The role of habitus, structure, and agency in the implementation of science reform practices

Abstract

“This paper is part of the special issue on Teacher Learning and Practice within Organizational Contexts.”

Theorizing and exploring teacher learning contexts is critical to understanding reform-based instructional changes. Research on professional learning, organizational contexts, and science reform has grown over the years, particularly since the unveiling of the Framework for K-12 Science Education in the United States. In this article, the authors present the case of Mr. Gray—a veteran middle school science teacher—to explore factors that influence the implementation of professional learning tools and resources. Using the theoretical constructs of habitus, structure, and agency, the study offers insight into the acquisition of reform-aligned teaching practices and illuminates why it is challenging to change science pedagogy. While professional learning was a supportive structure, especially for availing new schemas and supporting agency, this paper highlights the importance of considering agency-related constraints beyond professional learning. Students’ ways of participation, assessments, and a teacher’s existing habitus were found to be influential structures that constrained Mr. Gray’s agency toward reform. The authors argue that structures have differential power in influencing change and that structures may work together in unpredictable ways, across different teaching contexts, to limit or facilitate change of teaching habitus. The interplay of habitus, structure, and agency explored in this research has implications for professional learning design and teacher education programs.

Introduction

Implementing science education reforms requires a significant transformation of traditional teaching practices to align with current reform standards. Reforms such as those advocated for in the Framework for K-12 Education (henceforth, the Framework) (NRC, 2012), from which the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS, 2013) are derived, challenge longstanding ways of teaching. The teaching approach proposed in the Framework demands an overhaul in teaching practices to engage students in three-dimensional (3D) learning in which students use disciplinary core ideas (DCIs), science and engineering practices (SEPs), and crosscutting concepts (CCCs) to understand a scientific phenomenon or solve problems.

Teaching in new ways is difficult due to deeply ingrained practices that are patterned and resistant to change (Kennedy, 1999; Ernst, 2007). These deeply ingrained practices in science education teaching are characterized by mastery of vocabulary, confirmatory lab activities, and rote memorization of ideas, which tend to take precedence (Makori, 2021). These practices are rooted in and supported by structures of teaching and learning. The persistence of certain teaching practices that do not align with the effective science teaching envisioned in the Framework suggests a need to investigate teaching and learning contexts to support shifts in teaching practices (Allen & Heredia, 2021). For in-service teachers, the context includes professional learning (PL) programs, school district and state policies, school administration, and science classrooms (Fantacone et al., 2024). These elements not only offer organizational structure but also influence teaching practices and objectives implemented in classrooms. In-service teachers mostly learn new practices through professional learning (PL) programs. However, when PL opportunities are limited and do not effectively lead to instructional change in classrooms, traditional forms of teacher-centered teaching practices persist.

Furthermore, the persistence of traditional teaching practices is not solely a result of the personal attributes of the teacher; broader social and organizational forces also play significant roles. Teaching contexts influence how teachers make sense of and implement PL tools and resources in their classrooms. Teaching approaches tend to be examined through teacher traits in isolation of contextual factors and the consideration of teachers as actors in those contexts (Kennedy, 2010; Imants & Van der Wal, 2020). However, teachers’ contexts have been shown to impact their instructional choices (Radloff et al., 2019; Rodriguez, 2015). Thus, it is vital to explore teacher learning as a complex phenomenon informed not only by teacher experiences and conceptions but also by the local (e.g., school and classroom) and external (e.g., PL) factors that govern science teaching and learning contexts.

This article explores the factors that impact teacher learning to implement science reforms within complex organizational contexts using the theoretical concepts of habitus, structure, and agency (Bourdieu, 1977; Sewell, 1992). Habitus is a way of being in the world—in this case, a way of being a science teacher. Structures are the norms, rules, and metaphors that govern social interactions—teaching and learning. Agency is the intent and act of making choices in a given context—in this case, reform-aligned choices. By examining the interplay of habitus, structure, and agency, this study aims to better understand the factors that inhibit or support instructional change and inform the design of professional learning programs that address these factors directly or (at best) consider teachers’ structural contexts. These ideas will be discussed further in the theoretical framework.

Literature Review

Many teachers, including veteran educators, struggle to establish and sustain a phenomenon-driven learning environment where students are actively engaged in figuring out how or why a phenomenon occurs. This challenge persists despite an increased emphasis on student sensemaking outlined in the Framework (NRC, 2012) and the NGSS (2013), where students build and revise their knowledge to enhance their understanding of the natural and designed world (Schwarz et al., 2017; Odden & Russ, 2019). Instead, teachers often promote “activity without understanding” (Windschitl et al., 2008, p. 942). For teachers to align their vision of teaching with that outlined in the Framework, professional learning (PL) has been found to be useful in offering new tools, resources, opportunities, and practices that support instructional change (Hayes et al., 2019; Sandholtz et al., 2019). Teacher learning encompasses refining ideas, practices, skills, and knowledge about teaching (Russ et al., 2016; Weick, 1995). Investigating teacher learning is critical, especially for experienced teachers whose methods are deeply rooted in traditional forms of teaching (Ernst, 2007). We define “veteran teachers” as those who have been teaching for over fifteen years before the introduction and implementation of the NGSS. To effectively support teacher learning, it is essential to consider both the opportunities and constraints that influence teacher change, especially when designing professional learning (PL).

Elements of High-Quality PL

PL has been used to improve teaching pedagogies, which in turn improve learning outcomes (McChesney & Aldridge, 2021). As such, high-quality PL that embeds the features identified by Desimone (2009) and others is paramount: content focus, active learning (Loucks-Horsley et al., 2009), coherence (Allen & Penuel, 2015), sustained duration (Darling-Hammond et al., 2009), and collective and collaborative participation. Content-focused professional learning activities that center on subject matter content are effective for student learning and improving teacher practices. Active learning involves engaging teachers in instructional activities that mirror the intended classroom practices to be used in the classroom, followed by discussions and interactive feedback. Coherence emphasizes the extent to which professional learning aligns with teacher beliefs, goals, and policies, that teachers are expected to follow at the school, district, and state levels. The duration and frequency of professional learning impacts its effectiveness (Darling-Hammond et al., 2009). Finally, PL should offer opportunities for teachers to collaborate, support teachers in navigating instructional challenges, and receive feedback from colleagues. Even when the PL design includes these characteristics, teacher change might not be realized due to other contextual factors, both related to the PL (such as inadequate support) and unrelated to PL (such as school culture or workload) (Opfer & Pedder, 2011). Bringing these contextual factors to the forefront of teacher learning is crucial because enacting new skills takes time, especially within complex organizational contexts laden with competing priorities (Cochran-Smith & Villegas, 2016; Heredia, 2020).

Contextual Factors

Research on science teacher learning practice includes many topics, among them teacher characteristics, teacher conceptions, and enactment of content knowledge (PCK) within organizational contexts (Shulman, 1986; Park & Oliver, 2008; Jackson et al., 2014; Allen & Heredia, 2021). In this article, context refers to the environment in which teachers learn and work. For in-service teachers, the context includes the PL programs, school district policies, school culture and leadership, and science classroom dynamics. Context may also include teacher characteristics and student characteristics—that is, their backgrounds and achievements (Fischer et al., 2018). Hayes et al. (2019) note that teacher change depends on how such factors influence PL practices because contextual factors interact with PL in unpredictable ways to promote or undermine change. Additionally, change depends on which factor has more power in each context (Makori, 2021). Extending current research to focus on what shapes and sustains teachers’ conceptions of pedagogy and learning in their local contexts is paramount.

Teacher Characteristics

Teacher characteristics include teachers’ years of experience and their beliefs about teaching and learning. Teacher characteristics, especially those stemming from years of using and refining teaching practices, are deeply ingrained and long-lasting (Kennedy, 1999). Thus, veteran teachers have accumulated a set of teaching practices and beliefs that are part of their toolkit (Seiler, 2002). Teaching toolkits influence the effectiveness of PL due to what Lortie (2020) refers to as an apprenticeship of observation of teaching. Lortie argues that novice teachers have been socialized into teaching through observing what teaching is or looks like while they were students—the apprenticeship of observation of teaching.

