ABSTRACT
When curriculum is purposefully connected to the local community, classrooms can build on and strengthen students’ ties to their communities as they engage with disciplinary concepts. However, teachers have little guidance on how to connect curricula to the communities in which the schools are situated in, and there are few studies that focus on community-based instruction that describe the roles needed to design science curricula that is meaningful and relevant to a community’s needs and ways of living (Bang & Medin, 2010). One challenge for teachers in designing community-based instruction is knowing how to engage community members in designing and implementing curriculum alongside teachers as they collectively work with students. Drawing on constructs found in design-based implementation research, this study explored what it meant to incorporate multiple stakeholders in research-to-practice conversations centered on the design and enactment of science curriculum that is connected with students’ communities (Penuel & Fishman, 2012; Penuel et al., 2011).
