This material contains six videotapes covering 25 elementary and middle school cases in science, and a comprehensive facilitator's guide. Each case follows an individual teacher over the course of one year as s/he identifies a science teaching problem, works with a facilitator to design a strategy to address the problem, and reflects on the outcome of the change in classroom practice.

The developers note that "The primary goal of this series is to help elementary and middle grades science teachers address some of the issues and strategies in science education reform" (p.5). An implicit purpose is to encourage teachers to become more reflective about their practice by employing a teacher researcher model. The teachers portrayed in the cases range in experience from student teachers to thirty-year veterans, which supports the use of the materials with a broad range of teachers.

When teachers begin to explore science instruction using materials and strategies that support inquiry-based approaches, observing others trying to make similar changes and reflecting on their practice can be a valuable learning experience. These videotapes offer a great opportunity for teachers to observe and critique instruction that addresses a wide range of issues that arise in classrooms. These include making science more active, meeting the needs of diverse learners, making assessment more student-centered, and ensuring that students understand core science concepts.

The materials establish an expectation that teachers should articulate their own issues of concern and work with others to identify appropriate strategies for addressing them. The cases demonstrate the use of an outside expert (or what the facilitation materials refer to as a "strategist") who does not take over the experience, but instead offers support and guidance to the teacher in the decision-making process. There is an emphasis on helping the teachers control their own learning and make thoughtful, informed decisions about the instruction they offer students. These materials would be particularly useful in the training of teacher leaders who have responsibility for mentoring teachers at the classroom level.

The videotapes are divided into discrete case studies, each of which is divided into three modules. The first module offers a picture of the classroom environment; the second introduces a strategy for addressing a teacher-identified problem and shows it implemented in the classroom; and the third demonstrates how that strategy continues to adapt and transform through use. The three classroom sessions portrayed in the modules are videotaped over an extended period of time, which helps to illustrate the changes that take place in the classroom.

The videotapes themselves are of professional quality. The shots of the classroom allow the viewer to hear and see much of what the students are doing; however, the videotapes portray clips rather than full classroom activities and narration sometimes occurs over the clips. The print materials are clearly written and well organized. Each module has a brief description of the classroom activity itself as well as background on the teacher's thinking prior to the lesson. Each module also has illustrative quotes and guiding facilitation questions. Appendix A contains a matrix of the case studies which summarizes the grade levels, settings, issues and strategies that are the focus for each case. This is a helpful quick reference for planning professional development and/or for responding to an immediate issue that might emerge in a conversation with teachers.

These materials provide a useful resource for professional development that focuses on reflection on classroom practice.

The guide offers several models for organizing the professional development experience, as well as some broad guiding questions and specific questions matched to each videotape case study. These features make the guide particularly useful to the less experienced facilitator.

The division of the videotaped cases into modules allows the facilitator and viewers to discuss each part of the process. The videotapes could be used with teachers just beginning to explore science instruction reform or with teacher leaders who are working to offer support to these beginning teachers. For example, teachers just beginning to work on improving science teaching might look at Program #6 (Elsa) which focuses on how one can make science more active. Teachers who are more experienced with hands-on approaches to instruction may be interested in Program #9 (Terez) which focuses on making assessment student-centered.

The classrooms on the videotapes are intended to provoke analysis and discussion, not to provide models of exemplary practice. The teachers are addressing not only the identified challenge but other challenges as well. Therefore, if the audience is a group of teacher leaders, those teachers could discuss how to work with that classroom teacher to improve not only the particular issue of concern, but the other issues that arise in the videotape as well. A facilitator working with beginning teachers, on the other hand, may need to focus the group on one issue at a time and would probably want to begin with the issue explicitly identified.

While the set of videotapes could be used as the basis for an entire program of professional development, they also could be used individually to customize professional development to a particular issue that emerges from a group of teachers as a science program is implemented. The videotapes could be a ready resource for the professional development provider to have on hand in order to respond to concerns teachers may have along the way.

Both the guide and reviewers caution facilitators to balance discussions about the importance and accuracy of the science content with the pedagogical conversations arising from viewing the cases.