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1. “I wanted to break the pencil”: The Teacher’s Role in Reframing Moments of Epistemic Vexation

   Hagan, C.; Morandi, S.L.; Kásper, V.; Southerland, S.A. (January 2022, National Association of Research in Science Teaching)

   Science Education has transitioned to science proficiency-- students are to gain the ability to engage in sense making about the natural world (National Research Council [NRC, 2012])--learning to “figure things out” (Passmore, 2014). One emerging area of focus is the emotional work students participate in during science sense making. There is growing recognition that these emotions are not just unnecessary by-products of scientific work, but rather they are part-and-parcel of doing science, as these emotions are part of what “instigates and stabilizes disciplinary engagement” in scientific pursuits (Jaber & Hammer, 2016b, p. 189). The research question that guided this study is: What is the teacher's role in reframing moments of epistemic vexation, so students experience productive meta-affect in the science classroom? After reviewing video footage and student and teacher interviews, three themes emerged: (1) Without reframing from the teacher during moments of epistemic vexation, students disengage from sense-making, (2) Productive meta-affect is more likely to occur when students understand why the teacher allows for failure to connect ideas or understand scientific concepts, and (3) When the teacher does not reframe moments of epistemic vexation, students build solidarity and reach out to each other for emotional support in developing productive meta-affect. 

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2. Attention to student emotions and teacher vulnerability as tools to maintain student disciplinary engagement

   Schellinger, J.; Jaber, L. Z.; Southerland, S. A. (January 2023, National Association for Research in Science Teaching Annual Meeting 2023)

   Research on students’ engagement suggests that epistemic affect--that is, the feelings and emotions experienced in the epistemic work of making sense of phenomena-- should be recognized as a central component of meaningful disciplinary engagement in science. These feelings and emotions are not tangential by-products, but are essential components of disciplinary engagement. Yet, there is still much to understand about how educators can attend and respond to students’ emotions in ways that support disciplinary engagement in science. To inform these efforts, we follow one high school Biology teacher, Amelia, to answer the following question: How does Amelia attend to and support her students’ emotions in ways that support their disciplinary engagement? Data examined include teacher interviews and classroom recordings of two multi-day science lessons. We found that the teacher worked to support her students’ emotions in moments of uncertainty in at least two ways: (1) by attending to these emotions directly, and (2) by sharing her personal experiences and feelings in engaging in similar activities as a science learner. We describe how Amelia made herself vulnerable to students, describing her own struggles in making sense of phenomena, in turn supporting her students to normalize these experiences as part of doing science. 

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3. “He got a glimpse of the joys of understanding” – The role of epistemic empathy in teacher learning

   https://doi.org/10.1080/10508406.2021.1936534  

   Jaber, Lama Z. (June 2021, Journal of the Learning Sciences)

   null (Ed.)

   Abstract Background. Efforts to promote reform-based instruction have overlooked the import of affect in teacher learning. Drawing on prior work, I argue that teachers’ affective experiences in the discipline are integral to their learning how to teach the discipline. Moreover, I suggest that both affective and epistemological aspects of teachers’ experiences can serve to cultivate their epistemic empathy—the capacity for tuning into and valuing someone’s intellectual and emotional experience within an epistemic activity— in ways that support student-centered instruction. Methods. Using a case study approach, I examine the learning journey of one preservice teacher, Keith, who after having expressed strong skepticism about responsive teaching, came to value and take up responsive teaching in his instruction. Findings. The analysis identifies epistemological and affective dynamics in Keith’s interactions with students and in his relationship with science that fostered his epistemic empathy. By easing his worries about arriving at correct answers, Keith’s epistemic empathy shifted his attention toward supporting students’ sensemaking and nurturing their relationships with the discipline. Contributions. These findings highlights teachers’ affective experiences in the discipline as integral to their learning how to teach; they also call attention to epistemic empathy as an important aspect of and target for teacher learning. 

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4. “I Loved Seeing How Their Brains Worked!”—Examining the Role of Epistemic Empathy in Responsive Teaching

   https://doi.org/10.1177/00224871231187313  

   Jaber, Lama_Z; Davidson, Shannon_G; Metcalf, Allison (July 2023, Journal of Teacher Education)

   Studies in science and mathematics education have shown that teachers’ responsiveness to students’ ideas, feelings, and experiences is critical for promoting epistemic agency, disciplinary engagement, and equity. Such responsiveness is particularly important for students whose cultures, backgrounds, and funds of knowledge have been traditionally marginalized in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) classrooms. Yet, what allows teachers to enact responsive teaching is less clear. We argue that epistemic empathy—the capacity for tuning into and appreciating learners’ intellectual and emotional experiences in constructing, communicating, and critiquing knowledge—is an essential driver of teacher responsiveness. In this work, we examine how epistemic empathy can serve to support teachers’ attention and responsiveness to students’ sensemaking experiences in the classroom and discuss emergent tensions that arise in this work. We end with implications for research and for teacher education to cultivate epistemic empathy as a resource for responsive teaching and a target for teacher learning. 

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5. De/settling powered differentials and disciplinary practices through rightful presence: Examining how power, emotions, and resistance shaped emerging epistemic ideals in middle school science

   Krishnamoorthy, R. (January 2023, International Conference of the Learning Sciences 2023)

   There is a growing body of scholarship in science education that attends to the role of emotions and affect as shaping youths’ negotiation of and experiences with disciplinary science practices towards more expansive understandings of how youth make-meaning around science phenomena. This study builds on this growing scholarship by examining how power and positionality shapes emerging emotional configurations in classroom spaces. Grounded in a larger study involving implementing a justice-oriented middle-school biology unit, we utilized interaction analysis methods to examine how care for the well-being of the ‘other’ co-operatively emerged as an epistemic ideal when creating a community ethnography and was shaped by de/settling powered differentials; disciplinary practices; and youth and facilitators’ powered positionings in relation with macro sociopolitical worlds. This work contributes to our collective understanding of sense-making in science classrooms by nuancing the complex nature of engaging in allied sociopolitical struggles in explicitly justice-oriented learning spaces. 

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