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1. A Study of Teacher Sensemaking about Productive Student Talk in Science Classrooms

   Vande Zande, D. & (January 2021, National Association for Research in Science Teaching Annual Meeting 2021)

   null (Ed.)

   One way to support teachers' learning to facilitate the recent reform vision (NRC, 2012) in their classrooms is through professional development (PD). We explored a biology teacher’s (Monica) sensemaking during the PD that focused on facilitating productive science classroom discourse to understand her responses to the PD in terms of teaching science by engaging students in productive talk in science classrooms. Using both video and interview data, we analyzed the process of her sensemaking about facilitating (productive) talk during the PD and the meaning she was making of productive talk. Our analysis indicated that Monica participated in sensemaking mostly about her students' participation in talk. Throughout the PD conversations, she rarely focused on what she could do (or could have done) to facilitate student talk without the PD facilitators' pressing. This is supported by our analysis of the interviews with Monica, which showed that the sense that she was making about productive talk mostly focuses on students' contributions to the talk and their accountability to reasoning, scientific knowledge, and sensemaking. These findings provide implications for facilitating teachers’ sensemaking around new instructional practices and reforms within PD contexts. 

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2. Designing and enacting lessons to promote students’ epistemic agency in middle school biology classrooms

   Akçil-Okan, Ö.; Tekkumru-Kisa, M.; Southerland, S. A. (January 2023, Annual Meeting of the National Association of Research in Science Teaching)

   Reform-based instruction that fosters all students’ intellectual engagement and sensemaking is possible. However, it is not yet prevalent across many science classrooms. To gain more insight into how to design and enact science instruction supporting students’ intellectual engagement, this investigation centered on understanding how to design and implement science lessons for promoting students’ intellectual engagement as epistemic agents who shape knowledge building happening in the classroom. We examined a middle school science teacher's design and implementation of four lessons that she did as part of a PD focused on fostering productive science talk in science classrooms. Our analysis revealed that her efforts in fostering opportunities for students’ epistemic agency were evident in both her lesson design and implementation. Her responsiveness to students’ thinking/intellectual engagement throughout the lesson implementations via principled improvisations supported opportunities for students’ epistemic agency. Her efforts allow us to understand how the design and implementation of science lessons with the focus of opening space and maintaining this space by being responsive to students’ thinking are critical for fostering students’ epistemic agency. These findings can provide implications for professional development efforts that seek to develop teachers’ capacity for reform-based instruction in science classrooms. 

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3. An Exploration of a Mathematics Teachers Concerns Enacting Project-Based Instruction.

   Shockey, Tod (April 2020, SITE)

   null (Ed.)

   We present a case of one teacher’s engagement in project-based learning for algebra I students. This teacher was a member of a cohort of mathematics teachers and career technical educators who participated in a two-week intensive summer institute investigating autonomous vehicles. During the academic year, the follow up support for these educators includes classroom support and monthly meetings where teachers give a formal presentation on their lessons. This paper presents the first of nine presentations that will be given by the mathematics educators during the 2020-2021 academic year. While her students loved the lesson, she reveals that the lesson will have to serve as an algebra I curriculum add-on as she does not perceive that this activity will adequately prepare her students for the state mandated algebra I examination. 

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4. “Fake It Until You Make It”: Participation and Positioning of a Bilingual Latina Student in Mathematics and Computing

   https://doi.org/10.1177/01614681221104106  

   Celedón-Pattichis, Sylvia; Kussainova, Gulnara; LópezLeiva, Carlos A.; Pattichis, Marios S. (May 2022, Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education)