We argue that in-service teachers’ apprenticeship is impacted by this prior observation and many years of subsequent teaching. That is to say, this apprenticeship is deeply ingrained and difficult to change (Kennedy, 1999; Ernest, 2007), yet this is where teachers draw from when they make sense of PL tools and resources in their classrooms (Hayes et al., 2019). The resulting teaching toolkit may not always align with the teaching methods advocated for in the Framework (NRC, 2012) and meet the NGSS. We contend that teachers struggle to make instructional changes (e.g., advocated PL) because of structural constraints that continue to support deeply ingrained practices in science teaching contexts (Makori, 2021; Kennedy, 2010). Therefore, many teachers tend to teach the way they have taught (Lortie, 2020), including overreliance on the textbook and providing information with few changes in instruction (Windschitl et al., 2008).

Kennedy (2010) argues that, as researchers, we have erred in attributing teachers’ teaching practices to personal characteristics while overlooking situational factors. For instance, school leadership and social networks support participation in PL and increase teacher effectiveness and student achievement (Fischer et al., 2018). School districts’ understanding and alignment with reform and teacher evaluations based on student tests are examples of situational factors that could significantly influence teachers’ actions and inactions regarding reform (Allen & Heredia, 2021).

To address the challenge of attributing teaching practices to personal characteristics, there is a need to examine teacher learning as a complex phenomenon informed by not only teacher experiences and conceptions but also the local and external factors that govern science teaching and learning contexts. Kennedy (2010) notes that “what is needed is a close examination of the situations that individual teachers experience that may provoke the practices that we see in their classrooms” (p. 593). In other words, what are the structures in place that inform teaching practices that we see, and how can we account for their impact on teacher learning?

Recent studies (Allen & Heredia, 2021; Marshall et al., 2021) echo this need to identify “ways of examining instructional contexts as levers for learning and tools for designing professional learning” (Allen & Heredia, 2021, p. 150) and consideration of curriculum implementation contexts. Research indicates “personal and contextual factors may mediate the influence of professional development” (Hayes et al., 2019, p.118). This mediation is what we see as the interaction of one’s way of being a teacher (habitus) and contextual factors (structures) that contribute to bringing or impeding change. Using the idea of structures allows us to look at an individual’s actions as being informed by more extensive powerful social forces.

Structures of teacher learning

In science education literature, structures have been broadly examined as factors affecting teacher change. Longhurst et al. (2017) explore the factors influencing teachers’ appropriation of PL tools and the resulting levels of appropriation. They advocate for examining the role of PL in improving educational outcomes. Teachers take up resources and tools depending on their agency and other contextual factors that might support or impede their use. Focusing on why teachers appropriate these tools the way they do would inform student outcomes, PL design, and teacher support during implementation. Relatedly, Sandholtz et al. (2019) examine what influenced teachers’ decisions about instructional strategies years after PL. They identify five factors most notably time constraints, personal commitment to change, and student reactions to the strategies. These factors point to exploring teaching contexts and ways to support teachers in navigating coherence and incongruence during implementation (Allen & Penuel, 2015). Sources of coherence and incongruence can include student responses to instruction, teacher beliefs, and accountability testing as structures (Marshall et al., 2022; Hayes et al., 2019). Analysis of these studies highlights common factors that influence teaching practices: student reaction, school culture, and accountability testing.

Heredia (2020) highlights the challenges science teachers encounter while navigating various external demands on student science learning, especially around assessments (both formative and summative). When external forces—such as school administrators and state and national accountability measures—fail to align with the conceptual ideas about teaching and learning, teachers can find it very difficult to reconcile and implement reform in their teaching. Heredia (2020) found that formative assessments create a source of incoherence for teachers who tend to rely on formative assessments as tools for accountability of learning rather than a means to evaluate students’ abilities for learning, as exhibited through higher-level thinking and reasoning. Consequently, accountability testing is an educational structure that manifests in classrooms as teaching that narrows the curriculum to align with assessments instead of engaging with conceptual scientific ideas to investigate and explain phenomenon (Pinder, 2013). The pressures of accountability testing constrain teachers’ agency to create classrooms where students deeply engage with science ideas but rather drill students to pass the test (Allen & Heredia, 2021; Seiler & Kwamboka, 2023). Observers might infer that a particular teacher they observe does not embody reform-aligned practices following professional learning. However, as noted by Longhurst et al. (2017) and Kennedy (2010), multiple factors influence a teacher’s ability to implement reform. Therefore, a better understanding of the power of these factors and how they influence teaching practices allows us to pinpoint and address structures that may be responsible for change.

While some of the research cited above illuminates the dilemmas, challenges, and complexities of teacher learning, it also shows a need to theorize teacher learning contexts in new ways that consider the interaction of local and external pressures. Additionally, it is unclear in the literature how the factors explored mediate change or lack thereof. Allen and Heredia (2021) point to the need to examine the institutional pressures and expand existing frameworks around reform practices. This article addresses this need and adds to the scholarly understanding of teacher change using the theoretical ideas of habitus, structure, and agency.

Purpose of the Research

The purpose of this research is to explore the structures that support and constrain veteran teachers’ implementation of new teaching practices that align with the vision of the Framework (2012) to meet the NGSS (2013) while being supported through professional learning (PL). Using the theoretical concepts of habitus, structure, and agency (Bourdieu, 1977; Makori, 2021; Sewell, 1992), this research explores how one veteran science teacher of nineteen years, Mr. Gray, grapples with learning to teach science in different ways. The ideas of habitus and structure provide a theoretical basis to conceptualize and research change in patterns of teaching practices among teachers with many years of teaching experience and patterns and ways to disrupt some of the patterns. For this study, the local and external pressures are conceptualized as structures of teaching that teachers must navigate through agency. The following research question shaped the study: What are the structures in in-service teacher contexts that afford or constrain agency to change teaching habitus toward reform?

Theoretical Framework

To explore teaching contexts as spaces laden with external influencers, we draw on the theoretical ideas of habitus (Bourdieu, 1977) and structure|agency (Sewell, 1992) to analyze how classroom practices are afforded or constrained by structures. These ideas not only offer insight into the acquisition of reform-aligned teaching practices but also help us understand why it is difficult to change teaching practices.

Habitus

Habitus is one’s way of being in the world (Bourdieu, 1977) and comprises schema and resources for behavior or action. For science teaching, we can think of habitus as a way of being a science teacher, and veteran in-service teachers have developed a long-standing habitus of science teaching. They generally know which tool in their tool kit works—that is, what Bourdieu (1977) calls the feel for the game or logic of practice. For instance, rote memorization, overreliance on the textbook, and mundane lab activities have permeated many science classrooms (Windschitl et al., 2018). Shifting from this kind of teaching to engaging students in sensemaking requires a fundamental change in how teachers teach. This means a reflection on and change of science teaching habitus.

Habitus as Internalized Schema and Resources

Sewell (1992) describes habitus as consisting of schemas and resources, as illustrated by Makori (2021, see Fig. 1). “Schemas are mental structures; as such, they are the norms, rules, metaphors, beliefs, and assumptions that shape social life in a particular context. Due to their context-specific nature, they are often called cultural schema” (Makori, 2021, p. 43). Schemas are the culture of science teaching, which for a long time has been characterized by the scientific method, labs, and mastery of science vocabulary. It is the default or norm on how things are done in a particular context and is often internalized. Resources are anything that can be used to accomplish a task in a social interaction; they are a source of power for agency to perform a task or lack thereof.

Figure 1:

Habitus as constituting internalized schemas and resources.

Resources can be human and nonhuman; they facilitate behavior or action. For instance, access to technology tools (a non-human resource) and a teacher’s technological expertise in using the tools (a human resource) would impact teaching and learning in profound ways. Having both types of resources allows for in-depth exploration of science concepts compared to when one or both are lacking. Taken together, habitus can also be thought of as a tool kit (Seiler, 2002) of schemas and resources that can facilitate practices. For instance, a teaching tool kit could consist of a set of discourse moves that encourage student talk or discourage it through initiate-response-evaluate (IRE) tools (Lemke, 1990). Figure 1 illustrates habitus as schemas and resources that influence one another.

According to Makori (2021), “schemas and resources that constitute habitus are both historical and collective; that is, they are long-lasting and shared. This historical and collective nature of habitus explains its tendency toward reproduction” (p. 45). For instance, during the 2023 presentation at the National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST) conference about this work, one of the attending teachers commented: “Listening to you and the presentation diagrams, I think of habitus as autopilot … we are used to doing things naturally in a certain way.” Teachers have been “autopiloted”—ways of being a teacher—to teach; they tend to default to familiar and comfortable ways of teaching that often do not align with reform-oriented practices. These socialized ways of teaching are shared and tend to be reproduced since norms, rules, and metaphors of teaching are historical and collective. When new ideas are introduced through PL, teachers must negotiate where they fit in their schemas and not only in and if they have resources to support the new ideas in their contexts. As such, teachers need to be supported in ways that reflect deeply on their practices, engage with reform, and make both conceptual and practical changes to their teaching.

