Abstract
Since the release of A Framework for K-12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), there has been an urgent need for teacher professional development (PD) programs that support the implementation of NGSS-aligned curriculum materials and address the unique strengths and needs of diverse student groups, including multilingual learners (MLs). The purpose of this study is to describe how teacher feedback guided the design and refinement of our curriculum-based PD program integrating science and language with MLs through a 2-year field trial. We obtained feedback as fifth-grade teachers learned to enact science and language instructional shifts in PD workshops, tried out those shifts in their classrooms, observed how students responded to the shifts, and made shifts in their beliefs and practices as they noticed changes in student learning. We organize the results around our conceptual framework for our PD program. Grounded in our perspective on symmetry, our PD program guided teachers to develop an asset-oriented view of MLs and instructional practices for recognizing and cultivating MLs' assets (Design Principle 1) and integrate science and language in mutually supportive ways with MLs (Design Principle 2). The results indicate how teacher feedback enabled us to design the PD program in ways that supported shifts in teachers' beliefs and instructional practices for science and language integration with MLs. We close by discussing limitations of the study and implications of the results.