning, coherence, duration, coaching and mentoring, collective participation, and the consideration of contextual variables) (Desimone, 2009; Desimone & Garet, 2015; Garet et al., 2001). These strategies have been immensely helpful to us in creating successful PD experiences for the high school science

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teachers that we have worked with in previous and ongoing projects (see, e.g.,Yoon et al., 2017, 2020). Given the STEM-​integrated nature of bioinformatics investigation and the aforementioned challenge of moving from routine expertise to adaptive expertise, for this study, we wanted to extend the conceptual framework to include an adaptive expertise lens to assess whether and how teachers are able to adapt their instruction. Elsewhere we have written about the utility of using an adaptive expertise approach to understanding complex classroom enactments when computational models are integrated into biology instruction along with other scientific and engineering practices, such as experimentation and argumentation. From a review of the adaptive expertise literature, in Yoon et al. (2015), we identified three categories of adaptive expertise qualities that were important to consider when evaluating the quality of instruction and its impact on student learning. These include a teacher’s ability to demonstrate (a) flexibility—​characterized as opportunistic planning, the ability to apply their knowledge to new situations, and spontaneously changing enactments that involve an assessment of the teaching environment and context; (b) deep-​level understanding—​characterized as sufficient understanding of the content in order to recognize meaningful patterns quickly, thereby allowing one to attend to deeper-​level problem solving and in turn perform at a higher level; and (c) deliberate practice—​characterized as engaging in reflection, conscious deliberation, and regulation processes. Through a case study of three teachers, we found that they naturally varied in adaptive expertise qualities, and this variation provided insight into the range of PD supports necessary for successfully implementing curricula that require integration of computer modeling in high school biology (Yoon et al., 2015). To validate this adaptive expertise model with a larger number of teachers, in Yoon et al. (2019) we sought to test whether there was variation between these qualities and to determine whether a relationship existed between these qualities and student-​ learning outcomes. Through a regression analysis, we found that a teacher’s level of adaptive expertise was predictive of student learning outcomes in that higher levels of adaptive expertise produced greater student learning gains. In the present study, we use this model to determine teachers’ levels of adaptive expertise and to identify areas of support that we need to attend to in subsequent PD activities.

Methods Context This research was conducted between September 2018 and May 2020 as part of a larger U.S. National Science Foundation-​funded project focused on developing curriculum and instruction for teaching about bioinformatics in high school biology classrooms. The high school curriculum spanned approximately 16 lessons, or about 20 hours of instruction, and guided students in a problem-​based learning (PBL) investigation on the topic of air quality and asthma in urban environments. The specific PBL scenario that students were asked to respond to is the following:

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There is a rising case of asthma in urban areas in the United States. Researchers have hypothesized that air quality contributes to this phenomenon. However, there may be a number of other causes, including a rise in smoking rates, industrial pollutants, and social stress from a lack of access to life resources. The Town Council of Philadelphia has announced a new community program that will fund projects that are likely to support risk reduction of local asthma cases. These projects may include planting more trees to purify the air, an anti-​smoking campaign, and building a park to promote activities that can alleviate stress. The Town Council asks you to research the issue and submit a proposal describing a project that your team would like to fund with evidence from public health and environmental data that supports your proposal. To investigate the problem, students were asked to collect local air quality data in their neighborhood through a mobile phone app connected to carbon monoxide and particulate matter (PM 2.5) sensors that uploaded both readings and locality data to a collective Google Sheet (see Figure 4.1). Students then analyzed the class dataset to compute averages in different locations and compared their findings to nationally published Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data that was stored on a project-​ constructed website (https://​k12bio​info​r mat​ics.org). This website allowed students to make visualizations of their own data and view visualizations of air pollution data around the country for comparison (see Figure 4.2 for examples). In addition to these hands-​on activities, throughout the PBL unit, students learned about bioinformatics research on genetic markers for asthma, and why and how environmental factors combine with genetic factors to exacerbate asthma rates in particular locations and populations; they also researched ways that air pollution could be mitigated.

FIGURE 4.1  Air

quality mobile phone app interface

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FIGURE 4.2  Series

of screenshots of sample data visualizations

Based on what students were being asked to do in the curriculum, we identified six areas of teacher knowledge that the PD needed to address.These included bioinformatics, data science, PBL, socioscientific issues, mobile learning, and culturally relevant pedagogies. The topic of culturally relevant pedagogies provided the overarching rationale that motivated the collection and analysis of locally situated data, i.e., to form personal connections and identities with the curriculum to promote change agency (Brown, 2017; Gutierrez, 2016; Van Wart et al., 2020). These topics were the major focus of week 1. Understanding that teachers know their teaching contexts and populations best, and also that they gain important insights in collaborative activities with peers, the major focus of week 2 was for teachers to work in small teams to tailor the curriculum their local classroom teaching. Week 3 was specifically focused on providing time for teachers to test out the curriculum they had learned about and discussed in the prior weeks. The teacher PD workshop ran in the first three weeks of July 2019 and constituted 75 hours of participation. Instruction in week 1 consisted of a series of lectures and readings, a focus on real-​world applications of the content through podcasts and news articles germane to the teaching community, and practice in learning about and using the digital tools such as those found in Figures 4.1 and 4.2. For example, teachers learned bioinformatics content from bioinformatics researchers on topics such as “What is public health informatics,” “The human genome,” and “The exposome and air pollution.” Teachers spent some time during this week discussing what topics and information was new to them or to the curriculum and topics and information they already taught in their curriculum.Teachers then listened to news stories about

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high asthma rates in urban centers (e.g., www.wbur.org/​her​eand​now/​2017/​03/​ 22/​young-​adult-​cha​llen​ges-​ast​hma), and used what they learned to compare and contrast air quality data in various parts of the country that could be accessed through the data tools on the project website (see Figure 4.2). At the end of each day, teachers were asked to write a reflection post on their learning and to envision their classroom implementation; this continued throughout the PD. Week 2 required teachers to sample portions of the research team–​constructed PBL unit, such as planning investigations, collecting indoor and outdoor air quality data, and analyzing the data using Google Sheets. Teachers worked together in small teams (one team of biology teachers and one team of environmental science teachers) to make detailed lesson plans with adaptations for their local student populations. The project team demonstrated how the contents of the PBL unit aligned with school district, state, and national science standards (Next Generation Science Standards) to support teachers in integrating project activities into their standard biology and environmental science courses. The teacher teams negotiated several important instructional decisions that impacted when and how the unit would be taught during the school year. For example, the biology teachers decided to implement the unit at the very beginning of the year to teach about the nature of science and how knowledge advances through scientific practices such as data collection and analysis. This alignment with existing curricular units was meant to support their ability to integrate the new knowledge they were learning from the project with the disciplinary content teachers they had knowledge and expertise in. Throughout the week, teachers shared their modifications with each other and received feedback from the research team and content experts. In Week 3, teachers piloted core lessons with a small set of high school students. They took notes on issues with implementation and spent a portion of the remaining PD time revising their intended school year instructional plans. PD resources from all three weeks were archived in a Google Classroom website for later retrieval.

Population Given the exploratory nature of this research project, we were interested in working with a small ideal population (IES & NSF, 2013), which entailed strong biology or environmental science teaching in urban schools. Working with the school district high school science coordinator, we identified five such teachers (two men and three women) with experience ranging from 2 to 17 years (average =​10.8). All teachers had an undergraduate degree in biology or a related science; all had taken several PD workshops to improve their teaching skills (which is primarily how the school district coordinator knew them); and all demonstrated an eagerness to provide their students with the best possible instructional experiences (gleaned from their applications and informal discussions). Importantly, all teachers selected were among the top ten “best biology and environmental science teachers” in the district according to the district coordinator, which is notable in the eighth largest

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school district in the United States. The schools they taught in ranged in race and ethnic diversity from a student population of mostly Hispanic and African American; primarily African American; and mostly White. Advanced proficiency in science ranged from 0% to 76%. All schools in this sample qualified for U.S. federal Title I Funds (i.e., schools in which low-​income families make up at least 40% of the enrollment).

Data Sources To investigate the research goals, we used three sources of data. Classroom observations were used to determine overall scores of adaptive expertise for the cohort of five teachers. The goal for these observations was to represent an etic (more objective) rather than an emic (self-​reported) perspective on the extent to which they demonstrated adaptive expertise. Observations were conducted by three members of the research team and an external evaluator. Observers were instructed to attend to the following goals, among others: “Understanding how teachers and students work with the bioinformatics activities and tools as well as how teachers translate into practice what they learned about the project in the professional development course” and “Understanding what the barriers are to implementing this in the classroom. What are the modifications to curriculum plans and why? What are the supports teachers needed to deliver Bioinformatics units?” We selected five of the same lessons to analyze for each teacher, some of which included multiple days of instruction of 50 to 90 minutes for each class period. In total, 30 observations were conducted across the five teachers’ classrooms with a range of five to eight observations. In addition, informal debriefs between the teacher and the classroom observer were recorded at the end of most lesson implementations (when teachers’ schedules allowed) and lasted from 5 to 20 minutes. This enabled us to capture teachers’ immediate impressions of their implementation and to better understand what changes they may have made to the lesson plan and why. The third data source was responses from two questions in the teacher post-​ implementation semi-​structured interviews that probed for information on the affordances and challenges experienced in teaching the bioinformatics PBL unit in their classroom: Now that you’ve taught the unit, would you say you felt prepared to teach in all of the content areas related to the project curriculum? In particular, how did you feel teaching about the bioinformatics content, mobile learning tools, and using data representations to solve problems? and “What could we have done in the summer workshop in order to better prepare you to teach these content areas in the classroom?” Interview responses to these questions were extracted from a total of 325 minutes of interview data with a range of 26 to 108 minutes, and an average of 65 minutes per interview.

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Data Analysis The observation data and transcribed debriefs were coded for enactments of adaptive expertise using the coding manual found in Table 4.1, in which category descriptions, codes, and enactment exemplars are presented. Similar to Yoon et al. (2019), each adaptive expertise category is divided into high (3), medium (2), and low (1) categories of enactments. An observed or uttered enactment was a unit of information that demonstrated teachers’ abilities to adapt instruction and curriculum with respect to the three categories comprising our model of adaptive expertise. For example, teachers demonstrated a high degree of flexibility if they were able to readily respond to or modify their instruction based on contextual factors and an understanding of how to translate content into practice. We consider this category to be an approximation of a teacher’s pedagogical content knowledge. They demonstrated a high degree of deep-​level understanding if they were able to connect new and relevant content in extended learning activities. We consider this category to be an indication of a teacher’s level of content knowledge. Finally, they demonstrated a high degree of deliberate practice if they intentionally monitored their instruction, evaluated its success, and implemented changes in subsequent lessons (see other examples of adaptive expertise enactments and levels in Table 4.1). Researchers on the project team (authors 1 through 4) first constructed and validated the manual using manuals published in Yoon et al. (2015) and Yoon et al. (2019). The total number of enactments coded was 251, with 16 double coded. Three researchers (authors 2 through 4) coded the data by first collaboratively applying codes to one teacher’s set of observations and then individually coding the other sets with periodic checks for consistency. One independent rater was trained and then independently coded 20% of the data (n =​51), which returned an acceptable Cronbach’s interrater reliability score of 0.73. Discrepant or uncertain enactments were negotiated and given a single code. The highest score a teacher could receive in each category was 3 with a total combined adaptive expertise score of up to 9. The interview data was analyzed qualitatively by one researcher on the study (author 2) through a constant comparative method (Glaser, 2008) that located common themes across all participants. This coding was validated by three other authors on the research team (authors 1, 3, and 5). A total of 244 interview statements were coded, out of which 118 (48%) indicated challenges to their implementation or ways in which the challenges could be overcome.Those themes were triangulated through overall summaries of the observation data and through selected examples by the observers.

Results In this section, we first present the results of teachers’ adaptive expertise coding from classroom observations and debrief transcriptions. Next, we present the themes that emerged from the teacher interviews and observations analyses that

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TABLE 4.1  Adaptive Expertise Coding Manual

Code Levels (within Category) Definitions

Enactment Exemplars

Flexibility: Instances where teachers adapt and make instructional or design changes before or during a particular lesson to increase student engagement and interest. These instances include: • changing instructional content that reflects an awareness of their student population and their needs, and an awareness of their school context. • using engagement prompts such as personal stories to generate discussion and increase student interest. • pivoting instruction based on fluctuating student interests and/​or other issues that might arise.

High: When the change a teacher makes to the lesson plan is completely new, and not a revision of an existing activity or prompt already provided in the PD Examples include: Developing a new backup activity for an unexpected event (e.g., if a student group finishes early); creating new PowerPoint slides; creating new assessments; curating a new teaching resource; modeling certain skills (e.g., using the technology) based on students’ needs. Medium: When the change a teacher makes to the lesson plan is a slight modification of the existing activity or prompt already provided to teachers in the PD. Examples include: Changing the wording of the prompts; changing the lesson sequence provided to teachers; eliciting prior knowledge through discussion prompts.

Teacher creates a shared Google Sheet where students can fill out their team’s Project Title, Science Research Question, Proposed Data Collection Places, Other Important Data Collection Info, Google Map Link, [and] Other Notes. [The] teacher can review students’ investigation plans much [more] efficiently. While the teacher reviews students’ plans, students review each other’s plans as well. After reviewing submitted plans, he gave direct feedback to each group and [then] students revise them. Teacher shows the New York Times data graph (this was the teacher’s addition, not in sample lessons according to debrief). It’s about tobacco, e-​cigarettes and usage in high school and middle school students. Teacher doesn’t know if they mean tried using or regular use. Asks class if they think 20–​25% of students using e-​cigs is reasonable, is high or low.

(continued)

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Adaptive Expertise Category Description

Adaptive Expertise Category Description

Deep-​Level Understanding: Instances where teachers extend or make connections beyond the core content provided in the lesson plans and are reflective of their deep-​level understanding of the topics. We identify four content areas (i.e., Bioinformatics, Data Literacy, Mobile Learning, and PBL). These instances include: • using extensions or designing new instructional resources to support students’ knowledge construction. • engaging in dialogue with students that is directly related to the content in order to build students’ content knowledge.

Code Levels (within Category) Definitions

Enactment Exemplars

Low: When a teacher is unable to adapt the lessons as recommended in ways that interfere with student learning. Examples include: Prompting discussions that are outside the scope of the learning objective of the lesson; being unable to quickly pivot to an alternate activity if something unexpected occurs (e.g., a video link does not work); not sensing the need to elaborate beyond the exact text on the slide provided in the PD.

Teacher is going over some vocabulary, hands out loose leaf to students, students copying down vocab definitions from the PowerPoint slide (in silence) while the teacher sorts through various bags on the side of room (unrelated to learning). Terms on the slide: bioinformatics, genomics, public health data, data science. To me these definitions seem really loaded and require further explanation.

High: When a teacher uses a new resource or analogy that serves to extend or increase content connections, which was not a revision of an existing activity or analogy already provided in the PD. Examples include: Using student relevant examples to explain a t-​test; making a connection to genetics with a familiar example; modeling how to research scientific findings in order to understand them more deeply.

Teacher explains “In science, you don’t actually prove anything, you reject a whole lot of bad ideas.You don’t ever want to 100% prove anything.” and he uses a statement (“If the p-​value from the t-​test is less than 0.05 then you can reject the null hypothesis which means your findings support the alternative hypothesis”) to explain what it really means to reject the null hypothesis. He also uses meme images to communicate the nature of science.

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Table 4.1 Cont.

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Teacher asks about the relationships between genotype and phenotype. A student answers “genotype is general make up of person inside and phenotype as what you see.” Another says genotype is “the code for phenotype.” Teacher reinforces further and asks what factors in the environment might make a difference. Student talks about “where one lives,” another says, “living in a food desert.”

Low: When the teacher struggles to use their conceptual understanding of core content areas. Examples include: Struggling to respond to students’ direct questions about the concepts; Not using group work in instances where it is recommended in the PBL lesson plans; Using inaccurate definitions or examples.

In the last few minutes, I discuss with Teacher how the variables he graphed with the class aren’t correlated, he mentions that maybe he graphed the wrong ones, tries a different dependent variable and the correlation is a little more distinct. The teacher is not familiar with how to statistically assess whether two variables have a strong correlation even though it is included in the lesson plan.

High: When a teacher reflects on the instructional strategies, thinks about a change, and makes the change in the next lesson. Examples include: Reflecting on students’ engagement and makes changes to better promote student engagement with the topic; reflecting on the need for additional scaffolds and providing it during the next class.

Teacher realized students had a harder time understanding t-​test & null hypothesis in the previous lesson. He says, “I don’t think I explained enough what the t-​test looks at. I think I butchered what can we learn from this data; there were lots of blank faces on […] then again also I’m not 100% sure why the conclusion they drew from looking at the t-​test of their own data. […] I think kids know how to calculate it, but they might not figure out what that means. I should spend 5–​10 minutes at the beginning of the next class.” In the next class, he starts with the review of the t-​test and null hypothesis using the slides he newly prepared to provide more explanation and examples for understanding this concept. (continued)

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-​6

Medium: When the teachers make a slight modification to the existing lesson plans that serves to extend or increase content connections with their students. Examples include: Having dialogic interactions with students to build a better understanding of core content; making repeated connections about how genes and the environment affect health.

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Adaptive Expertise Category Description

Code Levels (within Category) Definitions

Enactment Exemplars

Medium: When teachers reflect on student engagement and conceptual understanding, but there is no evidence of a change to the instructional strategies discussed. Examples include: Noticing a change in or reflecting on student engagement, but no evidence of change; only discussing the changes without identifying the problem.

In the debrief with the Teacher, she says “I feel like [in] the lesson [students] got lost. Because we spent so much time with the data aspect of it (learning how to use Google Sheet). And I was talking to [the observer] about, how we can possibly tweak it, the assignment to bring back the focus on bioinformatics.” She is reflecting on how she can make a better connection with data literacy and bioinformatics. However, she did not make modifications to the actual lesson because in the next lesson her class is moving to the write up. In the debrief, Teacher says, “I think the activity was pretty. Oh, sure, yeah. The activity was pretty easy, like, it wasn’t that challenging. It was, it was cool. The animation is good to help [students] understand, and they actually do; there are questions on alveoli on the Keystone test.” Although she believed that the class went well, the observer noted that multiple students were having difficulty understanding the Lung Activity. The teacher did not notice these difficulties.

Low: When a teacher does not reflect upon, or ignores, instances where instructional modification is required. Examples include: Reiterating that their students are a tough group rather than considering change in instruction needed to support their learning; articulating that the lesson went well even when it clearly did not.

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Table 4.1 Cont.

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illustrate challenges they had that likely influenced their levels of adaptive expertise. We then theorize relationships between these challenges and the cognitive load characteristics that, in turn, supported design choices in our revised PD design.

Lower Levels of Flexibility and Deep-​Level Understanding in Teachers’ Adaptive Expertise Teacher adaptive expertise combined scores ranged from 4.97 to 6.97 out of a possible score of 9 (see Table 4.2). The mean adaptive expertise was 5.90 with a standard deviation of 0.81. Examining the individual adaptive expertise categories, the highest category was deliberate practice, with scores just above the medium level, which indicates that teachers demonstrated a willingness to reflect on how their instruction could be modified to achieve greater implementation success in the classroom. This also shows that some enactments went beyond reflection to engage in actual modification in practice. The next highest category was flexibility, scoring on average close to the medium level of enactments, which indicates that teachers were able to make slight modifications to lessons plans and resources that were provided in the PD and were able to moderately shift enactments when pedagogical issues arose. However, it is notable that three out of the five teachers had scores that did not on average reach the medium level, which shows that teachers experienced pedagogical challenges to some extent. The lowest level category of adaptive expertise was deep-​level understanding. Apart from Teacher 1, the scores for all teachers were below the medium level of enactments. Removing Teacher 1 from the group, the average enactment was 1.35 (closer to the low level). This shows that teachers had some challenges in making content connections for their students. We hypothesize that this likely resulted from their limited familiarity with the content.

Challenges in Implementing Project Activities In this section, we discuss four major themes that emerged from the data that describe challenges related to content knowledge and pedagogical content TABLE 4.2  Adaptive expertise scores by category for each teacher

Teacher

Flexibility

Deep-​Level Understanding

Deliberate Practice

Overall Expertise

Teacher 1 Teacher 2 Teacher 3 Teacher 4 Teacher 5 Average

2.24 1.97 1.93 2.19 1.56 1.98

2.40 1.20 1.70 1.91 1.32 1.70

2.33 2.16 2.17 2.33 2.10 2.22

6.97 5.33 5.80 6.44 4.97 5.90

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knowledge: (a) implementation complexity; (b) content preparedness; (c) alignment with familiar pedagogical supports; and (d) resource navigation and access issues for just-​in-​time instruction. The themes collectively illustrate issues that teachers faced learning about and coordinating the six central curricular concepts underpinning the project activities and introduced in week 1 of the PD. Implementation complexity. There were 60 comments (51%) made in this category pertaining to teachers’ challenges in judging and navigating implementation complexities in the classroom. For example, one teacher said, And so having gone through it in actuality, there was a couple things that I found tricky. I found tricky the keeping track of all the devices and the technology. [It was like] “Okay. Here. I’ll give you this device. Wait a minute. I didn’t…mark who actually had that device.” Numerous observations corroborated these complexity issues that required teachers to divide their instructional attention, which in turn created classroom management challenges. Complexity challenges also related to teachers’ abilities to navigate through the large volume of new content being introduced to their students.When asked about how well her students understood the project activities in relation to the issue of asthma in urban contexts, one teacher responded, We could have made a stronger connection to that. We never came back around to relating our findings to asthma rates. I never really introduced. It was just so much research. I did not ever introduce an article for them to relate to on asthma rates in Philadelphia, you know? Other teachers highlighted the complex nature of the implementation by suggesting ways to simplify it. For example, one teacher made the following recommendation: So, I think having a more unified vocabulary would be helpful in this. It’s more just like, “Okay. What are the things in the mobile learning app called? Okay. When you press here on a phone, this is this. When you press here on a phone, this is this.” Some of it was changed. A lot of times, I would be referring them as buttons. I don’t want to necessarily because I think they have enough vocabulary to learn that’s content-​based, but having a more streamlined vocabulary to share with them would be helpful in teaching the place-​based, the student-​centered. Content preparedness. There were 38 comments (32%) made in this category that pertained to challenges teachers experienced in teaching about bioinformatics and data literacy due to a lack of content understanding. This challenge is represented in the following interview comment from one teacher:

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We were good in terms of the other science concepts that were there, like asthma and air quality particles. But as far as the statistics and relating that real research to our … and teaching our students that, I think I was a little bit under prepared. In fact a high number of comments from teachers indicated a lack of understanding and confidence in terms of teaching the data literacy component, reflected in phrases such as “not 100% sure about graphing,” “the data representations were hard,” “didn’t feel confident teaching the statistical analysis part,” and “they weren’t sure which data to compare.” Observations in all classes further corroborated this finding. Teachers also found the content of bioinformatics difficult to comprehend and convey to students. For example, when teaching a lesson on the human genome from slides constructed by bioinformatics scientists during the summer PD, one teacher mentioned that he would be skipping through many of them because he himself was not well-​versed on the subject. Some teachers pointed to reasons for why they felt under prepared. One teacher noted, I remember [when Beth] had gone over the notes, and it was really clear when she described it. But then it’s like we just forgot all that stuff. She just lectured us on it. It’s not like we took notes, or there was a text that we could go back to to understand that really unique information she gave us. It’s like the slides, a lot of the slides that we had left from what she went over were just images though. It was like only an expert could understand how those images applied to big data and how they support health. Teachers additionally articulated a lack of understanding of the importance of making explicit connections between standard biology topics and the bioinformatics content. When asked about how successful he was in highlighting those connections with his students, even the teacher with the highest adaptive expertise score said, Yeah. I don’t know that I really did. I don’t know that I did that well. I left it up to them to see how they would think about it because the whole project, that was my mantra. So, I don’t know that they’re necessarily going to [make the connections]. Alignment with familiar pedagogical supports. There were 11 comments (9%) made in this category pertaining to a need to work with teaching supports that were familiar to them. One teacher commented, “I feel like if I just would have planned this out more, you would’ve had kind of more things to use in our toolbox like handouts, notes, things like that. More substantial things that we can implement.” It was noted in observations that this particular teacher produced a set of Cornell Notes that her students were familiar with, and during this lesson she

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demonstrated more ease with the content and pedagogy than in previous lessons. Another teacher was adamant about the fact that the implementation of the data portion of the project would have gone more smoothly with her students had she been able to use Excel rather than Google Sheets. She said, “For me it was learning Google. If I did it in Excel, I was fine. But all the kids are on Google, and I’m not Google savvy.” Resource navigation and access issues for just-​in-​time instruction. There were nine comments (8%) made in this category pertaining to teachers’ needs to access content and pedagogical content knowledge at the time of instruction. One teacher said, “but I think by the time that I was teaching that myself, it required some more review. When I was [in the PD workshop], I was kind of getting it, but I think [only] because [the bioinformatics instructor] was right there.” Classroom observations noted that teachers often took up class time trying to locate resources such as links to sample datasets, and they revealed in later debrief discussions that they thought those resources would be easier in the moment to pull up.

Discussion In this study we advanced the notion that examining the extent to which teachers demonstrated adaptive expertise during PD and classroom implementation could provide additional theoretical perspectives to locate precisely where teachers need instructional support. Using an adaptive expertise framework found in previous research (Yoon et al., 2015, 2019), our data analyses with respect to scores in the category of deliberate practice demonstrated that (a) teachers were somewhat able to recognize where instruction fell short to support student learning and (b) they were prepared to make modifications—​and in some cases did. This shows promise in terms of teachers being able to improve in their instruction by being deliberate about improving their teaching practices. Teachers’ enactments in the adaptive expertise categories of flexibility (pedagogy content knowledge) and deep-​level understanding (content knowledge) showed lower scores. The two most predominant themes that emerged from teacher interviews provide reasons for why teachers demonstrated these lower scores. With the largest concerns articulated in the challenge area of implementation complexity, it’s clear that the amount of knowledge and skills that teachers needed to orchestrate in order to successfully run the project in their classrooms was overwhelming. This was likely due to teachers’ lack of content preparedness in the various domains instantiated in the bioinformatics curricula (the second highest challenge articulated in interviews). The latter two challenges (alignment with familiar pedagogical supports and just-​in-​time access to resources) also provide insight into the complex nature of classroom orchestration and difficulties in fully understanding the content and feeling confident to teach with it. These findings have important implications for the broader goal of this study, which was to understand the extent to which teachers were able to implement a STEM-​integrated unit after their experiences in

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learning the content in a workshop that was constructed based on strategies known to be effective in PD (Darling-​Hammond et al., 2017; Desimone & Garet, 2015). These results support findings from earlier studies that identify a need for more training of teachers in content areas that they are less familiar with in the STEM topics being integrated (e.g., Brand, 2020) in order to improve both pedagogical content knowledge and confidence. We saw that teachers were not able to make explicit connections between the STEM topics for their students—​an issue also highlighted in other research (e.g., Nathan, 2013). Therefore, PD activities must provide specific examples, annotated resources, and more detailed rationales for how integrating these topics supports real-​world problem solving. Furthermore, in the case of bioinformatics content, it’s clear that teachers need more instruction and training on data literacy practices. Understanding the nature of what is challenging to teachers, such as the lack of statistical expertise, is important to consider when building PD experiences. We have revised PD activities for teachers in a subsequent workshop to include more content preparation, more illustrations of how STEM integration is taken up in research, and more practice for teachers on working with the data literacy content. We have constructed an easily navigable teacher guide to locate resources for just-​in-​time instruction and enabled peer mentoring and facilitation scaffolds for teachers both during and after the PD workshop. Furthermore, previous research has also highlighted the need for extended PD and school year instructional supports that span a minimum of two years (Gerard et al., 2011; Yoon et al., 2017; Yoon, 2018), particularly when working with computer-​supported, inquiry-​based curriculum. Thus, teachers have been invited to reimplement the curriculum a second year, and we are currently analyzing whether and how their content and pedagogical content knowledge proficiencies and confidence have improved with access to the aforementioned additional resources. Ultimately, we are interested in advancing an adaptive expertise lens for identifying important aspects of STEM-​integrated content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge for successful instruction. It is clear from our study that we cannot underestimate the knowledge demands placed on teachers when working with STEM-​integrated curriculum, which can seriously impede the success of classroom teaching in areas we have revealed (e.g., implementation complexity and resource navigation). We observed this even with our expert teacher participants who were specifically selected because they were known as among the best science teachers in the large urban school district we worked in. We believe that this may fulfill the need for more theoretically grounded perspectives for studying teacher knowledge (Chai et al., 2019) in this growing field of educational research.

Acknowledgements This work is supported by a grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation (DRL #1812738).

