Cultivating Student Agency and Negotiation of Epistemic Criteria During "Next Moves" Conversations

• In Event: 28.071 - Designing for and Engaging With Heterogeneity in Students' Thinking in Science

Abstract

"At length, and by using greater and daily diligence, having frequent recourse to vivisections, employing a variety of animals for the purpose, and collating numerous observations, I thought that I had attained to the truth, that I should extricate myself and escape from this labyrinth, and that I discovered what I so much desired, both the motion and the use of the heart and arteries." (Harvey, 1628 as translated in Willis, 1947, p. 19)

1. Purpose. In De motu cordis, Harvey describes his study of the circulatory system as a difficult “labyrinth.” Harvey’s experience is not unique; ambiguity in the process of scientific inquiry appears to be the norm rather than the exception (c.f., Dunbar, 2001). This paper presents moments of ambiguity that are intentionally embedded within a science learning experience focused on the topic of the human circulatory system. In these moments, instructors ask learners what to do next, thus invited students to navigate the “labyrinth” and “take up the responsibility for making sense of and explaining a phenomenon” (Maskiewicz, 2015, p. 118). The examination of these “next moves” conversations builds upon the responsive teaching tradition in mathematics and science education, whereby curriculum emerges from student ideas and reasoning (Robertson, Scherr, & Hammer, 2015).

2. Perspective. We hypothesize at least three specific learning opportunities for students during next moves conversations. First, students may realize their capacity to shape the direction of the inquiry, a sense of agency (Damşa et al, 2010). Second, in the act of imagining, articulating, and discussing options for what needs to be done next, students experience and practice navigating the seemingly inextricable “labyrinth” that Harvey describes (Watkins et al., 2018). Finally, next moves conversations allow students to become aware of, and navigate between, multiple epistemic criteria for assessing and directing their inquiry (Bang & Medin, 2010).

3. Methods and 4. Data Sources. We examined video-recorded next moves conversations among a small group of five science teacher candidates (our students) exploring the question: How does movement affect blood pressure and heart rate? From the 20 hours of work on this question, we analyzed six next moves conversations, turn-by-turn and wholistically, for (1) how next moves are offered, considered, and selected by the class, (2) how students express their capacity to impact the direction of the inquiry, and (3) what epistemic criteria students invoke to direct or assess their inquiry. Final written reflections provided additional data about individual students’ experiences.

5. Results and 6. Significance. In multiple conversations, students expressed being “stuck”, “going in circles,” and wanting to arrive at “an answer.” Students invoked multiple epistemic criteria for evaluating their ideas, openly expressed concern about models they had developed, and disagreed with each other and instructors about next moves. Though the students’ appeals were not always grounded in the kinds of epistemic considerations or affective states we would have liked to cultivate, they were welcome evidence of student agency.

Authors

• Tiffanyrose Sikorski, The George Washington University

• Hartmut Doebel