Science Teachers' Sense-Making of Scaffolding Students Engagement in Epistemic Practices Through Use of Epistemic Tools

• In Event: AERA Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: Division K Section 1 Poster Session 1

Abstract

This study explores teacher sensemaking to scaffold student engagement in epistemic tools that are contextual artifacts manipulated to investigate and evaluate scientific ideas. We designed professional learning environments (PLEs) with a focus on epistemic tools in science classrooms. These PLEs were the context of our data collection. Through discourse analysis of post-hoc interviews with the 14 science teachers and secondary data sources, we showed how teachers’ goals for their local classroom context and the ambiguities faced were the driver of their scaffolding of epistemic tools. Further constant comparative analysis of these goals helped us identify four themes: communicating connections to core ideas of science, making sense of how science works, assessing students’ learning process outcomes and fostering students’ epistemic agency.

Authors

• Asli Sezen-Barrie, National Science Foundation

• Mary K. Stapleton, Towson University

• Gili Marbach-Ad, University of Maryland