Re-orienting teachers toward NGSS instruction generally includes encouraging teachers to teach in ways that are different from how they have been teaching, and we know that teaching practices acquired during the apprenticeship of observation or through long-term teaching experience are profoundly patterned and resistant to change (e.g., Kennedy, 1999; Ernst, 2007). The concept of habitus helps us to understand the acquisition of teaching practices acquired through experience. Therefore, teacher change can be thought of as a change in habitus through acquiring new schemas (ways of thinking) and resources such as curricula related to new teaching practices.

Structure and Agency

Sewell’s (1992) ideas of structure and agency help to illuminate the challenges of changing habitus. Structures include the rules, norms, and expectations that govern social life in a particular context. Structures provide a basis for action and inaction. Therefore, structures can be considered as externalized schemas and resources (Makori, 2021). For instance, assessments are structures that make the rules, norms, and learning expectations actionable and visible. Some schema and resources are embedded in structures, such as those found in learning standards. Conversely, others are taken up individually, such as how a teacher plans lab activities and facilitates classroom discussions.

Broadly, agency is the efficacy of human action—that is, the capacity to exert some control over social life (Sewell, 1992). It is something that people do rather than something they have—that is, “a quality of the engagement of actors with temporal–relational contexts-for-action, not a quality of the actors themselves” (Biesta et al., 2015, p. 626). When applied to teaching, agency is “purposefully considering and enacting both small and large-scale change in personal and community domains, based on one’s beliefs and goals” (Basu, 2008, p. 884). Therefore, this study uses agency to refer to the purposeful considerations and enactment of teaching practices that align with NGSS teaching.

Sewell writes, “structures shape people’s practices but also, people’s practices constitute and reproduce structures” (p. 5). Thus, structure and agency are intertwined; they impact one another in a dialectic way that either fosters transformation or diminishes one’s power to bring about change (see circular arrow, fig. 2). This dialectic interaction of structure and agency is called the duality of structure. See the left side of Figure 2 (Makori, 2021).

Figure 2:

Structure and agency constitute and influence the transformation or reproduction of habitus.

These structures provide rules, norms, and codes of participation that teachers must embody because their jobs are tied to these structures (Allen & Heredia, 2021; Brown & Weber, 2016). Thus, structures exert power over teachers and often constrain their agency and capacity to change.

Interaction of Habitus, Structure, and Agency to Bring About Change

Agency and structure can be used to explain why teacher change is challenging and offer possible ways to sustain tools and resources acquired in PL. According to Biesta et al. (2015), “agency is always informed by past experience, including personal and professional biographies; that it is orientated towards the future … enacted in the here-and-now, where such enactment is influenced by what we refer to as cultural, material and structural resources” (p. 627). Agency is also influenced by preexisting habitus as dictated by the power of structures—the interplay of the actor, resources, and contextual structures (Biesta et al., 2015) (see the horizontal arrow, fig. 2).

For instance, when assessments (structure) align with teaching reforms, teachers find the “need/value to shift” (agency) their teaching to prepare students for success within the new structure. In this case, the structure affords agency and subsequent change of habitus of teaching. However, when assessments remain traditional and teachers are interested in making changes in teaching, tension arises between what they would like to do and what the structure (assessments) requires (Allen & Heredia, 2021). Hence, their agency toward change is truncated since the change is not supported by the structures of teaching. This leads to sustained traditional forms of teaching habitus. Makori (2021) writes: “To experience agency in transforming one’s habitus necessitates valuing of the new schemas and resources by others as one tries to enact them” (p. 238). Teachers’ contexts; the administration and students are immediate structures that could support or truncate teacher agency. Teachers are more likely to add new resources to their toolkits when a contextual structure (i.e., students) positively recognizes the resources—that is, gain value.

In some cases, agency can enable one to acquire and apply new pedagogical practices to bring about change (Dyches & Boyd, 2017), even when structures do not support change, as demonstrated by the cyclic arrow in Figure 2. At the same time, agency away from reform can exist, leading to the reproduction of teaching practices. Rodriguez (2015) notes that even when teachers act on their agency to bring change, new challenges arise from that change and should be anticipated, such as pushback. Paths to change are possible and more likely when supportive schemas and resources coupled with other supportive structures outweigh a constraining structure. Structures may resist and work against new practices, thus constraining agency and consequently sustaining a traditional habitus of teaching. The teacher’s schemas and resources mutually constitute each other (see vertical arrow, fig. 2). However, schemas and resources also shape and are shaped by structure. Hence, structures shape schemas and resources, and structures can afford or constrain their usage. This interaction is shown by the horizontal arrow that extends from structure and agency toward habitus in Figure 2.

In summary, habitus is constituted and shaped by the schemas and resources made available by certain structures, which in turn influence agency. Given that teacher change can occur when habitus is changed, it is crucial to analyze the structures that support or constrain in-service teachers to be able to work toward transforming their practice (change of habitus). Therefore, the concept of habitus provides a lens to understand not only the acquisition of teaching practices through such an apprenticeship but also their resistance to change and the difficulty of acquiring new practices among experienced in-service teachers. At the same time, since habitus is context-specific, studying teacher learning and teaching contexts through this lens is befitting to understand what shapes teaching practices in these contexts.

Methodology

Research Design and Procedure

As described in the theoretical framework, this article is an empirical case study and a theoretical exploration. A qualitative case study (Yin, 2003; Stake, 1995) of a veteran teacher, Mr. Gray, was undertaken to gain insight into understanding structures that afford or constrain in-service teachers’ change of habitus while engaged in PL with an embedded NGSS-designed curriculum. Four characteristics bound the case: Highly experienced (having taught for over 15 years), certified to teach science, implementing the NGSS-designed curriculum, and attending the PL. This case was centered around these areas because research has shown that despite PL design efforts, teachers struggle to shift their teaching habitus to align with NGSS (Allen & Heredia, 2021; Makori, 2021). This article investigates the organizational context of teaching and the affordances and constraints to change teaching habitus among experienced teachers.

Identification of the Participant

Larkin and Perry-Ryder’s (2015) single case study approach informed the selection and analysis of Mr. Gray as a participant. He represents many science teachers who show ambivalence about reform practices after PL. Mr. Gray, a White man, is a certified science teacher with nineteen years of teaching experience and is highly regarded as an excellent teacher by the school and district administrators. As a veteran teacher ready to learn new ways of teaching, at the beginning of PL, Mr. Gray’s case presented a unique opportunity to interrogate the role of deeply ingrained habitus and structures that influence teacher change.

Additionally, he rated himself high on the pre-PL teacher NGSS efficacy and attitudes based on the New Framework of Science Education Survey of Teacher Understanding (NFSE-STU) (Nollmeyer & Bangert, 2017). Survey items included readiness, understanding, and engaging students in using SEPs to explore a phenomenon on a Likert scale of 1–6. Mr. Gray’s responses were between 4 and 5. At the same time, an analysis of his teaching and experience about his teaching practices throughout the PL showed that he struggled with learning to teach in new ways. Mr. Gray was the only teacher in the cohort who had not been exposed to NGSS-oriented teaching PL before the study because his previous teaching experience was in a state that had not adopted or adapted NGSS. Per the other criteria for participation, Mr. Gray actively participated in PL, collaborated with other teachers, and openly grappled with new ways of teaching—publicly sensemaking with other teachers.

At the end of the PL, Mr. Gray appreciated the new ideas he learned in the PL and how it challenged his teaching philosophy. However, he still held to the traditional forms of teaching, as he questioned the viability of NGSS-aligned teaching to support student achievement in standardized tests. Hence, he continued to appropriate teaching practices; in ways that fit his schema and structures, without actively disrupting traditional forms of teaching. Mr. Gray’s response to the PL, particularly collaborative learning, offered unique perspectives and played significant roles in the positive changes and challenges observed and analyzed. Thus, this single study presents a unique opportunity to learn why it is difficult for experienced science teachers to change teaching practices (Larkin & Perry-Ryder, 2015).

