Characterizing How Teachers Respond to Uncertainty to Support Scientific Activity in Classrooms

• In Event: 69.019 - Examining Uncertainty as a Construct for Promoting Meaningful Scientific Engagement

Abstract

We examine how teachers promote and transform students’ uncertainty to foster scientific sense-making. There is extensive literature demonstrating how teachers’ moves can support sense-making in science, for example, by asking open-ended questions, restating students’ ideas, and comparing different ideas (Harris, Phillips, & Penuel, 2012; Michaels & O’Connor, 2013; Windschitl, et al., 2012). In this work we focus on what teachers do in particular moments of uncertainty to foster students’ scientific activity.

We conducted this research within a larger project examining how “doing science” starts and persists in classrooms. In the first phase of the project, nine episodes (spanning elementary to college classrooms) were vetted by a team of scientists as examples of science and closely analyzed, using methods from video analysis (Derry et al., 2010), knowledge analysis (diSessa, 1993; Tannen, 1993), and interaction analysis (Jordan & Henderson, 1995). A cross-case comparison suggested that uncertainty played a significant role in initiating science: Participants positioned themselves as uncertain, worked to articulate what was uncertain, and motivated others to take up the uncertainty.

In the second round of analysis, reported here, we returned to these cases to ask “What is the teacher doing to support students to articulate, grapple with, and (possibly) resolve uncertainty?” We closely analyzed four episodes in which the teacher played a prominent role, developing categories to describe what the teacher was doing. We looked at how teachers worked to help individuals make their uncertainty public, support the classroom community in taking it up, and find ways to narrow and widen the space of uncertainty. We briefly describe five themes around teachers’ decisions and moves when uncertainty emerges in classrooms.

First, we found that teacher had to decide to make space to address students’ uncertainty. In all of our cases, teachers shifted the form and conceptual focus of the class’s activity from what was planned. Second, we found that students struggled to articulate was bothering them; in turn, the teachers made moves to help students identify and articulate their uncertainty and worked with students to develop a problem for the class to work on. Third, as uncertainty moved from the individual to public spheres, teachers often had to shift participation frameworks (O’Connor & Michaels, 1993), orchestrating new pedagogical structures (e.g., clicker questions, small-group discussions) to help the class jointly address the uncertainty. We also saw teachers position participants in ways that allowed them to productively engage with uncertainty. Often, teachers explicitly positioned students in particular roles (e.g., as poser of a question, a friendly critic), engaged in those roles alongside them, and introduced or managed affect around uncertainty. Finally, we found teachers helping students find and use resources; they helped students locate and use productive ideas, such as particular concepts, inscriptions, observations, or epistemological resources, while maintaining something worthwhile for the class to figure out.

These five themes show the importance of teacher responsiveness around uncertainty, providing insight into the decisions that teachers need to make to shift classroom activity to support scientific sense-making.

Authors

• Jessica Watkins, Tufts University

• Eve Manz, Boston University