Next-Generation Science and Engineering Teaching Practices in a Preschool Classroom

Abstract

This chapter examines how Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)-based science engineering practices are embodied in preschool science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teaching. A preschool teacher’s three STEM lessons were observed, videotaped, and analyzed. The teacher’s teaching practices were coded in a deductive manner using an instrument developed based on the NGSS science and engineering practices (SEPs) framework. The findings demonstrate that (1) the teacher mainly implemented two SEPs—obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information, and planning and carrying out investigations, (2) her teaching practices did not entirely cover all the SEPs of the NGSS, and (3) one important teaching practice, “redirection,” emerged as a strategy used to shift children’s attention or off-task behaviors into active engagement and emotional security. This case study provides insight into what SEPs preschool teachers can integrate into their STEM lessons and the limitations of specifically designed lessons. Implications and directions for promoting STEM teaching and future professional development strategies for preschool teachers are suggested.

1. Introduction

Extant research has emphasized the importance of introducing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) at an early age to engage young children in rich STEM experiences (e.g., [1, 2]). Especially, appropriate early childhood STEM experiences nurture children’s interest in STEM, enhance their STEM literacy, and reduce their stereotypes concerning STEM-related fields [2]. Children’s natural desire and abilities for STEM learning [3] could be encouraged using developmentally appropriate teaching [4]. Yet, reform-oriented teaching practices for early childhood STEM education have received minimal attention [5]. Moreover, recent research suggests that effective science-relevant activities rarely occur in preschool classrooms [6, 7]. One possible reason for the lack of preschool science is that early childhood teachers have expressed negative dispositions and beliefs toward STEM. They also lack confidence in teaching STEM and have limited content and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) [8, 9]. Relatedly, inadequate teacher preparation or professional development would be a critical barrier to successful STEM learning for young children.

While efforts to address the barriers are underway, the urgency of this need is reflected in the new era of the Next Generation of Science Standards (NGSS), whereby students are expected to learn about how to think like scientists and engineers and have a deep understanding of disciplinary core ideas (DCIs) and crosscutting concepts (CCCs) [10]. The NGSS clarified the goal of teaching science: teachers allow students to reveal their knowledge by “doing” a task using that knowledge [11]. These documents highlight what practices teachers can enact and how the practices are central to achieving educational reform. The NGSS has challenged early childhood teachers to align their STEM teaching practices with their standards and expectations [12]. However, there is a lack of evidence concerning the extent to which early childhood teachers incorporate NGSS-based SEPs into their STEM lessons [13]. The current study sought to fill this gap in the literature by examining one teacher’s STEM teaching practices in terms of their alignment with NGSS at the preschool level. One of the challenges of examining teachers’ NGSS-based STEM teaching practices is how to evaluate instructional quality. Commonly used instruments to observe teacher practices in early childhood classrooms are not designed for science instruction (e.g., [14, 15]). Furthermore, frequently used observational instruments in science education (e.g., [16, 17]) have typically been designed for upper elementary or secondary teachers.

This study captured one preschool teacher’s instructional practices aligned with NGSS’s science and engineering practices (SEPs) using the Systematic Characterization of Inquiry Instruction in Early Learning Classroom Environments (SCIIENCE) instrument [18]. The purpose of this study is to document a model of inquiry-based STEM lessons in early childhood education guided by the question:RQ ) How are NGSS-based SEPs embodied in preschool STEM lessons?

