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Reform-based rigorous instruction which fosters all students’ thinking and sensemaking is possible; however, it is not yet prevalent in science classrooms. This study explored promoting rigorous instruction by enhancing students’ intellectual work through cognitively demanding tasks. We examined instruction during the five lessons in a science classroom. We found variations in students’ intellectual work across the lessons. Our analysis revealed that the instructional practices associated with promoting students’ engagement in rigorous thinking were consequential for promoting students’ epistemic agency. Thus, we argue that maintaining and enhancing demand on students’ intellectual engagement in cognitively demanding tasks requires the work of providing opportunities for students to learn science-as-practice by acting as epistemic agents. These findings can inform professional efforts regarding rigorous instruction. 

To support students’ learning, a wide body of research and instructional reforms emphasize students’ engagement in productive talk with rigorous thinking in science classrooms. However, despite efforts, productive science talk is not yet prevalent in many classrooms. To gain more insight into the generation of productive talk in science classrooms, we explored a group of science teachers’ instructional vision and practices with respect to promoting classroom discourse. Our analysis revealed variations in teachers’ instructional visions and quality of instruction in their classrooms. In most cases, there was an alignment between teachers’ instructional vision and practices. We observed high quality instruction in terms of facilitating productive discussions and rigorous students’ thinking in the classroom of teachers with sophisticated instructional vision. Low instructional quality is observed in the classrooms of teachers with less articulate instructional vision of productive classroom discussion. We contend that exploring science teachers’ instructional vision and their instructional practices together can provide a powerful lens to identify the areas of improvement for promoting high-quality instruction in many science classrooms. Moreover, working towards the development of a shared vision of instruction by stakeholders and teachers can support enactment of high-quality science instruction. 

Reform efforts targeting science instruction emphasize that students should develop scientific proficiency that empowers them to collaboratively negotiate science ideas as they develop meaningful understandings about science phenomena through science practices. The lessons teachers design and enact play a critical role in engaging students in rigorous science learning. Collaborative design, in which teachers work together to design, enact, and reflect on their teaching, holds potential to support teachers’ learning, but scarce research examines the pathways by which collaborative design can influence teachers’ instructional practices. Examining the teaching and reflective thinking of two science teachers who engaged in collaborative design activities over two years, we found that their enactment practices became more supportive of students’ rigorous learning over time, and that they identified collaborative efforts with teacher educators and partner teachers to plan lessons and analyze videos of instruction as supportive of their learning to enact rigorous instruction. 

Recent instructional reforms in science education emphasize rigorous instruction where students’ engage in high-level thinking and sensemaking as they try to explain phenomena or solve problems. This study aims to investigate how students’ intellectual engagement can be promoted through design and implementation of cognitively demanding science tasks. Specifically, we aim to unpack instructional practices that can help to enhance students’ engagement in high-level thinking and sensemaking as they work in science classrooms. In our analysis, we focused on the implementation of five lessons across three different science classrooms that two middle school science teachers collaboratively designed as a part of a professional development about promoting productive student talk in science classrooms. Our analysis revealed the changes in students’ intellectual engagement across the trajectory of these lessons and three instructional practices associated with enhancing opportunities for students’ thinking: (a) Holding students intellectually accountable to develop explanations of how and why a phenomenon occurs through collaborative work, (b) Leveraging students’ ideas to advance their thinking, (c) Initiating just-in-time resources and questions to problematize students’ intellectual engagement. The study findings provide implications for how to generate opportunities to enhance students’ thinking in the service of sensemaking. 

Recent instructional reforms in science education emphasize rigorous instruction where students’ engage in high-level thinking and sensemaking as they try to explain phenomena or solve problems. This study aims to investigate how students’ intellectual engagement can be promoted through design and implementation of cognitively demanding science tasks. Specifically, we aim to unpack instructional practices that can help to enhance students’ engagement in high-level thinking and sensemaking as they work in science classrooms. In our analysis, we focused on the implementation of five lessons across three different science classrooms that two middle school science teachers collaboratively designed as a part of a professional development about promoting productive student talk in science classrooms. Our analysis revealed the changes in students’ intellectual engagement across the trajectory of these lessons and three instructional practices associated with enhancing opportunities for students’ thinking: (a) Holding students intellectually accountable to develop explanations of how and why a phenomenon occurs through collaborative work, (b) Leveraging students’ ideas to advance their thinking, (c) Initiating just-in-time resources and questions to problematize students’ intellectual engagement. The study findings provide implications for how to generate opportunities to enhance students’ thinking in the service of sensemaking. 

Fundamental to the recent reform vision for science education (NRC, 2012) are ambitious forms of teaching, such as facilitating productive discussions, that capitalize on students’ ideas and experiences to support students’ sensemaking (Kloser, 2014; Windschitl & Calabrese- Barton, 2012). This type of teaching, however, is not a natural act for many teachers; they need support to appropriate a vision of such teaching. This study seeks to understand teachers’ vision in practice (i.e., professional vision) and its relation to their vision of ambitious teaching after their involvement in a two-year professional learning program centered on facilitating productive science discussions aligned to reform vision. 

The reform vision brought forth by the Framework for K-12 Science Education emphasizes the integration of scientific knowledge with scientific practices as students try to figure out a phenomenon. During this process of making sense of phenomenon, students experience moments of uncertainty which is important because scientific activity is driven by this need to manage uncertainty. Using cognitively demanding tasks in science classrooms presents a means to integrate uncertainty into students’ experiences. Our analysis of video records of science lessons during the implementation of chemistry tasks at different cognitive demand levels revealed how types of uncertainty that students experienced differed in these lessons and the ways in which uncertainty was evoked during the implementation of cognitively demanding science tasks. 

This study focuses on the kinds of uncertainty experienced by students in relation to the level and kind of students’ thinking during the implementation of a cognitively demanding science task. The Framework for K-12 Science Education together with the Next Generation Science Standards emphasize the integration of scientific knowledge with scientific practices as students try to figure out phenomena. During this process of sensemaking, students experience moments of uncertainty that are a key part of doing science and drive scientific pursuits. By examining video-records of a science lesson in which the teacher and the students worked on a cognitively demanding science task, and by analyzing students’ interviews about this lesson, we identify the types of uncertainty that students experienced during the implementation of this task across the trajectory of the lesson. Moving beyond an all or nothing approach to uncertainty, our analysis reveals different kinds of uncertainty that students can experience and presents cognitively demanding tasks as a means to integrate uncertainty into students’ experiences. 

The reform vision brought forth by the Framework for K-12 Science Education emphasizes the integration of scientific knowledge with scientific practices as students try to figure out a phenomenon. During this process of making sense of phenomenon, students experience moments of uncertainty which is important because scientific activity is driven by this need to manage uncertainty. Using cognitively demanding tasks in science classrooms presents a means to integrate uncertainty into students’ experiences. Our analysis of video records of science lessons during the implementation of chemistry tasks at different cognitive demand levels revealed how types of uncertainty that students experienced differed in these lessons and the ways in which uncertainty was evoked during the implementation of cognitively demanding science tasks.