   Background/Context: After-school programs that focus on integrating computer programming and mathematics in authentic environments are seldomly accessible to students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, particularly bilingual Latina students in rural contexts. Providing a context that broadens Latina students’ participation in mathematics and computer programming requires educators to carefully examine how verbal and nonverbal language is used to interact and to position students as they learn new concepts in middle school. This is also an important stage for adolescents because they are likely to make decisions about their future careers in STEM. Having access to discourse and teaching practices that invite students to participate in mathematics and computer programming affords them opportunities to engage with these fields. Purpose/Focus of Study: This case study analyzes how small-group interactions mediated the positionings of Cindy, a bilingual Latina, as she learned binary numbers in an after-school program that integrated computer programming and mathematics (CPM). Setting: The Advancing Out-of-School Learning in Mathematics and Engineering (AOLME) program was held in a rural bilingual (Spanish and English) middle school in the Southwest. The after-school program was designed to provide experiences for primarily Latinx students to learn how to integrate mathematics with computer programming using Raspberry Pi and Python as a platform. Our case study explores how Cindy was positioned as she interacted with two undergraduate engineering students who served as facilitators while learning binary numbers with a group of three middle school students. Research Design: This single intrinsic case focused on exploring how small-group interactions among four students mediated Cindy’s positionings as she learned binary numbers through her participation in AOLME. Data sources included twelve 90-minute video sessions and Cindy’s journal and curriculum binder. Video logs were created, and transcripts were coded to describe verbal and nonverbal interactions among the facilitators and Cindy. Analysis of select episodes was conducted using systemic functional linguistics (SFL), specifically language modality, to identify how positioning took place. These episodes and positioning analysis describe how Cindy, with others, navigated the process of learning binary numbers under the stereotype that female students are not as good at mathematics as male students. Findings: From our analysis, three themes that emerged from the data portray Cindy’s experiences learning binary numbers. The major themes are: (1) Cindy’s struggle to reveal her understanding of binary numbers in a competitive context, (2) Cindy’s use of “fake it until you make it” to hide her cognitive dissonance, and (3) the use of Spanish and peers’ support to resolve Cindy’s understanding of binary numbers. The positioning patterns observed help us learn how, when Cindy’s bilingualism was viewed and promoted as an asset, this social context worked as a generative axis that addressed the challenges of learning binary numbers. The contrasting episodes highlight the facilitators’ productive teaching strategies and relations that nurtured Cindy’s social and intellectual participation in CPM. Conclusions/Recommendations: Cindy’s case demonstrates how the facilitator’s teaching, and participants’ interactions and discourse practices contributed to her qualitatively different positionings while she learned binary numbers, and how she persevered in this process. Analysis of communication acts supported our understanding of how Cindy’s positionings underpinned the discourse; how the facilitators’ and students’ discourse formed, shaped, or shifted Cindy’s positioning; and how discourse was larger than gender storylines that went beyond classroom interactions. Cindy’s case reveals the danger of placing students in “struggle” instead of a “productive struggle.” The findings illustrated that when Cindy was placed in struggle when confronting responding moves by the facilitator, her “safe” reaction was hiding and avoiding. In contrast, we also learned about the importance of empathetic, nurturing supporting responses that encourage students’ productive struggle to do better. We invite instructors to notice students’ hiding or avoiding and consider Cindy’s case. Furthermore, we recommend that teachers notice their choice of language because this is important in terms of positioning students. We also highlight Cindy’s agency as she chose to take up her friend’s suggestion to “fake it” rather than give up. 

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5. Designing Classroom Space as an Extension of Pedagogical Judgment: A Case Study

   https://doi.org/10.22318/icls2023.180384  

   Garner, Brette; Metts, Elizabeth; Shapiro, Ben Rydal; Williams, Alyssa; Jasien, Lara (October 2023, ISLS Annual Meeting 2023)

   For the past decade, learning scientists have come to understand the relationships between learning and space — usually outside of schools and classrooms. More recently, scholars in teaching and teacher education have called for research that considers how space and movement shape teaching and learning. In this paper, we integrate concepts and methods across the learning sciences and teacher education. We examine the relationship between classroom spatial design and the enactment of ambitious and equitable mathematics teaching. Specifically, we apply a case study approach to outline how an experienced teacher’s use of space reflects her pedagogical judgment. Findings and discussion outline six key ways this teacher considers space in her classroom design and her facilitation of classroom interactions. We suggest this study has implications for future efforts to characterize classroom spaces in ways that integrate ideas in the learning sciences and teacher education. 

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