Classroom Practice

Teachers Experiences with Taking an Open-ended Approach in Teaching Labs in High School Physics Classes

Although most teachers recognize the importance of taking investigative, open-ended approaches to students’ learning experiences, implementing them in high school classes can be challenging for teachers.

Author/Presenter

Hamideh Talafian

Morten Lundsgaard

Maggie S. Mahmood

Eric Kuo

Timothy J. Stelzer

Year
2025
Short Description

Although most teachers recognize the importance of taking investigative, open-ended approaches to students’ learning experiences, implementing them in high school classes can be challenging for teachers. In this work, we analyzed data from multiple sources from a teaching Community of Practice (CoP) to investigate (a) barriers to taking an open-ended approach in teaching labs in physics classes, (b) shifts in teachers’ beliefs about taking an open-ended approach during their engagement in a physics teaching CoP in a partnership program, and (c) a case study of one teacher whose shifts in perceptions about taking an open-ended approach in teaching labs led to her successful implementation in her class.

Designing a Tool for Teacher Noticing for Equity in Mathematics Instruction

In this paper, we propose a mathematics professional development tool designed to support teachers’ noticing for equity and improve their ability to provide powerful mathematics and an inclusive discourse community for each and every student. Used within the context of coaching cycles, this tool serves as a reflection guide for teachers to consider the extent to which all students had opportunities and access to rigorous mathematics and a discourse community and were engaged as doers and communicators of mathematics during a lesson.

Author/Presenter

Zuhal Yilmaz

Kristen Malzahn

Daniel Heck

Paola Sztajn

Elizabeth A. Shaver

Year
2024
Short Description

In this paper, we propose a mathematics professional development tool designed to support teachers’ noticing for equity and improve their ability to provide powerful mathematics and an inclusive discourse community for each and every student.

Designing a Tool for Teacher Noticing for Equity in Mathematics Instruction

In this paper, we propose a mathematics professional development tool designed to support teachers’ noticing for equity and improve their ability to provide powerful mathematics and an inclusive discourse community for each and every student. Used within the context of coaching cycles, this tool serves as a reflection guide for teachers to consider the extent to which all students had opportunities and access to rigorous mathematics and a discourse community and were engaged as doers and communicators of mathematics during a lesson.

Author/Presenter

Zuhal Yilmaz

Kristen Malzahn

Daniel Heck

Paola Sztajn

Elizabeth A. Shaver

Year
2024
Short Description

In this paper, we propose a mathematics professional development tool designed to support teachers’ noticing for equity and improve their ability to provide powerful mathematics and an inclusive discourse community for each and every student.

Developing a Teaching Reflection Tool

Teacher reflection on the teaching and learning of mathematics is essential for driving instructional change. While teacher noticing is key to reflecting, this skill does not necessarily develop through teaching experience alone. Professional learning (PL) opportunities can play a critical role in supporting teachers’ use of reflection to purposefully cultivate their understanding of ways to attend, interpret and act on significant instructional moments (van Es et al., 2017).

Author/Presenter

Paola Sztajn

Daniel Heck

Kristen Malzahn

Zuhal Yilmaz

Year
2025
Short Description

Teacher reflection on the teaching and learning of mathematics is essential for driving instructional change. While teacher noticing is key to reflecting, this skill does not necessarily develop through teaching experience alone. Professional learning (PL) opportunities can play a critical role in supporting teachers’ use of reflection to purposefully cultivate their understanding of ways to attend, interpret and act on significant instructional moments (van Es et al., 2017). This oral communication focuses on the steps used to design, develop and pilot a reflection framework used with coaching support to enhance teachers’ ability to notice key aspects of high-quality mathematics discourse in the classroom.

Developing a Teaching Reflection Tool

Teacher reflection on the teaching and learning of mathematics is essential for driving instructional change. While teacher noticing is key to reflecting, this skill does not necessarily develop through teaching experience alone. Professional learning (PL) opportunities can play a critical role in supporting teachers’ use of reflection to purposefully cultivate their understanding of ways to attend, interpret and act on significant instructional moments (van Es et al., 2017).

Author/Presenter

Paola Sztajn

Daniel Heck

Kristen Malzahn

Zuhal Yilmaz

Year
2025
Short Description

Teacher reflection on the teaching and learning of mathematics is essential for driving instructional change. While teacher noticing is key to reflecting, this skill does not necessarily develop through teaching experience alone. Professional learning (PL) opportunities can play a critical role in supporting teachers’ use of reflection to purposefully cultivate their understanding of ways to attend, interpret and act on significant instructional moments (van Es et al., 2017). This oral communication focuses on the steps used to design, develop and pilot a reflection framework used with coaching support to enhance teachers’ ability to notice key aspects of high-quality mathematics discourse in the classroom.

