Attending to Care, Risk, and Classroom Culture in Scientific Modeling (Poster 6)

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

Abstract

Objectives. This poster describes exploratory work to examine the intersection of science modeling with power (e.g., in relation to race, dis/ability, gender, and language) in elementary classrooms. While modeling has long been a focus of work in science education, few modeling studies explicitly attend to equity or power (for exceptions, see Shim & Kim, 2018 or Pierson & Clark, 2019).

Perspectives. The larger modeling project within which this work is conducted focuses on supporting the functional emergence and meaningful use of science practices by engaging children with the uncertainty inherent in science work. This requires positioning students with the epistemic agency to engage with uncertainty and develop science practices and ideas in a local epistemic culture (Gouvea & Passmore, 2017). In the work reported here, we sought to understand the synergies and tensions of this framework with other frameworks that explicitly address power; specifically by centering heterogeneity (Harding, 2015), expanding what is valued in science classrooms (Bang et al., 2012), and seeking to recognize and disrupt sociopolitical power formations that privilege white, masculine, and European ways of knowing and being (Agarwal & Sengupta-Irving, 2019). We drew on ideas related to care-for-persons (Krist & Suárez, 2018) and critical care (Antrop-González and De Jesús, 2006) to re-orient our design and analytic work.

Data Sources and Methods. We engaged in a year-long exploratory, co-design based study of one fifth-grade teacher’s work with classroom modeling. As the teacher sought to implement core project ideas around science practice and epistemic agency, she noted and struggled with inequitable patterns of participation and engagement. Co-design work included (1) unpacking our understandings of inequity in classroom modeling; (2) reading and discussing ideas related to care, risk, and classroom culture, (3) implementing pedagogical practices related to disrupting power and developing caring classroom cultures; (4) using a student experience survey (SEET, Penuel and Watkins, 2019) and co-generative dialogues among students, teachers, and researchers (Siry & Lang, 2010; Tobin, 2014). Analytic work included field notes, reflections on design conjectures, descriptive statistics of SEET results, and ongoing video analysis to refine descriptions of opportunities, challenges, and supportive practices in modeling conversations.

Results. The poster will describe shifts in classroom practice that resulted from this work and highlight the opportunities and tensions that emerged from each. For example, using the SEET and engaging in classroom discussions about it provided opportunities for students to talk about the kind of classroom they wanted to have and challenges they perceived. On the other hand, conversations sometimes re-instantiated school norms or “aesthetic care” (e.g, equating specific behaviors with being disruptive or disrespectful) (Antrop-González and De Jesús, 2006). A second example shift is the team’s questioning and explicitly working with students on evaluative stances during modeling work and the structural changes made to modeling activities in search of supporting students to think-with each other’s ideas.

Significance. This paper addresses a need for classroom research that attends to power and classroom culture within work on disciplinary science practices. It highlights opportunities and tensions present in specific classroom practices related to scientific modeling.

Authors

• Eve Manz, Boston University
  Presenting Author

• Annabel Stoler, Boston University
  Presenting Author