Sensemaking entails being active, self-conscious, motivated, and purposeful in the world. It is an activity that is always situated within the cultural and historical contexts in which we interact with others and with the aid of tools. In this chapter, we contrast everyday sensemaking with academic sensemaking and treat academic sensemaking in a disciplinary-specific manner, exploring how teachers engage students in academic sensemaking within the domains of mathematics, science, history, and literature. Consistent with the focus of this volume, which is designed to feature teacher practice, the goal of our chapter is to explore the practices in which teachers engage when the purpose is to position students as sensemakers and create a classroom culture that provides the resources and contexts to develop skill with academic sensemaking. Our analyses revealed the broad range of practices necessary to characterize the enactment of instruction that is designed to teach and promote sensemaking, as well as the multitude of purposes those practices served. To explicate the domain-specific nature of teacher practice, we analyzed selected studies in which the researchers provided significant detail regarding teachers’ practices. We conclude that sensemaking is a productive lens for investigating and characterizing great teaching.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AukermanM. S. (2007). When reading it wrong is getting it right: Shared evaluation pedagogy among struggling fifth grade readers. Research in the Teaching of English, 42(1), 56–103.
2.
AukermanM. (2013). Rereading comprehension pedagogies: Toward a dialogic teaching ethic that honors student sensemaking. Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal, 1. Retrieved from https://dpj.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/dpj1/article/view/9/17
3.
BainR. (2006). Rounding up unusual suspects: Facing the authority hidden in the history curriculum. Teachers College Record, 108(10), 2080–2114.
4.
BakerE. L.BartonP. E.Darling-HammondL.HaertelE.LaddH. F.LinnR. L.. . . ShepardL. (2010). Problems with the use of student test scores to evaluate teachers. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute.
5.
BakhtinM. (1981). Discourse in the novel. In HolquistM. (Ed.), The dialogic imagination (pp. 259–492). Austin: University of Texas Press.
6.
BallD. L.ThamesM. H.PhelpsG. (2008). Content knowledge for teaching: What makes it special?Journal of Teacher Education, 59, 389–407.
7.
BereiterC.ScardamaliaM. (1987). The psychology of written composition. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
8.
BrownA.CampioneJ. (1994). Guided discovery in a community of learners. In McGillK. (Ed.), Classroom lessons: Integrating cognitive theory and classroom practice (pp. 229–270). Cambridge: MIT Press.
9.
BrunerJ. S. (1966). Toward a theory of instruction. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
10.
BrunerJ.HasteH. (1987). Making sense: The child’s construction of reality. New York, NY: Methuen.
11.
CervettiG. N.DiPardoA. L.StaleyS. J. (2014). Entering the conversation: Exploratory talk in middle school science. Elementary School Journal, 114, 547–572.
12.
ChinC.OsborneJ. (2010). Supporting argumentation through students’ questions: Case studies in science classrooms. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 19, 230–284.
13.
CohenD. K.BallD. L. (2001). Making change: Instruction and its improvement. Phi Delta Kappan, 83(1), 73–77.
De La PazS.Monte-SanoC.FeltonM.CroningerR.JacksonC.PiantedosiK. W. (2017). A historical writing apprenticeship for adolescents: Integrating disciplinary learning with cognitive strategies. Reading Research Quarterly, 52(1), 31–52.
16.
DuschlR. A. (2008). Science education in three part harmony: Balancing conceptual, epistemic and social learning goals. Review of Research in Education, 32, 268–291.
17.
EngleR. A.ConantF. R. (2002). Guiding principles for fostering productive disciplinary engagement: Explaining an emergent argument in a community of learners classroom. Cognition and Instruction, 20, 399–483.
18.
GoldmanS. R.BrittM. A.BrownW.CribbG.GeorgeM.GreenleafC., . . . Project READI. (2016). Disciplinary literacies and learning to read for understanding: A conceptual framework for disciplinary literacy. Educational Psychologist, 51, 219–246.
19.
GrossmanP.LoebS.CohenJ.WyckoffJ. (2013). Measure for measure: The relationship between measures of instructional practice in middle school English language arts and teachers’ value-added scores. American Journal of Education, 119, 445–470.
20.
HenningsenM.SteinM. K. (1997). Mathematical tasks and student cognition: Classroom-based factors that support and inhibit high-level mathematical thinking and reasoning. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 28, 524–549.
21.
HerrenkohlL. R.CorneliusL. (2013). Investigating elementary students’ scientific and historical argumentation. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 22, 413–461.
22.
HoganK.NastasiB. K.PressleyM. (1999). Discourse patterns and collaborative scientific reasoning in peer and teacher-guided discussions. Cognition and Instruction, 17, 379–432.
23.
KennedyM. M. (2007). Defining a literature. Educational Researcher, 36, 139–147.
24.
