A Study of Teacher Sensemaking About Productive Student Talk in Science Classrooms

ABSTRACT Reform efforts in science education call for students to learn science by engaging in the discipline to explain phenomena. This requires students to engage in productive science talk, or talk that is accountable to the learning community, focused on building on the ideas of others, accountable to the standards of reasoning emphasizing logical, evidence‐based conclusions, and accountable to science knowledge and the process of sensemaking, engaging students in making epistemic and conceptual progress. Unfortunately, instruction that features such talk is rare, and equipping teachers to facilitate it is challenging. Our study explored Monica, a biology teacher with minimal instructional training but a high motivation to support her students' success, sensemaking during a year‐long professional development (PD) experience focused on teachers' facilitation of lessons designed to engage students in productive science talk. Using video recordings of PD sessions and interviews, we analyzed the focus and the process of Monica's sensemaking when considering how to facilitate lessons designed to support students' engagement in productive science talk and the meaning she made of productive science talk. Findings showed that the PD supported Monica in conceptualizing talk aligned with students' disciplinary engagement using multiple sensemaking processes. However, she predominantly viewed talk from the student's perspective and required prompting to consider her role in designing and facilitating productive science talk. These findings offer insights for teacher educators on how to engage teachers in various sensemaking processes and the importance of supporting teachers in understanding their role in fostering students' productive science talk.