2. Literature review

2.1 Impact of STEM reform in early childhood education

Over the past decade, there has been a growing body of conversation regarding early exposure to STEM [19, 20]. In 2010, the “STEM in Early Education and Development Conference” was held by early childhood scholars and researchers in response to increasing attention and the convergence of the two fields: “early childhood education” and “STEM” [21]. In 2014, the National Science Teacher Association (NSTA) [22] issued a position statement “Early Childhood Science Education” with the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) to affirm that early engagement in science and engineering practices can foster young children’s foundational skills needed for learning in their schooling and throughout their lives. In 2016, the White House held an “Early STEM Learning Symposium” in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and Invest U.S. Following that, a forum “Fostering STEM Trajectories: Bridging ECE Research, Practice, & Policy” was held with the cooperation of the National Science Foundation (NSF), Joan Ganz Cooney Center, and New America. In these two meetings, scholars, practitioners, and policy experts shared ideas about providing high-quality STEM education for young children. The discussions soon became an anchor for the release of two NSF-funded policy reports in 2017: “Early STEM Matters: Providing high-quality STEM experiences for all young learners” [23] and “STEM Starts Early: Grounding Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Education in Early Childhood” [4]. Each report provided an understanding of STEM disciplines, the importance of beginning STEM education early, and recommendations for policy, research, and practices to establish better early childhood STEM education. All of these events, actions, and issued documents illuminated that STEM education has already been a significant consideration in the early childhood education field and articulated a vision toward STEM education for young children having ages of 3–8 years.

2.2 NGSS-based teaching practices

One key aspect of the NGSS vision is using science and engineering practices (SEPs). The SEPs are multifaceted, encompassing practices that help students engage with and learn about science and engineering. In keeping with NGSS-based SEPs, teachers should implement instructional behaviors, including a) asking questions and defining problems, b) developing and using models, c) planning and carrying out investigations, d) analyzing and interpreting data, e) using mathematics and computational thinking, f) constructing explanations and designing solutions, g) engaging in argument from evidence, and h) obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information.

Beyond “knowing” the science concepts, students are expected to develop their understanding to explore the natural world through scientific inquiry and to solve problems using the practices of engineering design. Windschitl et al. [24] suggested four core instructional practices:

1. Constructing big ideas

2. Eliciting students’ ideas to adapt instruction

3. Helping students make sense of material activity

4. Pressing students for evidence-based explanations

Kloser [25] also identified a set of core science teaching practices: (a) engaging students in investigations, (b) facilitating classroom discourse, (c) eliciting, assessing, and using student thinking about science, (d) providing feedback to students, (e) constructing and interpreting models, (f) connecting science to its applications, (g) linking science concepts to phenomena, (h) focusing on DCIs, CCCs, and SEPs, and (i) building a safe and collaborative classroom community. Most of the key ideas of practices shown in Kloser’s study overlap with the NGSS SEPs.

2.3 Review of teaching practices in preschool STEM

This section illustrates instructional practices employed in STEM activities in preschool settings. Three commonly used instructional practices across preschool STEM education research were found from a rigorous review of the literature: 1) incorporating play, 2) relating learning to real life, and 3) engaging in a group task.

2.3.1 Incorporating play

Intentional incorporation of play as a part of STEM activities has been one of the most prominent teaching strategies in research regarding preschool STEM education. Previous literature has reported that playing meaningfully promotes children’s basic STEM knowledge and skills in context. Torres-Crespo et al. [26] purposefully set up 20 minutes of free block playtime for 2 weeks in their STEM Summer Camp program and found that free play extended the opportunity for children to demonstrate their complicated engineering skills, helping them build more complex and taller structures. Similarly, Bagiati and Evangelou [27] set up free playtime to be followed by a small group engineering activity such as designing and creating structures. This smooth transition encouraged children to incorporate their constructions built during the STEM lesson naturally into their own play, whereby they could expand their scope of engineering skills. The natural transition from learning to free play appeared in Aldemir and Kermani’s study [28] as well. The two classroom teachers, guided by the researchers for STEM instructions, intentionally left activity materials used in a STEM lesson in the center of the classroom right after the STEM lesson was completed. This activity provided a chance for free exploration by the children to revisit and regurgitate their learning spontaneously.

