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Science learning is thought to be best supported when students are positioned as epistemic agents. Using a case study approach, we explore the experiences of one Black middle school girl and her epistemic efforts and the ways in which her group members’ responses to her efforts either supported or constrained her epistemic agency during small group work in two argumentation lessons. Our findings show that Jessie’s epistemic efforts were not often taken up by her peers in ways that support her epistemic agency, findings that have implications for student learning and engagement in terms of the epistemic work we ask students to engage in, and the instructional strategies that support this work. 

If we are to support students to become epistemic agents in the ways envisioned in reforms, we must acknowledge that classrooms can be spaces of injustice, where instructional efforts can propagate inequitable systems of oppression. In this case study, we describe the epistemic efforts of one Black girl, Jessie, and the rights and privileges afforded or denied to her as she worked with a group of her peers to develop and negotiate a scientific claim. Through examination of video data, transcripts, and student work products, we characterized students’ efforts as about epistemic, rhetorical, and pseudo-argumentation, and how we explored how such efforts invited or constrained Jessie’s epistemic agency. Jessie’s pattern of persistence, which we understand to be her fight to have her rights as a scientific sensemaker acknowledged, surfaced issues of inequity in which Jessie’s ongoing efforts to engage in epistemic argumentation were rejected by her peers. 

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. 

Researchers of teacher education have long advocated that one of the most essential supports to teacher learning of novel instruction practices comes from collaboration. Much of the collaboration literature focuses on the outcomes of teacher collaboration without providing insight into the nature of collaborations. In this work, we seek to understand the collaboration that occurred between five school biology teachers as they designed, enacted, and reflected on a lesson emerging from professional development focused on productive talk. The questions guiding this work include: What was the focus of the LCD teacher group’s collaboration?, What was the nature of the LCD teacher group’s collaboration? and, What role did the group’s collaboration serve in supporting each teacher’s practice? We found that the collaborative space opened-up opportunities for teachers to discuss their practice for the lesson and outside of the lesson itself. Salient to the collaborative space was a sense of support between the teachers as teachers intensively listened to one another, normalized a problematic issue as well as the emotions that they were experiencing by relating to each other, providing advice and words of encouragement. Teachers’ collaboration eased the work of designing and enacting a conceptually challenging lesson. 

A teacher’s noticing or their ability to see and interpret classroom events is an important component of their expertise. Examination of these noticings is a way to understand changes in their learning over time. In this research, we examine changes in teacher noticing of classroom instruction for two groups that participated in slightly different professional development experiences to understand how this PD shaped their personal domain of learning. Findings suggest that both programs shaped teacher noticing and learning but in different ways. 

This research employs the lenses of epistemological resources and framing to examine the complexities of one teacher’s efforts to position his middle-school biology students as sensemakers. Through interviews, classroom observations, and document analysis, we trace the teacher’s activation of varied epistemological resources and how such resources positioned students’ efforts throughout the lesson. While the launch of tasks was framed as an opportunity for “doing science,” this framing became less stable when the teacher engaged with students in small group work and during the wrap up that were focused on the “right answer.” Specific phases of the lesson served as a context that influenced the epistemological resources activated, helping us understand the varied, dynamic, and sometimes contradictory nature of the teacher’s moves and their consequences on students’ framing of their efforts. 

As part of a larger effort to understand the impact of professional development (PD) on teachers’ thinking and practices, this research explores changes in epistemic orientation (and associated practices) of two cohorts of secondary science teachers as they were involved in a longitudinal PD. To measure epistemic orientation, Epistemic Orientation toward Teaching Science surveys were administered at three-time points and teachers’ classrooms were observed. Findings suggest that change in epistemic orientation occurred for teachers who engaged in two years of PD, but that one year was not sufficient to engender such changes in epistemic orientation or instructional practice. These findings speak to the need for continuous, highquality, longitudinal PD. 

This paper examined changes in students' biological reasoning, scientific sensemaking, valuing of science, and fascination in science over the course of a school year after their teacher participated in one of the two professional development programs. One professional development (PD) group emphasized teacher collaboration in revising materials for their classroom, while the other emphasized revision of materials without collaboration among teachers. Results from repeated measures ANOVA showed improvements in students' biological reasoning from the beginning to end of the school year when in classrooms led by teachers who participated in the collaboration-focused PD. Students' scientific sensemaking, valuing of science, or science fascination remained stable across the school year across both PD groups. 

Using the IQA-SOR instrument, we analyzed participating teachers' classroom implementation of instructional resources and models. Teachers who collaboratively designed their materials for the focal lessons demonstrated more rigorous implementation, while those who only experienced the focal lessons during the PD experience did not implement as rich of instruction. However, all participating teachers did show strengths in implementing particular aspects of the focal lessons.