Developing deep learning in science classrooms: Tactics to manage epistemic uncertainty during whole‐class discussion

Abstract

Science teachers usually view students' uncertainty as a barrier to overcome, a negative experience to be avoided, a deficiency in need of remedy. Building on the theory of deep learning in science as a generative and sensemaking process, the purpose of this design‐based study is to identify tactics for teachers to manage their students' epistemic uncertainty as a pedagogical resource to develop student conceptual understanding during whole‐class discussion. Classroom observations of whole‐class discussion were collected from six teachers' classes ranging from third to eighth grade. A total of 18 whole‐class discussions were collected, transcribed, and analyzed. A storyline talk to manage uncertainty during whole‐class discussion was developed and consisted of three stages: (1) Raise epistemic uncertainty through creating ambiguous conditions; (2) Maintain epistemic uncertainty through preventing immature disclosure and discussing alternative explanations or conflicting ideas; and (3) Reduce epistemic uncertainty through making coherent connections among current uncertainty, prior knowledge, and familiar phenomena. Seven nuanced tactics used by teachers to achieve each stage of uncertainty management were identified. The results suggest that managing uncertainty goes beyond asking questions and problematizing phenomena. When engaging students in storyline‐based whole‐class discussion, teachers should focus on one specific uncertainty and establish a coherent, consistent storyline that raises, maintains, and reduces student uncertainty to horizontally and vertically construct a collective knowledge among students. The horizontal nature occurs within a stage of management, and the vertical nature of a storyline talk is related to moving along from stage to stage. Through the storyline talk focusing on students' epistemic uncertainty, students can truly become agents in the learning process when the lesson is centered on and driven by students' uncertainty.

Leveraging curricular and students' resources to instigate and sustain problematizing

“…However, across all three cases, there were many instances when students' everyday experiences were not picked up by the teacher as productive resources for knowledge construction-likely because of their perceived misalignment with the unit's storyline and the curricular intent. Given that uncertainty is a central, underlying feature of scientific inquiry and critical to advancing scientific knowledge (Chen & Techawitthayachinda, 2021;Watkins et al, 2018), problematizing will emerge and needs to be encouraged throughout students investigations of science phenomena.…”

Pedagogical chemistry sensemaking: a novel conceptual framework to facilitate pedagogical sensemaking in model-based lesson planning

“…Finally, how PedChemSense can be adapted for enacted teaching contexts beyond lesson planning has yet to be determined. Similar to work conducted in elementary/middle school contexts, research should identify the ways secondary and undergraduate chemistry educators can raise, maintain, and reduce uncertainty in classroom spaces (Chen and Techawitthayachinda, 2021). Identifying best practices can assist educators in negotiating the difficulties of arriving at a scientifically-acceptable answer while still meaningfully integrating students' accurate and inaccurate conceptions (Chen, 2021).…”

Development and validation of an observation‐based protocol to measure the eight scientific practices of the next generation science standards in K‐12 science classrooms

“…For example, if the average score of IONIC is between 1 and 2 (active), that means the teachers may need to provide students more opportunity and space to construct their own knowledge, rather than just following the learning materials (e.g., worksheets, PowerPoint). Therefore, teachers may want to revise the learning materials and allow students to engage in complex tasks and solve problems through exploring their uncertainty and ideas (Chen & Qiao, 2020;Chen & Techawitthayachinda, 2021). RESEARCH…”