Our Approach to Productive Uncertainty
Consistent with big ideas in the Framework for K-12 Science Education and reports on elementary and secondary science instruction, we believe that instruction should be equitable, expansive, deep, and joyful. Learning should be anchored in rich phenomena, build from young people’s ideas and experiences, invite and support the practices of science and engineering, develop big understandings and explanations, and help youth build just and caring communities in and out of the classroom.
Instructional design is complex and multi-faceted. So is teaching. We don’t think there are singular theories, prescriptions, or recipes that will allow us to meet all our goals. But we believe that there are stances, supports, and design principles that can help.
As designers of learning experiences, we seek to:
Invoke uncertainty as a resource and deal honestly with forms of uncertainty that are always present in science and engineering.
Engage young people in productive discussions where they make connections, engage with others’ ideas, and feel valued.
Provide support for teachers and students to make progress on understanding and applying big science ideas through investigations.
Develop materials and approaches that teachers can adapt for their goals and in their contexts.
As educators,
we seek to:
Learn to see science investigations from young people’s perspective, centering their sensemaking.
Expand our own view of science and what counts as scientific thinking, doing, and communicating.
Breathe, pause, and reflect. We ask students to say more or respond before we step in. We work in community to make sense of children’s ideas. We remind each other of the complex nature of teaching and learning. We allow ourselves to be uncertain and to learn from our experience.
Supporting Materially & Conceptually Rich Investigation Experiences
In each of our investigations, we evoke and work with uncertainty across the different phases of investigation work: Engaging with Phenomena, Planning & Conducting Investigations, Considering Claims and Evidence, and Developing Explanations.
How do we do this?
Here are some key parts of this work. If you are just getting started with incorporating uncertainty in science classrooms, you might want to start with these pieces.
Locating Uncertainty in Science Practice (The Investigations Framework)
Predictable forms of uncertainty show up as investigators move between phenomena, investigations, evidence, and explanations. Recognizing these and understanding their possibilities can help us design classroom investigations and engage students in productive discussions about them.
Seeing and Valuing Uncertainty in Classroom Work
As adults, we often know “the answer,” or where investigations are supposed to go and what children are supposed to see. You can build your ability to see children’s uncertainty by listening to their questions, cuing in when they are hedging (“maybe…”), and beginning to see what is uncertain from their perspective.
Strategies for Designing with Uncertainty
We have developed a set of strategies for investigation and lesson design that help manage uncertainty by providing honest explanations, that raise uncertainty, and that build from uncertainty toward progress in science work. We hope these will help teachers and curriculum designers or adapters.
Tools for Teacher Planning and Implementation
Specific experiences and conversations can be helpful for raising, working with, and learning from uncertainty at different points in sensemaking. And there are challenges that come up again and again. These tools are geared toward planning and supporting uncertainty in classroom work.