Facilitating Socioscientific Reasoning Online: A Middle Grades Science Teacher’s Engagement with Socioscientific Issues

Science education researchers have advocated for instruction based on socioscientific issues (SSI) as a pedagogical approach that enhances students’ abilities to make informed decisions about real-world dilemmas. To achieve this effectively, students must engage in socioscientific reasoning (SSR), which involves recognizing issue complexity, considering multiple stakeholder perspectives, engaging in continuous inquiry, and adopting a critical stance of skepticism. Supporting students in developing these skills requires that teachers are well-prepared to facilitate SSR in the classroom. As more educators pursue online professional development, it is increasingly important to understand how digital environments can support SSR. This qualitative case study examines how a middle grades science teacher engaged with SSR during an asynchronous online Earth science course framed around SSI. Drawing on the SSR framework the study analyzes the teacher’s reasoning and reflections on SSI-based instruction. Findings reveal that thoughtfully designed online modules, featuring multimodal resources and structured peer interactions, fostered sophisticated SSR, particularly in complexity and perspective-taking. The teacher’s positive experience with SSI enhanced her content understanding and inspired future classroom integration, highlighting the potential of online courses to support meaningful, equity-focused science instruction. Implications for course design and future research are discussed.