Understanding Elementary Preservice Teachers Sensemaking about Scientific Explorations and Responsive Science Teaching

It is widely recognized that teachers (both preservice and in-service) often struggle to understand and enact reform-oriented pedagogies, and in their efforts to consider such pedagogies, they express concern and discomfort. In the literature that focuses on teachers' sensemaking, such moments of concern or discomfort that emerge as teachers struggle to make sense of new ideas or approaches are known as vexations. A body of research focuses on ways to support elementary preservice teachers' learning about responsive teaching, however, there are few investigations that focus on surfacing the vexations they experience in a science methods class. In this qualitative, cross-case study, I explored the vexations that preservice elementary teachers experience during a methods course that engaged them in scientific explorations as a tool to consider the affordances of responsive science teaching. I describe the epistemic and pedagogical vexations experienced by three elementary preservice teachers, Harper, Yasmin, and Oakley, during their sensemaking efforts during the science methods class and I also describe how these participants worked through their vexations. Participants were strategically selected as each of them had a different racial background, and their past racialized educational experiences were varied. However, they were similar in that they were open to communicating their ideas and feelings during their engagement in the science method class. The research context, elementary science method class, was designed with uncertainty as central to scientific explorations, and preservice teachers were encouraged to figure things out by themselves through responsively facilitated inquiries. My analysis suggests that each of the participants had a different approach to resolving the epistemic vexations that surfaced during their scientific explorations. When Harper and Yasmin realized a gap in their knowledge or found something that did not make sense to them, they attempted to resolve their vexation by drawing on everyday examples to make connections with the explored phenomena; Oakley, in contrast, avoided her epistemic vexations when she realized a gap in her knowledge. Instead, she sought direct answers to her questions and asked for confirmation from the instructor rather than attempting to figure it out by herself. This key finding was later connected to elementary preservice teachers' pedagogical vexations about responsive teaching. As Harper and Yasmin experienced success in their efforts to use their own resources to figure things out, their pedagogical vexations faded away and they embraced responsive teaching. Oakley's avoidance of resolving her epistemic vexation impeded the development of her scientific knowledge. Without a positive experience of her own, she was not compelled to develop an understanding of responsive teaching. I also reported the instructor's efforts to support the preservice teachers' sensemaking during sensemaking by making these vexations the disciplinary substance of our instruction. My analysis showed that the instructor recognized, normalized, and commiserated with preservice teachers' epistemic and pedagogical vexations, which helped them to reframe uncertainty in scientific explorations and vexations during those explorations as integrated into science learning and teaching. In addition, the instructor sidestepped during vexations, invited other peers to conversation to foster inclusion, and offered different resources for them rather than direct answers. This study illustrates the significance of the preservice teachers' productive struggle around emerging epistemic vexations. Exploring one's own resources to resolve one's own vexations and the particular joy and excitement that comes from a successful resolution of productive struggle feelings affords elementary preservice teachers a recognition of the utility of responsive teaching for supporting their own students' learning. This research also speaks to the call for preservice teachers to be provided spaces to realize and articulate their epistemic and pedagogical vexations and be allowed to sit with and recognize these feelings and experiences. The study describes how the inclusion of both scientific explorations and an opportunity to work with elementary students' ideas were essential for the preservice teachers' learning. Together, they provided elementary preservice teachers with opportunities to wrestle with anchoring phenomena, surface their vexations, and leverage their content knowledge. This combination also assisted them in recognizing the effectiveness of responsive practices enacted by the instructor and practicing this approach themselves. It is important to note that the participants' sensemaking about science and responsive teaching was influenced by their own racialized educational experiences, as the construct of "privilege-preserving epistemic pushback" was used to characterize the resistance to responsiveness found in the participant who excelled in science taught in more traditional ways.