“Choose Your Own Adventure”: Responsive Curricular Choices in Elementary Science

Abstract

The complexity and dynamism of learning raises important considerations about the role and design of curricula, and how teachers interact with curricula. In this study, we explored elementary teachers’ participation with a curricular mini-unit in science that invited them to choose among possible next steps, selecting experiments that would responsively build on student thinking. We coded 41 written segments of teachers’ reasoning about their selected next steps to document varied resources that teachers used in making curricular choices. In the vast majority of segments, we found that teachers drew on student ideas and interests as resources for determining next steps. We also identified four clusters of resources that represent different ways of interacting with students’ contributions, with implications for responsiveness, learning, and equity.