According to the developmentally appropriate practices (DAPs) [2], children’s play is an important vehicle for promoting the development of content knowledge. The opportunities for decision-making and free-choice activities during play can empower children to construct knowledge in the most meaningful ways. In this perspective, integrating free playtime intentionally for STEM education purpose may be able to stretch the boundaries of children to the fullest in their imagination and enables them to practice newly acquired STEM skills.

2.3.2 Relating learning to real-life contexts

Authentic learning allows students to meaningfully apply what they learned in the class to real-world problems and continue to construct concepts in a relevant context. Connecting classroom learning to students’ real-life situations has been found in preschool STEM studies to make learning authentic [5, 26, 28, 29]. Some of these studies focus on engineering by relating school learning to students’ living contexts [5, 29]. For example, in Aldemir and Kermani’s study [29], children observed a historic bridge in their community to make sense of the building process. After the observation, the children were encouraged to draw a bridge layout that they would like to build and construct their own three-dimensional bridge using their conceptual understanding of the engineering process. Similarly, in Tippett and Milford’s study [5], the preschool children had a chance to design and build local birds’ homes after they discussed birds living in their community.

Other studies illustrate how relating school learning to the human world promotes students’ conceptual understanding of “technology” [26, 28]. In Sullivan et al.’s study [28], children were exposed to the question of how technology affects daily human life. During the intensive STEM program, the participating children investigated the use of real-life tools that could be found around their homes and community. Then, they engaged in the engineering design process in building “Robot Recyclers” by using the tools. The Robot Recyclers were programmed by inviting people living in their community to an open house to demonstrate how robots help human lives. Similarly, in Torres-Crespo et al.’s study [26], children were actively involved in making various electronic tools used daily during the STEM Summer Camp. Children had an opportunity to design an open and closed circuit using electronic tools such as a battery, a buzzer, and LED bulbs with wires. They understood the principle of how circuits work, what makes electronic devices function, and whether malleable conductive dough can replace the role of wires.

The STEM tasks above, including building bridges, birdhouses, recycling robots, and electronic circuits, meaningfully draw upon children’s life experiences by relating their newfound knowledge to engineering and technology. Furthermore, these activities have helped children understand that learning is not isolated to the classroom.

2.3.3 Engaging in collaborative tasks

Early childhood communities naturally foster peer interactions and collaborations, which help children go beyond their current level of knowledge and skills [30]. Some studies examined how children complete STEM tasks in groups [26, 31, 32]. Master et al. [31] reported that preschool children demonstrated more interest, persistence, and belongingness when doing group work. The study also described that the group assignment stimulated them to spontaneously engage in peer interactions and collaborations to achieve their shared goal, resulting in a better performance in tasks than the children working individually. Likewise, Torres-Crespo et al. [26] included group tasks as a part of their STEM program to create a space for children “to establish a plan of action and solve the presented problem as a group” (p. 13). The authors revealed that cooperative learning experiences help children feel more excited about learning and engage in more interaction.

Many studies argued the necessity of group work as “interacting in groups provide a driving force for children to extend their thinking, build on one another’s ideas, and cooperate to solve problems” ([33], p. 15). From this perspective, the group task compels children to go beyond their abilities in the process of collaboration with peers and build more rigorous knowledge and skills in STEM to be used in solving problems.

3. Methods

3.1 Participants

A preschool teacher, Mrs. Alice (pseudonym), and eight 3–5-year-old students at a STEM-focused preschool, located in the southern region of the United States, voluntarily participated in the study. The teacher worked at the preschool for 3 years and had previously taught in an elementary school for 3 years. Although her undergraduate degree was in English, she had a strong interest and inclination toward science.

3.2 STEM lessons

For the current study, three STEM lesson units (“Measuring Distances,” “Floating Boats,” and “Cutting Clay”) were chosen among the 20 lesson units collected because these three lessons were well aligned with Gagné’s Instructional Design Framework [34]. The first unit, “Measuring Distances,” utilized different height levels (0–5 inches) of a ramp to observe and analyze distances that toy cars traveled. The second lesson, “Floating Boats,” provided the opportunity to learn about the floating or sinking characteristics of boats. The boats made of different material types (wood, metal, and plastic) were utilized to examine how long a boat could stay afloat when increasingly weighted with plastic gears. The third lesson, “Cutting Clay,” utilized four distinct objects (sharp rock, wood knife, metal spoon, and plastic knife) for children to observe and analyze which tool was best at cutting clay.

