Resourceful Decision-Making: Supporting Children’s Engagement in Planning Investigations
Case at a Glance
Investigation: Seed Dispersal
Investigation Phase: Planning an Investigation
Teaching Practices:
Dynamically and fluidly using multiple languages (translanguaging)
Recognizing and responding to children’s gestures
Coordinating languaging with gesture and body movement
Providing access to diverse meaning-making resources
Inviting and welcoming storytelling
About the Classroom: This is a second-grade multilingual classroom of nine children speaking various languages: Spanish, Portuguese, German, Arabic, and English. Their teacher, Diana, is fluent or proficient in most of these languages, but she doesn’t speak Arabic.
Context: Children’s work to plan their sticking investigation takes place midway into our Seed Dispersal Investigations, after small groups of children had made predictions, and then tested how their seeds traveled by water and wind.
Introduction
Diana’s class is planning an investigation to test whether a seed travels by sticking to animals. Diana offers children various resources (e.g., investigation materials, charts, slides, pictures of seeds, gestures, body movements, multiple languages, etc.) to support their sensemaking and decision-making. She provides children with four investigation materials: furry brown fabric, black cloth-like fabric, vinyl with a leopard pattern, and a piece of tape. Then she asks, “Which fabric might be good to use to see if the seeds will travel by sticking?”
As children discuss and then begin to test, they make decisions about what materials to use and how to use them. We see how productive uncertainty emerges and how children’s access to- and use of- resources (including their full linguistic repertoire) is central to their engagement in planning the investigation when:
Children revisit the phenomenon and establish a purpose for investigation
The teacher introduces the investigation as a tool for making progress
Children discuss decisions about which materials to use and how
Children consider what to use as evidence
We also use the “Case Background” section to highlight some of the other parts of the process of planning an investigation that supported this work (See the Planning Investigations Tool).
Case Background
Children revisit the phenomenon and establish a purpose for the investigation
Children reviewed their ideas about seeds travel by sticking and developed their shared experience by looking again at the page of the book (Image 1) they had initially discussed. They then watched a video of a dog running through plants and having burrs stick to their fur (Image 2). They offered explanations of how and why a seed might stick to a dog’s fur. Diana asked them to think about which of their seeds might be good (or less good at sticking), establishing uncertainty about this question.
The teacher introduces the investigation as a tool for making progress
Diana then introduced three investigation materials: a furry brown fabric, a black cloth-like fabric, and leopard vinyl (Image 3). Further, she helped unpack parameters that were already decided on. She told children they could use fabrics to be like the animals and people moving around the school and asked children to explore the materials in small groups, prompting them to think about which fabric might be good to use to see if the seeds would travel by sticking.
1. Book page
2. Screenshot from the video - a dog running into the bushes
3. Investigation materials
Uncertainty in Action
Children discuss decisions about what materials to use and how
The next day, Diana invited children to make decisions, planning an investigation to test whether their seeds could travel by sticking. She displayed screenshots of the dog before, during, and after getting into the bushes so children could continue to engage with the phenomenon. She invited children to share with Juliana, a Spanish-speaking student who was absent the day before, what they had learned. She provided Juliana with the three investigation materials as she initiated a discussion about how children could use the materials to see which seeds were good at sticking to animals. Here, we zoom in to show children’s talk and the way the resources available in the room helped them make and discuss decisions.
Deciding to use fabrics to represent animals and people’s clothes
Diana: What did you think yesterday, you were doing good thinking about which fabric might be good to use to see if the seeds will travel by sticking. Jordy, what did you think?
Jordy: Brown? (Image 4)
Diana: The brown! Ok. So Jordy said the brown one will be good. And why did you think that the brown would be good to test if our seeds could travel by sticking?
Jordy: Porque es mas suave…[Because it is softer…]. (Image 5)
Diana: Mas suave? OK.
Jordy: Como el perro es suave [Like how a dog is soft] (Continuing to touch his hat)
Diana: Oh! It’s like the dog. It is soft. It’s soft like the dog was soft? (Image 6) Ok! Great.
Jordy: Porque yo sé como se sienten…como son los perros porque yo tenía uno en El Salvador. [Because I know how dogs feel… what dogs are like… because I had one in El Salvador]
Diana: OK, so you had a dog before, and you know how the dog feels and that feels like the dog? (Image 7)
As Jordy was talking, Juliana had been feeling and sorting the materials. She now held up the brown cloth and joined the conversation (Image 8).
Juliana: La tela de este es como la la tela de los peluches. [This fabric is like a stuffed animal ]
Diana: Does anyone have something to add? Is there another fabric there that might be good to test if the seed could travel by sticking? Yes, Dereck?
Dereck: I think this (Image 9, 10)
Diana: You think that now would be good?
Dereck: Not for every seeds. For this seed (Image 11,12)
Diana: Right. Right. We were saying, it is not going to work for every seed, right because not all of our seeds would travel by sticking. Right? No todas las semillas pueden viajar de esta manera.[Not all of our seeds can travel this way]. Ok?
What we see …
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Jordy and Juliana think about how materials do and don’t represent animals in the backyard, beginning to focus on the texture of material as important.
