Understanding and Improving How Teachers Use Context in Science Instruction

About This Grant

Many science teachers struggle to make science ideas meaningful and relevant to students. One approach is to connect science to context--that is, students' real-world environments and experiences. Teachers are more likely to connect their instruction to authentic contexts when they have experienced them firsthand, but this is not always possible. This project explores how immersive field science experiences and carefully designed digital resources can help secondary teachers make science more engaging and relatable for students. The research team will study how teachers incorporate what they learn from real-world science experiences into their classroom teaching, and whether online materials can replicate some of the same benefits. By improving both immersive and digital professional learning experiences, the project aims to increase access to and decrease the cost of high-quality instructional supports, especially for teachers who cannot attend traditional field-based learning. Products will include new curriculum materials, professional learning models, and a classroom observation tool to study how teachers make science content more relevant and meaningful. The project will directly support over 60 teachers and 4,000 students in Florida and Oregon and will provide open-access tools and resources for broader use. Moreover, it will lead to a deeper understanding of how teacher experiences with authentic science contexts, whether in real life or with online supports, can translate into more rigorous science instruction. Ultimately, this work will be relevant for science teachers across the U.S. This design and development research project investigates how secondary science teachers contextualize instruction following either immersive field experiences or curated digital supports. The project uses a quasi-experimental, mixed methods design to compare the impacts of "primary contextualization" (learning in real-world contexts) and "secondary contextualization" (learning with context through multimedia) on teachers' instructional practices. Teachers engage with Data Nuggets modules, curriculum units built around real data and stories from scientists, and participate in professional learning focused on connecting these materials to specific field sites. Researchers collect data through classroom observations, interviews, and surveys to identify and examine the instructional moves teachers make to connect content to context. The team is refining a contextualization observation protocol, developing new context-supplemented Data Nuggets lessons, and creating models for optimizing both field-based and online professional learning. This work is generating new insights into how science teachers learn to integrate authentic contexts into instruction, identifies the specific moves teachers use, and advances the tools available for supporting and measuring contextualizing teaching practices. The Discovery Research preK-12 program (DRK-12) is an applied research program that seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers. Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for funded projects. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.