Research Context

Mr. Gray taught in a public urban junior and senior high school of choice located in a Midwest city. School of choice meant that enrollment was not restricted to specific neighborhoods but included students from across the district. The district was small, with just over 1,000 students and approximately sixty-one K–12 teachers. Many teachers at the school taught both middle and high school courses. According to PublicSchoolReview.com (2023), 95% of the student population is considered economically disadvantaged, based on free and reduced lunch eligibility, with 46% identifying as White and 55% identifying as minoritized populations. During the study, Mr. Gray taught a ten-week middle school life science unit that focused on the concept of gene-environment interactions and natural selection through the phenomenon of Type 2 diabetes, a community concern relevant to students. Since 2014, the curriculum has been tested as part of the pacing in multiple Midwest school districts, including Mr. Gray’s school, in sixth and seventh-grade classrooms with approximately 2,000 students and twenty teachers.

Research Design

The research was a component of a National Institute of Health–funded research project that provides teachers with a fully developed curriculum and professional learning. The Framework and NGSS guided the design of the curriculum through a community-inspired project-based learning (PBL) approach that connects science learning with the community (Modell et al., 2023). The authors were part of the team that developed and revised the curriculum. Authors 1 and 2 were lead facilitators of the PL sessions, alternately taking field notes and collecting data.

The NGSS-designed unit included three-dimensional assessment items at the end of each of the seven learning sets of the curriculum unit. These assessment items underwent rigorous development and review process. The items included detailed rubrics for the teachers that outlined each of the three dimensions being assessed. During the PL, teachers tried out the items and rubrics and were encouraged to use them as formative assessment tools to assess student learning and, more importantly, a way for teachers to identify students’ strengths and areas of improvement.

Collaboration and support throughout the enactment period were at the core of PL design based on the understanding that while high-quality curriculum materials are vital, they are not enough to bring change in teaching practices (Ball & Cohen, 1996). The PL was designed with careful attention to the high-quality features outlined in the introduction, including an overview session and periodic sessions throughout the enactment period to support coherence. Teachers participated in face-to-face and virtual PL, along with weekly classroom support visits throughout the unit’s enactment period. During the PL sessions, teachers and researchers interacted with the detailed teacher guide, and teachers participated as learners to experience various lessons within the unit (Loucks-Horsley et al., 2009). The sessions were structured to guide the teachers through the curriculum using “sample teaches.” A sample teach involves instruction of one or more of the curriculum lessons where teachers experience the lesson as learners, followed by a discussion of the learning experience.

Additionally, PL aimed to orient teachers to new teaching practices and classroom discourses to engage students in sensemaking and productive student talk. Discourse moves (Michaels & O’Connor, 2012) were emphasized during PL and classroom visits to encourage student talk. As part of PL, facilitators provided a talk moves handout (see Appendix 1) that includes both teacher and student discourse moves to help teachers track how the teacher talk moves were used by the facilitators during PL. We frequently referred them to the student idea moves when they engaged in discussions to model what they would do in the classroom. Debriefs of these sessions during individual classroom support sessions included prompts such as: What is new to you? How would you have introduced this concept in your classroom in the past? What was different about how we taught this lesson? What discourse moves did we use that allowed you, as students, to engage in sensemaking? These questions allowed teachers to reflect on their habitus and consider the changes needed to support their students to demonstrate 3D learning. As part of classroom observation data, we focused on how the teacher engaged students in discussions and the use of discourse moves discussed and modeled in PL. For instance, we recorded the instances when the teacher used discourse moves that oriented students to each other’s thinking, introduced phenomena, and the kind of questions the teacher posed (i.e., open-ended versus closed-ended questions).

Teacher support while implementing the curriculum was extensive and typically included one-hour weekly virtual and bimonthly in-person PL sessions, as well as classroom visits throughout enactment. Extensive and ongoing teacher support was vital in PL design because research studies demonstrate the need for high-quality professional learning is critical to improving STEM teachers’ practices (Gardner et al., 2019; Kelley et al., 2020; Parker et al., 2020; Zhou et al., 2023). PL was intentionally designed to address the challenge of attendance due to the lack of substitute teachers. Hence, face-to-face PL meetings were held in the afternoon and scheduled on district PL days, while weekly PL meetings were held after school and virtually for convenience.

Data Collection and Analysis

Data collection began with a presurvey of participating teachers. A presurvey focused on teacher NGSS efficacy and attitudes, based on the New Framework of Science Education Survey of Teacher Understanding (NFSE-STU) (Nollmeyer & Bangart, 2017). The presurvey consisted of thirty-one items, including background on teaching and experience with NGSS teaching and learning. The survey asked teachers for two responses to each statement measured by the instrument: One to assess teachers’ perceptions of their understanding of the NGSS and the other to assess their readiness to implement instruction using these concepts. The purpose of this survey was to gauge teachers’ initial understanding and readiness to teach in NGSS-aligned ways, in addition to their teaching habitus before the PL. Detailed notes were taken throughout the process and recorded the sessions during both face-to-face and virtual PL sessions. Field notes helped identify instances when teachers compared their teaching to the PL sessions or showed agency in their learning while tracking our interpretations.

We held a thirty-minute recorded debrief session following each classroom observation, offered feedback and suggestions, and discussed the affordances and constraints that the teacher was experiencing beyond our observations. We also collected relevant artifacts, such as student models and assessments. At the end of the enactment of the curriculum, we interviewed Mr. Gray to gain insight into what afforded or constrained his habitus towards NGSS teaching. We specifically asked questions related to teaching patterns observed throughout the five months of PL and enactment.

Analysis

Data analysis began with open coding (Saldaña, 2013) of the NFSE-STU survey, interviews, and debriefs to generate broad themes regarding our research question. The emerging themes included challenges and struggles, shifts, PL, and support for new ways of teaching. It is important to note that the process of data analysis was iterative of each data source—to trace commonalities or differences and evidence when a theme emerged later. The survey provided us with an analytic starting point for Mr. Gray’s knowledge and experience with his teaching philosophies, anticipated changes and supports, and goals for the year. Essentially, his responses to this survey provided the foundation to map out Mr. Gray’s teaching habitus, where he ranked himself high on both the perceptions of his understanding of the NGSS and readiness to implement the NGSS. As such, open coding led us to the next round of analysis to explore his teaching habitus during PL and enactment.

The next round of analysis involved using the theoretical framework, in which we deductively examined the data for habitus, structure, and agency. For instance, when Mr. Gray compared the PL practices to his teaching practices or shared his perceptions of instruction, we coded that as habitus. For structures, we looked for what supported or hindered the enactment of new schema and agency towards change. Therefore, when we observed and he shared challenges, barriers, rules, and successes with new ways of teaching, we coded that as a structure because structures embody schema: they either allow or inhibit the enactment of schema. For agency, we looked for moments when Mr. Gray shared and/or engaged in purposeful considerations of the PL reform practices or lack thereof.

Since the implementation of NGSS-aligned teaching was the reform under study, we analyzed classroom observation videos, observation debriefs, and artifacts focusing on classroom discussions and how the teacher engaged students in various SEPs, CCCs, and DCIs to make sense of the phenomenon and his challenges. We utilized Makori’s (2021) Appendix 2 list of operationalized teaching practices and classroom discourses as part of our codes when coding for habitus. Finally, we analyzed interview transcripts, paying attention to Mr. Gray’s responses to interview questions about what was taught in PL, what we observed in teaching, and the challenges and successes of teaching differently. The interview protocol questions addressed teacher identity, teaching philosophies, assessments, barriers and affordances, teacher support, and modeling. We analyzed Mr. Gray’s responses to specific questions that described “the why” behind his teaching highlighting what afforded or truncated his agency toward new teaching methods. These instances helped explain the observation data about his teaching. Taken together, all these data sets provided a storyline of Mr. Gray’s teaching and unraveled the structures that influenced his teaching habitus.

Findings

The findings revealed several structural constraints, and the most salient to Mr. Gray’s context included deeply ingrained traditional teaching habitus, student resistance, and assessments. Identified structural affordances identified included the PL and the state’s adoption of the NGSS, which necessitated the implementation reform. As described in the methodology and at the end of the PL, Mr. Gray was ambivalent towards NGSS teaching. Therefore, the findings are focused on the structures and habitus that help us understand why Mr. Gray struggled to change his pedagogy.

Structural Constraints

Deeply Ingrained Traditional Forms of Teaching Schema and Habitus

As outlined in the theoretical framework, teaching habitus consists of schemas—past experiences, beliefs, and professional biographies—and resources (Biesta et al., 2015; Bourdieu, 1977). Schemas and resources are developed over time to navigate teaching contexts, meaning they are historical and shaped by structures. Veteran teachers have acquired a plethora of schemas and resources, and their agency to add or remove some of them is informed by those very structures. Otherwise, teachers draw from the established habitus, which is often rooted in traditional forms of teaching.

