Abstract
Sensemaking is conceptualized as a trajectory to develop better understanding and is advocated as one of the fundamental practices in science education. However, the field is lacking of a framework to view the prolonged process of sensemaking that starts from a raise of uncertainty of a target phenomenon to a grasping of a better understanding of a target phenomenon. The process requires teachers to recognize the role of scientific uncertainty in different phases of sensemaking and develop responsive instructional supports to help students navigate the uncertainties. With an attention on student scientific uncertainty as a potential driver of the trajectory of sensemaking, this study aims to identify different phases of sensemaking that can be developed with students’ scientific uncertainty. This study especially attends to two types of scientific uncertainty—conceptual and epistemic uncertainties. Conceptual uncertainty refers to student struggle of using conceptual understanding (e.g., mastery of content and everyday knowledge) to respond to an encountered phenomenon. Epistemic uncertainty emerges from struggles in using epistemic understanding to generate new ideas. Based on the multiple case study method, we examined sensemaking activities in two Korean science classrooms and one American science classroom and identified three phases of sensemaking: (a) focusing on a driving question related to a target phenomenon, (b) delving into multiple resources to develop plausible explanation(s), and (c) examining the successfulness of the new understanding and concretizing it. Based on the findings, we discuss two emerging themes. First, sensemaking progresses through three distinctive phases driven by students’ dynamically evolving scientific uncertainty. Second, attending to both epistemic and conceptual uncertainties can support developing sensemaking coherent with students’ view.
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Acknowledgements
This research was funded by the National Science Foundation (Award # 2100879) to explore teachers' capacity to manage student epistemic uncertainty to support student's productive struggle and the development of conceptual understanding during project-based learning instruction. The opinions expressed herein are our own and not necessarily those of the National Science Foundation.This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2020S1A5B5A16083113).
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Appendices
Appendix 1 Codebook of types of scientific uncertainty
Table 6
Appendix 2 Pedagogical role of student scientific uncertainty — content uncertainty
Table 7
Appendix 3 Pedagogical role of student scientific uncertainty — epistemic uncertainty
Table 8
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Ha, H., Park, J. & Chen, YC. Conceptualizing Phases of Sensemaking as a Trajectory for Grasping Better Understanding: Coordinating Student Scientific Uncertainty as a Pedagogical Resource. Res Sci Educ 54, 359–391 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-023-10144-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-023-10144-3