3.3 Data collection and analysis

This study aims to identify and explore one preschool teacher’s SEPs used in the STEM-integrated lessons. We employed a single case study approach to gain an understanding of how the SEPs were built up in the lessons. A case study approach [35] allowed us to focus on a single unit anchored in an actual preschool classroom setting with multiple data collection techniques. The case study is “an empirical method that investigates a contemporary phenomenon in depth and within its real-world context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context may not be clearly evident” ([35], p. 15). This qualitative study elucidates SEPs’ components and provides information to develop reform-oriented teaching practices.

Twenty STEM lessons were observed for a month by positioning a camera toward the rear of the classroom. In addition to video recording the teacher’s practices and interactions, field notes were used to document observations concerning how the teacher engaged with the students. All of the recordings were transcribed verbatim, and three STEM lessons among the 20 were chosen to be coded for the current study. Codes were generated using Kaderavek et al.’s [18] Systematic Characterization of Inquiry Instruction in Early Learning Classroom Environments (SCIIENCE). This instrument was designed to capture the ways in which teachers’ instructional practices and behaviors were aligned with the NGSS. The coding system consisted of a total of 33 frequency codes for the eight SEPs. For example, two codes (student model and model discourse) captured the Developing and Using Models SEP.

Three researchers individually coded each video in 2-minute intervals. The duration of each lesson ranged from 30 to 45 minutes. After individually coding the observed interactions, the researchers compared their results and discussed any discrepancies. A consensus was reached on all codes, and each category of interaction frequencies was computed. The data were also analyzed from a qualitative perspective.

4. Results

Alice’s teaching practices revealed that she mainly implemented two SEPs in her STEM lessons: Practice 3—Planning and Carrying Out Investigations and Practice 8—Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information (Table 1). In Practice 3, the most frequent code was “observation.” For example, she encouraged the children to observe their own and others’ experiments. This allowed them to engage in inquiry activities by observing and recording data. The following excerpt from “Measuring Distance” illustrates how Alice facilitated the children’s observation and inquiry.

• T: Do you want to do a test with this?

• Lucas: (places car on ramp and pushes it to run. His car travels farther than the control car)

• T: Okay, which one went farther?

• Lucas: Blue car.

• T: The blue one! Was that the one on the ramp, or not on the ramp?

• Lucas: On the ramp.

• T: So, you observed that the one used on the ramp went farther by three inches. Now we are going to measure the distance with a tape measure!

NGSS science and engineering practices	SCIIENCE Codes	Measuring distances	Floating boats	Cutting clay	Total
Practice 1: Asking Questions and Defining Problems	1.a Prior knowledge	1	2	1	4
	1.b Elicit hypothesis	3	5	1	9
	1.c Student idea	2	3	1	6
	1.d Misconception	0	2	0	2
Practice 2: Developing and Using Models	2.a Student model	0	0	0	0
	2.b Model discourse	0	0	0	0
Practice3: Planning and Carrying Out Investigations	3.a Information gathering	5	10	4	19
	3.b Test hypothesis	4	10	5	19
	3.c Equipment	5	8	6	19
	3.d Test solution	0	0	0	0
	3.e Teacher demonstration	0	2	2	3
	3.f Student inquiry	7	10	5	22
	3.g Observation	6	14	5	25
Practice 4: Analyzing and Interpreting Data	4.a Analysis/interpretation	5	3	6	14
	4.b Overarching relationships	0	0	0	0
	4.c Move past misconception	0	0	0	0
Practice 5: Using Mathematics and Computational Thinking	5.a Numerical summary	4	6	2	12
	5.b Graphical summary	0	0	0	0
	5.c Quantitative conclusion	0	2	0	2
Practice 6: Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions	6.a New situation	0	2	0	2
	6.b Explanation	0	6	6	12
	6.c Design solution	0	0	0	0
	6.d Evaluate understanding	0	0	0	0
Practice 7: Engaging in Argument from Evidence	7.a Disagreement	0	2	2	4
	7.b Evidence	0	0	0	0
Practice 8: Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information	8.a Documentation	6	5	6	17
	8.b Vocabulary	12	15	7	34
	8.c Open-ended questions	0	4	0	4
	8.d Sequenced questions	1	6	0	7
	8.e Clarification	1	5	5	11
	8.f Expository text	0	0	0	0
	8.g Technology	0	0	0	0
	8.h Assessment	0	1	0	1
Practice 9: Getting Attention or Inviting into Inquiries	9.a Redirection*	11	14	7	32