This section provides a window into Mr. Gray’s habitus prior to PL and allows us to explain the teaching practices observed in his classrooms. For instance, when asked to describe his teaching practices and classroom activities before this PL, Mr. Gray said:

Well, we would do introduction activities, exploration activities, might be something we read together, might be an article. Sometimes it’s a video that introduces a topic. Using the old formula. I think it’s a little bit easier to do. So, with that, could. … Looks like you’re focusing on the content, you don’t have time, you want them to master stuff, and vocabularies.

(Gray, Interview 1)

Mr. Gray describes his teaching as using the “old formula” of small activities, reading, and focusing on vocabulary. He adds that the old formula is easier since it is part of his schema and resources acquired over nineteen years. Data from classroom observations showed that Mr. Gray tended to teach for mastery of vocabulary and less on figuring out the phenomenon. The problem with prioritizing vocabulary and rote memorization was discussed and discouraged in PL, as this is not aligned with effective science learning, where students actively engage with the SEPs to make sense of a phenomenon (NRC, 2012). While Mr. Gray agreed with this philosophy and rated himself highly on the NGSS SEPs section of the NSFE-STU survey, he struggled to teach in alignment with the NGSS. During the interview, when asked about this teaching style, his response shows a tendency to rely on preexisting habitus even when new ideas and resources are provided:

We [referring to teachers] tend to teach a certain way where I feel like I am in control. We default to that familiar way, and we have a difficult time letting go. It was challenging to let go of my power to be able to provide scaffolding for students.

(Gray, Interview 1)

The “default” refers to what we theorize as habitus, common among both in-service and prospective teachers through apprenticeship (Lortie, 2020). This default is informed by teacher beliefs espoused in schemas about teaching. Mr. Gray relied on the default practices, and since new practices were not part of the default habitus, he struggled with incorporating new teaching and letting go of the old habitus.

When asked about his experience teaching scientific modeling and how it compared to his previous years of teaching, he stated:

Well, I don’t have a history of teaching it [scientific modeling] at all, so it was brand new for me to teach modeling. And I don’t have a history of practicing modeling or building modeling, through a unit or a collection of concepts so everything was new for them and for me. I struggled with it. I struggled with the process of conveying to the students that this (modeling) is an important component of what we’re doing. … Having never done it, I did not have a frame of reference for this kind of teaching.

(Gray, Interview 2)

As Mr. Gray pointed out, he did not have a history of having students engage in the practice of developing and using models. As a science practice, modeling was very new to him because, in traditional science teaching, models have been used to represent a product also known as “models of.” However, with the NGSS, students use models to represent and explain a phenomenon (Passmore et al., 2017). To engage in this kind of teaching, Mr. Gray had to adopt new schema and teaching pedagogies that were new yet challenging and perhaps contradictory to his traditional schema of using and developing models. Since he had not experienced this kind of teaching, he struggled with engaging students in using models to explain a phenomenon and teaching in new ways—that is, “models for” sensemaking. Teachers draw from what they know. For Mr. Gray, NGSS teaching was new, and it was not part of his habitus. When he reached into his teaching toolkit (Seiler, 2002) about modeling, he did not find a frame of reference for it.

Another instance that shows the role of ingrained traditional teaching practices in the struggle to change habitus is when Mr. Gray shared his experience about PL. He said,

All this [modeling, the questioning, figuring out] is great. I think we are both [referring to himself and another teacher] surprised at how much we struggled with all of this, with all of our experience in education we felt like this was very clunky for us. So now I’m going, if this is where we are, how rough is it going to be with a room full of 7th graders?

(Gray, PL Session 2)

This quote shows that Mr. Gray’s long-term experience teaching and struggle to shift his instruction hindered his agency to envision change in his classroom. He expressed that this kind of teaching and learning was challenging for him and other teachers and that he was concerned about its success with 7th-grade students. Thus, his agency to teach differently was shaken and possibly truncated. The challenge with traditional teaching habitus is how durable it is due to being familiar, reliable, and having been working for the teacher for many years.

Schema from Standardized Assessments

In the case of Mr. Gray, internalized schema from standardized assessments was a structural constraint to his change of habitus. In the initial survey and throughout the PL period, his ideas about teaching and student outcomes aligned well with the NGSS. However, evidence from classroom observation showed that his teaching was centered on content and giving information rather than supporting students in sensemaking about phenomena. During classroom observations and discussions, we observed that Mr. Gray was indeed utilizing the embedded assessments and rubrics. However, we observed that he had additional items, which included multiple-choice and vocabulary matching. This practice went against the teaching philosophy discussed in PL about the importance of 3D assessment in supporting students’ critical thinking skills and sensemaking. During debrief discussions, when asked why he added the items, Mr. Gray responded:

The unit assessment is good, but I have to prepare them [students] for the test. They need to practice test-taking skills and how the tests are structured”

(Gray, observation debrief).

Mr. Gray’s perceptions of standardized tests informed his teaching practices, what he prioritized, and his agency to incorporate new ways of teaching. Mr. Gray’s agency to teach and assess in NGSS-aligned ways was truncated by traditional forms of standardized testing schema, acquired over nineteen years, that mirror multiple-choice and vocabulary proficiency rather than using science practices to explain a phenomenon. To support his agency and persuade him to shift his teaching practices in alignment with NGSS teaching, we provided samples of the state science tests aligned with NGSS teaching during one PL session. The idea was to show how the unit’s embedded assessments were aligned with the state’s standardized items so that teachers could feel confident that the unit’s embedded items were like what students would need to be able to do on the state test. Unfortunately, this move alone was not enough to convince Mr. Gray to continue with 3D assessments. As a reminder, Mr. Gray had just moved from a state that had not adopted the NGSS.

In another post-observation debrief, Mr. Gray discussed the need to assess student learning, especially around science terminology. Referring to the unit’s embedded assessments, he expressed the necessity of adding more questions, including matching and true/false items:

It’s a little frustrating that they’re not gaining more. And here’s another thing, like when I compare this to the old way, we talked about how the vocabulary will fall in place slowly. Well, the old way, the rigor is higher. And we had more quizzes and tests, and we had kids that had to focus on their (vocabulary) unit to unit … when we try to embrace this new process, we vacate the rigor of checks and balances with the grades and quizzes and hard assessments. … So, for Learning Set 5 alone, right? “Independent variable,” “dependent variable,” “biomedical researchers,” that’s the language that should be assessed. … There should be [questions like], “tell me what it means?”

(Gray, observation debrief)

According to Mr. Gray, this new process, where students build science vocabulary over time as they figure out the phenomenon as opposed to science terms presented and defined at the beginning of the unit, resulted in a loss of “rigor.” Rigor became a concern because the embedded curriculum assessments were not providing the familiar schemas of testing—which he refers to as the “old way”—where matching vocabulary is necessary. He contended that the unit should frontload the vocabulary, and without such design, the curriculum lacked rigor. However, Mr. Gray recognized that students were not persisting as they stopped completing the quizzes, something that he could not understand when he said:

We’re giving them broad-flowing days on the calendar to just dig in and do the simulator and work with your partner. If we’re gonna do that, I gotta have on the other end some sharper accountability and I thought that the quality of warm-ups would do that, and it isn’t because they leave them lying around. They don’t value them at all because there’s no outcome.

(Gray, observation debrief)

Mr. Gray expressed frustration with the students’ lack of interest in the daily warm-ups. We posit that perhaps students experienced test fatigue from the daily “warm-up” quizzes that did not result in a grade; the value of tests was lost, thus negatively responding to Mr. Gray’s efforts. Mr. Gray was pressed to align his teaching with accountability testing; this route does not benefit students or support effective science learning. While Mr. Gray recognized this challenge, he was torn between the traditional methods that he had used for nineteen years and the new ways the unit presented.

To support Mr. Gray’s agency in trying out the new curriculum and assessments, we challenged him to add explanation components to the vocabulary and true/false questions he was using: He agreed and said he needed to work on his test formulation skills in the future, and did make some changes to subsequent assessments. For example, in one question, he asked students, “What evidence supports the claim that male rats become diabetic more often than female rats?” Or “Why is the claim false?” Even though he changed just a few items, it indicated a shift from how he previously used and created assessment items.

