Equitable Relationship-Building and Scientific Sense-Making: A Study of Two Elementary Teachers' Science Classrooms (Poster 1)

• In Event: Attending to the Crevasse Between Equity- and Content-Oriented Goals in Science Teaching and Learning

Abstract

Objectives. Two current pandemics (COVID-19; racial injustice) and the recent NASEM report (2022) highlight the need for rigorous, equity-driven science teaching that builds caring relationships. Yet, much of the research on equitable science teaching has occurred in secondary education (e.g., Morales-Doyle, 2018), with less focus on equitable relationship-building alongside scientific sense-making in elementary classrooms when students first experience school science. For that reason, we asked: How do relationship-building and scientific sense-making appear in two elementary teachers’ science teaching? What does it mean for relationship-building and scientific sense-making when they are foregrounded or backgrounded in elementary science teaching?

Theoretical Framework. Our work integrates frameworks related to scientific sense-making (Authors, 2018; Odden & Russ, 2018) and relationship-building (Parsons, 2005; McKinney de Royston, 2017; NASEM, 2022). Sense-making occurs as students grapple with new science ideas and evidence in classrooms, collectively figuring out explanations for scientific phenomena. Relationship-building occurs as teachers express care for students, accounting for personal biases, aware of discriminatory societal structures, and with concern for students’ futures, among other aspects.

Data Sources and Methods. We used data from two qualitative case study research projects to investigate two elementary teachers’ science teaching: Hoba and Harry (pseudonyms). Hoba is a Middle Eastern, Arabic-speaking K-5 science teacher in the Midwest U.S. Harry, who taught in the Western U.S., is a white, fourth grade teacher from an English speaking country outside the U.S. Both schools predominantly serve multilingual students (Arabic-speaking at Hoba’s school; Spanish-speaking at Harry’s school). We interviewed the teachers and video-recorded science lessons, iteratively open-coding for evidence of scientific sense-making and relationship-building.

Results. Hoba and Harry foregrounded and backgrounded different aspects of their science teaching. For example, Hoba foregrounded relationship-building by planning a science unit about a local phenomenon (squirrels) to respond to concerns about students’ lived experiences as refugees and immigrants and a lack of a sense-of-place in their new homes. While foregrounding this sense-of-place, Hoba initially backgrounded scientific sense-making in her lessons.
Similar to Hoba, Harry taught a science unit that emphasized place-based learning through the exploration and modeling of a local watershed. Harry foregrounded sense-making by having students develop and use models of the local watershed where they identified the watershed boundaries and used saltwater and freshwater to see how water moved through the watershed. When discussing the models, Harry supported his students in connecting the models to the local watershed. While foregrounding the scientific study of the watershed, Harry’s emphasis on relationship-building was less evident.

Significance. Building caring relationships with students (Parsons, 2005), as Hoba did, encourages students to take more intellectual risks. Simultaneously, emphasizing scientific sense-making (NRC, 2012) as Harry did, is critical to preparing students to be scientifically literate. Ideally teachers would do both (Rosebery et al., 2015; Thompson et al., 2016), yet this is challenging (Banilower et al., 2018; NASEM, 2022). We use this study to propose a framework for equitable relationship-building in science education, with implications for teacher educators and researchers.

Authors

• Amber S. Bismack, Oakland University
  Presenting Author

• Christa Haverly, Northwestern University
  Presenting Author