Using Partner Interviews to Support Language and Mathematics Development for Elementary Multilingual Learners

While peer-to-peer conversations can be beneficial for children’s linguistic and mathematical development, the specific conditions needed to support optimal conversations remain elusive. As part of a larger project to infuse peer-to-peer interactions into mathematics instruction for multilingual students, 8- to 11-year-old children in the U.S. were videotaped by their teachers interviewing one another about their solution strategies to equal sharing problems.

Author/Presenter

R. Restani

R. Ambrose

R. Martin

M. Jiménez-Silva

S. Abdelrahim

X. Xu

A. Huynh

A. Albano

Year
2026
Short Description

While peer-to-peer conversations can be beneficial for children’s linguistic and mathematical development, the specific conditions needed to support optimal conversations remain elusive. As part of a larger project to infuse peer-to-peer interactions into mathematics instruction for multilingual students, 8- to 11-year-old children in the U.S. were videotaped by their teachers interviewing one another about their solution strategies to equal sharing problems.

Incorporating Participatory Science in Elementary Schools: Teacher and Student Experiences with Outdoor Learning

Science instruction in elementary school provides a base for student understanding of the natural world, yet policies prioritizing mathematics and reading have marginalized science. In response, some teachers have enhanced their science instruction by introducing students to participatory science (PS) projects. Using data from a larger study that examines the development of educative support materials for two existing PS projects, this embedded mixed methods study focuses on teachers’ and students’ experiences learning outdoors.

Author/Presenter

Sarah J. Carrier

Danielle R. Scharen

Meredith L. Hayes

P. Sean Smith

Christine Goforth

Laura Craven

Lindsey Sachs

Year
2026
Short Description

Science instruction in elementary school provides a base for student understanding of the natural world, yet policies prioritizing mathematics and reading have marginalized science. In response, some teachers have enhanced their science instruction by introducing students to participatory science (PS) projects. Using data from a larger study that examines the development of educative support materials for two existing PS projects, this embedded mixed methods study focuses on teachers’ and students’ experiences learning outdoors.

Collective (Un)Learning: A Self-Examination of Science Teacher Educators' Evolving Translanguaging Pedagogy for Eliciting and Elevating Student Ideas

This study centers the idea that it is not just what science teacher educators (STEs) teach, but how they teach it, that matters. To prepare future teachers who can enact more equitable and transformative reform-oriented science instruction with multilingual learners, research must explore what STEs are doing, and how, to develop preservice teachers' expansive views of language and understandings around the nuanced ways students might use their diverse language repertoires for sensemaking.

Author/Presenter

María González-Howard

Karina Méndez Pérez

Sage Andersen

Carla Robinson

Leticia Garza

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2025
Short Description

This study centers the idea that it is not just what science teacher educators (STEs) teach, but how they teach it, that matters. To prepare future teachers who can enact more equitable and transformative reform-oriented science instruction with multilingual learners, research must explore what STEs are doing, and how, to develop preservice teachers' expansive views of language and understandings around the nuanced ways students might use their diverse language repertoires for sensemaking.

Interrogating Whiteness in Mathematics Education Research: A Discourse Analysis of Storylines About Latiné Communities

Society produces storylines about Latiné communities, including their placement in racial and linguistic hierarchies, that permeate the mathematics classroom and research in mathematics education. We conducted a discourse analysis of the enunciations used in top-tier mathematics education journals about these communities. The majority of articles we examined functioned to maintain white supremacy by centering dominant (white) storylines and values to maintain a racial hierarchy, with whites above Latiné and other marginalized groups.

Author/Presenter

Stacy R. Jones

Carlos Nicolas Gómez Marchant

Year
2025
Short Description

Society produces storylines about Latiné communities, including their placement in racial and linguistic hierarchies, that permeate the mathematics classroom and research in mathematics education. We conducted a discourse analysis of the enunciations used in top-tier mathematics education journals about these communities.

How Educational Leaders Think About Intersections of Identities and Disciplinary Learning in Science

American science education leaders play critical roles in promoting equity in education, but little is known about how they understand everyday classroom interactions where inequities related to intersectionality are evident. This study examines science leaders' sensemaking about a scenario depicting the experiences of a group of American Black girl elementary students in an engineering design lesson, focusing on what leaders notice and how they propose to intervene to address problematic aspects of the students' experience.

Author/Presenter

Riley Ceperich

William R. Penuel

Annie Allen

Trang Tran

Yamileth Salinas Del Val

Sarah Leonhart

Abby Rhinehart

Kristen Davidson

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2025
Short Description

American science education leaders play critical roles in promoting equity in education, but little is known about how they understand everyday classroom interactions where inequities related to intersectionality are evident. This study examines science leaders' sensemaking about a scenario depicting the experiences of a group of American Black girl elementary students in an engineering design lesson, focusing on what leaders notice and how they propose to intervene to address problematic aspects of the students' experience.