However, this shift was short-lived; in a subsequent assessment, we saw a regression to short-answer and multiple-choice questions that do not require evidence or reasoning. Students were asked: “Name two drinks that we learned have lots of sugar in them” and “Name ONE high-sugar food you eat regularly.” Both example questions demonstrate his focus on content. It is a list of responses without explanation answers that could reveal students’ thinking, as we had encouraged during our post-observation discussion. His internalized schema from standardized testing took precedence over 3D NGSS-aligned assessments of the PL as he continued to create additional items that fit his schema and teaching goals. Thus, standardized assessments are collectively a powerful structure that provides a schema for teaching goals.

Resistance from Students: Students’ Ways of Participation

New schemas and resources could only be retained and support teacher agency toward change when they accumulate and gain value or are valued by other structures and stakeholders (Sewell, 1992). Our data showed that Mr. Gray’s agency to implement reform was truncated in part due to students’ ways of participation or his perceived students’ performance in the scholastic aptitude tests that he believed he needed to prepare them for. However, students have a habitus of participation—that is, ways of being a student in science classrooms based on prior experiences. This habitus includes learning expectations into which they have been socialized, such as lectures, closed-ended questions, rote memorization, confirmatory experiments, and teacher-led direct instruction. With 3D teaching, students are expected to ask questions, investigate, and formulate explanations. This kind of teaching is different from how they have experienced learning; there could be perceived or real resistance to the new teaching practices they are experiencing. Therefore, students’ responses to teaching can reinforce the old teaching schema or motivate the adoption of the new schema.

For instance, during one observation debrief session, Mr. Gray explained why he felt discouraged from engaging students in NGSS teaching. For perspective, Mr. Gray’s classroom, on average, had twenty-three students, sometimes fewer due to COVID-19 or other absenteeism.

At least ten kids in both groups [two science classes] absolutely refuse to try to do anything. And I’m over here going, this is the fourth time in three days, we’re looking at the same thing. And not only is it frustrating, they’re not getting it, they don’t try to do anything.

(Gray, observation debrief)

Mr. Gray pointed out that a sizable group of kids in both of his classes resisted any work in his class. He found this resistance very frustrating when trying to move the class forward in the unit. This is likely because students find 3D learning to be unfamiliar and more demanding than being told what to memorize. His agency to persist with new ways of teaching was curtailed by a lack of “support” from students based on how they engaged with the resources and responded to instruction. Thus, Mr. Gray’s new schemas and resources did not gain value among students and were likely to be discarded. Reflecting on the lack of participation, he expressed despair and demotivation to continue teaching in new ways.

I feel frustrated that I cannot honor the kids who are ready to move forward. Well, the kids that aren’t ready to move forward, it’s not that they don’t have the aptitude. I can’t make them do what they won’t do. A fourth grader would have done what I asked him to do. And that’s what I mean…. It’s so demoralizing for all we’re trying to do.

(Gray, observation debrief)

As he described trying to get the students to engage in one of the unit simulations and see the patterns of plant growth in different amounts of light, Mr. Gray continued to talk about the difficulty of getting students to figure out the phenomenon. His struggle had him demoralized, and his agency to engage students in figuring out a phenomenon was truncated. It is important to remember that Mr. Gray was also learning to teach using a phenomenon-based unit in which the learners are expected to investigate and explain the phenomenon over time. Experiencing challenges from students could easily lead one to give up on these new ways of teaching.

Our presence in the classrooms was not only to observe but also to support Mr. Gray during enactment. We supported small group work sessions and many of the students expected or asked for answers—for instance, while interpreting data from graphs or making inferences during the computer simulation activities. In our estimation, students participated the best way they knew based on their experiences and expectations of learning.

During the interview, Mr. Gray shared his struggles with models and modeling. We asked Mr. Gray if adding scaffolding would have helped him and his students to engage in modeling. Part of his response alluded to students’ learning habitus and resistance to engaging with the material as a constraint.

I really wanted them to see that the models were a culmination of what we have learned in this learning set … that was not the outcome. … I think it is more of a fact that they do not have a frame of reference for it. They do not have a history of doing it. It is a new thing for them, and they are unpracticed in it … some of them were productive, others were not. So, I would sometimes lean on higher-performing students.

(Gray, Interview 2)

While Mr. Gray pointed out that students did not engage in meaningful ways as a constraint, he also acknowledged that, just like him, they did not have a frame of reference for this kind of learning; they did not know how to engage in modeling. This quote shows how learning is an apprenticeship where skills, tools, and schemas of engagement are learned, that is, a learning habitus. Mr. Gray pointed out that he leaned on high-performing students to continue with the curriculum, indicating that his agency and schemas of the new ways of teaching were fostered by these students. Perhaps, if most of the students responded positively to his teaching, new teaching practices could have gained more value. (Note: In no way should it be interpreted that the students have to motivate teachers.) However, students’ reactions and reception to change do impact teachers’ morale and practice.

Structural Affordances

The Adoption of the NGSS as a Supportive Structure

Outside of the PL, it is important to acknowledge the organizational affordances of this case study. The state’s adoption of the NGSS, the school district’s policy to source NGSS-aligned curricula, and the partnership with the PL program are all organizational affordances for reform teaching. These external structures inform teaching practices as they are part of state and school requirements, and therefore steering teachers toward reform. The PL program provided a semester-long NGSS-aligned curriculum with embedded assessments and facilitated teachers’ learning to teach the new curriculum. Therefore, some structural barriers—such as outsourcing curricula with less guidance and support—were eliminated. Consequently, the state’s adoption of NGSS motivated Mr. Gray to participate in the PL and possibly consider reforming teaching practices.

PL as a Supportive Structure

Despite the constraints described above, PL was a supportive structure that offered new schema and resources and challenged the traditional habitus. PL also offered organizational support for the adoption of the NGSS. This section also illuminates Mr. Gray’s exhibited agency toward reform teaching throughout the PL and observation period. In the beginning, Mr. Gray was unfamiliar with teaching that could meet the NGSS, contrary to how he ranked himself on the initial survey. He had heard about the NGSS but did not have experience teaching in alignment with the standards. Teaching practices before this PL involved mastery of content and vocabulary geared to a test and less exploration of a phenomenon, construction of explanations, and scientific modeling. For instance, in PL, after experiencing the first three lessons in the curriculum learning set, he asked, “You mean by now I have not told them [students] about the pancreas, insulin, and how they regulate sugar” (Gray, PL session)? Mr. Gray was surprised that students were still exploring the phenomenon in the third lesson of the unit, asking questions, creating initial models, and making predictions. This is contrary to how he would have taught this lesson: giving students the information with a vocabulary test at the end of a few lessons to assess mastery of the content, as discussed above.

However, this PL provided a much different frame of reference, including what 3D teaching could look like and ways to engage his students in science and engineering practices. Mr. Gray pointed out that the PL greatly impacted his teaching.

I am experiencing a paradigm shift in my teaching. I am learning to let go of my power and instruction to provide students with scaffolding and engagement. I think of the discourse moves I have learned in PL; I have enjoyed the shift.

(Gray, Interview 1)

This quote directly links Mr. Gray’s acquisition of a new schema of teaching to PL. Since schemas shape habitus, PL offered new schemas on how to use discourse moves and allow students to engage with science practices by managing power dynamics where all students can contribute, share ideas, reasoning, and evidence. It also shows he exercised agency toward change when he said that he was learning to let go of his power.

PL was an eye-opener for Mr. Gray as he began to confront his nineteen years of teaching routines that do not facilitate the NGSS. Mr. Gray’s surprise about delaying vocabulary instruction and struggling with the new teaching was also evident on another day of PL, while he shared about the importance of letting students figure out the phenomenon. One of the veteran teachers said, “we don’t want to frontload.” Mr. Gray responded, “I felt myself going there [referring to frontloading the information] but I kept thinking of the practices we have learned here on how to teach” (PL virtual session).

This is additional evidence that the PL was a supportive structure in Mr. Gray’s teaching schema as he began confronting his tendency to frontload when teaching. Mr. Gray says that when teaching, he had the urge to “frontload” science ideas per his ingrained habitus. At the same time, he reminded himself of the teaching practices that he could use to avoid the frontloading of information. This is also evidence of agency where he purposefully considered and enacted new ways of teaching.

During the interview, Mr. Gray was asked how the PL supported him in enacting NGSS/3D teaching, to which he said:

I did not have a frame of reference for NGSS until this program. The PL helped me with that. Other learning sessions I have had before were broad and focused on many things other than NGSS. I now like my style of questioning as a result of going through this program…. Like today[two months after PL and curriculum enactment] I did it, like the thing where you say, “Did you guys hear what they said?” and then you repeat it, amplify it like “I really like where you are going with that’ and “Can you tell me more?” just backing myself off [from giving the answers] and you can see the wheels turn on students. When I was doing it, it felt right. That is an outcome I did not anticipate but it’s certainly a great outcome.

