Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
ABSTRACT Recent reforms in science education emphasize engaging students in authentic sensemaking practices. Central to this vision is positioning students as epistemic agents who generate questions, negotiate ideas, and co‐construct scientific understanding. Yet, classroom realities reveal persistent tensions in implementing these ideals, particularly in elementary settings. This multiple case study draws on classroom video and post‐lesson debriefs of five elementary teachers identified as instructional innovators in a multi‐year professional development project. Using a framework of four opportunities for epistemic agency as an analytic frame, moments of student‐driven sensemaking in phenomena‐based science activities were analyzed. Findings showed the following tensions in shifting epistemic agency to students: (1) honoring student contributions versus steering discourse toward canonical science, (2) providing scaffolds and roles that clarify participation versus unintentionally constraining sensemaking, (3) supporting student‐driven knowledge products that reflect everyday reasoning versus aligning with disciplinary ideas and principles, and (4) creating space to renegotiate classroom norms versus maintaining order. These tensions reveal the dynamic negotiation of epistemic agency in classrooms, and underscore that supporting students' epistemic agency is a continual balancing act shaped by time, curricular mandates, and classroom culture. Implications for teacher professional learning, emphasizing the need to cultivate equitable classroom norms, plan for productive trade‐offs, and design systemic supports that expand opportunities for all students to engage as epistemic agents in science learning are discussed.
Bae et al. (Thu,) studied this question.