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Children’s access to materials is central to their decision-making. Jordy touches his chat, Juliana re-organizes the materials as she listens and thinks, then joins in.
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- Welcoming storytelling and motivating children to make connections between life experiences and school science.
- Creating an expansive learning space where children felt safe moving freely in the classroom in search of materials that could support this idea expression and decision making.
Deciding that some materials are not useful for figuring out if seeds can stick
Diana: Now, what did anyone think about this one (Image 13)? Is this one like–(holding the vinyl at chest level)
Students: No. No (Image 14)
Diana: You guys don’t think this one is- (No!) Yeah, Why don’t you think so? Why you think this will not be good one to check? Fernando.
Fernando: Because nothing will stick on that one (Image 15). Nothing can stick (touching the vinyl).
Diana: What about if I wanted to use tape (Image 16) to see if the seeds would stick? Do you think that would be good or no? (Image 17)
Students, overlapping: No. No. Yes. No.
Jordy: No, because it is already sticky (pointing at the piece of tape in Diana’s hand).
Diana: Ok. So, Jordy said it wouldn’t be good to check because it’s already (Image 18). It just. It’s already sticky (Diana taps on the sticky side of the tape and gestures how it feels).
Diana: Does anyone agree (thumbs up) or disagree (thumbs down) with Jordy? (Image 19)
Dereck: I agree because I think this side can be stick but not this side (Image 20)
What we see …
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Considering the vinyl material
Fernando continues to build the idea that texture is more important than color or pattern for representing sticking processes and understanding which seeds stick.
Considering tape
Dereck is able to dismiss the idea of using sticky tape– engaging with uncertainty about how to develop an informative comparison by thinking about what will provide information about the seeds, rather than make everything stick. -
Considering the vinyl material
Fernando expresses his ideas through gesture and sensory engagement, again showing the importance of children’s access to materials and teachers attention to gesture and work with artifacts.Considering tape
Multisensory engagement with the resources is central to Dereck’s idea expression and decision making process. -
Considering the vinyl material
Noticing and responding to Fernando’s silent gesture facilitating his access to to the vinyl by bringing it to him.Coordinating body movement with children’s languaging (Image 14)
Considering tape
Providing access to resources in various ways including feeling one side of the tape and gesturing stickiness which support children in their decision making.Welcoming free movement and interaction with materials in support of children's decision making.
Children consider what to use as evidence
Diana distributed investigation materials to each group of children, encouraging them to explore further and consider how they would use the materials to test whether their seeds stuck. Fernando and Jacob opted to drop their seeds vertically onto the fabric and then flip the fabric to observe whether the seed remained attached or fell off. They considered the seed's ability to stay attached to the fabric as evidence of sticking.
Diana divided children into groups of two and provided each group with the three investigation materials, furry brown fabric, black fabric, and leopard vinyl.
Diana: I want you and your partner to talk. How you are going to do it? How you are going to test if the seed sticks? Look here, please. Are you going to do it like this (Image 21)? Are you going to do it like this (Image 22)? Are you going to do it like (Image 23)? Hmm… (Image 24). How are you going to test? Talk to your partner.
Diana approaches Fernando and Jacob.
Diana: What do you think? How should we test it? How should we use the cloth (Diana grabs the brown fabric) to test it?
Fernando: Like this (Fernando places the fabric onto the palm of his left hand and moves the index finger of his right hand vertically downward onto the fabric).
Diana: Like this (Image 25)? Why do you think like this?
Fernando: Umm.. Like this (Image 26) and then .. (Image 27).
Diana: Ok. So you think we should start with it like that? And then we should do that? (Diana repeats Fernando’s gestures)
Fernando nods his head yes.
Diana: Oh! OK! So you think we start like that (gesturing dropping the seed downward onto the fabric) and then turn it over (Diana turns the fabric over and shakes it up and down).
Fernando nods his head yes.
As children came up with investigation plans to test their seeds, they sketched the plans in their notebooks (Image 28) and conducted their investigations, recording what happened and what they thought.
What we see …
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Children continue to grapple productively with how to use materials and what to count as evidence as they planned and conducted their investigations.
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Children’s interaction with materials, including acting out how to do their investigation, was crucial for this work. If they had been asked to plan in absence of working with the materials, their plans might have looked very different.
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Providing access to resources that support children planning of how to use investigation materials and what to use as evidence in investigation.
Reflection
This case underscores the crucial role of teachers in facilitating children’s engagement in the scientific practice of planning an investigation. By providing children with access to resources and supporting their decision-making processes, teachers empower them to actively participate in planning and conducting investigations amidst uncertainty.
We encourage you to reflect on your teaching practices in light of your learning from this case:
What kinds of decisions do children make and discuss when we are starting investigations in my classroom? Do they have a chance to think about how materials represent outside processes and to make and justify decisions?
How do I – and how can I – support children to access and use a variety of resources, including their linguistic and cultural backgrounds, during science?
Do children in my classroom have agency to choose what resources they need for their sensemaking? Are there ways to shift my practice toward children having both more access and more agency?