Redistributing epistemic agency: How teachers open up space for meaningful participation in science

Mon Lin Monica Ko, Christina Stina Krist

Research output: Contribution to journalConference articlepeer-review

Abstract

Taking the practice turn (Ford & Forman, 2006) necessarily involves students in making judgements about the state of their knowledge and in making decisions about how their investigations should proceed. In this study, we investigate how teachers open up aspects of their curricular activities and invite students to partner in the epistemic decisions that drive classroom activity. We draw on work in 3 classrooms as instrumental cases to illustrate what teachers did to ‘open up’ the curriculum and how these moves re-distributed epistemic agency. In each of the three cases, what teachers opened up had different implications in terms of their reach: the resulting “ripple effect” of the impact of the decisions that students were involved making. These cases illustrate the “disciplined improvisational” work (Sawyer, 2004) required to open up space within the constraints and boundaries of the curriculum to create opportunities for re-distributing epistemic agency.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)232-239
Number of pages8
JournalProceedings of International Conference of the Learning Sciences, ICLS
Volume1
Issue number2018-June
StatePublished - 2018
Event13th International Conference of the Learning Sciences, ICLS 2018: Rethinking Learning in the Digital Age: Making the Learning Sciences Count - London, United Kingdom
Duration: Jun 23 2018Jun 27 2018

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Computer Science (miscellaneous)
  • Education

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