Organizational Sensemaking as a Framework to Understand Science Teachers' Local Implementation of Next Generation Science Standards

• In Event: 68.017 - Equity-Focused Implementation of Next Generation Science Standards: Exploring Models of Hope and Possibility

Abstract

Purpose
The Next Generation Science Standards articulates a vision for three-dimensional science learning, which requires that students engage in classroom activity that leverages science practices, disciplinary content ideas, and crosscutting concepts as tools for students to understand their world around them (NGSS, 2013). This vision for science education has the potential to shift student science activity from privileging science facts to leveraging student understanding and experience as tools and resources to understanding complex phenomena. This shift requires support for science teachers as they learn to support a diverse range of students to engage in rigorous science learning (NASEM, 2015). In this poster, I present findings from implementation of a professional development model that focuses teachers on the importance of productive uncertainty (Manz, 2014) in the classroom and supporting students to explore their understanding of phenomena through science and engineering practices.
Theoretical framework
I use a concept from organizational theory to better understand how teachers learn and implement reform in their classrooms. Sensemaking (Weick, 1995) is a concept that articulates the process through which individuals interpret and act upon changes to their work environment. A sensemaking framework assumes that teachers take up and use of reform practices depend on their organizational contexts in which they work and the tools and resources available for them to both make sense of and implement the changes required under reform.
Teachers engage in sensemaking in collaboration with others (Coburn, 2001), as they connect reform to their current practice and identify how they need to change their practice to accommodate reform (Coburn, 2004). In this way teachers draw on a number of social, material, and cognitive resources in the process of coming to understand and change (or not) their teaching practice. Sensemaking as a design principle for teacher professional learning requires that facilitators recognize the importance of teachers’ local work context and provide time and space for teachers to collectively reflect and work with the resources available to them to plan for localized implementation.
Methods
The professional development model presented in this poster will discuss how we have utilized organizational sensemaking as a design principle to organize teacher learning toward the goal of understanding NGSS in their local context. The poster will present case studies (Yin, 2003) of two teachers that participated in the workshop and their implementation of activities they co-designed. Data sources include video and artifacts of teacher participation in the workshop, teacher reflection journals after implementation of activities designed in the workshop and post-interviews.
Results
The two teachers implemented activities they designed together during the summer workshop in different ways, which reflected the variation in their organizational contexts. However, both teachers provided students with opportunities to explore phenomena through science and engineering practices. The poster will present findings from their collective sensemaking during the summer and how their paths diverged as they implemented the activities in their classrooms.
Scholarly significance
The findings presented are particularly important as we work to understand how to make NGSS locally relevant for science teachers and their students.

Author

• Sara C. Heredia, University of North Carolina - Greensboro