Table 1.

SCIIENCE code frequencies in three lessons.

*

Represents a new code emerged from the data.

The data suggest that a critical element was the STEM lessons’ introduction, during which the teacher engaged students in the repetitive ritual of making predictions. The children were given an opportunity to share their own hypotheses. Then, by sharing with their peers, the children became curious and actively engaged in the activities. This process eventually led to the students being prompted to test their own hypotheses. In sum, they were guided in ways that allowed them to engage in scientific inquiry as illustrated in the following example:

• T: So, everyone, let’s make a hypothesis whether the cars are going to travel farther with the ramp or without the ramp. What do you think?

• Evie: With the ramp!

• T: What do you think, Gavin?

• Gavin: I think with the ramp.

• T: Most of your friends have hypothesized that the cars will go farther with the ramp. Okay then let’s see which one goes farther.

The data indicated that the teacher also emphasized Practice 8—Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information. The most frequent teaching narrative code was “vocabulary” in Practice 8. The teacher frequently reinforced relevant science vocabulary, and the emphasized science terminology helped engage the students in effective scientific communication. Our qualitative analyses revealed that Alice emphasized scientific vocabulary such as “experiment,” “test,” and “hypothesis” in her lessons. For example, the following was observed during the “Cutting Clay” lesson:

• T: Which one do you think cut best out of these four? The metal? Is that your hypothesis?

• Cate: I think the rock.

• T: You think the rock? So, Cate’s hypothesis is the rock. Do you guys remember what hypothesis means? That means your prediction, or your guess about what’s gonna happen.

The teacher also clarified the vocabulary she used by questioning, explaining, and defining. In doing so, she guided the children’s thought processes and encouraged them to engage in scientific inquiry.

In all lessons, Alice recorded the numeric data obtained from the children’s experiments. The recorded documents were not only used as an aid for comparing different test values, but also served as crucial evidence from which to draw conclusions. That is, the teacher used the document data to help children determine whether their hypotheses were supported visually. The following is an example from the “Floating Boats” lesson:

• T: Look, this is our data sheet. So, which number is the biggest number you see?

• Arnold: This is the biggest number.

• T: You are right! So, among our plastic, our metal and our wood boats, the plastic held the most coins. So, that would probably be the boat that I would choose to sail on, because it holds the most materials. What about Billy? Which boat would you choose to sail across the ocean?

In sum, the observed teaching practices included not all of the NGSS SEPs for early childhood STEM teaching [18]. Only two-thirds of the 33 codes were observed. However, her frequent use of scientific words, generating questions, and documenting results modeled the scientific inquiry process. One important teaching practice emerging from the data was redirection, a strategy used to shift children’s attention or off-task behaviors into active engagement, positive attitudes, and emotional security. For instance, whenever a child used her leg to block a test car from running down a ramp, Alice invited the child to be an active member of the experiments rather than simply eliminating her away from the experiment spot.

• T: Julie, you are on the right in the middle of our experiment. Can you please put your leg here?

