Beyond Curriculum Materials: The Uptake, Adaptation, and Use of Elementary Science Materials in Educational Systems (Poster 5)

• In Event: System-Building for Improving Elementary Science Teaching and Learning: From the Classroom to the Central Office

Abstract

Purpose
In this study, we examine the system-specific ways that curriculum materials operate as part of instructional reform efforts in elementary science.

Theoretical Framework
Curriculum materials are considered a key lever in instructional reform in elementary science (Authors, 2022a), yet teachers’ uptake and use of curriculum materials is enmeshed in a series of relationships with sociomaterial organizational structures that shape their practice. In this sense, curriculum materials can be understood as a “seed” that dynamically evolves within localized contexts (Ko et al., 2023). As such, contrary to a resource-forward logic, building educational infrastructure is not a ‘one and done’ facet of educational system building (by designing/purchasing curriculum materials, for example) that mediates between standards and instruction, but an ongoing and relational domain of work (Authors, 2022b). To foreground this relationality, we draw on posthuman feminist perspectives (Bennett, 2010; Braidotti, 2022) that theorize matter as vibrant and self-organizing, such that agency is enmeshed within human/non-human relations. This perspective also centers teachers of elementary science’s assets and creative powers to make meaningful instructional decisions, while also accounting for them as embodied and embedded in institutional contexts that constrain their work (Kayumova & Buxton, 2021; Strom & Viesca, 2021).

Modes of Inquiry
We use a comparative case study research design to explore the role of curriculum materials in elementary science instructional reform efforts in 8 school districts in the US.

Data/Analysis
Our analytical approach included analytic memo writing (Emerson et al., 2011) using a diffractive approach (Mazzei, 2014; Jackson & Mazzei, 2023). Our account is based on analysis of data from classroom, school, and district levels including in 8 school districts including: interviews with teachers, formal and informal school-leaders, and district science coordinators; observation fieldnotes of science lessons; and artifacts including curriculum materials, student work samples, class schedules, and classroom photographs.

Findings
Drawing on a posthuman feminist lens, findings illuminate the complex sociomaterial webs that shape how teachers co-construct their instructional materials along with school schedules, district policies, instructional standards, colleagues, students, and the curriculum materials themselves. These webs operate in system-specific ways including:
1. Design of curriculum material infrastructure. For example, in one district, rotating science materials between schools throughout the year necessitated teachers making adaptations to the curriculum materials to craft meaningful elementary science learning experiences for students.

2. The system design in which curriculum materials are embedded. While teachers in most systems reported only engaging with the NGSS through curriculum materials, in systems with different designs teachers, for example one district that focused reform efforts on teacher professional learning, used the NGSS directly to adapt provided infrastructure.
Further findings challenge the tacit logic that building the ‘perfect’ curriculum materials is sufficient for supporting reform-oriented science instruction, but instead identify ways districts and schools can support teachers to make principled adaptations to curriculum materials while preserving honoring teachers’ creative powers.

Significance
This study challenges and extends understanding of the varying roles curriculum materials play in reform efforts in elementary science, as they are embedded in educational systems with different designs.

Authors

• Emily Seeber, University of Michigan

• Christa Haverly, Northwestern University

• Elizabeth A. Davis, University of Michigan