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References Aydin-​Gunbatar, S., Ekiz-​Kiran, B., & Oztay, E. S. (2020). Pre-​service chemistry teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge for integrated STEM development with LESMeR model. Chemistry Education Research and Practice, 21(4), 1063–​1082. Azad, R., & Shulaev, V. (2019). Metabolomics technology and bioinformatics for precision medicine. Briefings in Bioinformatics, 20(6), 1957–​1971. Brand, B. R. (2020). Integrating science and engineering practices: Outcomes from a collaborative professional development. International Journal of STEM Education, 7(1), 1–​13. Brown, J. C. (2017). A metasynthesis of the complementarity of culturally responsive and inquiry-​based science education in K-​12 settings: Implications for advancing equitable science teaching and learning. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 54(9), 1143–​1173. Brown, R. E., & Bogiages, C. A. (2019). Professional development through STEM integration: How early career math and science teachers respond to experiencing integrated STEM tasks. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 17(1), 111–​128. Chai, C. S., Jong, M. S.-​Y., Yin, H.-​B., Chen, M., & Zhou, W. (2019). Validating and modelling teachers’ technological pedagogical content knowledge for integrative science, technology, engineering and mathematics education. Educational Technology & Society, 22(3), 61–​73. Chalmers, C., Carter, M., Cooper, T., & Nason, R. (2017). Implementing “Big Ideas” to advance the teaching and learning of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 15(S1), 25–​43. Dare, E. A., Ellis, J. A., & Roehrig, G. H. (2018). Understanding science teachers’ implementations of integrated STEM curricular units through a phenomenological multiple case study. International Journal of STEM Education, 5(1), 1–​19. Darling-​Hammond, L., Hyler, M. E., & Gardner, M. (2017). Effective Teacher Professional Development. Learning Policy Institute. Desimone, L. (2009). Improving impact studies of teachers’ professional development:Toward better conceptualizations and measures. Educational Researcher, 38(4), 181–​199. Desimone, L. M., & Garet, M. S. (2015). Best practices in teachers’ professional development in the United States. Psychology, Society and Education, 7(3), 252–​263. Duncan, G., McClung, O. W., Reichert, L., Simon, D., Tapprich, W., Grandgenett, N., & Pauley, M. (2016). Laboratories for integrating bioinformatics into the life sciences –​ Part II. Tested Studies for Laboratory Teaching. Proceedings of the Association for Biology Laboratory Education, 37(6), 1–​13. English, L. D. (2016). STEM education K-​12: Perspectives on integration. International Journal of STEM Education, 3(1), 1–​8. Form, D., & Lewitter, F. (2011). Ten simple rules for teaching bioinformatics at the high school level. PLoS Computational Biology, 7(10), e1002243. Gardner, M., & Tillotson, J. W. (2018). Interpreting integrated STEM: Sustaining pedagogical innovation within a public middle school context. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 17(7), 1283–​1300. Garet, M. S., Porter, A. C., Desimone, L., Birman, R. F., & Yoon, K. (2001). What makes professional development effective? Results from a national sample of teachers. American Educational Research Journal, 38(4), 915–​945. Gerard, L. F., Varma, K., Corliss, S. B., & Linn, M. (2011). Professional development for technology-​enhanced inquiry science. Review of Educational Research, 81, 408–​448. Glaser, B. (2008). The constant comparative method of qualitative analysis. The Grounded Theory Review, 7(3). Retrieved from http://​groun​dedt​heor​yrev​iew.com/​2008/​11/​29/​ the-​const​ant-​comp​arat​ive-​met​hod-​of-​qual​itat​ive-​analy​sis-​1/​.

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Gutiérrez, K. (2016). Designing resilient ecologies: Social design experiments and a new social imagination. Educational Researcher, 45(3), 187–​196. Huang, H., Bruce, B., Buchan, A., Congdon, C. B., Cramer, C. L., Jennings, S. F., Jiang, H., Li, Z., McClure, G., McMullen, R., & Moore, J. H. (2013). No-​boundary thinking in bioinformatics research. BioData Mining, 6(19), 1–​6. Retrieved from www.biodat​amin​ing. org/​cont​ent/​6/​1/​19. Institute of Education Sciences/​National Science Foundation. (2013). Common Guidelines for Education Research and Development. Washington, DC: Institute of Education Sciences. Ju, F., & Zhang,T. (2015). Experimental design and bioinformatics analysis for the application of metagenomics in environmental sciences and biotechnology. Environmental Science & Technology, 49(21), 12628–​12640. Kelley, T. R., Knowles, J. G., Holland, J. D., & Jung, H. (2016). A conceptual framework for integrated STEM education. International Journal of STEM Education, 3(1), 1–​11. Kjelvik, M. K., & Schultheis, E. H. (2019). Getting messy with authentic data: Exploring the potential of using data from scientific research to support student data literacy. CBE Life Sciences Education, 18(2), 1–​8. Lee, V. R., & Wilkerson, M. (2018). Data Use by Middle and Secondary Students in the Digital Age:A Status Report and Future Prospects (Commissioned Paper for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Board on Science Education, Committee on Science Investigations and Engineering Design for Grades 6–​12). Washington, D.C. Levine, A. G. (2014). An explosion of bioinformatics careers. Science, 344, 1303–​1304. Li,Y., Schoenfeld, A. H., diSessa, A. A., Graesser, A. C., Benson, L. C., English, L. D., & Duschl, R. A. (2019). On thinking and STEM education. Journal for STEM Education Research, 2(1), 1–​13. Machluf, Y., Gelbart, H., Ben-​ Dor, S., &Yarden, A. (2017). Making authentic science accessible—​the benefits and challenges of integrating bioinformatics into a high-​school science curriculum. Briefings in Bioinformatics, 18(1), 145–​159. Mulder, N., Schwartz, R., Brazas, M. D., Brooksbank, C., Gaeta, B., Morgan, S. L., Pauley, M. A., Rosenwald, A., Rustici, G., Sierk, M., & Warnow, T. (2018) The development and application of bioinformatics core competencies to improve bioinformatics training and education. PLoS Computational Biology, 14(2), e1005772. Nadelson, L. S., & Seifert, A. L. (2017). Integrated STEM defined: Contexts, challenges, and the future. The Journal of Educational Research, 110(3), 221–​223. Nathan, M. J., Srisurichan, R., Walkington, C., Wolfgram, M., Williams, C., & Alibali, M. W. (2013). Building cohesion across representations: A mechanism for STEM integration. Journal of Engineering Education, 102(1), 77–​116. National Research Council. (2014). STEM Integration in K-​12 Education: Status, Prospects, and an Agenda for Research (Committee on Integrated STEM Education; National Academy of Engineering. Margaret Honey, Greg Pearson, and Heidi Schweingruber, Eds,). Washington, DC: National Academies Press. Reimann, P., & Markauskaite, L. (2018). Expertise. In F. Fischer, C. Hmelo-​Silver, S. Goldman, & P. Reimann (Eds.) The International Handbook of the Learning Sciences (pp. 54–​63). Routledge Press. Rubinstein, A., & Chor, B. (2014). Computational thinking in life science education. PLoS Computational Biology, 10(11). e1003897. https://​doi.org/​10.1371/​jour ​nal. pcbi.1003​897 Sayres, M. A. W., Hauser, C., Sierk, M., Robic, S., Rosenwald, A. G., Smith, T. M., Triplett, E. W., Williams, J. J., Dinsdale, E., Morgan, W. R., & Burnette, J. M. (2017). Bioinformatics core competencies for undergraduate life sciences education. bioRxiv, 170993. Retrieved from www.bior​xiv.org/​cont​ent/​early/​2017/​08/​03/​170​993.

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Van Wart, S., Lanouette, D., & Parikh, T. S. (2020). Scripts and counterscripts in community-​ based data science: Participatory digital mapping and the pursuit of a third space. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 29(1), 127–​153. Wang, H. H., Charoenmuang, M., Knobloch, N. A., & Tormoehlen, R. L. (2020). Defining interdisciplinary collaboration based on high school teachers’ beliefs and practices of STEM integration using a complex designed system. International Journal of STEM Education, 7(1), 1–​17. Yoon, S. (2018). Mechanisms that couple intentional network rewiring and teacher learning to develop teachers’ social capital for implementing computer-​ supported complex systems curricula. In S.Yoon & K. Baker-​Doyle (Eds.), Networked by Design: Interventions for Teachers to Develop Social Capital (pp. 7–​23). New York, NY: Routledge Press. Yoon, S., Anderson, E., Koehler-​Yom, Evans, C., Park, M., J., Sheldon, J., Schoenfeld, I., Wendel, D., Scheintaub, H., & Klopfer, E. (2017). Teaching about complex systems is no simple matter: Building effective professional development for computer-​supported complex systems instruction. Instructional Science, 45(1), 99–​121. Yoon, S., Evans, C., Anderson, E., Koehler, J., & Miller, K. (2019). Validating a model for assessing science teacher’s adaptive expertise with computer-​supported complex systems curricula and its relationship to student learning outcomes. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 30(8), 890–​905. Yoon, S. A., Miller, K., Richman, T., Wendel, D., Schoenfeld, I., Anderson, E., & Shim, J. (2020). Encouraging collaboration and building community in online asynchronous professional development: Designing for social capital. International Journal of Computer-​ Supported Collaborative Learning, 15(3), 351–​371. Yoon, S., Koehler-​Yom, J., Anderson, E., Lin, J., & Klopfer, E. (2015). Using an adaptive expertise lens to understand the quality of teachers’ classroom implementation of computer-​supported complex systems curricula in high school science. Research in Science and Technology Education, 33(2), 237–​251.

PART II

Teacher Learning through Co-​design

5 LEARNING BY DESIGN Nourishing Expertise and Interventions Susan McKenney, Joke Voogt, and Paul A. Kirschner

Introduction Purpose Much successful educational (design) research does not scale up (cf. Penuel, Fishman, Cheng, & Sabelli, 2011) largely because it is conducted at the bleeding edge of what is possible (i.e., new technologies and/​or emerging theories). While such work is greatly needed to find new ways to potentially enhance the quality of teaching and learning, in the excitement of exploring what is possible tomorrow, there is insufficient research and development work focusing on what is practical today. This leaves a problematic gap between what theoretically could be useful in theory, and what can be or is useful in practice. With the aim of generating “usable knowledge” (cf. Lagemann, 2002) and creating innovations that truly serve teaching and learning in practice, this chapter calls for researchers to attend not only to fine-​g rained issues of pupil learning and instruction, but also to broader factors that determine if and how innovations are understood, adopted, and used by teachers and schools. Moreover, it calls for researchers to do this through collaboration with teachers. Using teacher-​raised concerns to steer design can help yield innovations that can be implemented outside of often highly enabling research and development trajectories. More research needs to be conducted from the perspective of actual implementation, in which the needs of those driving the change (i.e., teachers), are explicitly addressed and attended to. In so doing, insights can be gleaned about the interventions being developed as well as the expertise that is required for them to flourish. The present chapter reflects on how this was accomplished across nearly a decade of early literacy design research. It features a retrospective analysis of nine intervention studies in which, facilitated by researchers, kindergarten teachers designed and implemented technology-​rich learning about the nature and function of written DOI: 10.4324/9781003097112-8

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language. The purpose of this analysis is to articulate how the teacher design work refined understanding of the intervention at hand and simultaneously, how it contributed to teacher learning.

Teacher–​Researcher Collaboration For decades, many educational researchers have emphasized the need to situate research in authentic contexts to understand learning as it naturally occurs and specifically, what that means for how we shape innovations (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000; Dewey, 1900), address the complex and diverse systems in which they are implemented (Hall & Hord, 2010), and develop theories and models to underpin them accordingly (Sandoval, 2014). Such work must be fed by research and development that is tightly connected to practical realities such as dominant curricula; school cultures; high stakes assessment; and interest and expertise of teachers (McKenney & Reeves, 2019). It must also be sufficiently problematized to focus not on quasi-​problems (e.g., “our teachers need ideas for how to use the iPads® we gave them”), but on real problems that warrant scientific investigation to yield solutions and/​or theoretical understanding that can help solve them (e.g., increased knowledge and learning gap between educational haves and have-​nots; decline in fundamental knowledge and skills in mathematics and reading; poor learner motivation; underdeveloped creativity; insufficient time-​on-​task; weak communication skills). To realize such synergistic research and development, collaboration between researchers and practitioners is essential.

Theoretical Framework The Zone of Proximal Implementation (ZPI) Relevant and useful educational research reflects an understanding of practical realities and concerns of the domain studied as well as those of the practitioners in the field. Researcher-​practitioner collaboration focused on the status quo of teaching, learning and settings can inform the development of solutions that gradually bridge the gap from the current situation to the desired situation. Doing so is essential to developing both the knowledge and tools required to address real needs in today’s classrooms. This perspective has been referred to as the Zone of Proximal Implementation (ZPI; McKenney, 2013). The ZPI builds on Vygotskian concept of the zone of proximal development—​the distance between what children can accomplish independently and what they can accomplish aided by adult guidance. The idea of leveraging this developmental concept for educational innovation has previously been applied to large-​scale reform (Rogan & Grayson, 2003); school leadership (McGivney & Moynihan, 1972); and the mediation of educational partnerships (Oakes, Welner,Yonezawa, & Allen, 1998). The ZPI refers to the distance between what teachers or schools can implement independently and what they can implement through guidance or collaboration

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(McKenney, 2013). Designing for the ZPI means explicitly tailoring products and processes to fit the capabilities, opportunities, and limitations present among teachers and in schools. It also means planning for implementation-​scaffolding (e.g., honoraria or researcher co-​teaching) to fade in a timely fashion, while simultaneously developing ownership and expertise among practitioners that will engender the desire and ability to sustain innovation. Working within the ZPI can be accomplished in multiple ways. This chapter focuses on trajectories structured to enable practitioner expertise and intervention design to develop synergistically. In such trajectories, teachers may work alone but more often collaborate, sometimes also with researchers. Typically, the interventions being designed are teaching and learning resources that can be used in everyday classroom settings. Sometimes these teachers create tools to be used only by themselves, but often they create materials for use by themselves and others.

Interventions within the ZPI Teacher expertise is essential for ensuring that interventions operate within the ZPI. First, developing interventions within the ZPI requires careful consideration of the discrepancy between the existing and desired situations, so that the intervention has sufficient added value. Kirschner (2019) uses the terms effectiveness (more or deeper learning), efficiency (learning in less time or with less effort), and enjoyability (feelings of accomplishment and self-​efficacy) for both teachers and learners as the three criteria for added value. Since teachers invariably seek to understand how potential benefits visibly outweigh the investments required to yield them (Doyle & Ponder, 1978), teacher perspectives are essential for making sure that interventions really do offer something better than what is already in place. Second, designers must ensure that interventions are clear, so that participants (especially other teachers not directly involved in the design work) can easily envision their involvement.Teachers can empathize with their colleagues and help point out areas in which innovations are (un)clear. They can also suggest ways to address these issues, e.g. by pointing out where higher levels of explicitness are needed, clarifying a priori specifications of procedures, or co-​defining the innovation or elements thereof. Third, innovations within the ZPI must be compatible with the values, cultures, practices, and beliefs of those choosing to adopt or maintain them. Especially when interventions are intended for broader use (that is, not all teachers who benefit from the intervention are directly involved in creating it), it is important for the design team to include teachers who can help ensure that the underlying assumptions do not violate or reject fundamental concerns and principles of potential users. In addition, teachers can point out how compatible innovations would have to be aligned with non-​changeable aspects of the educational system, such as assessment frameworks or policies.

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Finally, collaborating with teachers affords opportunities to investigate practicality (Janssen, Westbroek, Doyle, & van Driel, 2013), which is crucial for ensuring that interventions fall within the ZPI. In particular, collaboration with teachers is needed to explore if and whentolerant innovations degrade gracefully as opposed to yielding counter-​productive mutations in the differing contexts, resources, expertise, acceptance levels and so on. Tolerance refers to how precisely core components must be enacted for the innovation to be true to its goals, and how well an innovation withstands local adaptations.

Teacher Expertise For and Through Design Engaging in design, especially of interventions falling within the ZPI, requires teachers to reflect on their own practice, challenge assumptions, share expertise, and negotiate meaning with regard to how to meet learner needs (Kali, McKenney, & Sagy, 2015). As such, these processes form robust and viable sources of teacher professional development. The increasing recognition of these synergies has been demonstrated through individual studies, a special issue of Instructional Science on teachers as designers of technology-​enhanced learning (volume 43, 2015), and an edited volume dedicated to the topic (Voogt, Pieters, & Pareja Roblin, 2019). Teacher involvement in developing classroom curricula often fosters a sense of ownership, increasing the chances of actual use (Fullan, 2003). When teachers are supported in designing innovative curricula, they can learn more about the innovation (Crow & Pounder, 2000), which also increases the chances of successful implementation (Penuel, Roschelle, & Shechtman, 2007). This is partly because teachers are then better informed about, and able to visualize how, curriculum enactment could look. Being able to “see” a curriculum in action is an important factor for teachers as they weigh the amount of effort they invest and the potential benefits of the innovative curriculum (Pareja Roblin et al., 2018).

About This Research Guiding Question This chapter discusses the value of collaboration among teachers (supported by researchers) for the design and implementation of technology-​based interventions that fall within the ZPI. It examines teacher and researcher learning afforded by such collaborative efforts. The specific context of this work was PictoPal, a technology-​supported learning environment to foster the development of emergent reading and writing skills in four and five year olds. The findings are based on a retrospective analysis of data collected during the collaborative design and implementation of PictoPal, which was guided by the following question: How did designing and implementing PictoPal contribute to understanding the processes and

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outcomes of teacher learning by design and to ensuring that the PictoPal learning environment falls within the ZPI?

The Rationale Behind PictoPal Teachers struggle to integrate technology with their classroom cultures (Labbo et al., 2003), a situation exacerbated by a lack of high-​quality emergent literacy materials (Segers & Verhoeven, 2002). Appropriate software for fostering literacy skills in young children must take the learner’s previous knowledge into account, involve them actively, and encourage their use of language and stimulate their explorative nature and curiosity (Plowman & Stephen, 2005). In addition, computer activities of young learners should be integrated with related classroom activities (Van Scoter, 2008) and embedded in developmentally appropriate instructional models for technology applications (Plowman & Stephen, 2005). The studies described here involve the design and implementation of PictoPal, an ICT-​r ich learning environment that supports learners in developing understanding of the nature and function of written language. Clay (1966) emphasized that literacy begins long before school entry, calling this phenomenon emergent literacy which involves synergistic development of listening, speaking, reading, writing, and viewing from birth. Well-​known theorists have long claimed that children play active roles in their own development (Piaget & Inhelder, 1969; Vygotsky, 1962). Clay’s position that children are active learners about print long before they can read or write is consistent with this view. The computer’s potential to promulgate discourse and thereby knowledge creation has been examined across various age ranges (McLoughlin & Oliver, 1998). For early childhood literacy, studies have shown that properly shaped collaborative computer use contributes to pro-​social behaviors, including: lively interactions, shared vocabularies, mutual enjoyment, and spontaneous, active off-​computer play (Van Scoter, 2008). In such ways, technology can catalyze social interaction and contribute positively to fostering early literacy (Van Scoter, 2008). PictoPal aimed to do just that.

What Teachers Designed and Implemented PictoPal features two main components: on-​computer activities through which pre-​ readers use words, sounds, and images to construct written texts; and off-​computer activities that prompt children to “use” their printed documents for authentic purposes. For example, children create grocery lists using the computer and then “shop” for the items on their printed list in the “store” corner of the classroom. Alternatively, they prepare a weather forecast with the aid of the computer, and then “broadcast” the forecast to their class from the television corner (inside a “television” fashioned by the children from a large cardboard box). More information underlying the initial design of PictoPal and how it contributes to pupil learning is available (e.g. McKenney & Voogt, 2009, 2010).Teachers designed the on-​computer

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activities in eight of the nine studies. They designed the off-​computer activities in all nine studies. In all nine studies, they implemented the PictoPal materials that they had designed. One study portrayed the work of a single teacher, the rest portrayed the work of teachers engaging in collaborative design.

Nine Studies Offering Insights about Teacher Learning by Design The PictoPal research line spanned nearly a decade and yielded more than a dozen scientific publications.This chapter focuses on nine PictoPal studies contributing to both teacher and researcher insights about the ZPI of technology-​r ich early literacy learning through the design and implementation of PictoPal. One study was undertaken to explore the feasibility of teacher learning-​by-​ design. This in-​depth case study portrayed an individual teacher during 20+​hours of designing PictoPal materials with 1:1 support from a researcher who responded to questions with technological, pedagogical, or organizational guidance. The study answered three main questions: (1) What are teacher attitudes toward developing PictoPal materials? (2) What supports are needed for teachers to create PictoPal materials? (3) What pupil learning gains result from using the teacher-​made PictoPal materials? While the teacher-made products were also examined, the primary data sources were pupil pre/​post-​tests, observations, and interviews. Four studies were undertaken to investigate how teacher participation in design related to ownership of the resulting products and classroom implementation. Three sub-​studies focused on different modalities of design participation, while a fourth study compared the participation modalities and their effects.The research question guiding this set of studies was: Which teacher design participation modality contributes most to the effectiveness of an ICT-​r ich learning environment for early literacy? Data were collected through pupil pre/​post tests, observations, and interviews. Finally, four studies examined the nature and content of teacher design talk. In these studies, the conversations of six teams of teachers were analyzed, with each study focusing on different aspects of the conversations to understand how teachers draw on existing knowledge and share new insights during the collaborative creation of curriculum material for technology-​rich learning in service of early literacy. The research question guiding this set of studies was: What is the nature and content of teachers’ design talk during collaborative design of ICT rich learning for early literacy? Transcripts of teacher design team conversations constituted the main data sources in each of these studies. In two studies, additional data were collected through teacher interviews. Taken together, the studies help understand the processes and outcomes of teacher learning-​by-​design. The collaborative design work itself also contributed to teacher and researcher understanding of how to ensure that the PictoPal learning environment would fall within the ZPI of the teachers involved. Table 5.1 provides an overview of the studies, including the themes investigated and data sources used for each. Bibliographic details on studies A-​I are provided in the reference list.

Learning by Design  99 TABLE 5.1  Overview of focus and methods in the nine studies

The nine studies

Processes and outcomes of teacher learning by design:

Feasibility

Participation

Talk

Corresponding study (see superscript in reference list):

A

B

F

Themes investigated

Teacher and researcher understanding of interventions:

C D E

G H I

Teacher attitudes or perceptions Teacher support (needs) during design Teacher implementation of technology Teacher ownership of/​from design Teacher deliberations during design

Data sources

Teacher knowledge shared during design Pupil pre/​post-​test Teacher observation Teacher interviews Design conversation analysis

Results of the Retrospective Analysis Learning by Design: Nourishing Expertise This section synthesizes findings across all nine studies that give insight into the processes and outcomes of PictoPal teacher learning by design trajectories. It is organized by the three clusters presented in Table 5.1.

Feasibility As mentioned previously, one PictoPal studyA examined the feasibility of engaging teachers as designers. Key findings are that scaffolding teacher design: takes mammoth effort, can enable teacher learning about the affordances of (PictoPal) technology for early literacy, and can yield usable products and ownership – both of which seem to contribute to classroom implementation. However, the study also showed that this form of design work yielded products of questionable subject matter quality, even though the pre-​post test data from the implementation study indicated that all children working with the intervention exhibited significant learning gains. Namely, while the case study teacher was bursting with creativity in terms of on-​and off-​computer activities, she seemed to lose touch with her own pedagogical content knowledge. For example, when pointed out that she

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had designed overly complex sentences for the children, she adjusted them accordingly. However, at no time did her behavior indicate that she was thinking ahead in terms of image–​word links, learning goals to be met, or distribution of different text genres across the set of materials she was creating. Based on the findings of this study, it was hypothesized that the high degree of teacher ownership, which stems from designing classroom materials, positively influenced integration of on-​ computer activities with off-​computer classroom activities, and that a high level of integration yielded positive influence on pupil learning about the functions of written language.

Participation Four PictoPal studies were then undertaken to explore the relationships between participation in design, co-​ownership of resulting products, and quality of classroom implementation. As mentioned above, three sub-​studies focused on different forms of participation, namely: only tweaking off-​computer activities (executorsA), re-​designing both on-​and off-​computer activities created by others (re-​designersB), and collaboratively creating new on-​and off-​computer activities from scratch (co-​ designersC). A fourth study featured cross-​case comparisonD on teacher perceptions (i.e., their roles, curriculum practicality, co-​ownership), classroom implementation quality, and pupil learning outcomes. Since pupil learning outcomes were significantly enhanced in all cases, it was concluded that all three forms of participation can contribute to the effectiveness of technology-rich activities. However, there were important differences related to teacher performance. Specifically, teachers with more active roles in design of ICT-​rich learning activities (i.e., re-​designers and co-​designers) showed significantly higher implementation quality compared to teachers who only fine-​tuned the off-​computer activities (i.e., executors). This may be explained, in part, by the fact that these active roles in design gave teachers an opportunity to identify and negotiate the fit between the activities being designed and their current curriculum, which may have contributed to a better understanding of how to implement the designed activities. Further, these same teachers expressed experiencing a sense of co-​ownership, and it seems plausible that this feeling could have motivated the re-​designers and co-​designers teachers to engage more thoroughly in implementing the activities.

Talk Four additional studies explored the nature and content of teacher design talk as a learning opportunity during collaborative design of PictoPal materials. Results showed that teacher design talk is by nature dominated by brainstormingF,G, with a shallow level of inquiry and a strong focus on what learning activity should occur in practice and what material should look like.G,H Yet teacher design talk also includes moments where teachers have deeper conversations

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discussing experienced problems.H,I The data suggest that these moments can provide opportunities for learning if teachers spontaneously or with facilitation share and apply their expertise, for example by reasoning through options or justifications for potential solutions.H The studies also showed that teachers most frequently share and critique technological (pedagogical) content knowledge when prompted to do so by practical concerns.G,H In other words, when teachers envision stumbling blocks in what the material and activities will look like during use, they work to resolve them and in so doing, draw on or critique each other’s technological (pedagogical) content knowledge. Further, the studies revealed that teachers rarely share subject matter content knowledge in isolation—​it is most often integrated with pedagogy. Finally, substantive support provided by an outside expert was found to be crucial for design team decision-​making and for increasing the depth and substantive focus of design team conversations.H

Learning by Design: Nourishing (Understanding of) Interventions In all nine studies, teachers were more than objects of inquiry or enablers of data collection; their contributions informed each other as well as researchers about crucial considerations for creating technology-​rich early literacy learning. This section synthesizes findings across all nine studies related to the four characteristics of interventions that fall within the ZPI as described in the “Interventions within the ZPI” section.

Value-​added As mentioned previously, innovations must have added value for most users to engage with them. In multiple ways, teacher contributions to designing the PictoPal environment helped yield opportunities for both teacher and pupil learning that were better than the status quo. The choice to focus on the nature and function of written language, which emerged from discussions between researchers and teachers, positioned PictoPal to address attainment targets for which teachers have few resources (because the most commonly used curriculum emphasizes other areas of early literacy). When asked, participating teachers said they perceived that designing learning resources contributed to their own professional development, for example related to using relevant technologiesA or to realizing early literacy goals.C Further, the pre-​post-​test data showed that while teacher-​designed PictoPal materials yielded significant learning gains for early literacy,A,B,C,D,E when substantive support was not present, the subject matter qualityA of teacher-​made products could be questionable. In fact, while teacher content knowledge proved crucial, its importance appeared to be less recognized by teachers.I Varied types of teacher contributions enriched design discussions as well as resulting products including those representing content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge

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(PCK), technological content knowledge, and technological pedagogical content knowledgeH (TPCK).

Clear Being able to “see” one’s involvement with something new is known to support participant engagement with innovations, and this was also the case in these studies. Namely, the results reveal that teacher participation in design contributed to their ability to better envision their involvement with the PictoPal intervention. For example, it was found that designing contributes to feelings of teacher ownership of the innovation, and also that increased design control yields increased feelings of ownership.A,C,E Further, results showed that the feelings of ownership stems from contributing to the designed productC,D,E and that teachers do not feel the need to be in charge of the design process; on the contrary, they appreciate guidance in this area. Looking at the organizational setting, positive perceptions of support related to the challenges of technology use predicted higher levels of technology integrationB and teachers indicated that they appreciated small (re-​)design teamsC of about four people. Finally, knowledge sharing during design enabled teachers to envision working with PictoPal, for example when teachers used their (T)PCK to (collaboratively) reason through the enactment of PictoPalI or to resolve practical concernsG such as “I have junior kindergarteners—​how can I arrange for somebody to support those children operating the computer?”

Compatible Interventions within the ZPI harmonize with the priorities of those who use them. The PictoPal learning by design trajectories helped both teachers and researchers understand which aspects of the learning environment were (and were not) compatible with values, beliefs, surrounding educational context/​system. Notably, higher levels of technology integration were present among teachers with a developmental approach to teaching and learning,B,E meaning that teachers were accustomed to tailoring the learning environment (e.g., based on a child’s “zone of proximal development”). Further, attitudes and expectations toward technology-​based innovations predicted the extent of technology integration.B,D In terms of how the design work aligned with how teachers perceive their role, the studies showed that teachers generally feel “at home” in the role of technology re-​designerC and that some, but not all teachers feel comfortable in the role of technology (co-​)designer.E Further, when designing, teachers draw most on their own convictionsF (e.g. “I think it’s important that early literacy development should occur by itself ”). In these kindergarten classrooms, teachers prioritized the socio-​emotional well-​being of children and a positive atmosphere in the classroom (over other goals, including innovation).F Finally, brainstorming dominates teacher design-​talkF and offers a window into the values, beliefs, and perceptions of participants as well as if and how they perceive that an innovation (in this case, PictoPal) aligns with them.

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Tolerant To fall within the ZPI, interventions must withstand, if not directly support, local adaptation. Teacher involvement in design appears to have helped PictoPal withstand the natural variation of actual use. First, design involvement yielded ownership of the innovation, which contributed to classroom implementation.A Second, teacher concerns of practicality prompted some aspects of (re)design (e.g., enabling children to work independently).C Third, individual teacher differences accounted for varied types of design contributionsH and working in a team stimulated this variety. Fourth, it was found that deep levels of design-​talk are possible with limited supportG (which is more likely to be found in design team settings than extensive support). Finally, the studies show that scaffolding teachers’ own construction of functional technology resources (i.e. realizing the final products—​not just the planned design thereof) takes mammoth effort.A This constitutes a real and substantial issue, which should be acknowledged when the affordances and limitations of teacher learning-​by-​design are being considered.

