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Scholars have suggested that one way to promote informed decision making about pressing socioscientific issues is to incorporate epistemic practices in science curricula. However, a key factor in teaching with such curricula is whether and how teachers can adapt instruction from their routine teaching approaches. Through an adaptive expertise lens, in this study, we examine how two teachers, teaching with agent-based computational complex systems models, varied in their implementations of epistemic practices and how consequently students' performance on epistemic practices was impacted. Through qualitative analyses of two teachers’ implementation recordings, this study examines teachers’ adaptive expertise in curricular implementations that aim at promoting student epistemic practices and provides examples of high and low levels of adaptive expertise that result in distinct student classroom experiences. This study carries implications for future teacher professional development geared towards improving students' epistemic practices. 

An important goal of science education is promoting scientific literacy—the competence to interact with science as laypeople to solve problems and make decisions in their personal and community lives. This is made more challenging in an age of increasing science denialism. In this article, we discuss how to design learning environments for science education that can help students attain scientific literacy. We argue that science curricula should encompass lessons with two distinguishable foci. One focus engages students in understanding the reliability of science. The second focus engages students as laypeople interacting with science in the public sphere. We discuss these two curricular foci, presenting examples from our own work on designing and implementing instruction with the first focus. 

Incorporating the goals of a comprehensive epistemic education into K12 curricula is increasingly critical. In this study, we worked with high school biology students and teachers to evaluate how to enact strategies to counter confirmation bias while engaging in scientific modeling. We used a video-cued method in interviews with participants and then applied the AIR model to analyze responses. Findings show that most could identify biased epistemic processes. Additionally, teachers listened to some of their students’ evaluations and were surprised by what they heard. This suggests noticing students’ epistemic cognition in the classroom is difficult and engaging students in video-cued discussions about reliable scientific practices around a familiar activity may allow for learners’ thinking to become more visible. 

In the current “post-truth” era, there is a growing need to promote apt epistemic practices in science education. In this study, we investigated two high-school biology students’ epistemic practices during a modeling unit and appraised them for aptness using the Apt-AIR framework. Additionally, we analyzed their responses to a post-implementation focus group interview, designed to elicit their metacognition regarding epistemic practices, as they answered probing questions about practices within the curriculum and reflected on video clips of other students engaging with the units. We document the epistemic practices that students engage in during a modeling unit and evaluate the extent to which they are apt. Findings suggest a disassociation between students’ cognitive engagement in modeling practices and their metacognitive understanding.