Characterizing teacher attention to student thinking: A role for epistemological messages

Abstract

Although research and policy suggest science and mathematics teachers should attend to their student's thinking during instruction, our field has inadequately defined what that means in relation to our ultimate goals for the practice. Here I present a theoretical argument that, in making their definitions, researchers should leverage the ways students understand such attention by characterizing teacher attention based on the epistemological messages it sends students about the nature of knowledge and learning in the classroom. Using data collected from high school science and mathematics teachers with a new videocapture methodology, I present an analysis of variability in epistemological messages of teacher attention to illustrate work could unfold if we as researchers took up the theoretical claims made in this work. In doing so, I endeavor to draw the construct of epistemological messages into our collective conversations about teacher attention, and provide a starting point for our field to begin debating the most productive ways to study and unpack the epistemological messages we value in that teacher attention. I conclude by demonstrating the feasibility of using these messages to distinguish the types of teacher attention our field wants to develop and encourage in teacher education. # 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 55: 2018

Addressing the epistemic elephant in the room: Epistemic agency and the next generation science standards

“…When we explicitly support a particular form of knowledge and sensemaking as one that we want students to take up, we send messages about whose ideas count and for what purposes (Barton et al, ; Gresalfi et al, ; Matusov et al, ). In this way, we not only shape what students do, but we influence their perceptions of themselves and their peers as knowers and shapers of knowledge, as well as their ideas about who can and should participate in science (Russ, ). Students' perceptions of themselves as having and enacting epistemic agency is important because when a person's credibility as a knower or reasoner is inappropriately and unwarrantedly undermined (i.e., preventing the possibility that they might perceive themselves as having epistemic agency), an act of epistemic injustice—and over time, epistemic oppression—occurs (Dotson, 2014; Fricker, ).…”

Opening up curricula to redistribute epistemic agency: A framework for supporting science teaching

“…Here, we are only focused on the conceptual reach as afforded by the design of the curriculum materials and the impact of the specific outcome of decisions students are involved in making, rather than the epistemic reach. We recognize that there may be important epistemic messages (Russ, ) that these decisions convey that could (and ideally would) reach beyond a specific activity or even unit. For example, messages about mechanistic accounts or about norms of measurement would ideally persist throughout every investigation, even in new science contexts (Krist, Schwarz, & Reiser, ; Manz, ).…”

“…Here, we are only focused on the potential “reach” as afforded by the design of the curriculum materials and the impact of the specific outcome of decisions students are involved in making—perhaps better described as the conceptual reach, rather than the epistemic one, of that decision. We recognize that there may be important epistemic messages (Russ, ) that these decisions convey that would ideally “reach” beyond a specific activity or unit. For example, decisions about how to measure cars may convey some underlying principles about justification and evidence that could be brought up and reapplied in a new setting (e.g., Ryu & Sandoval, ).…”

“Making Space”: How Novice Teachers Create Opportunities for Equitable Sense-Making in Elementary Science

“…This dilemma is in line with research by Braaten and Sheth (2017) and others, and it suggests that further support is needed for novice teachers to learn to notice and respond to students in equitable ways. Ongoing efforts to systematically design and refine supports for novice teacher learning indicate that novices can learn to notice students' sense-making and respond in more equitable ways (e.g., Russ, 2018). Better understanding sense-making moments may help teacher educators support novice teachers.…”