Conclusion Revisiting the Guiding Question The retrospective analysis described in this chapter set out to understand: How did designing and implementing PictoPal contribute to understanding the processes and outcomes of teacher learning by design and to ensuring that the PictoPal learning environment falls within the ZPI? As the previous sections reveal, developments in teacher understanding and the PictoPal intervention were mutually enhancing. In other words, working toward teacher learning contributed directly to rendering the intervention within the ZPI and vice versa. From the standpoint of teacher learning by design, creating pupil learning activities leveraged teacher understanding of a kind of task they already were familiar with, while also challenging them to reflect, articulate, and critique what they already know about early literacy, how young children develop it, and ways they can support that process. In line with existing learning sciences research, teachers in the PictoPal studies found (worked) examples of the intended design products to be both informative and supportive. Further, the studies revealed that teachers are naturally inclined to focus on concrete learning activities rather than on discussing subject matter concepts in abstraction. Moreover, opportunities for learning present themselves in the form of reflection on or for action during design conversations (van der Linden & McKenney, 2020), as is the case when (as described) teachers traverse from proposing potential learning activities towards critical inquiry while making decisions or revisiting earlier-​made ones. Reflection has long been considered crucial for teacher knowledge development (Pauw, Visscher, & McKenney, 2020). These studies showed that teacher design and decision-​making initially appears to be more intuitive than rational, as evidenced by the dominance of idea generation and association (e.g. brainstorming) and comparatively less reasoning in relation to

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learning goals. Reflection then triggers deeper conversations in which knowledge is made explicit. Hearing reasons given by others, and justifying one’s own position, contributes to developing teacher personal knowledge. Related to the ZPI, the collaboration with the teachers, in terms of both formal data collected and informal sensitization to key variables, was essential for refining the PictoPal intervention so that it could be usable in a wide range of schools, by different kinds of kindergarten teachers, and with diverse groups of learners. Across the nine studies, PictoPal was tested under varying conditions, and teachers in some schools continued to use PictoPal, even outside of the research activities and with no external support. This suggests that PictoPal did fall within the ZPI for some but not all participating schools. We assert that collaboration with practitioners and investigation of their design work was crucial in this regard. PictoPal grew to yield value-​added because, in addition to significant pupil learning gains, teachers appreciated how it addressed a known and disconcerting gap between the existing language curriculum used in schools and the national interim targets for early literacy. Use of PictoPal became clear to teachers through their involvement in designing content, and through examples, passed along from previous teachers (e.g., through video), of how PictoPal came to life in the classroom. While PictoPal was extremely innovative, being joined by very few other technologies for early literacy that support the development of “discursive prowess” (Lankshear & Knoebel, 2003), teachers engaged with it in ways compatible with their existing values, cultures, beliefs, and priorities (e.g., that children learn through play as was the case with many off-​computer activities; or that children shape understanding about the world through first-​hand experiences such as using printed texts for authentic purposes). It also yielded different scenarios that help other teachers orchestrate the implementation of PictoPal, especially providing guidance during on-​computer activities (e.g., adding an agent to the software, peer tutors, adult guides) in ways compatible with the options available in representative settings. Finally, PictoPal grew tolerant over time. As the intervention matured, it became clear which features had to be adhered to more strictly to achieve pupil learning (e.g., duration of intervention; structure and layout of words in the software grid; and a gradual increase in difficulty level); and which could be tailored by teachers to their own preferences, themes, or inspiration.

Discussion Collaboration with teachers in these nine studies has sensitized us to the myriad and complex factors that determine how design stimulates teacher sensemaking processes with regard to understanding, adjusting, and using innovations in practice. Our retrospective analysis shows how these cut across multiple facets of PictoPal development and teacher learning through their engagement with it. This section reflects on the line of research as a whole, and discusses our emerging insights in light of existing literature.

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The Role of Pedagogical Beliefs and Values of Teachers in Design and Implementation Teachers have sensitized us to salient convictions that they draw on when designing or implementing technology for early literacy. In this study, the teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning clearly steered their decisions on how to promote early literacy, which aligns with existing findings that kindergarten teacher beliefs about early literacy promotion have been related to how children were involved in early literacy activities (Sverdlov,Aram, & Levin, 2014). Further, those who shared a developmental approach (i.e., perceiving technology as a tool for supporting learning at or near a child’s readiness levels), tended toward higher levels of technology integration, which corroborates the findings of previous studies in which teachers’ beliefs on teaching and learning were shown to influence how they integrate ICT in their classroom (Ertmer, 2005; Kim, Kim, Lee, Spector, & DeMeester, 2013). In addition, teachers with higher levels of technology integration were often also the teachers with positive attitudes and expectations toward technology-​based innovations, as has been found previously (Hermans, Tondeur, van Braak, & Valcke, 2008). Further, kindergarten teachers tend to limit new initiatives in the classroom—​even if they support them—​until a safe, trusting, routine, and predictable classroom climate has been firmly established. Related to that, they weigh off new initiatives in the class—​ here, technology for early literacy—​against more than learning gain, namely the added-​value for the whole child, not just specific targets.

Ownership and (Teacher Learning about) Technology Integration In addition to the crucial role of pedagogical beliefs, the PictoPal studies helped us develop a more nuanced understanding of innovation ownership in and from design. The PictoPal work also confirmed that curricular ownership is positively related to the level of technology integration, which supports previous findings that teams of teachers designing activities can be fruitful for actual classroom implementation (Penuel, Roschelle, & Shechtman, 2007). What we found surprising, and very useful, was that even modest design involvement (e.g. re-​designers with limited time on task) was sufficient to foster feelings of curricular ownership and thereby facilitate implementation. To cultivate ownership, teachers joined design teams and we saw that the role of re-​designer felt familiar to many of them. While the role of original (co-​)designer yielded greater levels of ownership for those who persisted, some teachers found it too demanding. Perhaps the re-​design role was sufficient for teachers to identify if and how the innovation fit with their current curriculum, which has been shown to promote successful implementation (De Grove, Bourgonjon, & van Looy, 2012; Shawer. 2010). Also, teachers who experienced positive support from their schools related to the challenges of technology use exhibited higher levels of technology integration. Last, but certainly not least, feelings of teacher ownership grew from their contribution to the designed product, and not from shaping in the design process. In fact, they very

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much appreciated structure and guidance for the process, which is not surprising as that has been found elsewhere (Huizinga, Handelzalts, Nieveen, & Voogt, 2014).

How Teachers Approach and Learn from Collaborative Design Teachers sensitized us to their preferences for and intuitive approaches to collaborative design. First, we learned that they appreciate working in small teams during collaborative design.This is consistent with existing literature on the performance of small working groups (Tuckman, 1965) including teacher design teams (Mazereeuw, Wopereis, & McKenney, 2016), which indicates that groups of less than ten, and preferably between three and six members, perform best. Second, brainstorming dominates design-​talk, and, as other studies have concluded (Huizinga, Handelzalts, Nieveen, & Voogt, 2014), teachers do not gravitate toward important and relevant design activities such as defining a problem or conducting an evaluation of draft material. Further, thinking through detailed ramifications, core ideas, or connections to specific learning targets are often perceived as tiresome. In contrast, teachers readily tackle practical concerns and, as has long been understood (Kerr, 1981) focus on the to-​be-​produced learning materials. This resembles a solution-​ driven approach to solving design problems in which teams make decisions on the constraints, criteria, and functions of a design product (Hong & Choi, 2011), and through which the definition of the problem emerges as the solutions are analyzed, evaluated, and criticized. Third, variations in teacher personalities and convictions yielded variations in the kinds of contributions made. This was enriching for both the design conversations and the resulting products. In this study, teachers imagined what the learning material would look like and what kind of implementation related issues would be encountered (e.g., time, organization of activity, placement of material).Teacher knowledge of context (especially foreseeing practical concerns) prompted articulation of knowledge related technology, pedagogy, and early literacy. In the PictoPal studies, teachers used their excisting PCK for early literacy as a basis for the decisions they made regarding PictoPal. That is, despite new affordances of the technology, teachers were more focused on how it enabled them to do more of what they already prioritized with or without technology in teaching early literacy.

Support Required by Teacher Design Teams for Learning to Flourish Teachers in the PictoPal studies sensitized us to the support that they require to create or customize technology-​r ich learning, and those areas align with previous recommendations from literature (eg. Huizinga, Handelzalts, Nieveen, & Voogt, 2014) that teacher design team support should aim at updating teachers’ design expertise, subject-​matter knowledge, their (T)PCK, and their understanding of the reform. Considering the solution-​driven approach teachers employ in design, this suggests that facilitators should encourage teachers to generate solutions but also guide them in critically evaluating these solutions. Facilitators can further help by being aware of moments in design-​talk in which teachers struggle or when the

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decisions that teachers take do not seemed to have been thought through. At such moments, facilitators could pose questions that require teachers to step back from the ideas/​decisions, and elicit teachers’ reasoning. For developing teachers’ integrated (T)PCK, it is recommended to explicitly support teachers in thinking through the actual use of the design, even in early stages before it is constructed. During such conversations, two kinds of practical concerns can be anticipated: design-​related (e.g., What should the products look like?) and implementation-​ related (e.g., How should the product be used?). Facilitators should prepare for and prompt conversations related to both (e.g., What characteristics must the product have to enable a certain kind of use?). The design process also includes interrogating the curriculum to gain a better understanding of the goals to be pursued—​a task which also requires content expertise. Content specific support can take multiple forms, including clarification, confirmation, critique, suggestions, or explanations and is especially used when it comes as a response to teacher-​raised ideas. Subject-​matter support should be aligned with teachers’ natural inclinations during design; that is to reason from their pedagogical knowledge and beliefs and to make use of extended subject-​matter expertise when it is offered in the forms of recommendations or explanations. Facilitators should help distill and share expertise within the group. Teachers appreciate having an outside subject-​matter expert serve as co-​designer, sharing knowledge not in isolation, but in direct connection to the design problem at hand. To share knowledge in use and serve where needed, TPCK, as opposed to only content expertise, appears to be most helpful to teachers. Even limited levels of such guidance—​with no prior schooling of the facilitator—​contributed to the richness of PictoPal design team talk. However, when it came to supporting teachers in not just planning revisions to the technology, but actually modifying the files and creating new technology resources, the level of support required was extremely high, and not likely to be sustainable.

Future Research While this retrospective analysis offers some insights into how designing and implementing a technology-​r ich learning environment for early literacy contributes to teacher learning and to rendering it within the ZPI, subsequent investigations could further enrich this knowledge base. For example, they could pay explicit attention to the (variation in) quality of teacher-​made curriculum materials, as well as the resulting effects on pupil learning outcomes, and integration of ICT-​ rich learning activities. In the case of PictoPal, teacher designed products could be reviewed by early literacy and or technology experts and compared to existing ones made by professional designers. If the variety in quality is shown to account for differences in pupil learning outcomes, then exploration into ways of mitigating this variety also seems warranted. Further, if the quality is equivalent, the added benefits of co-​creation could justify the financial and human costs involved in facilitating that work. Such a longitudinal study could also contribute to deeper understanding of the ZPI for technology-​r ich learning environments targeting early literacy.

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To further explore how collaborative design forms a context for teacher learning, subsequent research should follow teachers through multiple cycles of action and reflection. Cyclical learning is considered a key aspect of teacher learning (Clarke & Hollingsworth, 2002) in general and in collaborative design teams especially (Voogt et al., 2015). Such a longitudinal study would examine teacher learning as a result of initial design; implementation; reflection on action; reflection on consequences (learner experience and performance) as well as re-​ design. It could also investigate teacher roles and how these evolve over time, and in different phases of their profession. For example, it is plausible that, over time, novice and veteran teachers may develop differently in their roles which could affect their technology integration. In this respect it could be helpful to know what kind of role likely suits teachers in different stages of their teaching. The PictoPal studies combined case studies in natural settings (for studying how teachers design and implement technology-​r ich learning for early literacy) with a quasi-​experimental design (for investigating pupil learning). This basic approach was deemed fruitful, could responsibly be extended to other kindergarten contexts (e.g., more variety in school types, in other countries), and would help ascertain the extent to which the findings from this study could be generalizable. In so doing, attention should be given to not only the teacher designers, but also the kinds of contributions by facilitators and/​or subject-​matter experts that influence the decisions teachers make and the quality of the material designed. In addition, such work could incorporate differentiated tests (e.g., with difficulty levels for senior kindergarten and junior kindergarten to resolve possible ceiling effects and attend to the variation in learning curves of junior versus senior pupils).

In Closing The need for researchers to understand where teachers and schools are, how they perceive the problem(s) to be addressed, and to frame innovations within a reachable distance from those points, has been described in literature (e.g. Bielaczyc, 2006). This chapter further emphasizes the importance of collaborating with teachers and observing their design work in ways that can attune both interventions and theoretical insights accordingly. It offers some examples of how that was accomplished in one case relating to technology for early literacy. Toward increasing the relevance and usefulness of educational (design) research, fewer examples are needed of what might be potentially possible, and more examples are needed of how to understand and design for what is realistically feasible in the Zone of Proximal Implementation. In so doing, the benefits of working with and listening to teachers cannot be underestimated.

Acknowledgements A preliminary version of this retrospective analysis was presented at the International Conference of the Learning Sciences, and appears here with permission from the International Society of the Learning Sciences.

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Statements The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest in conducting this research or preparing this manuscript, and that the studies described here conformed to the ethical guidelines of the University of Twente. To protect the anonymity of participants, the qualitative data are not available for reuse. However, the original reports (upon which this retrospective analysis is based) are publicly available and listed below.

Note = Study included in retrospective analysis (letters correspond to columns in Table 5.1 and mark the relevant reference) A-I

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

McKenney, S., & Voogt, J. (2012). Teacher design of technology for emergent literacy: An explorative feasibility study. Australian Journal of Early Childhood, 37(1), 4–12. Cviko, A., McKenney, S., & Voogt, J. (2012). Teachers enacting a technology-rich curriculum for emergent literacy. Educational Technology Research and Development 60(1), 31–54. doi: I 10.1007/s11423-011-9208-3. Cviko, A., McKenney, S., & Voogt, J. (2013). The teacher as re-designer of technology integrated activities for an early literacy curriculum. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 48, 447–468. Cviko, A., McKenney, S., & Voogt, J. (2014). Teacher roles in designing technology-rich learning activities for early literacy. Computers & Education, 72, 68–79. Cviko, A., McKenney, S., Voogt, J. (2015). Teachers as co-designers of technologyrich learning activities for emergent literacy. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 24(4), 443–459. DOI: 10.1080/1475939X.2014.953197. Boschman, F., McKenney, S., &  Voogt, J. (2014). Understanding decision making in teachers’ curriculum design approaches. Educational Technology Research and Development, 62, 393–416. Boschman, F., McKenney, S., & Voogt, J. (2015). Exploring teachers’ use of TPACK in design talk: The collaborative design of technology-rich early literacy activities. Computers & Education, 82, 250–262. Boschman, F., McKenney, S., Pieters, J., &  Voogt, J. (2015). Teacher design knowledge and beliefs for technology enhanced learning materials in early literacy: Four portraits. eLearning Papers, 44, available online: http://www.openeducationeuropa.eu/en/article/ Teacher-design-knowledge-and-beliefs-for-technology-enhanced-learning-materialsin-early-literacy%3A-Four-portraits. Boschman, F., McKenney, S., Pieters, J., & Voogt, J. (2016). Exploring the role of content knowledge in teacher design conversations. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 32(2), 157–169. DOI: 10.1111/jcal.12124

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6 CO-​DESIGN AS AN INTERACTIVE CONTEXT FOR TEACHER LEARNING Susan R. Goldman, Allison H. Hall, and Mon-​Lin Monica Ko

Co-​Design as a Context for Teacher Learning Design-​based research (DBR) is a methodological hallmark of learning sciences research (Design-​Based Research Collective, 2003). DBR intends to address practical issues of learning in context as well as contribute to principles and theories of learning through iterative cycles of designing to address an identified issue or problem. Careful observation of implementation processes and outcomes are collected and reflected upon, leading to suggestions for re-​design as well as implications for learning principles and theories. Typically, DBR has been researcher-​initiated, with the designs reflecting researchers’ perspectives. Researchers relied on teachers to implement the researchers’ designs and included debriefs with teachers as part of the reflection process. Researchers re-​designed, often with limited input from teachers, who once again implemented what researchers had designed. Many of these efforts produced elegant designs that showed the desired student outcomes (e.g.,Barab & Squire, 2004; Krajcik et al., 2011; Roschelle et al., 2016; Kolodner et al., 2003). However, many DBR projects were not able to capitalize on the positive results and make inroads into the learning settings in and for which they had been developed. Rather they tended to disappear when project funding ended. Considerations as to why sustainability was an issue converged on issues of agency and ownership on the part of the individuals and organizations that were the sites of the DBR. Design-​based implementation research (DBIR) was proposed as a way to involve individuals and organizations in design efforts from the inception of the work (Fishman et al., 2013). DBIR bears a family resemblance to participatory design (Gomez et al., 2018) and other forms of systemic improvement (e.g., Bryk et al., 2015; Engeström, 2015). A quintessential feature of DBIR is co-​design, a team-​based process that brings together researchers, teachers, and developers working together on all phases of the design cycle to leverage DOI: 10.4324/9781003097112-9

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their different areas of expertise to create innovative instructional approaches (practices and materials) (Penuel et al., 2007). Involving multiple stakeholders in design at the inception of a project fosters a deeper, principled understanding of the innovations, resisting the tendencies for this expertise to diminish when a research project concludes. In this chapter, we explore the learning opportunities that co-​design affords for teachers—​a critical stakeholder and, most often, the primary enactor of the design innovations that improve classroom instruction. Specifically, we focus on co-​design as it was manifest in Project READI, a six-​year research and development project that involved teachers, researchers, and professional development facilitators in the co-​design of instructional materials, tasks, and practices that would support inquiry learning in three disciplines (science, literary reading, or history) (Goldman et al., 2016).We adapt Clarke and Hollingsworth’s (2002) individual teacher learning model to trace how teachers learned through their participation in co-​design on Project READI. We specify how the design spaces within Project READI created the necessary conditions and resources for supporting teacher learning.

Co-​design in Project READI: A Context for Teacher Learning In their Interconnected Model of Professional Growth, Clarke and Hollingsworth (2002) postulated four domains of change and conceptualized teacher learning as the development of sustained pathways among them: personal, practice, consequence, and external. For example, the personal domain captures the teacher’s knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes at any point in time. Teachers acting on their knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes constitutes the domain of practice and their perceptions of the outcomes of such actions constitute the domain of consequence. The external domain refers to any source of information outside the teacher that introduces new information or ideas (e.g., interactions with colleagues, professional development experiences, changes in mandated curricula). Each domain represents a potential entry point for kick-​starting teacher change and learning; once initiated, the change process has the potential to impact all four domains through complementary processes of enaction and reflection. An important implication of the Interconnected Model is that there are many pathways of teacher change. However, as a model of individual change, the IMPG does not adequately reflect learning as it occurs in interaction with others wherein multiple agents, including individual teachers, collaboratively engage in sense making and constructing knowledge.We have proposed an expanded model, the Interconnected Interactive Model of Professional Growth (IIMPG) to accommodate interactive learning contexts such as teacher professional learning communities, co-​design, and other forms of research practice partnerships (Ko et al., 2022). In this chapter we represent Project READI as one instantiation of the IIMPG. Figure 6.1 represents Project READI as an instantiation of the IIMPG. Teachers and researchers collaborated to execute iterative cycles of the four-​phase DBR

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FIGURE 6.1  READI

collaborative design change environment: An instantiation of

the IIMPG

design cycle (design-​implement-​reflect-​redesign) as they developed and refined instructional materials and processes that would engage adolescent students in inquiry learning in history, science, or literary reading.The four phase cycle spanned two interactive spaces: Design and Implementation.

Design Space The Design space of Project READI enabled the external and personal domains of the various participants to interact. The disciplinary design teams on Project READI were comprised of disciplinary specialists, learning sciences researchers, professional development specialists, and classroom teachers. Design team meetings served as contexts for enacting the personal domain (knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes) of each member. The activities and interactions in the Design space deliberately engaged teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes about the discipline, teaching, and the students they teach; researchers brought their own knowledge of the discipline, curriculum design, and theories of learning to bear in this space. As well, design drew on external inputs in the form of prior and parallel efforts to design instructional modules intended to support disciplinary inquiry (e.g., Krajcik et al., 2011; Lee, 2007; Wineburg et al., 2012). In the design meetings, tasks, materials, and instructional supports were proposed and critiqued with respect

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to their likely efficacy for supporting students’ engagement in the intellectual work of the targeted discipline. In between the twice monthly design team meetings, each design team teacher worked with at least one researcher to further develop the evolving instructional modules for that teacher’s specific classroom context (T-​R Dyads in Figure 6.1). As well, a broader network of teachers came together four times a year to discuss problems of practice in disciplinary inquiry during the Teacher Network (see Figure 6.1); design team teachers and researchers facilitated these exchanges. These three different forms of participation sought to leverage the personal domains of the participants and stimulate discussions about important disciplinary concepts and practices. The products of the co-​design process were designed modules that were then enacted in the Implementation space of design team teachers’ classrooms.

Implementation Space The Implementation space of Project READI (right, Figure 6.1) instantiates what Clarke and Hollingsworth (2002) refer to as the practice and consequence domains. However, in the IIMPG, teacher and researcher collaborate to put designed modules into action in the classroom and interpret the outcomes of those efforts. During Project READI, teachers enacted, and researchers closely observed implementations, videotaping and field noting what happened during instruction—​what the teacher did, what students did, their interactions—​and collected any artifacts of these processes. Daily, the teacher and the researcher reflected on the “consequence” or outcomes (e.g., student discourse, artifacts) and adapted upcoming lessons in light of their reflections.This “short-​cycle” reflection and re-​design process allowed teachers to draw on and change their existing practice, which in turn transformed the designed modules into enacted modules. When module enactment concluded (often taking multiple weeks), the designed and enacted versions of a module were the focus of reflection and redesign by the disciplinary design team, producing revised designed modules. Revised modules were enacted and reflected upon in the same manner as previously described. The IIMPG as an adaptation of Clarke and Hollingsworth’s model reflects how READI’s co-​design structure provided the contexts and supported processes that mediate teacher learning. How teacher learning happened is reflected in various traversals and pathways among the components of Project READI’s co-​design environment. However, the pathways do not capture the substance of that learning, or what teachers learned. The cases presented in this chapter focus on both how and what teachers learned by participating in co-​design on Project READI.

Cases of Teacher Learning: Science and Literature Both cases presented herein trace teacher learning over two years (Year 1: 2012–​ 2013; Year 2: 2013–​2014) across both the Design and Implementation spaces of

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Project READI. The first case focuses on the learning of a middle school science teacher, Kathy; the second on that of a high school literature teacher, Jennifer. In both cases, co-​design was located primarily in the Implementation space in Year 1 using researcher designed modules that represented a first approximation to materials, tasks, and instructional practices intended to support disciplinary inquiry. However, the affordances of these Implementation spaces differed across the two cases, reflecting differences in the discipline and grade/​age-​level of the students, and in the personal domain knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes that the teachers and the researchers brought to the design work. The locus of the Year 2 work differed for the two cases. For science, co-​design occurred in the Design space where the T-​R dyad worked on designing new modules aligned with the topic coverage for which Kathy was accountable. Teacher learning in the science case is traced through interactions in the T-​R dyad. In the literature case, the teacher drew on what she had learned through the Year 1 experience and initiated the design of a year-​long sequence of modules to be implemented in Year 2. She shared the design and sought input on it from the design team and teacher network. During the Year 2 enactment, additional co-​design occurred in the Implementation space through observations and reflection in T-​R meetings. In addition to tracing teacher learning through interactions with the design team, T-​R dyad, and teacher network, the literature teacher kept a reflection journal where she recorded her design rationale and reflected on module implementation throughout the year. Thus, unlike the science case, the work in literature traversed Design and Implementation spaces in Year 2. Data sources for the two cases consisted of video and audio recordings plus field notes of design team meetings, T-​R dyad discussions, and classroom observations, along with the texts, tasks, tools, and student work associated with the modules. In addition, teachers kept reflective journals throughout their participation in the project.These provided important windows into teacher’s thinking about the designed versus enacted modules, student learning, their own learning, problems of practice, and ideas for re-​design. Analytic memos and field notes guided the selection of data particularly germane to specific research questions. Thematic analyses (Braun & Clarke, 2012) and more fine-​g rained discourse analyses were employed to examine interactional processes that occurred in T-​R discussions.

Case 1: Tracing Learning of a Middle School Science Teacher The science T-​R dyad consisted of Kathy, a middle school (sixth grade) science teacher, and Monica, the third author of this chapter. In Year 1, Kathy and Monica met 28 times over the course of 4 months to enact, reflect on, and adapt three Life Sciences modules designed by the project’s research staff. In Year 2, the T-​R dyad work shifted from the Implementation space to the Design space, in part due to Kathy moving to a new school where the grade six curriculum she was expected to teach focused on Physical rather than Life sciences. Kathy and Monica met 19

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times to collaboratively create Physical Science modules that Kathy enacted over the course of Year 2. Meetings consistently focused on reflecting on the student thinking that emerged during a lesson (or series of lessons), collectively making sense of those ideas, and then considering the implications for the design of instruction at the level of a lesson, series of lessons, or instructional module. Meetings were facilitated by the artifacts and observations that the teacher and the researcher brought to the meetings, including student work, observations of whole or small group discussions, and candidate texts and curriculum materials. To examine Kathy’s learning, analyses focused on the T-​R discussions where episodes of pedagogical reasoning (EPR) emerged. EPRs are units of talk where teachers and researchers “…describe issues in or raise questions about teaching practice that are accompanied by some elaboration of reasons, explanations, or justifications” (Horn & Little, 2010, p. 215). For each EPR, we examined the role that the teacher and researcher played in identifying problems of practice, how problems of practice were framed, perceptions about students and their abilities, and how curriculum materials were positioned. We conjectured that shifts in how Kathy framed the problems of practice and participated in the co-​design process with Monica would be indicators of her learning through co-​design.