KilpatrickJ. (2001). Understanding mathematical literacy: The contribution of research. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 47, 101–116.
25.
KintschW. (1986). Learning from text. Cognition and Instruction, 3(2), 87–108.
26.
KleinG.MoonB.HoffmanR. R. (2006). Making sense of sensemaking 1: Alternative perspectives. IEEE Intelligent Systems, 21(4), 70–73.
27.
LampertM. (2010). Learning teaching in, from, and for practice: What do we mean?Journal of Teacher Education, 61(1–2), 21–34.
28.
LeeC. D. (2006). “Every good-bye ain’t gone”: Analyzing the cultural underpinnings of classroom talk. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 19, 305–327.
29.
LeeC. D.GoldmanS. R.LevineS.MaglianoJ. (2016). Epistemic cognition in literary reasoning. In GreeneJ. A.SandovalW. A.BratenI. (Eds.), Handbook of epistemic cognition (pp. 165–183). New York, NY: Routledge.
30.
MaherC. A. (2005). How students structure their investigations and learning mathematics: Insights from a long-term study. Journal of Mathematical Behavior, 24(1), 1–14.
31.
ManzE. (2016). Examining evidence construction as the transformation of the material world into community knowledge. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 53, 1113–1140.
32.
MatusovE. (2009). Journey into dialogic pedagogy. Hauppauge, NY: Nova.
33.
McNeillK. L.PimentelD. S. (2009). Scientific discourse in three urban classrooms: The role of the teacher in engaging high school students in argumentation. Science Education, 94, 203–229.
34.
Monte-SanoC. (2008). Qualities of historical writing instruction: A comparative case study of two teachers’ practices. American Educational Research Journal, 45, 1045–1079.
35.
Monte-SanoC. (2011). Beyond reading comprehension and summary: Learning to read and write in history by focusing on evidence, perspective, and interpretation. Curriculum Inquiry, 42, 212–249.
36.
Monte-SanoC.De La PazS.FeltonM. (2014). Implementing disciplinary-literacy curriculum for US history: Learning from expert middle school teachers in diverse classrooms. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 46, 540–575.
O’ConnorM. C.MichaelsS. (1993). Aligning academic task and participation status through revoicing: Analysis of a classroom discourse strategy. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 24, 318–335.
39.
PapeS. J.BellC. V.YetkinI. E. (2003). Developing mathematical thinking and self-regulated learning: A teaching experiment in a seventh-grade mathematics classroom. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 53, 179–202.
40.
PeraM. (1994). The discourses of science. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
41.
PowellA.FranciscoJ. M.MaherC. A. (2003). An analytical model for studying the development of learners’ mathematical ideas and reasoning using videotape data. Journal of Mathematical Behavior, 22, 405–435.
42.
PumtembekerS.StylianouA.GoldsteinJ. (2007). Comparing classroom enactments of an inquiry curriculum: Lessons learned from two teachers. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 16, 81–130.
43.
RAND Reading Study Group. (2002). Reading for understanding: Toward an R & D program in reading. Santa Monica, CA: Author.
44.
ReismanA. (2012). Reading like a historian: A document-based history curriculum intervention in urban high schools. Cognition and Instruction, 30, 86–112.
45.
SilverE. A.SteinM. K. (1996). The QUASAR project: The “revolution of the possible” in mathematics instructional reform in urban middle schools. Urban Education, 30, 476–521.
46.
SteinM. K.EngleR. A.SmithM. S.HughesE. K. (2008). Orchestrating productive mathematical discussions: Five practices for helping teachers move beyond show and tell. Mathematical Thinking and Learning, 10, 313–340.
47.
VygotskyL. S. (1987). Thinking and speech. In RieberR. W.CartonA. S. (Eds.), The collected works of LS Vygotsky: Problems of general psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 39–285). New York, NY: Plenum Press. (Original work published 1934)
48.
WarrenB.BallengerC.OgonowskiM.RoseberyA. S.Hudicourt-BarnesJ. (2001). Rethinking diversity in learning science: The logic of everyday sense-making. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 38, 529–552.
49.
WeickK. E. (1995). Sensemaking in organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
50.
WeickK. E.SutcliffeK. M.ObstfeldD. (2005). Organizing and the process of sensemaking. Organization Science, 16, 409–421.
51.
WineburgS. S. (1991). Historical problem solving: A study of the cognitive processes used in the evaluation of documentary and pictorial evidence. Journal of Educational Psychology, 83(1), 72–87.
52.
WineburgS. S. (1994). The cognitive representation of historical texts. In LeinhardtG.BeckI.StaintonC. (Eds.), Teaching and learning in history (pp. 85–135). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
53.
WolfM. K.CrossonA.ResnickL. B. (2006). Classroom talk for rigorous reading comprehension instruction. Reading Psychology, 26(1), 27–53.