(Gray, Interview 2)

A change of habitus has a lot to do with reflecting on deeply ingrained practices that require time, resources, and support to change. Mr. Gray had agency, demonstrated when he purposefully tried out discourse moves, which led to the realization that these can allow students to grapple with questions—as Mr. Gray said, it felt right. For him, PL teachings on discourse moves and questioning techniques supported his agency to move away from frontloading, which he refers to as “backing off.”

Our goal for continual engagement with teachers through both face-to-face and virtual PL sessions was to provide a unique experience of sustained support and collaboration. When asked about his overall experience participating in PL, Mr. Gray pointed out the difference between school-related PL meetings and the kind of support and collaboration he experienced in our PL when he was asked about his overall experience participating in PL.

We don’t always have the time to collaborate or to exchange ideas as freely as we got to do in our professional learning meetings. I felt very supported, and I felt very comfortable with everybody that presented. I felt like everyone listened when we had something to say. So that’s a big deal, to feel like you’re being heard. And I felt like I was among people who were very skilled and informed of what this is and how to implement it. And also, [having] people [other teachers] that had gone through the delivery of this whole system, people that had done it at least one year or more. They’re in the same room with us and sharing their stories of successes or specific outcomes. The collective, it’s healthy. It’s incredibly healthy to do that

(Gray, Interview 1).

Collaboration was important to Mr. Gray, and PL offered that space to work with other teachers who had experience implementing the NGSS. He found the PL to be a safe space to share and grow professionally, something he had not experienced or was missing in the school context. Having teachers who had gone through the program was foundational to his acceptance of PL practices as he routinely verified the fidelity of curriculum and PL activities from these teachers. Furthermore, the quote shows having other teachers boosted his agency to engage and share his ideas since he was new to the program. The feedback received from other teachers mattered more to Mr. Gray than the facilitators’ ideas which perhaps contributed to trying the new pedagogies. Finally, when asked if he would do the PL again, he responded, “Absolutely [eyes beaming]. This PL has helped me be better in my teaching. It has helped me think of better ways to engage students.”

Discussion and Conclusion

New Schema and Resources as a Frame of Reference

The findings of this study indicate that PL was a supportive structure and affirm the importance of considering the contexts within which teachers work. Although PL was designed to attend to the five features of effective PL described in the introduction, sustained duration and collaborative participation were critical features that cannot be overstated. PL also provided an already NGSS-aligned curriculum, a resource that alleviated the challenges of designing and merging other curricula to PL and the science standards. Occasionally, Mr. Gray made strides in aligning his teaching with the NGSS practices due to the PL program teachings and resources.

From the findings, PL was a supportive structure for Mr. Gray to shift or challenge traditional habitus. As documented by others (e.g., Hayes et al., 2019; Sandholtz et al., 2019), Mr. Gray referenced the vital role PL played in offering new schema and resources that helped in a slight change of habitus when he tried new ways of teaching and added tools to his teaching tool kit. The PL supported his agency in trying new practices and helped to disrupt traditional forms of teaching by offering an alternative frame of reference that Mr. Gray continued to grapple with. Teachers need time to practice and include the new schema in their habitus, such as modeling. When teachers do not understand how to do modeling, the likelihood of them engaging students in the same kind of teaching is minimal. One of the reasons why some in-service teachers have challenges with NGSS teaching is that they have had few opportunities to “have the experience” of teaching in new ways, and specifically opportunities to add to their toolkit of schema and resources. The lack of a sustainable frame of reference in both schemas and resources leads to a perpetuation of traditional forms of teaching.

Our findings also show that change occurs slowly, and setbacks often accompany small gains. Mr. Gray did make minor changes to his teaching, such as trying the discourse moves and modifying his assessments to include reasoning. However, he was also faced with challenges like students’ negative reactions and deeply ingrained forms of assessment, which forced him to regress to recall-type testing. Hence, the small gains seem to get lost in the regression. However, Mr. Gray’s reflection on deeply ingrained practices and attempts at new practices underpins this back and forth. This shifting offers hope that by minimizing the power of constraining structures, change toward reform is possible.

Acquiring a new schema requires sustained engagement and support over time (Kennedy, 2016). This PL design, with over five months of instructional support, allowed Mr. Gray to grapple with his traditional practices and offered collaboration to experience a paradigm shift. Context-embedded PL has been found to support teachers in applying new strategies, gaining new schemas and resources for new ways of teaching, and receiving timely feedback, which could lead to significant changes in teaching habitus (Heredia, 2020; Garet et al., 2016). We conclude that PL was a valued safe space to engage with other teachers and be supported in implementing new teaching practices. Having such space supported Mr. Gray’s agency for new ways of teaching, which would otherwise be further constrained and truncated in PL where teachers cannot collaborate. This was Mr. Gray’s first year of NGSS teaching practices. As he explained in the findings, the presence of other teachers to share their success with the curriculum was encouraging to him. We hoped that continued participation in PL for another year or two could have supported significant changes in his habitus (Fischer et al., 2018). Another year of PL would have offered continued collaboration with PL experts and other teachers and the opportunity to connect new teaching methods to student outcomes, both of which need time (Darling-Hammond et al., 2009; Longhurst et al., 2017). However, Mr. Gray did not participate in the project the following year.

While PL was a supportive structure, particularly availing new schemas and resources and bolstering agency towards change, it was not enough to completely alter Mr. Gray’s teaching practices. Other constraining structures, such as students’ ways of participation, assessments, and deeply ingrained traditional teaching habitus overpowered the PL teachings. Hence, new schemas and resources from PL rarely gained value within this teaching context.

New Schema within Powerful Contextual Structures

From the findings, students’ ways of participation and teachers’ beliefs about students are powerful contextual structures to support teacher agency toward change or lack thereof. Teacher change depends on the success of new schema, tools, and resources in the classroom. Using Figure 2 of the theoretical framework, on the habitus side, Mr. Gray had acquired a new schema and resources from PL to include in his habitus of teaching: transform habitus. On the left, his attempts to use new schema and resources (think of it as the new habitus) is agency, and students’ ways of participation are the structure. Since structures are dialectically linked, there are two possibilities to explain this. One, the structure (students) does not resist agency (the new habitus); thus, the new schema and resources gain value consequently, transforming both the structure and traditional habitus as demonstrated with the circular arrows. Two, when the structure (students) resists agency (the new habitus) is constrained, without persistence and support from other structures, much of the new habitus is discarded; thus, traditional habitus and structures are reproduced as demonstrated in Mr. Gray’s case.

For PL to gain power in influencing teaching habitus, the schemas and resources provided in PL must gain value in schools and classrooms. In this case, student outcomes, interests, and responses should reflect the new practices for teachers to recognize the value in changing their practices. Gaining value supports teacher agentic strategies, that is, what they do (Biesta et al., 2015; Rodriguez, 2015), aiding in disrupting ingrained practices throughout enactment.

Findings show that students’ ways of participation and reaction to new ways of teaching manifest as resistance. Due to their influence on the teacher, students are an impactful structure that needs to be considered when examining teacher change. As others have found (e.g., Hayes et al., 2019; Sandholtz et al., 2019), teachers are motivated to enact PL pedagogies when they observe positive student reactions. Otherwise, the agency to continue with new teaching methods is diminished, consequently leading to a disregard of new schema and resources. The new teaching practices did not gain value within a powerful structure—that is, the students in Mr. Gray’s context. Gaining value usually indicates that new ideas and practices are useful and viable in classrooms—within the structure; thus, the circular effect positively impacts agency and, consequently, habitus (as demonstrated with the circular arrow in fig. 2). When new practices do not gain value within the science education realm, they will be discarded due to structural incompatibility. Therefore, stakeholders of teacher learning contexts need to focus on structural supports pertaining to students and teacher agency in using PL tools and resources. PL facilitators should consider these structures and be responsive to teachers’ needs when enacting new schemas and resources provided in PL—that is, ways to navigate challenges that arise from exerting agency, such as pushback to new strategies and contextual incongruencies (Allen & Penuel, 2015; Rodriguez, 2015).