Three Dimensions of Teacher Learning Thematic analysis indicated three dimensions of change in the EPRs identified in the documentation of the co-​design work for the two years. Shifts occurred in (1) the role of the teacher and researcher in co-​design; (2) the teacher’s views of students; and (3) the scope and “scale” of co-​design work. Shifts in the role of the teacher and researcher in co-​design. Over the course of two years, Kathy went from deferring to the researcher (and project) expertise to exercising agency over identifying and designing solutions to problems of practice. In Year 1, as noted earlier, the locus of the T-​R activities resided in the Implementation space, as Kathy enacted the designed modules and engaged in daily conversations with Monica about each day’s lesson. When problems of practice emerged during these discussions, it was primarily Monica who took the lead in identifying problems and suggesting adaptations for future lessons, while Kathy took up the suggestions. When Kathy offered suggestions, she did so hesitantly and looked to Monica for affirmation. For example, during a lesson in which students discussed criteria for engaging in productive discussions, Monica noticed that students focused on listening and agreeing with one another. Because the module and the project’s overall goals were centered on text-​based argumentation, Monica wondered what students would say about the role of disagreement and critique. In the exchange below, Monica brought up her noticing from the discussion, and Kathy immediately offered to introduce disagreement explicitly, as if it was something that Monica wanted to see:

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Monica:  …something that I was thinking about throughout [the lesson] was the students talked a lot about agreeing with each other and affirming one another’s answers….I just found myself wondering, “would it be okay for us to disagree, but still for me to listen really close to you and respond?” I don’t know what you think about that….it was something that I was wondering in my head as the students [were talking] K athy:  I can launch with that tomorrow if you want to. Monica:  …a lot of the work that like scientists do or even what we do [on the project]—​the PD, the teacher meetings, we don’t always agree with one another because we don’t always know what the right answer is. And there’s sometimes there’s room for really rich discussions, even when we disagree…. we…can respectfully disagree and say, “Look I have some other evidence for that.” So it was just interesting to hear sort of their talk… K athy: Would you like a writing sample from them? Like I could launch with that question tomorrow, and we could see what we would get from them. (T-​R meeting 01/​08/​2013) In this excerpt, Monica led with her observations and invited Kathy to engage in a discussion about the fact that rich discussions often include disagreements. Kathy’s response suggests that she interpreted Monica’s observations as an implied request: Kathy offered to make adaptations to the next day’s instruction based on her inference that Monica wanted to see students disagree. Throughout the implementation of the first module in Year 1 when Monica pointed out similar problems of practice, Kathy remained hesitant and uncertain. Her use of phrases such as “I didn’t know…”, “I…wasn’t clear exactly what you guys were looking for…”, and questions like “What would be a good example of what you think the student should say?” suggest that Kathy positioned herself as the less experienced and less knowledgeable “other” especially during the first module implementation. However, as Kathy enacted 2 more modules in Year 1, she relied less on Monica’s guidance and grew more confident in her ability to support students. She also reported seeing her students grow in their capacities to engage in text-​based inquiry and explanatory modeling over time. The shift in roles was even more dramatic in Year 2 as Kathy drew on the district’s curriculum materials to design physical sciences units. The new content focus shifted the co-​design meetings away from enacting researcher-​designed curriculum materials and toward overlaying Project READI design principles on existing materials. During the T-​R meetings, Kathy led the co-​design meetings in identifying problems of practice and engaged in collaborative discussions with Monica to explore the range of possible adaptations of existing curricula that would best support students. In the first meeting during Year 2, Kathy noted that the texts embedded within the district’s curriculum materials were too impoverished to support meaningful sensemaking; they simply told kids the “facts.” Having identified a discrepancy between these curriculum materials and the READI modules

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she enacted the previous year, Kathy took the lead brainstorming phenomena that could anchor a unit, pulling texts from multiple sources beyond the curriculum, incorporating but re-​organizing activities and lessons from the district’s curriculum, and designing new end of unit assessments that focused on synthesizing textual information as evidence for explanations. As these units were enacted, Kathy and Monica continued meeting to discuss their observations and identify needs for modification. Unlike Year 1, Kathy led these conversations with her own noticings and conjectures. She also challenged some of Monica’s suggestions and proposed alternatives for the design and enactment of lessons in a unit. For example, during a meeting in which Monica and Kathy met to discuss a text in her fossil fuels module, Kathy noted that students were engaging in the work of reading and annotating texts, but they were not making connections back to the essential question for the module. When Monica suggested that Kathy model her thinking as a scaffold, Kathy argued that this form of support did not put the intellectual ownership onto her students. K athy: And they were annotating it, but like with the kids that I was sitting with there was a lot of questions … they were able to see like, you know that there were the three types of coal that we had looked at so they were making that connection ….[but] it’s hard to get them focused on what we’re trying to answer with the essential questions … I remember last year when you and I would talk and it was like “Are they using the reading strategies to use them because we’re telling them to, or they’re really using them to kind of uncover more about what we’re trying to answer?” And I feel like I’m at that point right now that they’re just using them to use them. You know they’re being instructed to use them—​they’re NOT using them to try and figure out how to [answer] the essential question. When Monica reminded Kathy of all the modeling that she had had to do the previous year to move students to use the reading strategies in service of science inquiry, Kathy challenged this scaffold, arguing that modeling the approach did not necessarily create opportunities for her students to do the hard work. K athy:  Okay, but I feel like if I’m constantly modeling for them, I’m doing all that hard work … where is their thinking coming in? T-​R meeting, 10/​14/​2013 This excerpt illustrates Kathy’s agentive role in identifying a problem of practice (absence of purposeful reading in relation to the essential question) and recalling that she had seen this same issue of students simply using reading strategies because they were told to use them in Year 1. Monica then suggested that it was the teacher modeling in Year 1 that helped students make progress toward using the reading strategies to make sense of the information in relation

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to the essential question. Kathy problematized teacher modeling as a scaffold because although it provided the students access to her thinking, it did not push students to take on intellectual ownership. Pushing back in this way is evidence of Kathy’s increased ownership of the design and agency in creating the design. In general, as Kathy became increasingly involved in identifying critical issues in the design, Monica assumed a more equal role as co-​inquirer, reviewing texts, observations, and student work and bringing her interpretations and suggestions to the discussions. Shifts in views of students. Problems of practice focused on gaps between where students were and where both Kathy and Monica wanted them to go in both Years 1 and 2. However, the discussion shifted away from students’ lack of capacity (Year 1) toward how instructional design could scaffold their learning (Year 2). The following excerpt captures Kathy’s views of students in Year 1. Kathy and Monica were engaged in a discussion about a lesson in which students were asked to make personal and inter-​text connections in the margins while reading a diagram of the water cycle. Kathy noted that even though the prompts she provided invited students to explicitly make connections, what she saw in the student work reflected surface-​level connections. She attributed this to students’ lack of experience in being metacognitive, or “thinking about their own thinking”: K athy:  Like we’ve talked about it before, they’re not very good about being metacognitive. They’re not really good about thinking about their thinking… Monica: So—​ K athy:  I mean they ARE, but like I said it’s just really general, I feel like I have a hard time to like, trying to get more out of them or [knowing] exactly what to say to them so that they can explain more because they’re like, “well it’s helping make a connection” That’s all. T-​R meeting, 1/​21/​2013 In this excerpt, Kathy highlighted the difficulty students had going beyond stating that they made a connection to actually describing what connections they made while reading. Later, during the same meeting, Kathy said that the kids need things “very concrete”, because they have not been asked to think abstractly during science instruction, or in other subject areas. Overall, Kathy overwhelmingly attributed problems such as these to students’ inability to successfully engage in the variety of tasks and texts that were part of the instructional modules. In Year 2, the gaps between where students were and where Kathy wanted them to go remained, but the emphasis shifted to whether and how the instructional design supported students in getting there. In other words, she assumed the students were able to get there—​the co-​design work was focused on getting the right supports in place at the right moments to get them there. For example, during the enactment of the module on fossil fuels, Kathy indicated to Monica that she

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had to return and review a text (a table with different types of fossil fuels and the amount of CO2 emitted by each). Monica probed for her reasoning for returning to the text. Monica: So let’s backtrack for a little bit. In the CO2 text, [students] were looking at the amount of CO2 emitted with the burning of the different types of fossil fuels. I was noticing…you went back…can you tell me a little bit more about that…? In response, Kathy expressed that she wanted more students to attend to specific patterns in the text and that revisiting the text helped focus students’ attention on how the state of fossil fuel (solid, liquid, gas) affected the amount of CO2 emitted when they burn: K athy:  I had to go back and be sure that they were understanding that it was the carbon dioxide that was emitted because they were talking about the heat that was emitted and the students … some of the girls did make [the connection that] coal has the highest amount of number and they’re all solid ….because if it has more carbon in it maybe the atoms are packed more closely together ….the methane and natural gas emits the least amount of carbon ….So I think it really helps to have that discussion then it also helps to annotate it again and kind of just refocus them. T-​R meeting, 10/​23/​2013 Kathy went on to indicate how using various types of scaffolds, including re-​ reading and discussion in different participation structures (e.g., with a peer, as a whole class) helped students hone in on the important conceptual understandings that drove the module. In contrast to Year 1 where her response had focused on student deficiencies, in Year 2 her response focused on the use of various instructional strategies to direct their attention to specific parts of the text and support them in making sense of the information in relation to the essential question. Although Kathy continued to lament the length of time it took to build students’ capacities to engage in text-​based inquiry in Year 2, there were more T-​R discussions about how to get the right building blocks in place (the set of experiences, range of participation structures, and sequence of texts), so that students could develop increasingly sophisticated explanations and facility with reading and reasoning practices over time. Shifts in scale and scope of co-​design work. The problems of practice that emerged during Year 1 were primarily lesson-​and activity-​specific, whereas in Year 2, the scope broadened to considerations of how student thinking and practice deepened during a single module as well as across modules and topics for the year. This shift in focus is likely attributable to the Year 1 co-​design collaboration

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being focused in the Implementation space on classroom enactment of researcher-​ designed modules versus the Year 2 emphasis on co-​design of lesson and modules sequences (Design space). This change in the locus of the work created opportunities for the teacher and researcher to take up issues of sequencing texts, tasks, and activities across multiple lessons and modules. An illustrative Year 1 example of the local focus comes from a lesson in which students were considering what various types of models could and could not explain. In the lesson, students were asked to use a reading strategy to make sense of the model and then think metacognitively about how the reading strategy supported their comprehension. However, Monica and Kathy both observed that students were confused about how to answer the metacognitive prompt. After discussing the potential sources of confusion, Kathy suggested that the prompt needed to be rephrased to be less open-​ended, from “How did you use the reading strategies to help you learn?” to “What did you learn about using the reading strategies to help you?” Other examples of this “short-​cycle” co-​design included the addition/​replacement of specific texts, adding teacher modeling of her reasoning, and the use of specific prompts for whole group discussion. In Year 2, the scope of the co-​design work shifted from a lesson/​activity-​specific focus to a focus on how scientific ideas would build over a module and how practices such as modeling and explanation would be scaffolded across multi-​day activities within a module. Although discussions about lesson and activity-​specific modifications continued, they were embedded in relation to the larger essential question and consequential task for a given module. For example, Kathy had designed a multi-​day jigsaw activity in a module on plate tectonics and natural disasters. Each small group was to explore a text set on one of three phenomena (volcanoes, earthquakes, or tsunamis) to explain why each occurred in specific geographic areas. Members from each group were then to be reconfigured into groups that included members from each of three original groups to develop explanatory models that answered the essential question “Why do volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis happen in certain places?” In assembling the texts sets for each group, Kathy paid particular attention to whether the text sets provided the building blocks for the consensus building that would be needed within the two types of small groups. During a co-​design meeting, Monica asked Kathy to elaborate on her choice of texts, in particular on why she wanted to add a text to what she had already put together for the module. K athy:  I felt like this one was like a lot more clear … [about] plate tectonics, plate boundaries … Shorter and to the point ….and it talks about magma a bit, volcanos a bit, and the ring of fire. The discussion then focused on how this text related to the model building that would occur, days later, in the reconfigured groups.

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K athy:  … the earthquake group will have something to go on. And the tsunami [group] …. I feel like [each group] will have 1 or 2 new pieces of learning that they can add to their model … T-​R meeting 3/​23/​2014 Kathy pointed out that the additional text would facilitate students’ explanatory modeling for the individual phenomena, as well as information for the groups to revise their specific explanatory models when they were reconfigured several days later. This is but one example demonstrating Kathy’s shift to thinking about longer term trajectories of learning in conjunction with day-​to-​day learning.

Summary Over the two years, Kathy’s learning reflected increasing agency in the co-​design work evidenced in her bringing up problems of practice and potential design solutions to those problems. Rather than attributing gaps between where students were and where she wanted them to be to students’ deficiencies, she questioned the sequencing of activities and texts, using the co-​design conversations as a space to better support student learning. Relatedly, Kathy increasingly understood how essential questions, tasks and instructional supports would enable students to grapple with progressively more complex and deeper explanatory models of science phenomena.

Case 2: From Reading Literature to Literary Interpretation The literature T-​R dyad was a triad consisting of Jennifer, an 11th grade English teacher, and two researchers, Allison, the second author of this paper, and Teresa. In Year 1, Jennifer attended design team meetings and worked closely with Allison and Teresa to enact a nine-​week instructional module that instantiated the Project READI learning goals. During Jennifer’s enactment, the researchers videotaped and took field notes in the classroom every day (35 days total) and met with Jennifer to reflect on each lesson and discuss upcoming lessons and any changes needed. As in Case 1, this work shifted from the Implementation to the Design space in Year 2. In Year 2, Jennifer applied the design principles learned during the nine-​week enactment to create her own year-​long instructional design that she shared and sought input on at design team meetings. Researcher observations of the implementation were less frequent in Year 2 and T-​R discussions were mediated by Jennifer’s documentation of the enactment, including lesson logs containing learning objectives, text and task sequences, teaching strategies, student activities, assessments, and descriptions of student engagement and learning processes. Jennifer also wrote reflections documenting changes made during the enactment, interesting or surprising student responses to instruction, changes she would make in the next iteration, and any challenges faced in enacting instruction.

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During Year 2, in addition to her participation in bi-​weekly design team meetings, Jennifer regularly attended teacher network meetings, explaining her Year 2 design at one meeting.

Tracing Teacher Learning The primary data sources for analyses of Jennifer’s learning were her ongoing written reflections and conversations with researchers around the designs and enactments. In these reflections and conversations, Jennifer pointed to problems of practice related to the design, the enactment process, or the consequences of enactment. An initial phase of analysis identified the specific design features and issues with enactment that Jennifer noted as problematic and why. A second phase of analysis examined the Year 2 design and implementation to identify the decisions she made about what to change from the Year 1 design. In addition, the reflections and conversations during Year 2, including those that occurred during the Year 2 Design Team meetings, were examined to understand the rationale behind her design decisions as well as her evaluation of the efficacy of those decisions. This phase of analysis shed light on the interconnections between the Year 1 work and changes in Jennifer’s disciplinary knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes regarding the disciplinary work she wanted students to do. The what and why of the redesign suggested three major problems of practice around building student capacity to deal with the complexity of literary reasoning that Jennifer attempted to address in Year 2: providing sufficient opportunities for students to develop awareness of and engage in literary reasoning practices; interest and engagement with the theme and texts; and structure–​ function relationships in literary works. The design architecture of the literature modules played a central role in Jennifer’s learning process and is described in the next section. We then describe each problem of practice and the interconnections between what Jennifer learned in the Implementation space during Year 1 and her redesign for Year 2.

A Design Architecture for Adolescents’ Literary Reasoning The design team formulated an overarching architecture for the literature modules in recognition of the complexity of interpretive thinking about literary works involving multidimensional forms of knowledge (e.g., epistemic purpose, strategic processes, figurative language) (e.g., Langer, 2011; Lee, 2007; Lee & Sprately, 2010; Rabinowitz, 1987). Modules focused on themes related to the human experience and specific rhetorical devices commonly used in literary works. (See for discussion Lee, et al., 2016; Levine, et al., 2018.) The architecture included sequenced components intended to raise students’ awareness of their everyday interpretive practices and their relevance to school texts (Cultural Modeling Activities), engage students in building criteria for themes and concepts (Gateway Activities), and build background knowledge of the historical and social contexts

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Cultural Modeling

Gateway Activity

Images and song to make process of interpreting symbolism in context explicit

Coming of age scenarios to develop list of criteria for theme

Reading Short Story: "Marigolds," short story Main text to engage in literary reading and argumentation around symbolism and coming of age

Background Knowledge Activity Video to introduce concept of filial respect in East Asian contexts

Reading Short Texts "Linoleum Roses" and "The Rose That Grew From Concrete" Short texts to practice identifying and interpreting symbols and comparing use of symbols across texts

Reading Short Story: "Two Kinds," chapter of Joy Luck Club Main text to engage in literary reading and argumentation around symbolism and coming of age

FIGURE 6.2  Design

of the nine-​week coming-​of-​age and symbolism module implemented by Jennifer in Year 1

of a literary work (Lee, 2007; Rabinowitz, 1987; Smagorinsky et al., 1987; Smith & Hillocks, 1988). For the nine-​week module Jennifer implemented in Year 1, the design team agreed on a theme (coming of age) and a rhetorical device (symbolism) typical of high school literature curricula (see Figure 6.2). The team chose two short stories, “Marigolds” by Eugenia Collier (1969) and “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan (1989), as the main texts. Based on a close analysis of the interpretive problems the texts posed, the background knowledge that the students might need to understand them, and the criteria for a coming-​of-​age theme, cultural modeling and gateway activities were designed. The cultural modeling activities drew on images, song lyrics, and short texts that students were to interpret and, more importantly, articulate how they arrived at those interpretations. Making the interpretive process visible with familiar types of texts allows students to become aware of how they understand what symbols mean so that they can use the same strategies on symbols in more complex texts (Lee, 2007).The gateway activities focused on developing criteria for the theme of coming of age, and the background knowledge activity focused on building the concept of filial respect.

Reflecting on Enacting the Nine-​week Module: Three Problems of Practice During enactment of the coming-​ of-​ age and symbolism module, Jennifer’s conversations with researchers and her written reflections on what was happening in the implementation space indicated three problems of practice with the nine-​ week design and enactment. First, she realized that students needed more opportunities to engage in the practices of literary interpretation across a variety of texts, i.e., nine weeks and two short stories was insufficient for them to develop facility

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with interpretive processes. Jennifer also reported that students lacked interest and engagement with the theme and texts. Finally, she noticed that students rarely talked about the symbols and specific word choices of the author in relation to their ideas about themes and interpretations of the story.That is, there were many missed opportunities for delving into symbolic meaning and its function in exploring coming-​of-​age experiences.These three problems of practice were addressed in the Year 2 re-​design. The re-​design also provides evidence of Jennifer’s learning with respect to what students had been able to accomplish in the context of the Year 1 design. Providing More Opportunities for Practice. Although Jennifer commented on how much students had achieved during the nine-​week module, she also repeatedly pointed out that they needed more practice and more support in literary argumentation to engage more deeply in the disciplinary interpretive work. In Year 2, to provide more and repeated opportunities for students, she decided to scale her design to span the academic year, effectively “buying into” the READI approach across the entire school year. As she put it: Je nnife r : The thinking about the cultural data sets and the gateway activities and that kind of repeated practice, it’s really changed the way that I teach. And it works. I saw it work so much last year [during the 9-​week enactment]. I don’t think standalone is often enough for them. I think that this project requires that you buy into it all the way. So … yeah, I think a yearlong thing is really important. T-​R Meeting, 2/​6/​2014 This reflection makes clear the connection between changes in Jennifer’s knowledge of supports students needed to engage in literary interpretation and in her teaching practices based on the Year 1 module implementation and her participation in the design team. With her new understanding of how cultural modeling and gateway activities supported students’ thinking and literary reasoning, Jennifer also recognized that students needed multiple opportunities with different texts and rhetorical devices to internalize these processes. Extending the design allowed more time to build the knowledge, skills and practices students needed to analyze and interpret longer, more complex texts. In sharing her work with other teachers, she explained the importance of this preparatory work and of spending the time to do it well: Je nnife r : It took seven weeks to get them through both the interpretive practices they would need to use as well as through the kind of thinking they need to do to get to the book […] So it is really a lot of work beforehand but it really pays off for them on the back end. Teacher network meeting, 11/​19/​2013

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Scaling out the design enabled Jennifer to better prepare her students for the challenges posed by the literary works they would read, the benefits of which were visible to her in the classroom. Choice of Theme and Texts. A second critical decision for the Year 2 design concerned the central themes: Jennifer decided to focus on the themes gender and power instead of coming of age. This decision was based on her knowledge of her students’ needs, interests, and experiences. When asked about her choice, she expressed her belief that gender and power were relevant to her students’ worlds and lives and that literature would give them a means to explore them. Je nnife r :  They know the themes of friendship and that kind of thing, but then to scale that out to make literature a way that they look at and learn about the world […] I think giving them buy-​in, like this matters more than just this class, but it matters to your world and the way your world looks. In a way, that makes them think about some ways that the world might not work very well because I don’t think they often get to do that. T-​R Meeting, 2/​6/​2014 She chose the gender and power themes to give students opportunities to learn ways to see and understand the significant roles that gender and power play not only in literature, but also in their own lives and in the world around them. This aligns with one of the epistemic aims of literary reading and reasoning, namely, to explore and interrogate the complexities of human experiences through reading literary texts (Lee et al., 2016). Jennifer indicated that during the nine-​week enactment, she felt students lacked interest in the coming-​of-​age theme. Indeed, coming-​of-​ age texts are often recommended for middle school students who are dealing with puberty and related emotional and social changes. Jennifer’s 11th grade students, approximately 16–​17 years of age, were largely beyond the awkwardness of puberty and were dealing with more complex, adult-​like interpersonal relationships and dynamics. Jennifer’s decision to scale across the year and focus on gender and power led to her needing to choose literary texts that would fit both the theme and year-​ long time frame. To this end, she chose novels as the focal texts as compared to the short stories used in the nine-​week unit, but like the nine-​week unit the texts had common themes and were sequenced according to increasing complexity (see Figure 6.3). The books she chose dealt extensively with issues of gender and power in a variety of contexts: A Thousand Splendid Suns (Housseini, 2007), a historical fiction novel situated in Afghanistan; several nonfiction books set in the city where the school and her students resided; and The Handmaid’s Tale (Atwood, 1985), a dystopian novel situated in a patriarchal, totalitarian state. In explaining her choice of A Thousand Splendid Suns, she remarked on its usefulness in terms of problematizing gender and power themes:

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Gateway Activities and Cultural Modeling Images, song, and short texts to make interpretive processes explicit and develop criteria for gender and power

Reading Nonfiction Texts About Urban Life Reading texts in literature circles to examine how gender and power relate to experiences of race and class in urban life

Background Knowledge Images and articles to introduce issues of gender and power specific to the cultural and historical context of the novel

Background Knowledge and Gateway Activities Video excerpt and short stories to introduce dystopian genre and develop criteria for dystopian themes

Reading Novel: A Thousand Splendid Suns Main text to engage in literary reading and argumentation around the role of gender and power in the novel

Reading Novel: The Handmaid's Tale Main text to engage in literary reading and argumentation around gender and power and dystopian themes

FIGURE 6.3  Design

of the yearlong gender and power sequence of modules implemented by Jennifer in Year 2

Je nnife r :  It gives us this really negative depiction of physical power and power in service of war, but this really positive power of sacrifice. So, what is it that the author is then telling us about the way the world works, or should work by this privileging—​because we’re getting this negative, and then this positive? What is he saying?” T-​R meeting, 2/​6/​2014 She had realized the importance of problematizing the theme during the 9-​week enactment as she noticed much richer student discussion when the questions invited multiple, valid perspectives. In addition to the two novels, she chose books about urban life for a district-​required non-​fiction unit. These books, set in the immediate environment of the students, explored issues of power related to race and class that directly impacted her students. She believed these books and their proximity to students’ own experiences were important: “A lot of them [students] don’t have power and their families don’t have power. And giving them the chance to look at that critically, I think will be important” (T-​R meeting, 2/​6/​14). These books brought the issues of gender and power in the faraway realities of Afghanistan back to the realities of the students’ everyday worlds and served as a bridge to the imagined worlds of a dystopian future. The themes had a universality and relevance to the worlds and experiences of her students, and her text choices emphasized that universality as well as the complexities of gender and power in both real and imagined worlds. Exploring these themes through texts kept her students engaged in the kinds of discussion and debate that are essential goals of disciplinary inquiry in literature. Structure-​function relations in literary works. The third problem of practice Jennifer addressed in the Year 2 design was students’ struggle to connect the themes

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to the linguistic and structural (e.g., narrative structure, point of view) choices of the author. Literary interpretation requires attention to the language and structure of the text to understand the themes and larger messages that an author is trying to convey (Hillocks & Ludlow, 1984; Lee et al., 2016). Literary readers pay attention to certain aspects of text (e.g., titles, repetition, and contrasts) that provide cues to what the author is trying to convey about the human experience (Rabinowitz, 1987). For example, in the beginning of the short story “Marigolds,” the image of the beautiful, blooming marigolds against the stark landscape of dirty and dilapidated houses is a contrast—​it seems odd to find such color and beauty in an otherwise colorless and impoverished setting.This “oddness” or discrepancy with expectations signals to the reader that the marigolds may have some significance beyond their literal meaning. And indeed, they do: the narrator (main character) repeatedly focuses on the marigolds in thought and action, culminating in her destruction of the marigolds as she awakens to the realities of life around her (her “coming of age”). Attention to the author’s language and structural choices was built into the nine-​week module with its focus on symbolism; however, in its enactment, students struggled with the task of connecting these structural elements to the theme. Jennifer noted this in her written reflections: “We asked students to think through how the symbol of the marigolds informs our thinking about the main character’s coming of age. Students were entirely confused by this.” Recognizing that students needed more support in this, she built more opportunities to practice this into her yearlong design. Nearly all aspects of Jennifer’s Year 2 design and enactment had a combined focus on both structure and theme. This focus in text/​task combinations is clearly exemplified in the different ways she used ancillary texts to prepare students for interpreting more complex texts. In the nine-​week module, she used a song and two short texts (a vignette and a poem) to introduce structural aspects of the text (symbolism) but did not connect the interpretation of the symbols to the theme of coming of age. In the yearlong design and enactment, she used a song and the same two short texts to examine structural elements and then explore how those related to themes of gender and power. In her reflections, she described using these introductory texts in addition to images and a short story to focus on “how authors use symbols to convey ideas of power and agency (or lack thereof)” (Reflection Log, 9/​27/​2013). These changes in the introductory elements of the design supported students in making the connections between figurative language such as symbols and their interpretations in reading much longer texts with more complex plots and characterizations. For example, in reading one novel, the image of pebbles recurs in various contexts throughout the text. By pulling out passages where pebbles are mentioned and examining the role of the pebbles in what was happening with the characters, students were able to see how the author used this repeating image to reflect the changes in the agency and power in relationships among the characters. Jennifer’s reflections indicated that although students still struggled, they were able to engage in this structural analysis: “These specific choices about language are a struggle for students, but a few close readings of the same passage propelled

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students to really dig into the text” (Reflection Log, 12/​15/​2013). The whole-​class close reading and analysis of passages was not an instructional strategy she had used during the nine-​week module, but early success with it in Year 2 made it a staple feature of her instruction.

Summary The changes Jennifer made in the yearlong design and enactment indicate her deepening understanding of the relationship between structure and figurative meaning in texts and of the importance of supporting students in making those connections. She emphasized this in describing her design to other teachers: Je nnife r :  I really wanted them to use symbolism to get them to this large message, which was this idea of agency and power, and when is power given and taken away. So, I was really looking with them at how we use symbolism to tell us something about this power dynamic, especially this focus on gender and power. Teacher Network meeting, 11/​19/​2013 Built into her design were repeated opportunities for students to notice the author’s choices and the impact of those choices on how they were interpreting the text. Students’ struggles with these tasks in Year 1 pushed her to employ new instructional strategies and build more support for this disciplinary work into her design. The cycles of enacting and reflecting during and after the nine-​week module enabled her to understand the architecture and principles underlying the design, scale them out to a cohesive instructional design spanning the academic year, and learn where and how to better support students in the disciplinary work.

Discussion The two cases presented in this chapter exemplify similarities as well as differences in teacher learning that occurs through co-​design. In Project READI, teacher learning was situated in each teacher’s specific context, allowing for iterative cycles of reflection on practice, and embodied shared agency over the course of the work. Despite differences between the cases in the disciplinary content area and age of the students, participating in co-​design during the enactment of researcher-​designed modules enabled both teachers to gain insight into the kinds of supports students needed in order to meaningfully engage in the complexity of text-​based scientific inquiry and literary inquiry. One such support was simply providing multiple opportunities for students to engage in key disciplinary practices across a variety of scientific phenomena or literary works and experience feedback and guidance on their processes as well as on the products. Both teachers also came to understand that designing such opportunities for students to learn required thinking beyond the individual lesson and even the individual module to longer time scales and the

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anticipated trajectory of student learning. The change in scale was manifest differently in the two cases. In the science case, the “scale up” was from day-​to-​day re-​design of activities and task supports to designing and re-​designing activities and prompts that would provide opportunities for students to incrementally revise and deepen their understanding of the phenomenon under study, in line with the storyline model of curriculum development (see McNeill et al., 2022). In the literature case, the scale up was from a nine-​week module to a year-​long sequence of modules designed to develop students’ confidence and facility in wrestling with power and gender relations as central to the human condition and as expressed through plot structure, characterization, and patterns of figurative language in novel-​length literary works. Changes in the scale of design are one manifestation of deep and consequential changes in teacher’s conceptions of the epistemic commitments of their own disciplines and how that might translate into developmentally appropriate student inquiry along with expectations for what students should know and be able to do. In short, for each teacher, there were clear shifts in their knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes about their discipline, their students, and their agency in the classroom as well as in their role in the design process. These shifts were mediated by the short cycles of implementation, reflection, and revision that occurred in the Implementation space. Our analysis of the T-​R interactions during these meetings provides an illuminating lens on the dynamic learning processes through which the enacted curricula evolved. Discussion among teachers and researchers along with analyses of teachers’ reflections and redesign efforts in Year 2 indicate the various ways in which the Year 1 experiences informed the design and implementation efforts in Year 2. In proposing the IIMPG to capture interactive learning processes happening for participants in co-​design, we hope to have conveyed that there are multiple pathways possible within teacher–​researcher partnerships. Our two cases point to the important interplay between the disciplinary knowledge, views of students, and ways of supporting students’ learning that teachers and researchers bring to the co-​design work in shaping the possibilities for learning. In both cases, the T-​R interactions provided affordances to enhance conceptual resources, interpretations, and implications for teaching practices in the near term (e.g., the next lesson), as well as in the longer term (e.g., re-​design of instruction in the future) (Horn & Kane, 2015). For example, Kathy’s participation in Year 1 reflected a belief that there was a right way to implement the modules and sought that guidance from Monica. In the Year 2 Design space work, a more-​co-​equal status was realized as the pair sought to design inquiry modules for new curricular topics. In the literature case there was greater co-​equal exploration of the implementation process from the outset; moving into Year 2, the teacher rather than the researchers took the lead on initiating the redesign work. The instrumental role each teacher adopted in Year 2 is consistent with prior research findings regarding teacher agency in collaborative design contexts (e.g., Severance et al., 2016; Voogt et al., 2016). In both cases, we argue that change was happening in underlying pedagogical principles,

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a necessary step for sustaining and further deepening instructional improvement, learning processes, and outcomes (e.g., Coburn, 2003). We want to distinguish between the designed modules used in the Project READI work and educative curricula (e.g., Davis & Krajcik, 2005). In the READI work, the initial researcher-​designed modules were regarded as first approximations to what might be needed to engage students in disciplinary argumentation. This was emphasized in design team meetings, teacher network meetings, and in the teacher–​researcher dyads. On more than one occasion, we discussed the need to try them out to make them better because we knew they were going to need to be changed as we learned from using them what students needed and what kinds of supports could meet those needs. It should come as no surprise therefore that the learning processes of co-​design took many variations and looked different for individual teachers and from classroom to classroom within the same teacher. Thus, just as Clarke and Hollingworth’s (2002) model highlighted the need to regard teacher learning as highly individualized, our adaptation of that model to the case of co-​design allowed us to elucidate multiple trajectories of teacher learning and account for variations in what co-​design looked like across dyads and disciplines. Our findings underscore how scholarship in the learning sciences illuminates the need for a fundamental reorientation toward both describing and supporting teacher learning. A “one size fits all” model of teacher learning simply cannot prepare teachers to support disciplinary learning in the complex and dynamic environments of classrooms and schools.The re-​orientation we call for here is consistent with the argument made by Philip et al. (2019) regarding preservice teacher education. They argue that instructing teacher candidates in the practices of teaching, regardless of students, their lived experiences, and the local context, does not prepare teachers to respond flexibly and adaptively to the dynamic situations they confront on a moment-​to-​moment basis in their classrooms. Focusing on a set of “core practices” actually gets in the way of developing the adaptive expertise (Hatano & Inagaki, 1986) that teachers need. Attention to complexity is what will hone teachers’ development of the “principled improvisation” (Philip, 2019) that is required for the craft of teaching. More studies that focus on how teachers develop such forms of improvisation are sorely needed (e.g., Walkoe & Luna, 2020). Finally, while the two illustrative cases presented in this chapter foreground nuances in trajectories of teacher learning, they also suggest underlying principles for guiding teacher–​researcher collaborations that aim to promote teacher learning. Teachers need to learn to listen to what students are saying, interpret it in terms of the sensemaking work that students are doing, and make decisions about the interactional and discourse practices to employ based on underlying principles about how to move that sensemaking forward. Teachers need to develop knowledge of disciplinary trajectories for the content and practices students are learning. Our cases highlight, however, that the nature of the discipline, the personal domains of the teacher and the researchers, the students and features of the local context all shape how this learning unfolds. In short, learning sciences perspectives that emphasize

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the highly contextualized and situative nature of learning (e.g., Greeno et al., 1998) are crucial to understanding the what, how, and why of teacher learning.

