Theoretical and empirical work both point toward the importance of science teachers' being able to listen to their students' thinking and tailor their instruction accordingly. Yet, previous work and our work in this project both highlight how rare it is for teachers to base instructional decisions on the substance of their students' conceptions and reasoning. Why is that? In this project, we are documenting that most teachers are capable of attending to the substance of their students' thinking, but a variety of factors -- institutional pressures, school cultures, time constraints, etc. -- tend to pull their attention away from their students' thinking. Ongoing work focuses on both theory (e.g., modeling teachers' decision-making) and practice (e.g., implications of this work for teacher professional development).
What influences teachers' modifications of curricula,
and to what do they attend in the classroom?