Assessments are an essential component of teaching. Given their importance, assessments greatly shape teacher learning and, consequently, teaching practices. As Penuel and Shepard (2016) note, “Teachers and students also live with and are affected by assessments … mandated by states for accountability purposes” (p. 787). For teachers, tests serve as a reflective tool for teaching and perhaps a measure of their effectiveness in teaching. Because of the emphasis on standardized test results, some teachers tend to focus on preparing students to pass the test rather than deeply engaging with scientific ideas (Marshall et al., 2021). Due to the critical impact tests had on Mr. Gray’s teaching practices, we consider tests and how teachers view and utilize them an essential structure influencing agency toward or away from reform-aligned teaching.

Even though the state had adopted the NGSS, and the PL offered 3D assessments, the internalized schema acquired from standardized tests was difficult to alter as Mr. Gray continued to add vocabulary to the 3D assessment items to align with his perceived way of testing. Consequently, assessments hold more power to truncate agency toward change, as seen in Mr. Gray when he went back and forth in his teaching based on standardized test schema. Based on this finding, this paper contributes to the literature about the complex nature of agency; it is nonlinear and can be toward or away from reform, as well as the power of deeply ingrained schema.

Based on many years of how testing has been done, teachers are inclined to teach the way they have known and teach to the test. This limits their agency to try new instructional strategies that may not align with their testing goals. Even though state-level science tests in his state are currently NGSS-designed, past state and national assessments remained an influential structure, a “frame of reference” that hindered Mr. Gray’s change of habitus toward the NGSS, where students engage in sensemaking rather than learning for the test. For instance, Mr. Gray was unsure how 3D assessments could prepare his students for standardized tests that they would encounter later (e.g., college entrance exams). Not seeing his students being tested in NGSS-aligned ways at the state level perhaps heightened Mr. Gray’s skepticism about implementing the 3D PL assessments.

In some ways, Mr. Gray recognized the value of pushing students to apply more critical skills to demonstrate growth in learning, and he realized the value of depth versus breadth when he talked about experiencing a paradigm shift. Simultaneously, he struggled with the impression that the curriculum assessment lacked the perceived rigor of matching vocabulary, true/false, and multiple-choice questions. This struggle shows that being agentic comes with unanticipated challenges (Rodriguez, 2015). Mr. Gray leaned toward old and familiar ways of teaching and testing instead of persisting and addressing these challenges. Besides the PL program, he struggled to reconcile reform-based assessments with regular standardized tests due to the internalized schema of standardized testing.

Change depends on having supportive structures in place, and in this case, aligning standardized tests with reform-based teaching and supportive school administrators in the classroom, to show teachers that this new change is welcome in the teaching contexts. This way, sources of incoherence in assessment and reform in teacher contexts can be alleviated as administrators become a source of contextual support (Heredia, 2020). Mr. Gray was given supportive structures such as an NGSS-designed curriculum, district-level pacing, PL, and classroom support throughout the enactment. However, the power of traditional habitus was strong and persistent. Through our time together in the PL, we were able to begin to challenge these deeply ingrained ways of being a teacher. Furthermore, this finding shows that more work needs to be done at the school district and state levels to demonstrate to their teachers that testing formats and the purpose of testing have changed from simply obtaining correct answers to demonstrating sensemaking.

Differential Power of Structures

The findings highlight that structures do not have the same power. Rather, they have differential power to influence agency toward change. It is not the number of supportive structures that one experiences but rather the most powerful to influence agency toward change. For instance, Mr. Gray’s traditional habitus— his past experiences and beliefs about teaching—worked together with his ideas about assessments to limit his reform-based instructional changes. The PL did not hold enough power to overcome deeply ingrained habitus, which was supported by traditional assessment and students’ way of participation. Although he occasionally made strides in his teaching practices, such as when he noted how good it felt to incorporate some of the discourse moves in his classroom, Mr. Gray still held on to his traditional habitus because it aligned with the “institutional logic” (Zafrani & Yarden, 2022, p.145). Alignment with institutional logic means his habitus was supported and legitimized by other structures, such as long-standing standardized assessment formats and students’ responses to the new teaching practices. Therefore, PL programs should be designed to leverage powerful contextual structures, such as school administrators, and fit into the institutional teaching logic.

Similarly, PL facilitators should be ready and equipped to address teacher questions (Allen & Heredia, 2021) and tensions about teaching to the test. The approach of presenting state tests, providing curriculum-embedded tests, and guiding Mr. Gray in formulating better assessment items seemed to work to some extent. This was one way to leverage the power of assessments. However, since structures work together in unpredictable ways, it seemed students’ ways of participation and Mr. Gray’s traditional teaching habitus worked together to negatively impact his agency to teach differently, as seen in the test items he created.

Mr. Gray regarded our program as a temporary research agenda whose teachings may not have aligned with his perceived teaching goals or administrative requirements. Mr. Gray frequently seemed to doubt PL facilitators after PL sessions. He often turned to colleagues to confirm if and how the resources and activities worked the way they were presented. Without the affirmations from other teachers, the PL may not have had a similar effect on Mr. Gray’s habitus to the extent it did. Hence, different structures hold differential power to influence what teachers do conceptually and practically alongside their teaching goals. Unfortunately, PL did not have enough power to counter the traditional teaching habitus about teaching and assessments. Mr. Gray’s habitus and contextual structures were more potent than external structures such as PL that advocated for reform.

Professional development facilitators and teacher educators should not underestimate the power of deeply ingrained traditional teaching habitus—internalized schema—that teachers bring to PL. Teachers’ habitus is their frame of reference, as it mediates PL and classroom practices (Hayes et al., 2019). Short-term PL may not be effective in transforming ingrained practices. As shown above, teachers draw from their existing schemas, “the default,” and it often does not align with reform-based teaching. That is, the existing schema becomes a source of incongruence as it does not align with new ways of teaching advocated for in PL (Allen & Penuel, 2015). The theoretical ideas show that traditional teaching habitus persists because structures support and value it beyond teachers’ characteristics (i.e., motivations and belief systems). Hence, teacher educators’ efforts in teacher change should include those structures. Teacher educators should consider ways to help teachers add to their teaching tool kit as old schemas and resources can be used in new ways (Seiler, 2002; Sewell, 1992).

Our findings add to the literature on the importance of scaffolds (Hayes et al., 2019) and that consistent support throughout the enactment period is paramount to realizing some change. Continued support through “sample teaches” scaffolding, collaboration, and implementation in the PL program bolstered Mr. Gray’s agency to consider and persist with the new ways of teaching, despite the limited extent. Consistency enables teachers to continue to collaborate and create a support system among themselves and with the facilitators, which is essential in supporting teacher agency for new ways of teaching.

In conclusion, this research makes contributions at the practical and theoretical levels. It provides a theoretical framework to help us understand why teachers find it difficult to change their teaching practices. It suggests how such change related to the vision of teaching and learning promoted by the Framework for K-12 science education can be better supported in teacher PL programs and teaching contexts. The study highlights the importance of considering structures in teaching contexts relating to agency. Notably, considering students’ ways of participation, the role of prolonged engagement in PL, and teachers’ existing habitus as influential structures to teachers’ ways of teaching.

Additionally, this research highlights how structures work together in unpredictable ways to limit or afford change of habitus. “Structures can intersect and magnify each other, and their impact is sometimes unpredictable” (Makori, 2021, p. 279). The unpredictability depends on the context and the power of the structures at play, highlighting the complex nature of agency. Mr. Gray’s case shows that changes in teaching require multiple intersecting structures that foster agency. One affording structure, such as PL, could be overpowered by another powerful constraining structure, such as assessments or school culture. Thus, teacher educators should focus on a system-wide change to capitalize on and find hope in this unpredictability, as different structures do not hold the same power. Habitus is deeply ingrained and resistant to change (Kennedy, 1999; Ernst, 2007), but change is possible over time. Change can happen when agency toward reform is supported by minimizing sources of incongruence with reform practices, increasing structures that support reform, and considering the power of constraining structures and working around them. Therefore, an implication for further exploration of how the challenges faced by Mr. Gray could be addressed in the PL programs and other forms of teacher learning.

Table 1:

Data sources

Data Sources
Online teacher survey—attitudes	1 presurvey
Observations and video recorded face-to-face professional learning (PL) Observation and Zoom-recorded weekly virtual PL	3 sessions (2 prior to enactment and 1 during enactment) 7 sessions (1–1.5 hours each)
Classroom observations and one-on-one debriefs	6
Field notes for all observations and artifacts
Post-enactment Interview	2 1-hour sessions

Appendix

Appendix 1:

Discourse move handout.