Acknowledgments All authors contributed equally to this chapter and are listed in alphabetical order. We thank Angela Fortune for her contributions to the data analyses reported in this chapter. We express our deep appreciation to our colleagues on Project READI and on the Teachers Orchestrating Disciplinary Discourse project who contributed valuable insights and perspectives on the work reported in this chapter. The preparation of this chapter was supported, in part, by a James S. McDonnell Foundation Teachers as Learners Award Grant #: 220020517. Project READI was supported by the Reading for Understanding initiative of the Institute for Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education through Grant R305F100007 to the University of Illinois at Chicago from July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2016. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the funding agencies.

References Barab, S., & Squire, K. (2004). Design-​ based research: Putting a stake in the ground. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 13(1), 1–​14. Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2012). Thematic analysis. In H. Cooper, P. M. Camic, D. L. Long, A. T. Panter, D. Rindskopf, & K. J. Sher (Eds.), Research designs: Quantitative, Qualitative, Neuropsychological, and Biological. Vol. 2. APA Handbook of Research Methods in Psychology (pp. 57–​71). American Psychological Association. Bryk, A. S., Gomez, L. M., Grunow, A., & LeMahieu, P. G. (2015). Learning to Improve: How America’s Schools Can Get Better at Getting Better. Harvard Education Press. Clarke, D., & Hollingsworth, H. (2002). Elaborating a model of teacher professional growth. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18(8), 947–​967. https://​doi.org/​10.1016/​ S0742-​051X(02)00053-​7 Coburn, C. E. (2003). Rethinking scale: Moving beyond numbers to deep and lasting change. Educational Researcher, 32(6), 3–​12. Davis, E. A., & Krajcik, J. S. (2005). Designing educative curriculum materials to promote teacher learning. Educational Researcher, 34(3), 3–​14. Design-​Based Research Collective. (2003). Design-​based research: An emerging paradigm for educational inquiry. Educational Researcher, 32(1), 5–​8. Engeström,Y. (2015). Learning by Expanding. Cambridge University Press. Fishman, B., Penuel, W., Allen, A. R., Cheng, B., & Sabelli, N. (2013). Design-​based implementation research: An emerging model for transforming the relationship of research and practice. Teachers College Record, 115(14), 136–​156. Goldman, S. R., Britt, M. A., Brown, W., Cribb, G., George, M., Greenleaf, C., Lee, C. D., Shanahan, C., & READI (2016). Disciplinary literacies and learning to read for understanding: A conceptual framework for disciplinary literacy. Educational Psychologist, 51(2), 219–​246. https://​doi.org/​10.1080/​00461​520.2016.1168​741 Gomez, K., Kyza, E. A., & Mancevice, N. (2018). Participatory design and the learning sciences. In F. Fischer, C. Hmelo-​Silver, S. R. Goldman, & P. Reimann (Eds.), International Handbook of the Learning Sciences (pp. 401–​409). Routledge.

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Greeno, J. G., & Middle School Mathematics through Applications Project Group. (1998). The situativity of knowing, learning, and research. American Psychologist, 53(1), 5–​26. https://​doi.org/​10.1037/​0003-​066X.53.1.5 Hatano, G., & Inagaki, K. (1986). Two courses of expertise. In H. Stevenson, K. Azama, & K. Hakuta (Eds.), Child Development and Education in Japan (pp. 262–​272). Freeman. Hillocks, G., & Ludlow, L. H. (1984). A taxonomy of skills in reading and interpreting fiction. American Educational Research Journal, 21, 7–​24. Horn, I. S., & Kane, B. D. (2015). Opportunities for professional learning in mathematics teacher workgroup conversations: Relationships to instructional expertise. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 24(3), 373–​418. Horn, I. S., & Little, J. W. (2010). Attending to problems of practice: Routines and resources for professional learning in teachers’ workplace interactions. American Educational Research Journal, 47(1), 181–​217. https://​doi.org/​10.3102/​00028​3120​9345​158. Ko, M. L., Hall, A. H., & Goldman, S. R. (2020). Making Teacher and Researcher Learning Visible: Collaborative Design as a Context for Professional Growth. Cognition and Instruction, 40(1), 27-​54, DOI: 10.1080/​07370008.2021.2010212 Kolodner, J. L., Camp, P. J., Crismond, D., Fasse, B., Gray, J., Holbrook, J., … & Ryan, M. (2003). Problem-​based learning meets case-​based reasoning in the middle-​school science classroom: Putting learning by design into practice. Journal of the learning Sciences, 12, 495–​ 547. https://​doi.org/​10.1207/​S15​3278​09JL​S120​4_​2 Krajcik, J. S., Reiser, B. J., Sutherland, L. M. & Fortus, D. (2011) IQWST: Investigating and Questioning Our World through Science and Technology. Sangari Active Science. Langer, J. A. (2011). Envisioning Literature: Literary Understanding and Literature Instruction. Teachers College Press. Lee, C. D. (2007). Culture, Literacy, and Learning. Teachers’ College Press. Lee, C. D., Goldman, S. R., Levine, S., & Magliano, J. (2016). Epistemic cognition in literary reasoning. In J. Green, W. Sandoval, & I. Bråten (Eds.), Handbook of Epistemic Cognition, 165–​183. Routledge. Lee, C. D., & Spratley, A. (2010). Reading in the Disciplines:The Challenges of Adolescent Literacy. Carnegie Corporation of New York. Levine, S., Hall, A. H., Goldman, S. R., & Lee, C. D. (2018). A design architecture for engaging middle and high school students in epistemic practices of literary interpretation. In M. Nachowitz & K. C.Wilcox (Eds.), High Literacy in Secondary English Language Arts: Bridging the Gap to College and Career (pp. 105–​132). Lexington Books. Penuel, W. R., Roschelle, J., & Shechtman, N. (2007). Designing formative assessment software with teachers: An analysis of the co-​design process. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning, 2(1), 51–​74. Philip,T. (2019). Principled improvisation to support novice teacher learning. Teachers College Record, 121(6), 1–​32. Philip, T., Soute-​Manning, M., Anderson, L., Horn, I., Andrews, D. J. C. et al. (2019). Making justice peripheral by constructing practice as “Core”: How the increasing prominence of Core Practices challenges teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 70(3), 251–​264. https://​doi.org/​10.1177/​002​2487​1187​983 Rabinowitz, P. J. (1987). Before Reading: Narrative Conventions and the Politics of Interpretation. Cornell University Press. Roschelle, J., Kaput, J. J., & Stroup, W. (2016). SimCalc: Accelerating students’ engagement with the mathematics of change. In M. Jacobson & R. B. Kozma (Eds.), Innovations in Science and Mathematics Education (pp. 60–​88). Routledge.

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Severance, S., Penuel, W. R., Sumner, T., & Leary, H. (2016). Organizing for teacher agency in curricular co-​design. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 25(4), 531–​564. https://​doi.org/​ 10.1080/​10508​406.2016.1207​541 Smagorinsky, P., McCann,T., & Kern, S. (1987). Explorations: Introductory Activities for Literature and Composition. National Council of Teachers of English. Smith, M. W., & Hillocks, G. (1988). Sensible sequencing: Developing knowledge about literature text by text. The English Journal, 77(6), 44–​49. Walkoe, J. D., & Luna, M. J. (2020). What we are missing in studies of teacher learning: A call for microgenetic, interactional analyses to examine teacher learning processes. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 29(2), 285–​307. Wineburg, S. S., Martin, D., & Monte-​Sano, C. (2012). Reading Like a Historian: Teaching Literacy in Middle and High School History Classrooms. Teachers College Press.

7 TEACHER–​RESEARCHER COLLABORATIVE INQUIRY IN MATHEMATICS TEACHING PRACTICES Learning to Promote Student Discourse Kathleen Pitvorec, Alison Castro Superfine, Susan R. Goldman, and Christopher Fry

Teacher–​researcher Collaborative Inquiry in Mathematics Teaching Practices: Learning to Promote Student Discourse As supported by national standards in the U.S. and by years of research, a mathematics classroom should foster the development of ways of communicating and thinking about mathematics as well as supporting students in their development of understandings of mathematical concepts (e.g., Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2010; Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences, 2012; Hiebert et al., 1997; Kilpatrick et al., 2001; NCTM, 2000; Sfard & Kieran, 2001; Smith & Stein, 2011).To establish classrooms with these characteristics, teachers need a range of skills and practices for teaching mathematics that they may not be familiar with and for which they may not have a pre-​existing model (Ball et al., 2001). Teachers’ development of these skills and practices may be further complicated because “by the time they begin professional education, teachers have already clocked more than 2,000 hours in a specialized “apprenticeship of observation” (Lortie, 1975, p. 61), which not only has instilled traditional images of teaching and learning, but also has shaped their understanding of mathematics (Ball, 1988)” (Ball et al., 2001, p. 437). Previous studies have provided images of what mathematics classrooms might look like when students engage in productive student-​to-​student mathematical discourse or have reported on the types of instructional moves that might support the facilitation of such discourse (Cobb & Bauersfeld, 1995; Cobb et al., 1997; Cobb et al., 2001; Hufferd-​Ackles et al., 2004). Few studies, however, have empirically investigated teacher learning related to the facilitation of student-​to-​student

DOI: 10.4324/9781003097112-10

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talk about students’ own mathematical ideas or accompanying shifts in teachers’ conceptions of key constructs that underly their teaching practices, constructs such as their view of math as a discipline, teacher-​student roles, or student capacity to take agency over their learning. This chapter describes a case study that explores one teacher’s learning as she improved her capacity to foster productive student-​to-​ student discourse and how her learning corresponded to shifts in her conceptions of key constructs related to mathematics teaching and learning.

Background The case study presented in this chapter was situated in the multi-​year National Science Foundation funded project Improving Formative Assessment to Support Teaching (iFAST) in Algebra. iFAST focused on enhancing middle grades mathematics teachers’ formative assessment practices in the context of algebra lessons. The project had two main objectives: (1) to support teachers in developing an understanding of a curriculum-​based learning trajectory for middle grades algebra; and (2) to leverage knowledge of that trajectory to support teachers in expanding their formative assessment practices. The project involved sixth through eighth grade teachers who used the Connected Math Project (CMP) curriculum (Lappan et al., 2014), a reform-​oriented curriculum in the U.S. that regularly engages students in what Stein et al. (2000) calls, “doing mathematics” and investigating “procedures with connections.” During the six years of the iFAST project, participating teachers engaged in a variety of professional learning (PL) activities designed to meet the project objectives. (For more information about these activities, see Superfine et al. (2020).) During Year 3 of the iFAST project, three sixth grade teachers were recruited to participate in a more intensive study focused specifically on developing an understanding of teacher learning with relation to the project goals—​that is, what teachers learn in terms of improving formative assessment practices, and how their learning may influence their instructional practices, and by extension, influence what happens in their classrooms with students. Following Wiliam’s (2011) definition of formative assessment processes as any process where “evidence about student achievement is elicited, interpreted, and used by teachers, learners, or their peers [emphasis added] to make [more informed] decisions about the next steps in instruction” (p. 43), we prioritized engaging students as integral to our efforts towards improving formative assessment processes. Teachers concentrated specifically on activating students as resources for each other (Wiliam & Leahy, 2015), thus supporting students in becoming owners of their own learning, and ultimately, fostering student agency and making student ideas objects for collective reflection (Cobb et al., 1997) and knowledge building.The case study featured in this chapter describes one teacher’s learning situated in this intensive work of increasing opportunities for students to take up agency and engage in knowledge building.

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Theoretical Framework Interactions as a Site for Learning Consistent with sociocultural theory we view learning processes as located in interactions in the social world (Cobb, 1994; Cobb et al., 1997; Confrey, 1991; Sfard, 1998) and that interaction is a primary mediating factor for development (Vygotsky, 1978; Wertsch & Stone, 1985). Understanding develops and moves forward through interactions, the core of which are dialogue and communication (Bakhtin, 1981). Accordingly, we center the development of instructional practices on students as resources for each other as they take ownership of their learning. Furthermore, our aim to enhance teacher capacity to facilitate student-​to-​student engagement derives from our perception of students’ understandings as relevant within and products of the community and culture in which students interact and participate, and our perception of students building knowledge that is appurtenant to that community (e.g., Rogoff, 1990;Vygotsky, 1978; Wenger, 1998). As student-​ to-​student discourse around students’ own ideas emerges in the classroom community, students increasingly act as agents who direct their own intellectual work and build disciplinary knowledge together in the classroom community (Damşa et al., 2010). In addition to influencing our instructional goals for teachers, sociocultural theory underlies collaborative reflection as the foundation for the design of our teacher PL experiences. To explore how teachers establish classroom communities that privilege student-​to-​student interactions around students’ own mathematical ideas, and how teachers come to see such interactions as a primary vehicle for student learning, iFAST researchers engaged teachers in reflection on, and discussion of, their instructional practices and the ways in which their practices influenced student interactions. Researchers also collaborated with teachers as thought partners when teachers reflected on their lesson implementations. The learning processes realized in these teacher–​ researcher interactions included explorations of teachers’ conceptions of roles that students and teachers play during lessons, the ways in which students increasingly take up agency in whole-​ class discussions, and the nature of teaching and learning in the discipline of mathematics.

Reflection as a Tool for Learning The process of reflection has long been identified as productive for professional learning. Dewey (1933/​1960) defined reflective thought as “active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends” (p. 9). Reflection can be considered as a meaning-​making process involving analyzing practices and their outcomes. Researchers have demonstrated how reflection might be an essential tool for enhancing teachers’ understanding. For example, several studies illustrate a productive use of reflection in various professional development

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settings (e.g., García et al., 2007; Zaslavsky & Leikin, 2004). Aligned with Dewey (1933/​1960). We see a teacher’s reflections as potentially action-​oriented. As Dewey described it, “[D]‌emand for the solution of a perplexity is the steadying and guiding factor in the entire process of reflection (p. 14).” We characterize the “perplexity” that Dewey refers to as a problem of practice. We posit that reflecting on one’s own teaching and problems of practice is integral to the learning process and to participating with others in joint reflection on instructional practices and teaching generally.

Cycles of Inquiry as a Process for Learning During iFAST, teacher–​ researcher dyads collaboratively developed an inquiry-​ cycle process for reflecting on instructional practices and the related outcomes of lesson implementations. This co-​constructed process stands proximal to practice in that the researcher and teacher collaboratively engage in “authentic tasks” (Stein et al., 2021), such as planning for student discussion. The iFAST inquiry-​cycle process is consistent with change efforts that draw on principles of improvement science (Bryk et al., 2015), Design-​based Implementation Research (Penuel et al., 2011), and research-​practice partnerships (Coburn & Penuel, 2016). Aligned with this research, the inquiry-​cycle process situates learning in teachers’ experiences of planning, implementing and then reflecting on lessons. During these cycles, teacher–​ researcher dyads collaboratively analyzed the impact of implementing identified instructional practices on enhancing opportunities for student agency and knowledge building. The case study that is the focus of this chapter examines teacher learning in the context of the inquiry-​cycle process of one iFAST teacher–​ researcher dyad over two years.

Methods Participants The teacher participant in this case study, Crystal (a pseudonym), was one of three sixth grade teachers who agreed to participate in the more intensive iFAST investigation of teacher learning. Crystal taught all subjects in her sixth-​g rade self-​ contained classroom in a small, high-​needs school district just outside of a large Midwestern city in the U.S. Her class size varied from 18 to 26 students over the two years of the study. Each year, she had several students with Individual Education Plans (IEPs), and several English Language Learners. During the project, she also had a hearing-​impaired student each year. She had been teaching for 15 years and using the CMP math curriculum for over three years when the study began. Both the district and her principal identified Crystal as a teacher leader, although she had no formal teacher-​leader role in the district. She reported that both her principal and her colleagues sought her out for advice on teaching mathematics and on advocating for high-​quality math teaching and learning.

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The researcher involved in this dyad is the first author of this chapter and has a long career in mathematics education as a teacher, math coach, curriculum developer, and now as a researcher studying how teachers learn to improve math teaching and learning.

Context of the Case Study As part of the larger project, opportunities to collaboratively reflect on teaching and learning occurred in three contexts: Teachers reflected together during summer workshops; Crystal and the researcher, in a dyad, engaged in an inquiry-​ cycle process where they reflected together on observed lessons through the lens of problems of practice; and the dyad reflected on lesson implementations through video-​stimulated recall (Geiger et al., 2016). This case study primarily focuses on data derived from the inquiry-​cycle process in which the teacher–​researcher dyad participated.

Context of Teacher Learning: The Inquiry-​Cycle Process Teacher learning emerged from an inquiry-​cycle process involving a teacher and a researcher. Each inquiry cycle focused on a single problem of practice. The dyad analyzed and addressed the problem through one or more iterations of lesson observations and related pre-​observation and post-​observation discussions. The process concluded with the dyad reflecting on and summarizing how the problem was resolved (see Figure 7.1). The following illustrates the inquiry-​cycle process for one problem of practice that guided the dyad’s work during late winter of the second year of the project.

Describing a problem of practice

Inquiry cycle Summarizing and reflecting

FIGURE 7.1  Co-​constructed

inquiry cycle

Analyzing the problem

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Describing a problem of practice. The dyad identified the problem of practice as how to get students talking to each other—​asking each other questions and commenting on their different strategies—​during the wrap-​up of the lesson. Analyzing the problem. Through several iterations of lesson observations and dyad discussions, the dyad made instructional decisions and analyzed the results of those decisions in terms of impact on resolving the problem of practice. Iterations included an observed lesson and pre-​and post-​observation discussions by the teacher–​researcher dyad. Below is an example: Iteration 1: Decision—​Present four student work samples in sequence and ask students to identify which ones are correct. Results—​There was little discussion as students agreed the first three were incorrect and the last sample was correct. Analysis—​Crystal noted that she often sequenced student work samples such that the correct or most efficient (and therefore desirable) answer was the last sample. Iteration 2: Decision—​ Present four student work samples simultaneously and ask students to evaluate the work. Results—​Students discussed the work, responding to each other, asking questions, and contributing new ideas. Analysis—​In addition to simultaneously displaying the four samples, the researcher noted that Crystal prompted students to talk with a partner and “figure out how your classmates might have calculated their number,” which was an unanticipated shift in her prompt. Summarizing and reflecting. During their discussions, the dyad unpacked why the instructional decisions during the second lesson might have provided richer opportunities for student-​to-​student discourse. Crystal suggested that the simultaneous display of different samples (no implied order) might have made the difference. The researcher highlighted the revised prompt for students (“Figure out how your classmates might have calculated their number”) instead of “identify which are correct” as possibly being a contributing factor.

Data Analysis The overarching question of interest in this chapter concerns Crystal’s learning through the inquiry-​cycle process as it related to enhancing opportunities for student-​to-​student talk and increased student agency and knowledge building. Data sources for the analyses were videos of 25 observed lessons (12 in Year 1, 13 in Year 2) and pre-​and post-​observation discussions associated with each observed

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lesson; and the researcher’s field notes and analytic memos from the observations and related discussions.

Data Analytic Methods Analyses proceeded through several phases. In the first phase, we generated lesson synopses for the 25 iterations of lesson observations. These synopses indicated noticeable shifts in instructional practices and in opportunities for student-​to-​ student talk. To better understand how the related classroom discourse shifted, a second phase of analysis focused on analyzing teacher and student discourse in a sample of lessons.The third phase of analysis examined the learning processes made visible during the teacher–​researcher inquiry-​cycle discussions. Finally, we explored temporal relationships between Crystal’s learning and notable shifts in student-​to-​ student talk. Phase 1: Generating lesson synopses. We analyzed fieldnotes to identify events in lessons that seemed potentially connected to promoting student discourse. Using a grounded theory approach (Strauss & Corbin, 1990), we identified six broad categories of events potentially related to generating opportunities for student-​to-​ student talk. • Stude nt Talk: Teacher prompts or invites students to talk, share, or justify their thinking in student-​to-​student discourse. • Confusion:  Students seemed confused about the directions or expectations to engage in student-​to-​student talk. • Funne ling:  Teacher prompts or coaches students in ways that take over the intellectual work for them so they get correct answers. • Norm Setting: Teacher and/​or students discuss the expectations for how students will engage with each and/​or support each other during small group work and class discussions. • Stude nt Focus: Teacher provides opportunities for making student thinking visible. • V ocabulary:  Teacher supports the development of mathematical vocabulary. For each lesson, we created a synopsis of the events in the form of an analytic memo.The memos were also informed by the pre-​observation and post-​observation teacher—​researcher dyad discussions. Table 7.1 provides a sample synopsis from the first year. The lesson synopses allowed us to identify shifts in classroom discourse over time. To deepen our understanding of how these shifts manifest in talk moves during whole-​class discussions, we used the lesson synopses to select a subset of lesson observations for our Phase 2 analysis of teacher and student talk moves.

Teacher–Researcher Collaborative Inquiry  143 TABLE 7.1  Lesson synopsis from Fall of Year 1

T prompts Ss to discuss and compare. T does the intellectual work (in small groups). [Funneling] In whole-​class summary, S1 comes up to explain. There is an error. T corrects the error. [Funneling] Analytic Memo: Could Ss have identified the error? In discussion,T reported calling S1 up so that T could evaluate what S1 knows. How can Ss be activated as resources here? Analytic Memo:When T walks up to small groups, focus is totally on T. Ss respond only to T questions and prompts at that point. How can Ss be activated to ask and answer questions?

TABLE 7.2  Codes for teacher turns of talk

Code

Function of Turn

Teacher and Student Roles

T1 T2 T3 T4 T5

Set intellectual agenda Invite brief S response Make space for S ideas Engage with S ideas Facilitate S-​to-​S discourse around disciplinary reasoning Deepen S-​to-​S discourse around S disciplinary ideas

T talks. Ss listen. Ss irrelevant in interaction. T expects S response, and T evaluates response. T expects S sharing ideas—​but not to evaluate. T expects Ss to engage with a S idea. T invites Ss to engage with each other.

T6

T joins S-​to-​S conversation to deepen their disciplinary engagement.

Phase 2. Analysis of teacher and student talk moves. We developed a coding system for teacher and student talk moves during whole-​class discussions with the goal of characterizing the function of the talk with respect to mathematical knowledge building. In the present context, we briefly summarize the essence of this coding system. (See Pitvorec and Fry (2019) for description of the evolution of this coding system.) Tables 7.2 and 7.3 enumerate six codes for teacher and six for student turns of talk. The “Function of Turn” describes the intellectual work that the teacher (Table 7.2) or student (Table 7.3) is doing with respect to the construction of mathematical knowledge. Teacher codes can generally be described as moving from teachers doing the majority of the intellectual heavy lifting (T1–​T2) to teachers making space for students to share their own mathematical ideas (T3–​T4), and finally to teachers facilitating student-​to-​student discourse where student thinking is central to the mathematical activity (T5–​T6). Student codes generally move from students answering teacher questions (S1–​ S2), to students listening to each other’s mathematical ideas (S3–​ S4), and finally to students thinking and problem solving together to build mathematical understanding (S5–​S6). We applied the coding scheme shown in Tables 7.2 and 7.3 to six of Crystal’s whole-​class, end-​of-​lesson summary discussions: one from the fall of Year 1, one

144  Pitvorec, Superfine, Goldman, & Fry TABLE 7.3  Codes for student turns of talk

Code

Function of Turn

Teacher and Student Roles

S1

Respond with answer for evaluation Respond to open-​ended question for evaluation Move own disciplinary idea into interactional space Juxtapose own disciplinary idea to other S ideas in interactional space Connect to other Ss’ disciplinary ideas Contribute to, extend, synthesize other Ss’ disciplinary ideas

S responds with answer for T to evaluate.

S2 S3 S4

S5 S6

S responds with explanation for T to evaluate. S responds to T but recognizes Ss as potential audience as well. S-​to-​S interaction is mediated and/​or facilitated by T. Ss explore each other’s ideas. (T may be facilitating S-​to-​S interactions.) Ss build knowledge together. (T contributes minimally, only to deepen S-​to-​S disciplinary explorations.)

from the spring of Year 1, and four distributed throughout Year 2. We coded lessons using MAXQDA software. Phase 3. Analysis of Crystal’s learning. To characterize what Crystal was learning over the course of the inquiry-​cycle iterations, we engaged in repeated readings of the lesson synopses, including the analytic memos, across the iterations that occurred within each problem of practice. For example, the lesson described in the synopsis in Table 7.1 occurred when the dyad was focused on the problem of activating students as resources for each other. In discussions, the dyad recognized that although the instructional decision for the lesson in Table 7.1 was to have students work together, Crystal had circulated and guided students to the correct answer. This combination of the lesson synopses, the focus problem, and the analysis of instructional decisions suggested that early in the project, Crystal viewed the teacher’s role as knowing the correct answer and supporting students in getting to that answer. Through the analytic process of repeatedly connecting readings of the synopses to the problems of practice and instructional decisions, the analyses converged on three constructs that appeared to reflect where Crystal’s learning was situated: (1) What it means to learn the discipline of mathematics; (2) The expectations for teacher and student roles in the classroom; and (3) Students’ capacity for taking up agency and ownership of their learning and for knowledge building. How her perception of these constructs changed over the course of the two years of work is described in the Findings. Phase 4. Correlating Crystal’s learning to student talk. We aimed to deepen our understanding of how Crystal’s learning with respect to the three constructs correlated to classroom discourse patterns of teacher moves and student moves. We

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connected the problems of practice and instructional decisions emerging from the dyad discussions embedded in the inquiry-​cycle process to the discourse patterns coded in contemporaneous lesson observations. In the Findings, we elaborate on the relationships we identified through this analysis and on how those relationships informed our understanding of Crystal’s learning.

Findings The findings trace the evolution of Crystal’s thinking about three key constructs as inferred from the observations and associated teacher–​researcher dyad discussions during three time periods: fall of Year 1, fall of Year 2, and winter of Year 2. For each time period, we describe the problem of practice that was the focus of the inquiry cycle, what the dyad discussions indicate about Crystal’s thinking about each of the three constructs, and the classroom discourse patterns at that point in time.

Fall of Year 1: Text-​and Teacher-​Centered Lesson Our analysis of dyad conversations around problems of practice and instructional decisions early in the inquiry cycle during fall of Year 1 as well as of discourse patterns in coded whole-​class discussions indicated that Crystal’s view of the goal of mathematics instruction was to “get everyone to the correct answers and to understanding the I Can statements.” She indicated getting to the answers could be challenging: “I hate having it at the end of the day too because I rush the summary just to get it in, and so, I do think some of that authentic math talk doesn’t necessarily happen because like I’ve got to get it done.” In discussing ways of expanding beyond identifying correct answers to deepening understanding around the answers, the teacher–​researcher dyad decided to begin with a focus on the problem of practice defined broadly as getting students to comment on or ask questions of presenting students. The following is an example of one of the initial dyad conversations focused on this problem of practice. The conversation followed a lesson in which students explored proportional reasoning. The lesson began with Crystal reading the introductory text from the book and explaining the questions that students would work on independently. As students worked, she circulated among the table groups asking guiding or known-​answer questions to support them and validate their work. To summarize the lesson, Crystal had students present their strategies and answers in the context of a whole-​class discussion. After the lesson, the dyad compared their perspectives on the whole-​class discussion, focusing first on student participation. R: So, As I was watching the debrief … some of them had, had such good discussions during the lesson, and as I was watching the debrief, somebody would get up and report and then look at you and wait for you to do something. T:  Oh, did they?

