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Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) identity has become a popular lens in science education research. However, few studies have looked at how using the interpersonal, structural, cultural, and disciplinary domains of power sheds light on how women of color differently navigate the various cultures of formal and informal schooling as well as college science and math departments. This paper uses narrative inquiry methodology to examine how a young Black woman constructs science and math identities through stories about her previous experiences becoming a science and math person. By also framing it within intersectionality and employing a storied-identity lens, this study provides insight into how stories that shape identities inform her science and math identities. Specifically, this study looked at how she navigated the emotions and social experiences that fostered an interwoven storied science, math, and racial identity across different times, spaces, and settings. It highlights how a strong sense of belonging in her science and math trajectories was positively influenced through various sources and moments of recognition from community influences (e.g., family, peers, and faculty) and structural disruptions (e.g., the HBCU she attended and STEM camp). Despite negative emotions of self-doubt and frustration were present when her science, math, racial, and smart student identities came into conflict, she leveraged the positive emotions of joy and pride in her interwoven science and math storylines, which strengthened not only her science and math identities but also her racial identity. The study underscores the importance of leveraging counter-narratives of resilience as a resilience strategy but also practicing acceptance and self-compassion when navigating tensions between racial, science, math, and smart-student identities for women of color in STEM. The study's conclusions add to the call for structural changes within K-12 and higher education that are crucial for equity goals within STEM education.

While many studies have investigated the relationship between teachers' identity work and developing practice, few have examined teacher candidates' developing practice through a storied identity lens. Drawing upon narrative inquiry methodology and a storied identity analytic framework, I examined how the storied identities of learning science, choosing to become a science teacher, and becoming a science teacher shaped teacher candidates' learning to teach. In particular, I examined the stories of two interns by focusing on their experiences as science learners, and transitions to becoming science teachers. Also, I examined the influence and implications of their identity on their instructional practice while learning to teach. This study suggests that a storied identity lens can provide a better understanding of the different practices that teachers enact under the same teaching context. The results have implications for teacher education programs to consider providing more opportunities for beginning teachers to tell their stories of science learning and learning to teach, and to be aware of how the social cultural context plays a role in shaping teachers' practice.

This study examines how researchers can better understand the instructional and practical realities of teachers through collective sensemaking. Traditional approaches to curriculum design engage learning models without accounting for the needed flexibility of teachers. This approach has resulted in tension and gatekeeping--inhibiting the implementation of curriculum. Teachers are often considered relatively autonomous; however, this study sheds light on the constrained autonomy teachers experience resulting from internal and external pressures. This study examines the collective sensemaking process of researchers while developing a high school genetics curriculum. By examining the collective sensemaking of the "areas of tension" that arose during the curriculum design process, the problem space of researchers expanded and became more aligned with the problem space of teachers. Collective sensemaking encouraged the humanizing of teachers by centering their content, contextual, and social needs. In addition, this study suggests that gatekeeping can result from many factors; but through collective sensemaking, researchers can intentionally design to resolve said factors.

Although extensive research has shown the important educational value of technology-enhanced online units on students' science learning, few studies have looked at upper elementary students' knowledge integration in a web-based inquiry science environment (WISE). This case study investigates how upper-elementary students responded to an online prompt, in an embedded assessment tool, to construct a scientific explanation around the variation of traits in their class and how a teacher provided feedback to encourage student discourse. Our findings show that students were able to identify which traits were more common in their class; however, they struggled with making a connection between variation of traits and inheritance of traits when analyzing data from their pie chart. Additionally, we show that an upper-elementary teacher used an embedded assessment tool to scaffold the iterative process of learning and feedback that occurs in an online platform that leverages learning technologies by engaging in high-level discourse moves. We suggest that teachers' use of embedded assessments in a technology-enhanced environment can encourage student self-reflection and support teachers in making evidence-based instructional decisions as well as provide immediate feedback along the way, which is a key support when students are not participating in traditional face-to-face classroom environments.

We examined the sophistication of middle school students' mechanistic explanations of genetics phenomena and how they interact with a technology-based explanation tool as they articulate and organize their ideas about the phenomena. We coordinated curriculum and assessment design frameworks to develop a middle school curriculum unit that engages middle school students in the interrelated science practices of using models and constructing scientific explanations of the trait expression mechanism in rice plants. In order to more clearly distinguish between groups of students, specifically partial mechanistic and mechanistic explainers, we conducted a design-based research study that examines the relationships among the explanation tool's design, how students use the tool, and the sophistication of their scientific explanations. This study, using a refined version of the curriculum unit and explanation tool, revealed significant differences between partial mechanistic and mechanistic explainers in their use of the explanation tool. The findings inform the design of technology-based scaffolds for scientific modeling and explanation and design principles for gathering formative evidence of students' proficiency with these practices.

Genetics has become increasingly important in everyday life, a fact that is reflected in state and national science education standards. This study examines the relationship between 474 fifth graders' understandings of the core ideas of "inheritance of traits" and "variation of traits". A confirmatory factor analysis, supplemented with qualitative analyses of students' responses, revealed a relationship between these concepts and contributed evidence about the nature of students' challenges in learning these ideas. While most students demonstrated some normative ideas, many struggled to explain "variation of traits" as resulting from equal inheritance of genetic information from two parents. Instead, they focused on generational patterns of visible traits or on the influence of nongenetic factors. Deepening understanding of young students' heredity-related thinking can improve preparation of older students for learning advanced genetics-related ideas.