• Julie: (Keeping trying to block her peer’s car that rolls down on the ramp with her legs)

• T: You seem very curious about what we are doing! Do you wanna help us to do with this experiment? What role do you want to take? What about you become a test watcher so that you can judge whose car went farther!

• Julie: (Nodding her head and watching Peter’s experiment)

• T: So now, Julie, would you like to measure how Peter’s car went far? Here is a measuring tape for you.

• Julie: (Measures the distance that Peter’s car moved)

• T: Ok, here we go!

• Julie: Now my turn! I will roll the car down on the ramp.

The approach prompted this child to modify her off-task behaviors into positive engagement in the inquiry-based learning without negatively affecting her emotion. Although this teaching practice is not directly related to SEPs, it could be an essential element of teaching STEM to this age group.

5. Discussion

A number of existing studies revealed that there are benefits of early exposure to STEM learning for children’s intellectual growth. Teachers’ instructional practices play a critical role in effective STEM learning. The NGSS’s SEPs suggested how STEM teachers can implement instructional practices and, in the same vein, young children can conceptualize the scientific process, ask scientific questions, and observe and investigate their environments and the larger or smaller world around them [10, 36]. However, preschool teachers could be challenged because they are not familiar with instructional practices emphasized in the current reform [13, 37].

Our research provides insight into what practices teachers can integrate into their lessons and the limitations of some types of STEM lessons. Observation of Alice’s classroom helped us to gain a comprehensive view of teaching practices and the challenges of adhering to the NGSS. Alice employed diverse SEPs; however, it was found that she still showed a lack of some practices such as building models and argumentation. The modeling practices are used to construct and apply conceptual models of physical phenomena as a central piece of doing science [38]. Jackson et al. [39] stated that “Students in modeling classrooms experience first-hand the richness and excitement of learning about the natural world.” (p. 10). Modeling instruction can be performed in two main cycles in the preschool classroom: model development and model deployment. In the model development stage, teaching instruction typically begins with a demonstration and class discussion to have a common understanding of a topic or a concept. The children present and justify their thoughts and ideas in oral form, including the formulation of a model for the phenomena [39]. Students apply their understanding obtained from a discovered model to new situations during the model deployment stage to refine and deepen their understanding.

In addition to the modeling practice, argumentation was another teaching practice that was not found in Alice’s lessons. Scholars indicated that argumentation is a blurred concept in early childhood education, which has led to less attention on the way argumentation begins to take shape in the early years. Argumentation is conceptualized either as a product of individual reasoning or as a process arising from the interpersonal exchange of views [40]. Previous literature suggested that preschool teachers could build an ideal setting for discussing a shared topic with conversational patterns, including closed/open questions, agreements/disagreements, and adversatives [41]. Also, other scholars suggested argumentation’s benefits in preschool for improving children’s ability to cultivate shared and critical thinking [42, 43].

Exploring teaching practices can help researchers and educators construct a more informed understanding for building learning environments, where all the students can engage in various instructional practices for doing science. The investigation on the NGSS-based teaching practices implemented in a real education setting can provide a more comprehensive rationale for promoting science teaching and future professional development strategies and may have a growing influence on national and subnational education policies. However, based on the findings, this study still raises more questions than it answers. How confident (or challenging) are preschool teachers in enacting the NGSS SEPs? What conditions and expectations might support the move toward effective reform-oriented teaching practices? What alternative teaching practices could be integrated into existing knowledge and practices? Continued investigations are needed to discover and develop more practical strategies to support preschoolers’ learning and teachers’ initiatives for STEM learning. For example, examining effective teacher communication strategies, such as redirection, helps teachers who are newly attempting to infuse STEM into their teaching stimulate children’s exploration around STEM concepts.