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R :  Up here, right? [indicating the front of the room on the video] He [S1] does his thing and then he stands there and looks at you and waits for you to do what’s next. Then you’re like, “Give the microphone to somebody.1” So he does that. Then after that person gets it, they don’t talk to him, they talk to you. T:  I did notice a lot of them talking to me. But I did feel like, and maybe you can say this, because when I’m in the moment, I don’t really know, but I felt like I wasn’t really giving them an answer. R:  I would agree with that. So there’s two things I’m thinking about. One is… T:  OK. Was my facial expressions [gestures with open hand for neutral face]? because I was trying to stay [gestures for neutral face]. R:  No, I think, that was great. T:  That’s why I try to even sit down and just to be like, “I’m sitting down; this is all you guys.” Just to stay out of it. R:  So I’m gonna to ask you to watch that video to see if you still feel you like you really stayed out of it as much as you think. T:  [Laughs] Probably didn’t. The dyad conversation concluded with a tentative instructional decision for the next day’s lesson. Crystal planned to have students share their work during the lesson summary and to structure the discussion so that students would do the talking. T:  I plan to, like because I really, I mean, I guess for the one, we did kind of agree that it was six, but I don’t think that everyone knows that. S2 had asked me, so which one is it. So, I’m thinking, maybe we could talk about it again tomorrow. If you think… R:  So, my challenge to you is, can you restructure the way the discussion goes so that they’re talking to each other and that you don’t actually have to… T:  Facilitate it. R:  Facilitate it. Maybe there’s points where you have to do something like keep it moving or redirect, but that, but that you don’t take the mic and ask the questions. Maybe. So that, for sure, would be my challenge to you. The instructional decision resulting from the foregoing teacher–​ researcher exchange was one of several made in the context of this problem of practice. Other instructional decisions made in the context of this same problem included Crystal’s decision to avoid being in the front of the room when students presented; to engage students by asking them to show a hand signal for agree or disagree; and to explicitly invite students to comment on someone else’s presentation. The discourse patterns of teacher and student turns of talk that emerged from the analysis of a lesson from the early fall of Year 1 are consistent with Crystal wrestling with implementing the instructional decisions that the dyad generated in their discussions. Figure 7.2 shows the coded teacher and the student turns of

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FIGURE 7.2  Coded

teacher turns (T) and student turns (S) for the whole class discussion during a lesson summary from fall of Year 1. Time in minutes is relative to that segment of video and not to the lesson as a whole. Each column represents one minute. Refer to Tables 7.2 and 7.3 for descriptions of codes

talk for a lesson during the early fall. The most prevalent teacher codes were T1 and T2 indicating that the teacher was doing the majority of the intellectual heavy lifting by asking known-​answer questions and summarizing important ideas (see Table 7.2). The dominant student codes were S1 and S2 indicating that students primarily answered the teacher’s known-​answer questions (see Table 7.3). Even when Crystal asked students to share their own ideas (see Minutes 5 and 6 for T3 code), students generally responded by recounting procedural steps or otherwise expected answers (S2). The analysis of the dyad discussions and the discourse patterns of teacher and student turns of talk suggest that at this time in the process Crystal viewed (1) important mathematical knowledge as that defined by the textbook; (2) her role as one of delivering to the students the ideas presented in the textbook; and (3) students as recipients of the knowledge being delivered.

Fall of Year 2: Student Agency Emerging The problem of practice that dominated inquiry in the fall of Year 2 showed a shift in Crystal’s instructional focus to activating students as resources for each other when solving math problems. The shift in instructional focus was reflected in dyad conversations. Crystal’s comments indicated that one goal of mathematics instruction was to “get students to solve the problems without my help.” She also reported that she was stepping out of small groups “so they can use different strategies, not just my strategy.” When asked how she decided when she needed to support students working in small groups, she responded: “If it’s something that I know that the classmates might have a hard time explaining or getting them [peers] there without just giving them the answer, then I might try to coach them through it.” The following is an example of one dyad conversation focused on this problem. The lesson began with Crystal reading the introductory text and inviting students to turn and talk to partners about the questions in the text. She read through the problems and reminded them they could work in groups. As groupwork started, Crystal questioned some individuals and sometimes prompted students to question and explain to each other.To summarize the lesson, Crystal invited students to present

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their answers and share their strategies in the context of a whole-​class discussion. After the lesson, the dyad first explored what Crystal was doing during group work. R:  So, what kinds of interactions did you have in small groups? T:  I honestly really didn’t say much. I, I was observing them. Again, I was just trying to observe to take my notes to see who I wanted to call up. R:  And what were you looking at to decide that? T:  I was looking to see the different strategies so that I could capture one of each. And a lot of people, like I did call up S1 and S2 because they both did estimate, but they estimated in a different way. Um. and then I saw S3 do it that way, and then I knew. S4 was the only one who did it by finding the exact cost. The only one in the whole class. The dyad conversation then turned to thinking about ways to more actively engage students with each other’s comments and ideas during the whole-​class discussion. The specific context was when a student shared a flawed strategy and the student recognized that he was stuck. R: And at that point you asked him to ask the class a question about where he was so you did some really nice modeling of how to engage around the problem. T: Yes. Right. Instead of me asking the questions. R: Yeah.Yeah, you did a lot of, in that little bit, where, “Can you re-​explain what someone said,” and they’re all going, “no, no.” And then you set the norms again. You’re like, “Okay you guys, your job is to listen to each other” and they’re like, “Right.” and then they got better. T: Yes. R:  So that when you asked them next time, they were able to repeat. T:  So, I said, either if you don’t get it, then you have to ask another person.You have to have something to say. So, if you don’t understand, then you should have a question. The dyad then discussed the end of the lesson. R:  And until the end, you did really well at not like doing the work for them. T: [laughs] R: Then at the end, it’s like, time’s running out and so I’m just going to summarize. So this is what I think you said. At one point you said, “So, okay S1, would you explain again,” but you held the mic. T:  [laughing] Yes. I noticed that, I noticed that because one student said, “We didn’t hear her.” I totally caught myself. But then I thought, I wasn’t making a poster, and I was like, oh, I have to make a poster. R:  But it was really good you weren’t making a poster, because then they don’t pay attention to anything except what you’re putting on the poster because that is the answer.

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FIGURE 7.3  Coded

teacher turns (T) and student turns (S) for the whole class discussion during a lesson summary from fall of Year 2. Time in minutes is relative to that segment of video and not to the lesson as a whole. Each column represents one minute. Refer to Tables 7.2 and 7.3 for descriptions of codes

The instructional decision resulting from this was to try to ignore the pressure to get all of the correct answers recorded on a poster during the lesson summary. This was one of several decisions made in the context of this problem of practice. Other instructional decisions related to the same problem included Crystal asking process questions (how and why) instead of known-​answer questions; prompting students to validate each other’s work; and inviting students to compare their ideas and to support each other. As Crystal implemented instructional decisions for this problem, whole-​class discussions followed patterns illustrated by the coded discussion shown in Figure 7.3. The discourse patterns in Figure 7.3 show that teacher and student talk was more evenly distributed than in Figure 7.2. There was a wider variety of teacher codes: Crystal not only opened space and invited students to contribute their own ideas (T3), but she actively facilitated student-​to-​student talk with her prompts (T4–​T5). The student codes (Table 7.3) indicated that students not only shared their own mathematical ideas (S3), but they also related their ideas to each others’ (S4–‍​‍S5). Our analyses of the dyad discussions and the discourse patterns led us to understanding Crystal’s perceptions of the three constructs as evolving such that she now viewed: (1) important mathematical knowledge as defined by the textbook but seeing student strategies as valuable; (2) her role as having students share ideas and then summarizing what is important, using their ideas when possible; and (3) students as learning to share ideas and ask questions.

Winter of Year 2: Students as Agents of Their Own Learning Analyses of dyad conversations and discourse patterns during the winter of Year 2 indicated that Crystal’s view of mathematics instruction had moved towards a goal of “having them think about it first” to reason about and make sense of the math. She contrasted this with what she had been doing previously: “I would have shown them how … and they would have just did it the way I showed them” then “there would be no reasoning.” In discussing why it was important to have students reasoning about math, the dyad focused on exploring the problem of practice defined broadly as facilitating

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knowledge building in the classroom community. The following is an example of one dyad conversation focused on this problem. The lesson began with Crystal inviting a student to read the introductory text and having students turn and talk about questions in the text. She then asked them to read over the problems and to ask questions before beginning to work. She reminded them to work with a partner and that, if they had questions, they could check with other pairs of students. As they worked, Crystal noted strategies she would have students compare and analyze. To summarize the lesson, Crystal simultaneously displayed four pieces of student work and invited pairs of students to discuss how classmates may have arrived at their answers.When students presented their ideas to their classmates, she reminded them to indicate what they were talking about so classmates could follow along. At first, the teacher/​researcher dyad discussed how Crystal facilitated students’ engagement with each other’s ideas. R:  There were a couple of times today where instead of saying agree or disagree, where the kids just kinda [shows their hand gesture for agree], Um, you said, “What do you think?” [pause] and it seemed to make a difference. T: Yeah R:  Because they didn’t do this stuff [shows gesture again]. A couple of them did, but some kids like stopped, and then you get a hand or two. T:  Um hmm. R:  So I thought that was really interesting cause it changed the flow, like it, like when you say agree or disagree, to me, it sort of sounds like the stopping point a lot. “So, what do you think?” didn’t sound like a stopping point. T : And I feel like they’ve kinda been trying to just agree, to just have it be the stopping point and move on. And so I’ve been trying to, because some of them still will agree, to even say, okay, well, I notice you agree, can you explain why. The dyad then explored how the class engaged with one particular student work sample that was incorrect. T: This whole table had done it that way, and that whole table at the back had done it that way, so they were not changing their minds, even though, what S1 had said, the rationale made sense, it’s too high. But they were not taking a look to see where it was. R:  Well, because their mathematical reasoning was really sound, right. And everything they’ve done up until this point around unit rate would have made that true. So, and I think perhaps, at the very end, like if the bell could have waited five more minutes. T:  I KNOW. R: That would have been really great, because I think there were a few people that went, Ohhhh. T:  Um hmm, and I was trying to hold off on like jumping in.

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R:  And you did really well. T:  I KNOW! But then it was like, I have to say something and tie this together, because I was hoping that somebody would bring that up, like to say, this is too high, and then make that connection that S2 finally did say, “Well, I see that is ….” R: They got there! T: Yes. They did. But I do wish there was a little more time to let it digest. The instructional decision resulting from the foregoing teacher–​ researcher exchange was to intentionally structure the presentation of student samples at the end of a lesson in order to maximize what students had to figure out and talk about during the debrief. Related to this same problem of practice, other instructional decisions included: Crystal anticipating where students might disagree or have different interpretations and problematizing these instances to promote discussion; and prompting students to compare their ideas and interpretations during the whole-​class discussion. As Crystal implemented instructional decisions for this problem, whole-​class discussion reflected the discourse patterns illustrated in Figure 7.4. The teacher codes indicate that Crystal opened the discussion by inviting students to share their ideas (T3). Student talk dominated the remainder of the discussion. When Crystal did enter the discussion, she asked known-​answer questions (T2) to guide students or actively facilitated student-​to-​student talk (T4–​T5). The student codes indicated that students actively engaged in sharing their own mathematical ideas (S3) but also in relating their ideas to each other (S4–​S5) and building knowledge together (S6), particularly during the last few minutes of the discussion. Our analysis of the discourse patterns at this point informed our interpretation that Crystal now viewed the three constructs as: (1) the textbook provides a scope and sequence, but the community engages in knowledge building; (2) the teacher provides the tools and support so that students can do the intellectual work; (3) students can build knowledge together.

FIGURE 7.4  Coded

teacher turns (T) and student turns (S) for the whole class discussion during a lesson summary from winter of Year 2. Time in minutes is relative to that segment of video and not to the lesson as a whole. Each column represents one minute. Refer to Tables 7.2 and 7.3 for descriptions of codes

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Summary and Reflections on Crystal’s Learning The shifts across the two years of project work in Crystal’s thinking about three key constructs central to mathematics teaching and learning are summarized in Table 7.4. We speculate that these shifts in Crystal’s thinking about these three constructs created changes to her instructional practice that will endure. Often teachers try new instructional practices in the context of research projects but after the research ends so do the new practices. We posit that as Crystal’s perceptions shifted, she was reconstructing a professional vision of what it means to teach and learn mathematics. For example, in one meeting with Crystal after the project ended, she described how her vision of teaching and learning had shifted. I got up there during the launch of the lesson [early in the project] and I showed them how they would fill out this table with what was given … and then all the students went and they did it. And so, when we got to the summary, there were no strategies for filling out the rate table.They all did the rate table the way I was thinking. I thought about how much I was talking … I need to stop doing all the talking because I’m doing the thinking … they’re being told how to think and how to solve it instead of using multiple strategies … So then the next year when they did the rate table, a lot of them were able to come up and share their strategies … there were so many ways of thinking that weren’t exposed the year before. This single quote highlights not only Crystal’s self-​awareness about how her teaching had changed, but also suggests that what she valued had shifted away

TABLE 7.4  Summary of shifts in Crystal’s thinking

Time Line

Math as a Discipline

Teacher Role

Student Capacity

Fall Year 1

Important mathematical knowledge is defined by the textbook.

Students are recipients of the knowledge being delivered.

Fall Year 2

Important mathematical knowledge is defined by the textbook, but student strategies also have value. The textbook provides a content scope and sequence, but students build the important knowledge through doing math together.

Teacher delivers to the students the ideas presented in the textbook. Teacher has students share their ideas and then summarizes what is important. Teacher provides tools and contexts for students do the intellectual work.

Winter Year 2

Students can learn to share ideas and ask questions. Students can build knowledge together.

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from what the textbook dictated and towards privileging student thinking above all else.

Discussion The aim of this chapter has been to trace the evolution of one teacher’s learning as she improved her capacity to foster productive student-​to-​student discourse through her participation in collaborative inquiry that focused on problems of practice in her classroom. The iterative cycles of problem analysis and decision making in service of seeking a resolution to a series of problems of practice were instrumental mechanisms in the changes Crystal made in her classroom instruction and in her orientation to three constructs central to mathematics teaching and learning. Furthermore, we posit that Crystal’s thinking about these constructs at the end of the two years of dyad discussion provide a foundation for a productive disposition for mathematics teaching and learning. Critical to the collaborative inquiry were the roles and contributions of the researcher. Indeed, we contend that the researcher played an integral role in promoting Crystal’s shifting perceptions during the project. For example, the researcher often summarized Crystal’s instructional moves that might have promoted or inhibited students’ discourse. This “outsider perspective” vantage point served as the foundation for the dyad discussions, at least early in the inquiry process. The researcher also asked questions of Crystal to make explicit the underlying reasons for her different instructional moves and decisions during the lessons. Once elicited, the dyad discussions focused on problematizing those moves and decisions in relation to promoting student discourse. Both Crystal and the researcher then negotiated a plan for subsequent lessons, building on the problem analysis they had collaboratively generated. We argue that the collaborative reflection on and analysis of Crystal’s lesson implementations was a key mechanism of Crystal’s learning. More generally, we posit that the teacher professional learning experiences described in this chapter have the potential for supporting teachers in shifting their conceptions of (1) What it means to learn the discipline of mathematics; (2) Teacher and student roles in the classroom; and (3) Student capacity for taking up agency and ownership of their learning and knowledge building. Because this work is proximal to their practice and because teachers reflect on the outcomes of their instructional practices, we believe that this collaborative process not only supports shifting practices but also contributes to developing more reflective practitioners generally (Schön, 1983). Despite the potential of iterative collaborative inquiry for supporting teacher professional learning, there are a number of challenges to sustaining this work over time. First, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to implement the teacher–​ researcher dyads we describe here with multiple teachers in multiple schools over long durations. The time and human resources necessary for this kind of intensive work make it untenable at scale. Thus, future work needs to address other models

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of collaborative inquiry that provide functional equivalents of the kind of reflection and analysis processes that were manifest in this particular case of teacher–​researcher inquiry. Admittedly this is a tall order. However, the powerful impact of this experience on Crystal’s practices and beliefs about mathematics, students’ capacities to engage in mathematical thinking, and her role in promoting this engagement are well worth the investment in exploring ways to make iterative collaborate inquiry of this type available to a wider range of teachers. Another challenge to supporting teacher learning in the ways described in the chapter is the need for school support structures that not only provide space for such collaborative interactions to regularly occur with and among teachers, but that provide school infrastructure that supports, promotes, and sustains shifts in teachers’ instructional practices. Prior research documents a number of school-​level infrastructures that are less than optimal for supporting instructional improvement and in many cases constrain teacher professional learning and efforts to improve teachers’ effectiveness in the classroom (Spillane & Hopkins, 2013). School-​level leadership provided by both administrators and teachers, as well as organizational structures, conditions and resources, are critical for supporting school-​wide improvements in teaching and learning (Bryk et al., 2010). Thus, without attention to the larger school organizations within which teachers work and the development of such support structures, the shifts in teacher practice will likely not be sustained over time. While we are still learning from our collaborative work with participating teachers as part of this project, we see much promise in the professional learning context we have described for supporting teacher learning over time.When teachers are engaged as co-​designers and co-​implementors of their professional learning, we can understand what is working, for whom, and under what conditions thereby increasing the likelihood that changes in teacher practice can take root (Bereiter, 2014; Erikson, 2014). In other words, by engaging in research with teachers, we can better understand the processes by which and principles underlying how and why teachers make shifts in their practice.

Note 1 There is a hearing impaired student in the class and so whole-​ class discussions are enhanced through the use of a cordless microphone.

Acknowledgments The preparation of this chapter was supported, in part, by a James S McDonnel Foundation Teachers as Learners Award Grant #: 220020517. iFAST was supported by a National Science Foundation Grant #DRL-​1316736. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the Institute, the Foundation or the National Science Foundation.

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We want to thank the teachers who participated in iFAST for inviting us into their classrooms, for allowing themselves to be vulnerable as we discussed their problems of practice, for generously spending their time exploring their practices and reflecting on their lesson implementations, and for sharing their expertise as well as their questions as our collaborative process evolved.

References Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. University of Texas Press. Ball, D. L. (1988). Knowledge and Reasoning in Mathematical Pedagogy: Examining What Prospective Teachers Bring to Teacher Education. Doctoral dissertation. Michigan State University. Ball, D. L., Lubienski, S.T., & Mewborn, D. S. (2001). Research on teaching mathematics:The unsolved problem of teachers’ mathematical knowledge. In V. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of Research on Teaching (2nd Edition) (pp. 433–​ 456): American Educational Research Association. Bereiter, C. (2014). Principled practical knowledge: Not a bridge but a ladder. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 23(1), 4–​17. Bryk, A. S., Gomez, L. M., Grunow, A., & LeMahieu, P. G. (2015). Learning to Improve: How America’s Schools Can Get Better at Getting Better. Harvard Education Press. Bryk, A. S., Sebring, P. B., Allensworth, E., Easton, J. Q., & Luppescu, S. (2010). Organizing Schools for Improvement: Lessons from Chicago. University of Chicago Press. Cobb, P. (1994). Where is the mind? Constructivist and sociocultural perspectives on mathematical development. Educational Researcher, 23(7), 13–​20. Cobb, P., & Bauersfeld, H. (1995). The Emergence of Mathematical Meaning: Interaction in Classroom Cultures. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Cobb, P., Boufi, A., McClain, K., & Whitenack, J. (1997). Reflective discourse and collective reflection. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 28(3), 258–​277. Cobb, P., Stephan, M., McClain, K., & Gravemeijer, K. (2001). Participating in Classroom Mathematical Practices. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 10(1/​2), 113–​163. Coburn, C. E., & Penuel, W. R. (2016). Research–​ practice partnerships in education: Outcomes, dynamics, and open questions. Educational Researcher, 45(1), 48–​54. Common Core State Standards Initiative. (2010). Common Core State Standards for Mathematics. Retrieved from www.corest​anda​rds.org/​ass​ets/​CCS​SI_​M​ath%20St​anda​rds.pdf. Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences. (2012). The Mathematical Education of Teachers II (Draft for Public Discussion, February 9, 2012). Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences. Confrey, J. (1991). Review: Steering a course between Vygotsky and Piaget. Educational Researcher, 20(8), 28–​32. Damşa, C. I., Kirschner, P. A., Andriessen, J. E., Erkens, G., & Sins, P. H. (2010). Shared epistemic agency: An empirical study of an emergent construct. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 19(2), 143–​186. Dewey, J. (1933/​1960). How We Think: A Restatement of the Relation of Reflective Thinking to the Educative Process. D.C. Heath and Co. Erikson, F. (2014). Scaling down: A modest proposal for practice-​based policy research in teaching. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 22(9). http://​dx.doi.org/​10.14507/​epaa. v22n9.2014. García, M., Sánchez, V., & Escudero, I. (2007). Learning through reflection in mathematics teacher education. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 64(1), 1–​17.

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Geiger,V., Muir, T., & Lamb, J. (2016).Video-​stimulated recall as a catalyst for teacher professional learning. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 19(5), 457–​475. Hiebert, J., Carpenter, T. P., Fennema, E., Fuson, K. C., Wearne, D., Murray, H., et al. (1997). Making Sense:Teaching and Learning Mathematics with Understanding. Heinemann. Hufferd-​Ackles, K., Fuson, K. C., & Sherin, M. G. (2004). Describing levels and components of a math-​talk learning community. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 35(2), 81–​116. Kilpatrick, J., Swafford, J., & Findell, B. (Eds.). (2001). Adding It Up: Helping Children Learn Mathematics. National Academy Press. Lappan, G., Phillips, E. D., Fey, J. T., Friel, S. N., Grant, Y., & Stewart, J. (2014). Connected Mathematics 3. Pearson, Boston, MA. Lortie, D. (1975). Schoolteacher: A Sociological Study. University of Chicago Press. NCTM. (2000). Principles and Standards for School Mathematics. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Penuel, W. R., Fishman, B. J., Haugan Cheng, B., & Sabelli, N. (2011). Organizing research and development at the intersection of learning, implementation, and design. Educational Researcher, 40(7), 331–​337. Pitvorec, K., & Fry, C. (2019, Nov. 14–​17). Fostering Student Agency and Distributed Mathematical Authority: Surfacing Teacher Learning and Teacher Change. Paper presented at the 41st Annual Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, St. Louis. Rogoff, B. (1990). Apprenticeship in Thinking: Cognitive Development in Social Context. Oxford University Press. Sfard, A. (1998). On two metaphors for learning and the dangers of choosing just one. Educational Researcher, 27(2), 4–​13. Sfard, A., & Kieran, C. (2001). Cognition as communication: Rethinking learning-​by-​talking through multi-​faceted analysis of students’ mathematical interactions. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 8(1), 42–​76. Schön, D. A. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. Basic Books. Smith, M. S., & Stein, M. K. (2011). Practices for Orchestrating Productive Math Discussions. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Spillane, J. P., & Hopkins, M. (2013). Organizing for instruction in education systems and school organizations: How the subject matters. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 45(6), 721–​747. Stein, M. K., Smith, M. S., Henningsen, M. A., & Silver, E. A. (2000). Implementing Standards-​ Based Mathematics Instruction: A Casebook for Professional Development. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Stein, M. K., Russell, J. L., Bill, V., Correnti, R., & Speranzo, L. (2021). Coach Learning to Help Teachers Learn to Enact Conceptually Rich, Student-​Focused Mathematics Lessons. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 1–​26. Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1990). Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques (Excerpts). Sage. Superfine, A. C., Pitvorec, K., & Stoelinga, T. (2020). Developing Student Agency to Support Learning-​Trajectory-​Based Formative Assessment. In Handbook of Research on Formative Assessment in Pre-​K Through Elementary Classrooms (pp. 151–​164). IGI Global. Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Harvard University Press.

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8 THE ROLE OF TEACHER BELIEFS, GOALS, KNOWLEDGE, AND PRACTICES IN CO-​DESIGNING COMPUTER SCIENCE EDUCATION CURRICULA Kimberley Gomez, Ung-​Sang Lee, and Amy Berkhoudt Woodman

Acknowledgements The authors gratefully acknowledge funding from the US National Science Foundation in support of grant # 1837488, Programming as a Context for Making Problem Solving Visible: An Equity Focused K-​5 Research Practice Partnership.

Teacher Participation and Learning in the Codesign of Elementary Computer Science Curriculum Much has been written about the knowledge and skills needed for teachers to effectively teach computer science (CS), and the need to prepare teachers to take on this relatively new domain of schooling. Teachers, already facing competing demands, must develop knowledge of CS principles, and understand how to connect CS education with other content area domains, schooling contexts, and student knowledge. Yet, for the most part, teachers are not trained to design and implement rigorous and accessible CS learning opportunities for students that reflect the more complex aspects of computational cognition and practices or that are contextualized to the lived social concerns of students. Understandings of what constitutes a rigorous CS education have also been in flux. Teaching coding as an on-​ramp to CS education and CS careers is in the public eye, and is a popular instructional focus of many school districts. In addition, conversations in the field are increasingly pointing to the importance of centering computational thinking (CT) in CS curriculum (Grover & Pea, 2013),

DOI: 10.4324/9781003097112-11

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including opportunities for students to engage in creative tasks, to problem solve, collaborate, and share their work for public critique (Gomez & Lee, 2015; Barron, Gomez, Pinkard, & Martin, 2014). Further troubling this landscape are deep rooted concerns of equity in CS education. Margolis and her colleagues’ seminal work (2017) reminds us that students from lesser-​resourced schools are more likely to experience basic coding in CS education, rather than CT and problem solving-​ focused pedagogy and practices. Such circumstances prompt concerns about the purpose of CS education, what experiences are made available to students, and for whom (Nasir & Vakil, 2017). In this chapter, we point to the affordances of a CS curricular codesign effort, which centered the assets and goals of teachers in the design and implementation of CS lessons, as a mechanism to build teachers’ CS pedagogical and content domain knowledge, and to instigate shifts in classroom CS learning practices to better include student opportunities for CT. We describe how curricular co-​ design of CS lessons created a context for elementary school teachers to leverage their existing beliefs, goals, and practices to develop CT-​centered CS lessons. The essential aim of the work was to learn how to connect CS education to the pedagogical work of elementary school teachers, and create a synergy between the teachers’ everyday pedagogy and goals, and their developing CS knowledge, and the CS expertise of the curriculum designers with an equity focus. We suggest that codesign enabled teachers to leverage their existing knowledge and practices to make shifts in their CS practices and accomplish this synergy. Such opportunities for teacher learning can play an important role in integrating rigorous CS into the schooling experiences of children who are typically excluded from CT-​focused CS education.

The Equity Challenge Researchers have thoroughly documented the systemic inequalities in access to rich problem-​solving instruction in computing environments (Margolis et al., 2017; Ryoo et al., 2020). While the prevailing public narrative is that learning to code will lead to coding positions in the future, these positions are arguably “The New Jim Code” (Benjamin, 2019) paying entry level coders and relatively low hourly wage while employees in the same organizations, engage in the knowledge work of critical thinking, problem solving, and collaboration receive wages that are two-​ four times higher. These gaps reflect the gaps in access to rigorous CS education between students from minoritized backgrounds and their more privileged peers. While access to more rigorous CS education alone is unlikely to reverse these inequities, we argue that, as a field, preparing teachers to offer rigorous, CT-​focused, CS instruction to minoritized students is a critical part of addressing the broader equity challenges within CS education. The particular challenge of teacher preparation is the challenge which we believe the analysis in this chapter is best positioned to address.

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The Challenge of Teacher Professional Learning in CS The field continues to grapple with limited knowledge on how to prepare teachers to offer rigorous CT-​focused CS instruction. Much of the research on teacher preparation for CS education focuses either on the computer science knowledge that teachers lack (Ng, 2017; Rich et al., 2017; Stanton et al., 2017), or describes professional development training in technology adoption and use (Harris et al., 2009; Mishra & Koehler, 2006) that are often short in duration (Ryoo, Goode, & Margolis, 2016), uncoordinated across educational institutions, and are facilitated by computer scientists without a focus on pedagogy (Menekse, 2015; Margolis, Ryoo, & Goode, 2017). As a field we essentially ignore the teachers’ existing professional assets, including their pedagogical beliefs, goals, and practices that could be usefully leveraged in CS education. We need to better understand how practicing teachers learn about CS teaching and learning, and how existing teacher pedagogy can be leveraged as they build their CS educational practices. Current professional learning models often focus on front-​ loading CS fundamentals, teaching basic use and functionalities of the technologies absent connections to the context of application, content, or subject-​specific pedagogy. We have few insights in the field about how teachers, particularly at the elementary level, integrate their existing professional knowledge into their CS instruction. In addition, there is much less emphasis placed on bridging teacher knowledge to teaching CT within CS education, including ways to support students application of computational thinking as applied to context-​driven problems (Grover & Pea, 2013). Further, with some exceptions (Ryoo et al., 2016, 2020) we know little of what, and how teachers learn about CS education when teachers work collaboratively in professional communities to codesign the core fabric (goals, pedagogy, and content) of CS lessons and pedagogy. As such, we sought to investigate how participation in CS curricular codesign that centers teacher beliefs, goals, and practices, facilitates shifts in teacher CS instruction.

Codesign: Leveraging Teachers’ Assets in Computer Science Education We are guided in this work by a long-​standing commitment to leverage codesign as a theoretical frame for organizing teacher professional learning (Gomez, Gomez, Rodela, Horton, Cunningham, & Ambrocio, 2015; Gomez, Kyza, & Mancevice, 2017). In codesign, teachers, researchers, and designers work together to prototype, test, evaluate, and refine educational designs to address specific educational needs, often “co-​construct[ing] the implementation of the reform” (Kwon et al., 2014). Codesign supports teacher and researcher learning (Gomez et al., 2015; Kyza & Nicolaidou, 2017; Voogt et al., 2015), and can be found in efforts to create or modify curriculum materials (Kyza & Nicolaidou, 2017), interactive technologies (Fischer et al., 2014), and interdisciplinary projects (Kwon et al., 2014). Teachers and researchers have regular and sustained opportunities to share expertise, probe

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assumptions, and engage in contextualized trial and error design activities as they consider students’ understandings, interests, and needs relative to the teaching and learning environment, all of which are important for the relevance, and efficacy of the designed tool.The resulting resources are more usable, and codesign stakeholders involved have more ownership over the final product.Yet, few teachers have engaged in codesign processes beyond their role as users, and there have been no professional development models that center teachers as designers. Consequently, we also know little about how teacher codesign of CS lessons impact the quality of the curricular design and instruction, and consequently, teacher learning.

Analytic Focus: Making Teacher Assets Visible in Codesign and CS Lessons Given our central concern with centering an equity perspective in the lessons, our first inquiry challenge was to make visible teachers’ beliefs about educational equity, and the role of CS within these beliefs about equity. Our second inquiry challenge was to understand how teachers’ existing beliefs, knowledge, and practices contributed to teachers’ participation in codesign and learning. We analytically considered how teachers’ CS education practices shifted as a result of their participation in co-​design, and how their participation in, and contribution to, collaborative design reflected their assets, including their beliefs and goals on equity, and their pedagogical knowledge and practices. Finally, we wanted to understand teachers’ perceived experiences in the codesign efforts. In sum, we offer insights into codesign as a model for teacher learning in CS education that builds on their professional assets. We describe how codesign helped make their ideas about equity in CS and pedagogical approaches visible, made contributions to CS lesson designs, and shifted their CS education practices. We discuss how codesign facilitates an asset-​based approach to inservice teacher professional learning in computer science education. We offer what we have learned in response to our inquiry into the following concerns: (1) What shifts, if any, took place in teachers’ CS education practices?; (2) How did teacher beliefs and goals on equity, and existing educational practices and knowledge related to classroom pedagogy and professional learning, serve as assets for participation in co-​design, and consequently, teacher learning, in CS education?

Methods RPP Background and Design Objectives We initiated a codesign research-​practice partnership (RPP) with Citrus Coding (CC), a CS education nonprofit in southern California, to codesign a set of problem solving-​focused CS lessons in response to several concerns about the local practice of elementary CS education. CC had strong relationships with local districts and elementary educators through its proprietary YouCode CS education curriculum

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and program. CS coaches, assigned to classrooms in participating schools, worked with elementary teachers to implement their existing curriculum. The YouCode curriculum taught CS concepts like sequencing, loops, and functions, and computational thinking practices like abstraction and decomposition through a series of guided lessons and challenges which students were expected to individually solve. Its in-​house coding platform constrained coding challenges to a seven by seven grid, where students were tasked to“paint” a picture that mirrors a “target” picture by using coding concepts relevant to the specific lessons. While CC coaches co-​ taught the lessons with teachers, teachers had limited roles in conceptualizing and implementing the lessons.As for professional learning, teachers typically participated in a three-​day summer workshop to become familiar with basic CS concepts and the program, and relied mostly on the CC coaches to prepare and implement the CS lessons. While this model was an effective way to introduce CS education, CC had identified limitations in its curricular framing, and sought to refine their curriculum for greater teacher agency.

Methodological Commitments Our codesign process was informed by a number of methodological commitments that oriented the collaborative design work. First, we committed ourselves to being explicit with our partners about our research and design agenda for the codesign. We identified and explored our individual conceptions of equity, and considered the connection to CS. Surfacing these helped us establish our design-​ team values and work towards an agreed upon set of pedagogical and content framings. Second, we sought to identify and provide a space for discussing pedagogical and content understandings and expectations. We recognized that a lack of shared language, awareness of differences, and efforts to build shared understanding can fracture the design effort (Gomez & Mancevice, 2018). Finally, we were explicit in the importance with which we addressed equity (Vakil, 2018) in CS education codesign process—​aiming to design inclusive content and multiple modes of access to content informed by real-​world teacher understandings of students’ learning needs and their interests. Our lesson planning template explicitly asked teachers to indicate the equity aim(s) for a proposed lesson. We were committed to wanting students to engage in meaningful CS that connects to their ongoing learning and interests.

Participants and Roles Our codesign partnership included four teachers from four schools, three principals (the fourth principal did not participate), two university researchers, a CC administrator, and two CC curriculum designers. All teachers had a minimum of five years of teaching. Three were in traditional, self-​contained, 3rd grade classrooms while one was a multi-​g rade elementary CS teacher. All had a one to three-​year history of hosting CC staff using the YouCode curriculum. Our primary CC collaborator

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and content designer, Amy, had co-​taught, as a YouCode instructor, with three of the participating teachers. Amy was present in nearly all codesign meetings, worked closely with university researchers to plan the facilitation of codesign meetings, and iteratively modified the CC lessons and software interface to respond to the ongoing codesign work. Our teacher-​partners were to actively partner in lesson design framing, including articulating the lesson learning outcomes, the lesson steps, and discursive practices in the lessons. University researchers primarily facilitated  and documented lesson codesign and implementation, offered theoretical framings and empirical insight to the design process, and suggested ways to operationalize design framings.

Design Processes and Data Collection In our pre-​codesign classroom observations, we had identified our four teachers employing student problem solving collaboration and discussions in, e.g, mathematics teaching and learning. However, the existing CC curriculum did not provide space or content to support these features. Based on our observations, we hoped these elements in the newly designed CS lessons. The 18-​month codesign process had three distinct activities: (1) we met twice a month for 34 codesign, classroom-​based meetings with CC curriculum designers, school educators, and university researchers; (2) classroom observations of codesigned lesson implementation; and (3) planning meetings between CC curriculum designers and university researchers. Each activity structure was critical in advancing the overall goals of the partnership, and each activity was intended to ensure that the decision-​making, designs, and processes within the partnership were responsive to the needs of school educators, curriculum designers, and broader knowledge development. The codesign meetings began with the identification of participants’ broad ideologies, conjectures, and needs in CS education, and gradually moved towards a collaborative focus which narrowed the design framings to concrete practices, tools, and classroom interactions. We regularly shared design prototypes to iteratively refine the lessons prior to classroom implementation. In the classroom implementation phase, teachers took the lead in implementing the codesigned lessons. Researchers and developers engaged as observers, offering technical assistance as needed (e.g. troubleshoot any issues) and academic support for students (e.g. ask guiding questions that might help student problem solving). Finally, during what we called weekly RPP planning meetings, we (curriculum designers and university researchers) discussed and reflected on the ongoing analyses of codesign processes, design outcomes, and implementation to plan upcoming codesign meetings, finalize lesson prototypes, and coordinate lesson implementation and classroom observations with teachers. We collected notes and recordings, design artifacts, and planning artifacts from our codesign meetings and RPP meetings. During classroom implementation of the lessons, we collected a constellation of data points, including classroom

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audio recordings, field notes, student work artifacts, and student surveys in which they reflected on their participation in the lessons. After most lessons, we conducted quick lesson debriefs noting minor immediate-​need changes. We observed five lesson units, typically three individual sessions, for a total of 17 lesson observations. We also interviewed each participant at the end of their participation in codesign.

Data Analysis For this chapter, qualitative data (transcripts, artifacts, and fieldnotes) from the three main activities for codesign (planning meetings, codesign meetings, classroom implementation), and individual teacher participant interviews were analyzed. We sought to (a) identify pedagogical and content area knowledge and practices that contributed to their participation in codesign, conceptualization of curricular designs, and the implementation of codesigned curricula; and (b) to understand what teachers learned as a consequence of their participation in the codesign efforts, evidenced by shifts in their CS education practices. In the first phase of our analysis, we used a comparative analysis approach (Bartlett & Vavrus, 2019) to identify the shifts in teachers’ CS education practices, as evidenced by the curricular design processes and outcomes, the classroom implementation of codesigned lessons, and teachers’ self-​reporting in interviews and meetings. This provided a baseline understanding of what teachers learned as a result of their participation in codesign efforts. We then analyzed data from the codesign meetings and teacher interviews to consider whether these shifts in instructional practices and curricular designs could be traced back to the teachers’ participation and interactions in the codesign process. Finally, in instances where we were able to trace the shifts in practices to teacher participation in codesign, we analyzed what kind of teacher beliefs and goals—​such as their perspectives on equity in CS education, and their pedagogical knowledge and practices, such as content area knowledge and pedagogical practices in other content area domains—​contributed to their participation in the codesign effort. To do so, we analyzed transcripts, artifacts, and fieldnotes from teachers’ participation in codesign, and teacher responses to interview questions pertaining to their pedagogical practices, content knowledge, and their participation in the codesign efforts. Together, our analyses led us to identify Jill, one of our RPP teachers, as an example of a teacher, whose shifts in CS education practices, her participation in the codesign processes, and the knowledge and practices she drew from to participate in codesign, reflected her colleagues’ participation in the codesign processes and their resultant learning. In the findings section, we will introduce Jill, and offer insights into our findings by sharing a narrative of her participation in codesign.

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Findings Overview of Findings We initiated this partnership with the core assumption that teachers had considerable, but often unrecognized, assets to shape CS education, a discipline that had traditionally been the domain of researchers, engineers, and curriculum designers. In the context of codesign, our participating teachers made available their beliefs, goals, knowledge, and practices that positioned them within the broader work of advancing equity in CS education. This was contrasted with their prior participation in CS education, when they taught pre-​designed CC lessons, with CC coaches taking the lead in lesson design and instructional implementation. Participation in curricular codesign provided a context for teachers to align their CS lessons and practices with their existing content and pedagogical knowledge, and beliefs and goals on equity. The curricular design outcomes were grounded in the ways teachers framed educational equity in CS education, and the types of educational practices they conjectured to advance such equity goals. Their beliefs and goals were informed by how they viewed CS knowledge within broader social contexts, the type of learning they thought CS education could facilitate, and the needs of their students.Teachers brought to bear two broad perspectives on how CS education can contribute to educational equity. First, teachers articulated a desire to build exposure, knowledge, and skills for students to participate in an emerging labor market. Second, teachers sought to pursue varied learning outcomes for students they believed CS lessons were well-​positioned to facilitate. These beliefs and goals were informed by their understanding of the role of CS in broader social contexts (e.g., the labor market), the affordances of CS education, and how these intersected with the needs of their students. Existing teacher pedagogical knowledge and practices in content domains, including literacy, science, and CS played another important role in teacher learning. The teachers also brought to bear pedagogical knowledge and practices they utilized in their existing CS classrooms and other content area domains. Such knowledge and practices played a key role in translating their broader equity goals to CS classroom practices. Through codesign, teachers actively connected their existing pedagogical knowledge and practices to the equity-​focused framings of their lessons. Each had exposure to more traditional forms of CS pedagogical and content knowledge including knowledge of core programming concepts and pedagogical practices like encouraging students to engage in cycles of coding, testing, and debugging. Each teacher also shared their content area-​specific, as well as more general pedagogical practices in the design process. Teachers also brought more general pedagogical practices, such as ways to facilitate student metacognition, collaborative problem solving, and technology use. We also found that the RPP teachers’ approaches to professional learning mediated their participation in the codesign partnership. In discussing their

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trajectories as educators and their participation in the CS codesign partnership, each teacher pointed to ways in which, at various points in their careers, they came to identify particular learning needs for their students, their own professional learning that needed to occur to facilitate such learning, and challenges accessing professional learning opportunities that could help them develop their professional expertise. In essence, the teachers were walking professional paths that included seeking out and participating in several collaboration activities in the past, particularly with peers, that facilitated their professional learning.Yet, each also pointed to their personal predispositions, such as a comfort with, and enjoyment of, collaboration, professional curiosity and willingness for experimentation, and a willingness to open up their classroom to others, as characteristics that had facilitated their professional learning in the past. They noted that such orientations towards professional learning had likely predisposed them to take on the teaching of CS, and their willingness to participate in the codesign partnership. Over the course of our time together, the teachers became active collaborative designers of CS practices, sharing their existing educational knowledge, practices, and beliefs, and taking on increasingly agentic roles in the design and implementation of CS lessons. We found, consequently, that CS education in their classrooms shifted from a focus on individual, algorithmic problem solving, to cross-​content connections, and real-​world use of CS in collaborative problem solving. Such shifts were in part facilitated by codesign work that was responsive to existing teacher beliefs, goals, and practices. Teachers, with their codesign partners, created CS lessons that connected their commitments to educational equity, CS education, and their pedagogical practices. In what follows, we describe how the teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and goals, shaped their participation in codesign. Our findings were consistent across the three of four teachers who completed cycles of lesson designs and implementation and were also consistent with one teacher who was not able to complete the lesson designs but who participated in multiple codesign meetings. We have chosen to highlight the case of Jill, a 3rd grade teacher who codesigned two sets of CS lessons centered on science content integration. Jill’s participation provided one of the most complete beginning-​to-​end narratives of teacher RPP codesign that was representative of our findings. We, first, provide an overview of Jill’s learning outcomes with a focus on the shifts in her practices and codesign role. Following the overview of her learning, we provide a more detailed description of Jill’s educational knowledge, beliefs, and practices that contributed to her learning.

Shifts in Jill’s CS Education Practices: Design and Implementation Outcomes While reporting on the specific shifts in the teachers’ CS education practices is not the central focus of this chapter, we provide a brief overview of the CS lessons that Jill designed and implemented to demonstrate how Jill’s beliefs and goals about equity in CS education, and her pedagogical knowledge and practices

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shaped the design processes and outcomes. Jill’s emergent CS education practices, as embodied in the codesigned lessons, represented shifts away from CC’s existing curricular content and pedagogical approach (described in more detail above in the “Methods” section)—​centered on abstract, algorithmic coding problems that students were expected to solve individually)—​ towards CS instruction that was framed by Jill’s conceptualization of what equitable CS education was. Consequently, Jill codesigned and implemented lessons that asked students to collaboratively engage in open-​ended design challenges situated in real world problems. As such, students were asked to make their thinking visible in writing and verbally to one another, make iterative refinements to their designs based on peer feedback and testing, and to draw on knowledge and practices from other content areas. In addition to shifts in the curricular designs and instructional practices, Jill’s participation in the field of CS education also shifted, playing a more active role in the design, implementation, and reflection on CS education practices. Jill framed her lessons around two goals which she viewed would build equity for students in CS education: (a) to have students “transfer skills and mindsets, such as problem-​solving strategies and collaboration skills, to other domains”; and (b) to have students “understand that the challenge that they will complete is similar to careers that involve coding.” Jill conjectured that lessons with, “design-​driven, open-​ended problems where students can apply their knowledge of both science and coding” in the context of a real-​world problem, will provide students with opportunities for her, as their teacher, to pursue her goals through CS lessons. To this end, Jill co-​designed a lesson that challenged students, in pairs, to code an animated “robot”, to plant tree saplings on a map. Students would identify parts of the map where the saplings would most likely survive based on ecological factors (proximity to water source, soil type, etc.), and use their existing coding knowledge to plant the saplings where they would be most likely to survive. Students were asked to write their scientific, and CS-​based, justifications for their decisions. Students were then encouraged to refine their sapling placement and code based on what other students had shared about their thinking. As such, unlike participation in the CC lessons, with Jill’s shift in pedagogical perspective, students were expected to engage in critical thinking about a CS problem, apply their coding knowledge in ways that were contextualized to a real-​world context, and she expected them to be able to reason their way into an explanation of their work. Her shift in CS education practices, however, went beyond pedagogy and content. Jill shifted from someone who gave over the reins of responsibility for pedagogy and content to the “more expert other”, as was her practice in CC. By participating in co-​design, she learned to engage in the co-​construction of CS educational knowledge, actively reframing and redesigning her CS education practices. By making her designs visible to a larger collective, she contributed to the broader design work at the partnership level. Jill contrasted her role in CS education prior to the partnership, where she would mostly let the CC take the lead in designing

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and implementing CS lessons, with her emergent role in CS education through the codesign partnership. She explained: I think the overall takeaway for me was… the necessity of collaboration. I brought knowledge of my own students that we’d be working with, and knowledge of the science standards. Amy really brought the knowledge of computer science and what our capabilities were specifically, in regards to CC, and what we were able to do with the [CC interface] and the kids coding. Then Ung-​Sang was there to really focus us on attempting things, and focusing on, “what do you think the students are going to do?”, and, “what are we anticipating they’re going to do?”, and, “what are we going to be looking for?” So I think, all of that together, we definitely brought things to the table, but also that different mind frame I think was helpful. In this way, Jill not only learned to teach CS that centered authentic problems in the lessons, but also learned to examine her pedagogical goals and iteratively design CS lessons that would advance such pedagogical goals.

Teacher, Beliefs, Goals, Knowledge, and Practices in CS Education Codesign Beliefs and Goals about Equity in CS Education Jill brought both lines of thinking on equity to the codesign process. Early in the codesign work, she shared her views of CS education in relation to the broader foci on collaboration and problem solving she sought to cultivate in her classroom: As soon as we were introduced to the idea of coding with … the young students and we were able to see and work with the curriculum CC had created, it was very clear that the goal of computer science is not to create students that are going to go on and do this as a future career. The goal is to give them a lot of skills that apply to computer science, but also apply outside of computer science. So just the thinking skills and communication skills and analytical skills and all of that is within the curriculum and within the realm of computer science … Those skills are vital to students. And [coding] is a fun way for them to learn that. In a later codesign meeting, Jill framed CS participation and equity as helping “transfer skills and mindsets such as problem solving strategies and collaboration skills to other domains.” Another goal for CS education for Jill was to craft pathways for her students to enter CS-​related careers. As early as the first individual codesign meeting with

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researchers, Jill described the social ubiquity of computing, as well as the increasing social prestige that comes with being knowledgeable about computer science. She connected the ubiquity and prestige associated with CS in the labor market, noting that students could benefit from developing CS domain knowledge. Using the example of gaming, Jill stated, “I think it’s impactful to know how people make (games) because they [students] can see how videogames are made. We’re not anticipating them to be programmers necessarily, but to have the knowledge and skills,” adding that, “a lot of what we do in elementary is exposing kids to what kind of careers there really are other than policemen and firefighters.” Referring to her conversations with the parents of her students, and connected to the prestige associated with the computer science field, Jill shared with us that she, “usually brag(s),” about teaching computer science. She suggested, I want students to understand that the challenge that they will complete [in a coding lesson] is similar to careers that involve coding. If they can visualize themselves in that role then they may be more likely to participate in a coding career in the future.

Pedagogical Practices and Knowledge The pedagogical knowledge and practices that Jill leveraged in the codesign work included, (a) her familiarity with Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI) (Carpenter, Fennema, & Franke, 1996), a research-​informed pedagogical framework in math education; (b) pedagogical tools, such as writing tasks and share out routines, that made student thinking visible to their peers; and (c) foundational CS and coding knowledge. For example, Jill shared how frameworks like CGI and her existing science curriculum helped her advance pedagogy rooted in student collaborative problem solving. She noted: We use CGI math. It’s more like a methodology or a professional development … a lot of it is you’re giving students a problem. A mathematical situation where they have to solve a problem, and they decide how to solve it. And through that, them working through the problem, they develop their own mathematical thinking, and it’s a lot of collaborative effort. So you’re taking some student work and showing, “this is what somebody did. Maybe you could try that.This is what somebody else did. Maybe you could try that.” So the math that we do and how we teach our math is very … problem oriented. Our science curriculum is the same way. I use a science curriculum called Amplify that teaches the science standard within a big problem. So students are introduced to a problem and they spend six weeks learning all about the information they need to solve that problem. It’s a little more structured, but it still results in the kids solving either like a mystery or making a product.

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Jill’s description of her pedagogy reflected the general wealth of knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge that aligned with our RPP teachers’ broader goals and approaches for learning, that they brought, and contributed, to the codesign process. During our first observation of Jill teaching a YouCode CS lesson, prior to initiating codesign activities, we documented the application of her pedagogical practices in specific CS education contexts. During the lesson, Jill’s students were asked to decompose a pixelated image of a turtle into sections so that students could write functions that could be used repeatedly when they drew their own uniquely designed “monster” character. While the lesson was primarily led by a CC coach, and Jill appeared to be following the coach’s lead in implementing the lesson, Jill would occasionally interject, asking the students questions such as, “what does it mean to decompose?” and she encouraged students to share their thinking with each other. In such ways, Jill applied their broader pedagogical approaches to the CS education context and was comfortable with CS concepts that she had learned through their work with CC. Citrus Coding.

Approaches to Professional Learning Jill’s approach to professional learning, and its relationship to how she approached the codesign partnership, was consistent with what we learned from other teachers in the partnership. As shared above, Jill pointed to some of the shifts in CS pedagogy that she saw as necessary to align the CS practices with her broader pedagogical framework. Jill conjectured that the YouCode CS curriculum did not allow students to interact around a shared purpose, and viewed the process of rooting CS pedagogy in relevant, real life problems as an issue of collective professional learning. Reflecting on professional learning she had participated in with her school-​based colleagues, she described how they aligned their practiced pedagogy with their pedagogical vision through ongoing, collective learning: We had another professional development about problem based learning, and created, as teachers, units that have students think about a big essential question or a big idea. And that results in them solving a problem or creating a product in some way. That’s something that’s still on our minds, but it’s also very tricky to do. It’s hard to create a unit that is authentic and that is engaging and that meets the standards or touches on the standards that you want it to do. It’s not easy to create a unit. I have created several units myself and every year, I revise them in some way based on the teaching that I did the previous year. Such learning experiences brought Jill to the codesign partnership, as she valued processes that identify professional learning needs, build a community of stakeholders for collective learning, and experiment with instructional practices. She explained:

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I think I’m very naturally attracted to curriculum in general. Because I’ve taught at different schools, I’ve taught in different states, I’ve had a chance to really see many different curricula, the way that schools teach, and the way that other teachers teach. So I’ve been able to see some really strong curriculum, and some really weak curriculum. So when I heard about the research project with CC, that was kind of really trying to think through their own curriculum, I jumped at the chance to do that. I, as a teacher, really like to think through, not what I’m teaching the students, but how I’m teaching, and how I’m helping them engage with the subjects, and skills they need to develop to get to that learning point. It’s definitely a lot of different pieces when you’re creating a curriculum, and I think to me, it’s like a fun puzzle to think about. I can have many different answers, right? There’s not one right way to teach a student about a topic, and for some students, they will be attracted to a certain teaching style, and some students will be attracted to different teaching styles. So I think I like that creative piece. As a teacher, I like to be able to kind of create and think about the possibilities for my students. Thus, Jill was driven to the collaborative process because she enjoyed critically examining her own practices, “it’s like a fun puzzle to think about” and developing instructional and curricular solutions to particular educational needs that she observed. Joining the codesign partnership was a way to address a “tricky” challenge in her CS education practices –​how to help her students “think about a big essential question or a big idea” in the context of CS.

Discussion and Implications Our aim in this chapter was to demonstrate the shifts in CS education practices that can occur when teachers are situated as codesign partners in CS curriculum, rather than curriculum end-​users. In particular, we aimed to demonstrate how teachers’ broader beliefs and goals around equity in CS education can be connected to their CS pedagogy in elementary classrooms when their existing pedagogical practices and knowledge are centered in the design processes. Teacher learning in CS education must go beyond a “banking” model of learning, and draw on existing teacher expertise.Too often, the framing of CS education and the ways professional learning is organized are detached from the existing perspectives and practices of in-​service teachers. Our findings point to the rigorous, contextualized, and problem solving-​focused CS education that can be made available to minoritized students when equity goals are explicitly surfaced, and teacher expertise is leveraged to build CS education practices that are framed by such goals. The work was not without challenges. Central to our findings was the need to manage tensions between the meaningful teacher participation, their diverse knowledge bases, and their beliefs about equity in CS. We encountered practical constraints in working together, as well as tensions across organizational needs (e.g.

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CC’s aim to serve hundreds of students vs. school partners’ localized objectives).In the current effort, we actively responded to these tensions by building a responsive design process that avoided generalizing teachers’ contributions in the collaboration, or privileged certain positions and ideas over others.We sought to ensure that the design process actively responded to these tensions and treated them as opportunities to build an “and” as opposed to an “or” approach in codesign. As we move forward in scaling our codesign-​based approaches to teacher learning in CS education, there will likely be additional tensions. Will school administrators be comfortable with the ambiguities that come with codesign processes? Will teachers be supported in expanding the pedagogical practices of the traditional CS curricular materials? Will CS education designers, typically oriented towards scale, embrace curricula that support opportunities for students to learn CS in ways that are more responsive to local communities? Much learning is ahead to better understand how to navigate these tensions in codesign. Finally, we do not intend to suggest that our codesign outcomes necessarily produce equity.At most, we view the codesigned CS curricula as partially addressing the vast challenge that is building equitable CS education. For example, teachers did not specifically learn to privilege and/​or critique particular views on educational equity and CS education. However, we did codesign lessons that aligned with particular views on equity in CS education, and existing teacher beliefs, goals, and practices played a large role in doing so. In our future work, we hope to pay closer attention to the ways equity is conceptualized and contested in codesign efforts, especially when there are more pronounced power differentials between stakeholders. We are also aware that this particular codesign effort privileged the perspectives of teachers, which may be different from that of students or their families. Without more meaningful roles for students and their families, particularly from minoritized backgrounds, to participate in the kinds of efforts described here, their perspectives and knowledge may go unaccounted for in CS education. We view this as an inequitable outcome in itself, and are currently building partnerships to engage in codesign with a wider group of stakeholders. To do so, we believe the work reported here serves as a strong foundation for future efforts.

References Barron, B., Gomez, K., Pinkard, N., & Martin, C. K. (2014). The DigitalYouth Network: Cultivating Digital Media Citizenship in Urban Communities. MIT Press. Basu, Satabdi, Gautam Biswas, Pratim Sengupta, Amanda Dickes, John S. Kinnebrew, & Douglas Clark. (2016). Identifying middle school students’ challenges in computational thinking-​based science learning. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning, 11(1), 13. Benjamin, R. (2019). Race after technology: Abolitionist tools for the new jim code. Social Forces, 98(4), 1–​3. https://​doi.org/​10.1093/​sf/​soz​162 Carpenter, T. P., Fennema, E., & Franke, M. L. (1996). Cognitively guided instruction: A knowledge base for reform in primary mathematics instruction. The Elementary School Journal, 97(1), 3–​20.

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Fisher, K., Bishop, A., Magassa, L., & Fawcett (2014). Action! Co-​designing interactive technology with immigrant teens. ACM SIGCHI Interaction Design and Children (IDC). Arhaus, Denmark. Gomez, K., Gomez, L. M., Cooper, B., Lozano, M., & Mancevice, N. (2019). Redressing science learning through supporting language:The Biology credit recovery course. Urban Education, 54(10), 1489–​1519. Gomez, K., Gomez, L. M., Rodela, K. C., Horton, E. S., Cunningham, J., & Ambrocio, R. (2015). Embedding language support in developmental mathematics lessons: Exploring the value of design as professional development for community college mathematics instructors. Journal of Teacher Education, 66(5), 450–​465. Gomez, K., Kyza, E. A., & Mancevice, N. (2018). Participatory design and the Learning Sciences. Taylor and Francis. Gomez, K., & Lee, U. S. (2015). Situated cognition and learning environments: Implications for teachers on-​and offline in the new digital media age. Interactive Learning Environments, 23(5), 634–​652. Grover, S., & Pea, R. (2013). Computational thinking in K–​12: A review of the state of the field. Educational Researcher, 42(1), 38–​43. Harris, J., Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. (2009). Teachers’ technological pedagogical content knowledge and learning activity types: Curriculum-​based technology integration reframed. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 41(4), 393–​416. Kwon, S. M.,Wardrip, P. S., & Gomez, L. M. (2014). Co-​design of interdisciplinary projects as a mechanism for school capacity growth. Improving Schools, 17(1), 54–​71. Kyza, E. A., & Nicolaidou, I. (2017). Co-​designing reform-​based online inquiry learning environments as a situated approach to teachers’ professional development. CoDesign, 13(4), 261–​286. https://​doi.org/​10.1080/​15710​882.2016.1209​528 Margolis, J., Estrella, R., Goode, J., Holme, J. J., & Nao, K. (2017). Stuck in the Shallow End: Education, Race, and Computing. MIT Press. Margolis, J., Ryoo, J., & Goode, J. (2017). Seeing myself through someone else’s eyes: The value of in-​ classroom coaching for computer science teaching and learning. ACM Transactions on Computing Education (TOCE), 17(2), 1–​18. Menekse, M. (2015). Computer science teacher professional development in the United States: a review of studies published between 2004 and 2014. Computer Science Education, 25(4), 325–​350. Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. J. (2006). Technological pedagogical content knowledge: A framework for teacher knowledge. Teachers College Record, 108(6), 1017–​1054. Nasir, N. I. S., & Vakil, S. (2017). STEM-​focused academies in urban schools: Tensions and possibilities. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 26(3), 376–​406. Ng, W. S. (2017). Coding education for kids: What to learn? How to prepare teachers? In L. Morris & C. Tsolakidis (Eds.), Proceedings of ICICTE 2017: The International Conference on Information Communication Technologies in Education (pp. 195–​205). Rhodes, Greece: Southampton Solent University. Rich, P. J., Jones, B., Belikov, O.,Yoshikawa, E., & Perkins, M. (2017). Computing and engineering in elementary school: The effect of year-​long training on elementary teacher self-​ efficacy and beliefs about teaching computing and engineering. International Journal of Computer Science Education in Schools, 1(1), 1–​20. Ryoo, J., Goode, J., & Margolis, J. (2015). It takes a village: Supporting inquiry-​ and equity-​oriented computer science pedagogy through a professional learning community. Computer Science Education, 25(4), 351–​370.

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Ryoo, J. J., Tanksley, T., Estrada, C., & Margolis, J. (2020). Take space, make space: How students use computer science to disrupt and resist marginalization in schools. Computer Science Education, 30(3), 337–​361. Stanton, J., Adrion, R., Dunton, S., Hendrickson, K., Peterfreund, A., Yongpradit, P., Zarch, R., & Zinth, J. (2017). State of the states landscape report: State-​level policies supporting equitable K–​12 computer science education. Education Development Center. www.edc.org/​sites/​defa​ ult/​files/​uplo​ads/​State-​Sta​tes-​Landsc​ape-​Rep​ort.pdf Vakil, S. (2018). Ethics, identity, and political vision: Toward a justice-​centered approach to equity in computer science education. Harvard Educational Review, 88(1), 26–​52. Voogt, J., Laferriere, T., Breuleux, A., Itow, R. C., Hickey, D. T., & McKenney, S. (2015). Collaborative design as a form of professional development. Instructional Science, 43(2), 259–​282.