Meanwhile, more research is needed to understand the inquiry cycle in preschool STEM by the reform-oriented practices. Indeed, it has been emphasized that STEM education in early childhood education needs to invite young children into the scientific inquiry cycle [44] to incorporate their natural curiosity into the inquiry process. For that reason, many studies have shown how preschool science teaching and learning can be implemented within the inquiry cycle process; yet, there are only a few studies that provide a detailed description of what preschool STEM teaching practices conducted within the inquiry cycle process look like. There is a possibility that STEM education takes a different route from the inquiry cycle to what science education has taken since STEM education places a higher emphasis on innovation and creativity, which are not the primary skills emphasized in conventional science education. For that reason, exploring teaching practices with the inquiry cycle of STEM education compared to traditional education of science would provide useful insights into creating quality STEM implementation frameworks in preschool settings.

The SEPs in the NGSS may raise the bar for teaching science in K-12 classrooms. The NGSS SEPs are inherently linked to inquiry and engineering design and practices and provide real-world concepts. Preschool teachers who tend to be underprepared for inquiry-based teaching could bridge diverse students’ previous knowledge and experiences to the SEPs and support their students’ thinking and acting scientifically. Science process skills in the SEPs are helpful for the active exploration of science concepts: “Engaging in the practices of engineers likewise helps students understand the work of engineers and the links between engineering and science” [36], p. 42]. Additionally, the quality science instruction promoted by nurturing SEPs in learning big ideas in science is crucial for students’ academic development. Thus, the findings from this study shed some light on what teachers know and can do as they become experts in engaging students in the authentic practices of science.

Besides, the NGSS address diversity and equity issues. The NGSS were developed as standards that offered promises of science teaching and learning that present learning opportunities and demands for all the students and particular student groups that have traditionally been underserved in science classrooms [45]. The NGSS Diversity and Equity Team tried to ensure that the standards were accessible to all the students, especially those traditionally underserved in science classrooms [41]. The students were defined as economically disadvantaged students, students from minority racial and ethnic groups, students with disabilities, and students with limited English competence. For example, appropriate SEP engagement in the SEPs allows all the students to comprehend and communicate their science ideas using “less-than-perfect English” [46, p. 6]. This shows the NGSS’s vision of science teaching and learning that presents learning opportunities and demands for all the students.

Currently, underrepresented student groups are the majority across the nation [47], and the contribution of the SEPs to equity has become more critical [10]. Several studies showed the development process of instructional materials based on the NGSS, focusing on equity. For example, Hass et al. [48] presented the conceptual framework focused on equity that guided the development of NGSS-aligned instructional materials for the fifth grade with a focus on English learners. The authors unpacked a target set of performance expectations in terms of the specific elements of the three dimensions of the NGSS. Through unpacking, the authors selected phenomena that are local and relevant to all the students to consider students’ everyday experiences as resources and entry points for inclusion in the science classroom. Campbell and Lee [49] also highlighted the need for instructional materials which attend to student diversity and equity and developed research-based instructional materials designed for the NGSS with a focus on student equity and professional teacher learning. However, the authors agreed that there are still tensions in developing new teaching materials to address the equity issues. Hass et al. [48] mentioned that addressing all three dimensions of each performance expectation would be a challenge. Another tension involves capitalizing on students’ everyday experiences across various places within and across formal and informal settings [50]. Specifically, Miller and Saenz [51] pointed out that preschools have notable differences in materials and instructional practices children encounter. These differences revealed significant gaps in opportunities to engage in the different SEPs, which raises questions about equity in early science learning environments. There are various ways to address the equity concern; yet, the challenges of preschool teachers remain a critical puzzle to solve for policymakers and educators.

Science instructional practices aligned with the NGSS have the power to transform science learning and teaching, especially when accompanied by teachers’ professional development and equitable curricula support. This current study recognizes the enormous task that this paradigm shift will require of teachers, educators, and school systems. Curriculum designers and researchers must think systemically about how early childhood teachers can be actively engaged in the NGSS SEPs and how they can develop equitable instructional materials for all the students.