9 TEACHER–​RESEARCHER CO-​DESIGN TEAMS Teachers as Intellectual Partners in Design Eleni A. Kyza, Andria Agesilaou, Yiannis Georgiou, and Andreas Hadjichambis

There is considerable discussion about the capacity of present-​day education to become an emancipatory force, overcoming the tendency to preserve the status quo and helping students find their voice and shape values, priorities, and solutions to societal challenges (De Lissovoy, 2014; Hazelkorn, 2015). These ideas are aligned with discussions for education for citizenship, which aims to support students’ understanding of their rights but also of their responsibilities, and the intricate relationships that shape how our societies function (Lawson, 2001). Such a vision for education also requires a reconsideration of teacher education, one that reinstates teacher professionalism and helps teachers assume an active role in realizing these goals. Over 30 years ago, Giroux (1985) discussed how educational reform efforts in the US presented a threat to educational change due to the lack of recognizing teachers as intellectual partners; this concern is also present in recent years in reform efforts elsewhere, including Cyprus (the context of the TPD described in this chapter), where despite the rhetoric to include teachers in reforming educational practices, research on teachers’ participation in reform has suggested that such efforts followed prior unequal power relationships instead of unsettling them (Theodorou, Philippou, & Kontovourki, 2017). This chapter reports on a co-​ design approach to Teacher Professional Development (TPD), which recognizes teachers as partners in design and seeks to provide the intellectual space for teachers to innovate, reflect on and learn from the outcomes of their curricular designs. It presents a longitudinal effort to TPD and, through the partnership of practicing teachers and researchers, an effort to redesign the learning experience for students. Based on data collected from teachers, our own reflections, and data from implementations of the learning modules developed through co-​design, we found evidence that the co-​design TPD was successful in promoting teacher learning and was highly connected to placing teachers as intellectual partners in design. We begin the chapter by briefly presenting the key DOI: 10.4324/9781003097112-12

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dimensions of the theoretical framework guiding this work, and then describe the co-​design TPD.We then present findings relating to teachers as intellectual partners and conclude with a discussion of the implications of this work on co-​design and teacher learning.

Theoretical Framework Teachers as Transformative Intellectuals This work draws from Giroux’s (1985, 1994) conceptualization of teachers as transformative intellectuals, which we see as vital to the broader discussions about grand societal challenges and the role that all citizens should have in such discussions (Von Schomberg, 2013). According to Giroux (1994) teachers’ intellectual capacity has been traditionally ignored and their professionalism undermined, as teachers have been repeatedly asked to implement but not shape reform; this has reduced teachers to “technicians” and “managers” of implementations rather than empowering them to critically approach their work and practice, to address their specific teaching and learning needs. Giroux views teaching as highly political, with his urge to politicize education akin to the Aristotelian notion advocating for all citizens to assume an active role in society to pursue virtue and happiness. According to Giroux, “teachers must take active responsibility for raising serious questions about what they teach, how they are to teach, and what the larger goals are for which they are striving” (Giroux, 1988, p. 126). As a result, Giroux calls for teachers’ active involvement with curriculum development and implementation, acquiring more control over decisions about content and pedagogy. To have the capacity to transform practice and contribute to promoting the democratic goals of education, teachers need to engage in new forms of discourse, take initiative and responsibility, increase autonomy in their professional practice, while also collaborating with others, and engage in activities that connect the development of learning materials and their implementation. These qualities, according to Giroux, are the ones that will lead teachers to be recognized as true professionals and help them unsettle the dominant, often suppressive, culture of school curriculum. We approach professional development as a context that can be used to prepare teachers as transformative intellectuals (Cranton & King, 2003); such teachers can view their work reflexively, can broaden their perspectives by critically reviewing their own understanding and practices, and can alter established patterns of thinking and of practice to make room for alternative conceptualizations that allow them to bring about change.

Teacher Professional Development Following the calls for ecological validity made by researchers such as Brofenbrenner (1976), Opfer and Pedder (2011) argue that teacher professional development

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should be examined as a nested system. It is, thus, important to briefly describe the broader context of teacher professional development. In Cyprus, teacher autonomy is often reported as extremely limited, and teachers are expected to follow top-​down decisions passed down through a highly centralized and hierarchical educational system (Nicolaidou, 2010). Such approaches may end up marginalizing and disempowering teachers and are present in other educational systems around the world (Edling & Mooney Simmie, 2018; Giroux, 1988; Jones, 2010; Nicolaidou, 2010). Borko and colleagues (2010) report that a high-​quality TPD “should be situated in practice and should be focused (at least in part) on students’ learning” (Borko et al., 2010, p. 548) and “incorporates processes such as modeling preferred instructional strategies, engaging teachers in active learning, and building a professional learning community” (Borko et al., 2010, p. 549). Cycles of teacher reflection, teacher inquiry through developing and enacting materials, and teacher collaboration are identified as important mechanisms for supporting teacher learning. Continuous professional development is required as the teaching profession is a dynamic field, in which knowledge and skills are ever changing as the society that it serves also changes (Guskey, 2000). One example of the shifts in the content of teacher professional development can be seen in science education. As science and technology are increasingly being called upon to explore solutions to complex issues, such as managing energy resources and sustainable development, science educators are asked to revise the content and pedagogy of their instruction to help citizens understand how to address such complex problems. These needs call for integrating socio-​scientific ideas in science education (Sadler & Zeidler, 2004) and have an active citizenship approach at its core—​not simply learning about socio-​ scientific issues but also examining, and taking action on, how these issues have a local and global impact. Along these lines, in Europe there has been a concerted effort in the last decade to introduce the concept of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) in science education teacher professional development programs (Evagorou, Nielsen, & Dillon, 2020).

Teachers as Designers The “teachers as designers” approach to professional development has been positively discussed in the literature as a professional development strategy that can support the adoption of innovations, as it can increase ownership of reform-​based ideas, promote motivated learning and help teachers develop resources they can readily use to break away from traditional teaching (Carl, 2009; Georgiou & Ioannou, 2019, 2020; Kyza & Georgiou, 2014; Kyza & Nicolaidou; 2016; Voogt, Westbroek, Handelzalts, Walraven, McKenney, Pieters, & De Vries, 2011; Kali, McKenney, & Sagy, 2015). Most recent research on the topic discusses teachers working together in co-​ design teams, rather than individually. Teacher professional development programs can be successful in promoting teacher learning during collaborative

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curriculum design if coupled with the implementation of the designed materials (Kyza & Nicolaidou, 2016; Kyza & Georgiou, 2014; Pieters, Voogt, Pareja Roblin, 2019; Voogt et al., 2011). Even though teachers may engage in small-​scale curriculum design as part of their everyday teaching (Kali, McKenney, & Sagy, 2015), their roles as designers are not always acknowledged, supported nor appreciated (Carlgren, 1999; Huizinga, Handelzalts, Nieveen, & Voogt, 2014).

The Present Study A Co-​design Teacher Professional Development Program Our approach to professional development assumes that teacher learning can be achieved through reflection-​on-​action and reflection-​in-​action (Schön, 1987) that is brought about by connecting the co-​design of learning environments and classroom-​based implementations: the expectation is that teachers participate in communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991) to collaboratively design science education modules to engage students in active citizenship through understanding, reflecting and acting on important societal dilemmas that are pertinent to students’ lives (Levinson et al., 2017). To achieve this purpose, we designed year-​long Teacher Professional Development (TPD) programs that are experiential in nature and which couple teacher learning, collaborative design and re-​design, as well as reflections on the classroom implementations of teachers’ co-​design outcomes (Kyza, Hadjichambis, Georgiou, & Agesilaou, 2017). Such an approach departs from traditional approaches to TPD as it is extended in time, collaborative rather than top-​down, and asks teachers to regain lost agency in democratizing education. In our co-​design professional development approach we worked at two levels concurrently: the first is grounded in the need to reform educational content to embrace socio-​scientific goals of education, in addition to the cognitive ones; this level refers to how teachers approach students’ learning. The second level refers to teachers’ professional development needs, required to function in such a revised teaching paradigm. Both levels together seek to bridge the theoretical with the applied, with one motivating the other.The teachers came to our TPD because they sought to understand new ways of teaching; they persevered because they approached their own professional development experientially, through co-​designing curricular materials that helped them apply new approaches in their instructional practice. At the same time, teachers also actively sought to ratify the status-​quo, departing from traditional teaching modes, and embarking in a reclaiming of a democratic role for teachers. This TPD approach draws from prior research (Kyza & Georgiou, 2014; Kyza & Nicolaidou, 2016) which suggests that professional learning situated in practice can support a refined understanding of reform ideas through cycles of co-​design and through learning from peers; this can also lead to teacher engagement and satisfaction with the TPD ideas and can promote student learning.

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The PARRISE TPD Program The work was conducted as part of the multi-​ year PARRISE (“Promoting Attainment of Responsible Research and Innovation in Science Education”) project, one of the first projects that was funded by the FP7 European Commission research program on Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) in teacher education. RRI is a recent emphasis at the European level that seeks to bring attention to the fact that everyone has an important responsibility in the process and outcomes of scientific and technological developments (von Schomberg, 2013; Hazelkorn et al., 2015; Owen & Pansera, 2019).The PARRISE consortium’s activities aimed to contribute to the European-​wide goal of “building a scientifically literate society, which enables its citizens to participate in the research and innovation process and calls for empowered democratic citizens, who are able to engage in socio-​scientific inquiry and debate” (www.parr​ise.eu, n.d.). The PARRISE TPD adopted the Socio-​Scientific Inquiry Based Learning (SSIBL) pedagogical framework (Levinson et al., 2017), which was created and empirically validated over a period of four years. SSIBL (Figure 9.1) frames the integration of RRI in science education through synergies of three constituents: RRI as (a) a problem-​based investigation of a socio-​scientific issue, (b) stimulated by inquiry-​ based pedagogy, and (c) requiring students to take a critical citizenship role, which

Critic al c itiz en sh Pedago ip gy –f or

SSI

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IBSE

SSIBL

FIGURE 9.1  SSIBL

components

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includes action (e.g., personal decision making, informing local community, etc.). As explained in Levinson et al. (2017) “Critical citizenship and RRI are the two overarching principles of social justice. The inner core of SSI and Inquiry-​Based Science Education (IBSE) operationalize these principles within informal and formal science contexts” (p.10).

Methodology This work reports on in-​service science teachers’ participation in the PARRISE TPD, as they worked in disciplinary co-​design teams, led by university researchers, to introduce socio-​scientific ideas in their biology, chemistry, and elementary education classes. Using a case study methodology (Creswell, 2007) we inquire into how the teachers, participating in this year-​long professional development program, became intellectual partners in design, moving away from the traditional casting of teachers as “high-​level technicians” (Giroux, 1985, 2002; Giroux & MacLaren, 1986).

Participants The TPD courses were offered, and iteratively designed, over two consecutive years, from September to May each year, with the implementations of the co-​designed curricula taking place in the spring of each year. Forty in-​service biology, chemistry, and elementary science teachers (31 female) participated in Round 1 of the TPD (39 contact hours), and 27 in-​service science teachers (20 female) participated in Round 2 of the TPD (43.5 contact hours).TPD2 was similar to TPD1 but was fine-​ tuned based on the feedback collected during the first iteration of the TPD. A team of four researchers facilitated the co-​design work. To maintain quality across group designs, facilitators met on a weekly basis to discuss emerging challenges relating to co-​design, thus creating a context for just-​in-​time support and opportunities to adjust the co-​design session emphases according to the emerging needs. During these sessions several specific activities were discussed and adopted to support teachers’ sense making (i.e., use of representations and language that bridge learners’ understanding), the process management of the co-​design (such as structuring complex tasks), and promoting articulation and reflection (Quintana et al., 2004).

Instructional Context Adopting a Hybrid Co-​design Approach The TPDs adopted a hybrid mode of face-​to-​face and online meetings, to accommodate the teachers’ busy schedules, to coordinate the co-​design efforts, and to offer just-​in-​time support.TPD1 included five face-​to-​face and six online meetings, whereas TPD2 included six face-​ to-​ face meetings and five online meetings. Teachers and researchers met in person on Saturdays, for both the plenary and co-​design group sessions; each group and their team leader also met online on a

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weekly basis to coordinate co-​design. The face-​to-​face meetings included plenary sessions, science expert lectures, and co-​design sessions. The online meetings (most often taking place during the evenings), supported the co-​design, which was also coordinated by email and social media communication between the members of the co-​design teams. The monthly face-​to-​face meetings had a duration of six hours each, whereas the biweekly online meetings lasted for 90–​120 minutes each.

Structure of the Co-​design TPD Four main aspects of the TPD served as the mechanisms for supporting teacher learning: experiential learning, co-​design, the opportunity to enact and assess the effectiveness of the SSIBL implementations, and continuous opportunities for reflection. Reflection was a key aspect of the TPD and was fostered through teacher educator scaffolding, peer feedback, feedback between interdisciplinary teacher groups, the co-​design process, and the opportunity to enact, evaluate, and reflect on the SSIBL framework. The experiential activities were based on a constructivist approach to learning and engaged teachers in an inductive exploration of the need and meaning of the SSIBL pillars (inquiry-​based science education, socio-​scientific issues, citizenship education) and how they relate to RRI. An overview of the TPD is seen in Figure 9.2. The TPD activities were designed around a focus on teachers as “Learners”, “Designers”, “Innovators” and “Reflective Practitioners” (see Figure 9.3).

Meeting 12 (F2F)

Reflecting on TPD and needs

Meeting 11 (F2F)

Reflecting on enactment CLASSROOM ENACTMENTS

Meeting 10 (Online)

Pre-enactment evaluation

Meeting 9 (Online)

Refining module, roles

Teacher and student roles

Activity sequence and lessons

Embedding SSIBL in practice

Meeting 8 (F2F)

SSIBL integration in practice

Fit between SSIBL and module

Meeting 7 (Online)

Implementing SSIBL

Implementation aspects

Meeting 6 (Online)

Promoting active citizenship

Active citizenship and SSIBL

Pedagogical aspects of SSIBL

Pedagogy and SSIBL

Meeting 4 (Online)

SSIBL module: IBSE and SSI

Reflecting on IBSE, SSI, SSIBL

Meeting 3 (Online)

Criteria for SSIBL modules

Reflection on SSIBL module

Meeting 5 (F2F)

Levels of SSI controversies

Meeting 2 (F2F)

The SSIBL framework

The SSIBL framework

Meeting 1 (F2F)

Socio-scientific controversies

Socio-scientific controversies

Experiential learning

FIGURE 9.2  Structure

Co-design

of the PARRISE co-​design approach

Individual and collaborative reflection

Cross-discipline dialogue Disciplinary collaborations

s er

T ers ch ea

Experiential learning

Individual and collaborative reflection

ers learn as

Teachers as re flect ive pra cti ti

on

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FIGURE 9.3 The

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es

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Implementations Classroom 1 Classroom 2 Classroom X

he rs

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Co-design

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Scaffolding

embedded TPD co-​design system

Teachers as “Learners” When taking the role of “Learners”, teachers were introduced to the SSIBL pedagogy and experienced a variety of SSIBL-​based learning activities from the students’ viewpoint, via a set of experiential activities, lectures by subject-​matter experts, and presenting illustrative curricula to explain how ideas can be incorporated in curriculum designs. One main teacher-​reported challenge to successful engagement with co-​design was the conceptualization of the innovation they were trying to incorporate in their teaching (in this case the SSIBL pedagogical framework). Teachers came to the TPD with minimal understanding of the innovations they were being asked to design for –​as they shared, they were not well versed in pedagogical approaches such as inquiry learning or citizenship education, both of which constitute the pillars of the SSIBL pedagogical framework. Therefore, the structure of activities that were included in the TPD program aimed to scaffold teachers in becoming familiarized with a new discourse about important priorities in science education teaching relating to RRI, understanding, and appropriating the SSIBL framework as they also worked on designing a learning module that incorporated it. The experiential activities were based on a constructivist approach to learning and engaged teachers in an inductive exploration of each of the SSIBL pillars (inquiry-​ based science education, socio-​ scientific issues, active citizenship) and how they relate to RRI. For instance, in Meeting 1, teachers discussed the nature

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of science and its role in controversial socio-​scientific issues. In the main experiential activity, the teachers assumed the role of students and engaged in problem-​ solving the controversial topic of the use of antibiotics in livestock (Kyza, Georgiou, Hadjichambis, & Agesilaou, 2018). Through this activity, teachers were exposed to a socio-​scientific controversy, which afforded the discussion of the use of such cases in science teaching and learning, and how it connected to RRI and active citizenship.

Teachers as “Designers” Teachers were expected to apply the learning from the experiential activities to their work as “co-​designers” of curriculum materials. They worked in disciplinary teams (biology education, chemistry education, elementary science education), which were tasked to design and implement a SSIBL-​based learning activity to introduce RRI in their classrooms. The teachers collaborated in their co-​design groups to develop lesson plans and learning materials, following a learning design process. With the support of a researcher, they divided tasks, developed learning materials, and discussed their co-​design during the online and face-​to-​face meetings, as well as over asynchronous communication.

Teachers as “Innovators” When taking the role of “Innovators” the teachers had to enact SSIBL-​based modules they had co-​designed in the previous phase with their students. Teachers’ classroom enactments, which were also supported by the university researchers, offered the opportunity of testing and refining the SSIBL modules, which encapsulated many new, to the teachers, ideas, and pedagogical approaches, such as the combination of RRI, inquiry learning, and active citizenship.

Teachers as “Reflective practitioners” Reflection was a key aspect of the TPD experience and was fostered through peer feedback, feedback between interdisciplinary groups, the co-​design process, and the opportunity to enact, evaluate, and reflect on the SSIBL framework.At the conclusion of the implementations, teachers came together during additional Saturday sessions, to reflect on the effectiveness of their implementations through a Strengths-​Weaknesses-​Opportunities-​Threats (SWOT) analysis and re-​design the learning materials based on these experiences. Each team also publicly presented their efforts to peers, Ministry Inspectors, and parents.

Data Collection Over the course of the two TPDs, the co-​design teams produced twelve SSIBL-​ based learning modules (three for middle and high school biology, four for middle

184  Kyza, Agesilaou, Georgiou, & Hadjichambis TABLE 9.1  Overview of the data sources

Data source

Research goal: Investigation of…

Sample (teachers)

Pre-​Post Teachers’ Needs & Confidence Survey Recording of teachers’ face-​to-​ face and online conversations Field notes Co-​designed modules In-​depth individual interviews

Teachers’ professional needs

22

Co-​design discussion themes

27

SWOT analysis of the co-​designed modules Teachers’ perceptions of the TPD and the co-​design approach

25 19

and high school chemistry education, and five for elementary school science). The learning modules were subjected to reviews by peers and researchers, were implemented, and then subsequently revised by the co-​design teams. Evidence of student learning was collected from the implementations and teachers themselves reported on the impact of the designed modules. Since the two TPDs were similarly structured, we focus on the second iteration. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected and analyzed using ethnographic and case study techniques (Wilson, 1977) from multiple data sources (see Table 9.1).

Teachers’ Professional Needs The 20-​item “Teachers’ Needs & Confidence Survey” survey was designed to assess teachers’ needs and confidence in relation to the following four dimensions: (1) Understanding the SSIBL framework and its pillars, (2) Acknowledging the value of the SSIBL framework, (3) Designing SSIBL-​ based modules, (4) Implementing SSIBL-​based modules. The response scale for teacher confidence ranged from 1: “I am not very confident” to 7: “I am very confident,” while the response scale for teacher PD needs ranged from 1: “I definitely don’t need this” to 7: “I definitely need this”. The completion of the survey was voluntary; the pre-​survey was completed by 22 of the 27 science teachers, while the post-​survey was completed by 23 out of the 27 science teachers. In this chapter we report findings only from teachers who participated in both the pre-​and the post-​surveys (matched n=​22).

Co-​design Discussion Themes Data from teachers’ co-​design meetings were collected from the face-​to-​face and online sessions. The co-​design meetings were recorded and fully transcribed. The transcribed conversations were also merged with field notes kept by the university researchers, who facilitated each disciplinary group.

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SWOT Analysis of Teachers’ Co-​designed Modules Teachers were invited to reflect on their co-​ designed modules with their colleagues during the last TPD meeting. In this session they identified and discussed: (a) the Strengths, (b) the Weaknesses, (c) the Opportunities, and (d) the Threats that emerged during the implementations.

In-​depth Individual Interviews After the classroom enactments of the co-​designed modules, in-​depth individual interviews were conducted with the participating teachers. Each interview had an average duration of 30 minutes and employed a semi-​structured protocol with open-​ended questions to investigate teachers’ perceptions about the co-​design process and the TPD program.

Data Analysis The analysis identified teacher professional needs and examined the impact of co-​design on teachers’ professional learning and the materials they designed. Data were analyzed inductively (Thomas, 2006); analyses of pre-​post data, transcripts of teachers’ meetings and interviews, and the teachers’ reflections on their design process, as well as records of their own work presented to peers and at public events, were examined for triangulation purposes.

Findings We report the findings of our analyses, with a focus on the extent to which teachers functioned as intellectual partners in co-​design, how learning might have occurred in the co-​design TPD context, and what challenges were reported by the teachers during this effort. We first present the themes that run across the collected data and indicate how teachers were able to become intellectual partners in co-​design. We, then, provide evidence for the impact of the TPD on self-​reported teacher learning.

Becoming Intellectual Partners in Design The TPD programs were designed and implemented by a team of university researchers, who were also working for the PARRISE project. The researchers’ expertise helped organize and manage the sessions, and provided direction and continuous support, especially when the teachers were implementing the teaching materials in their classrooms. The teachers provided their deep knowledge of their students and of the educational system, and their disciplinary expertise.This synergy supported the teachers as intellectual partners in designing for reform. One of the teachers summarized this complementarity, and its benefits, when she stated that:

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Our collaboration with the researchers was very good and of great importance. We, as educators, were contributing by sharing our ideas on how the module could be actually implemented in the school classroom. We could provide such insights as we were active teachers with our own classrooms. On the other hand, the researchers were guiding us regarding the SSIBL pedagogy, as an educational approach starting from a driving question and expanding to the inquiry-​based stages. It was a great collaboration and I believe that such partnerships should continue to take place as the teachers do not follow the research trends and as such, they cannot implement emerging pedagogical approaches. PGM, Female, Biology Education Group The teachers who participated in the co-​design process acknowledged and appreciated the facilitator’s scaffolding. For instance, as one of the teachers reported: One of the greatest aspects, is that there was continuous and sufficient support. Whenever we needed our facilitator, she would respond to us. We were sending emails, even during non-​working hours but our facilitator was always there, willing to invest her time to resolve all the issues that were emerging during the co-​design process. We had a great collaboration with our facilitator. P3MI, Female, Elementary Education group Likewise, another teacher mentioned: Both during the face-​to-​face meetings as well as during the online meetings we had, but also whenever we needed help, or we wanted clarifications, we would receive them by the facilitator of our Biology education group as well as by the rest of the facilitators. I cannot recall a moment that we would need support during these two years, and we would not have it immediately. All of them were excellent. P4GL, Male, Biology Education Group We next present three main themes that discuss how teachers were able to become intellectual partners in design through connecting theory and practice (Theme 1), the development of a learning design community (Theme 2), and the alignment of the co-​design TPD with teachers’ professional needs (Theme 3).

Theme 1: Connecting Theory and Practice -​Reunification of “Making” and “Doing” The co-​design experience was the central aspect of the TPD approach: however, without the classroom enactments, its effectiveness in helping teachers become true intellectual partners in design would have been limited, as also discussed

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in the literature (Clarke & Hollingsworth, 2002; Voogt et al., 2011). Clarke and Hollingsworth (2002) argued that enactment invites reflection and that the coupling of enactment and reflection can promote professional growth. In the in-​depth interviews, the participating teachers documented the experience of the reunification of “making” (designing) and “doing” (implementing). As evidenced in the next quote, the teachers highlighted how this opportunity contributed to their professional development: Basically, the whole program was of great importance [to my professional development], because on one hand we had access to the more theoretical part during the workshops, which helped us structure the main principles of the SSIBL pedagogical framework in our minds. Subsequently, you have the opportunity to implement what you have learned, to see how it works in praxis, and to receive guidance and support in order to implement it correctly. I believe that it was a complete process. From one hand you have the theoretical part, and on the other hand the practical part.You put yourself in a position to implement what you had learned and reflect on your actions. P3MI, Female, Elementary Education Group This coupled experience also allowed teachers to view the proposed innovation as realistic and could work in their own instructional practices, thus leading to feelings of ownership of the innovation. For instance, as another teacher reported: We were co-​designing learning materials that in a way could seem and sound as too extreme to be handled… However, in reality, when putting them in praxis… During the co-​design and the implementation in the classrooms, it seems that they can fit quite well in praxis, it is not just something which simply remains in theory. P4GL, Male, Biology Education Group

Theme 2: The Development of a Learning Design Community Learning communities are discussed in the literature as contributing to teachers becoming transformative individuals. The co-​ design teams supported a collegial relationship between teachers and provided the mutual support they needed to innovate and try out new, and perhaps risky ideas. As shown in the following excerpt, teachers acknowledged the value of collaborating with other teachers in attempting to innovate, suggesting that the co-​design experiences helped them perceive each other as a useful resource in this endeavor: It is very important to work with other colleagues, while at the same time it is also a challenge.You come in contact with strangers who you have never worked with before.You do not know how they work in a group, and it is very important that you have to work collaboratively; it is difficult, of course,

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but you either understand if you have such organization skills or you acquire the skills of such communication and collaboration. This is what teachers lack, I think… collaboration, the ability to works moothly with others who are still unknown to you, from the first time. This is a challenge but when you reach your goal you feel satisfied because you managed to create something as a team. I personally believe in collaboration and teamwork in the workplace. P6MG, Female, Chemistry Education Group One of the teachers specifically said that even though in the past she had preferred to design her own materials individually, as she felt that this was more efficient, her experience with co-​design for the first time led her to decide to pursue collaboration with other colleagues whenever possible from now on. When asked to explain further, she said that: The result was better, I saw that where you may lag behind (for example, I can be more theoretical), other people who are more practical can contribute to the process in another way. Also, this exchange of views, things that you are not thinking about, (but) someone else is thinking about them and tells you “here I disagree, here we need some time”…also the division of labor, that is, at other times when I was designing a learning unit myself, the time I spent in relation to the workload was much more than this time around. The result was better this time. P19GM, Female, Elementary Education Group Reflection-​on-​action was reported as an important consequence of this collaboration, as suggested in the following excerpt. During the collaboration with other colleagues, we could improve ourselves, as this is the point where you can realize your own weaknesses, consider the others’ perspectives, and everyone in his/​her own way, personal knowledge and skills, would help each other in order to create something good for our students. P2TM, Female, Chemistry Education Group

Theme 3: Alignment of TPD Goals with Teachers’ Needs Being able to see the benefits from participating in co-​design contributes to the success of the co-​design effort. Teachers joined the TPD to learn about new pedagogical approaches to science education teaching and learning, that were aligned with policy calls, nationally and internationally. The main reason for participating, as they expressed it, was the potential benefit to students. As one of the teachers reported:

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I joined this TPD program as I like to be constantly trained and use new ideas and new methods to attract the interest of my students but also to make my lessons more engaging. T1GM, Male, Chemistry Education Group The teachers emphasized the benefits to their students, because of their participation in the enacted curricula. When asked how the SSIBL curriculum compared to other curricula she had enacted, an elementary science teacher reported that: I saw many benefits in my students. I saw a big difference mainly in their self-​confidence.The fact that they became educators themselves, educators to each other, educators to the school community, educators to their parents, to their grandparents, to the local community, to the wider community.The fact that they were invited to the municipality of our city to present their ideas. The fact that they were invited to a TV show to let others know about recycling grocery bags [the topic of the science unit their teacher co-​designed], I believe it gave them so much confidence, they tasted success, they felt successful, they felt they could do it. And this thing, and this thing alone, the fact that they felt they could do it and that it boosted their confidence, automatically improved their learning outcomes, that they believed in themselves that they could do it. T13ED, Female, Elementary Education Group However, as reported during the interviews, the teachers also felt that their participation led to an increase in their own learning. In addition, the analysis of the “Teachers’ Needs & Confidence Survey” (Table 9.2) shows that the teachers’ confidence in terms of understanding, acknowledging the value, designing, and

TABLE 9.2 Teachers’ TPD needs and confidence before and after the co-​design TPD

(Matched n=​22) Subscale

Understanding Acknowledging the value Designing Implementing

Teachers’ confidence

Teachers’TPD needs

PRE M(SD) POST M(SD) Z

PRE M(SD) POST M(SD)

5.77 (.67) 5.99 (.81)

6.07 (.64) 6.27 (.73)

-​2.18* -​1.43

2.50 (1.12) 2.38 (1.34)

2.24 (1.18) -1​ .21 2.16 (1.20) -.​ 907

4.96 (.69) 5.31 (.73)

5.36 (.76) 5.88 (.68)

-​1.87 -​2.25*

3.61 (1.49) 3.16 (1.46)

2.98 (1.19) -1​ .79 2.42 (1.29) -1​ .85

Notes: *p