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How Can Features of Classroom Activity Systems Center Students' Ideas and Experiences in Formative Assessment? A Study of Sensemaking and Answer-Making Frames

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Title: How Can Features of Classroom Activity Systems Center Students' Ideas and Experiences in Formative Assessment? A Study of Sensemaking and Answer-Making Frames
Language: English
Authors: Clarissa Deverel-Rico, Erin Marie Furtak
Source: Educational Assessment. 2025 30(2):91-114.
Availability: Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 24
Publication Date: 2025
Sponsoring Agency: National Science Foundation (NSF)
Contract Number: 1561751
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Education Level: High Schools
Secondary Education
Grade 11
Descriptors: Formative Evaluation, Biology, Science Education, High School Teachers, High School Students, Grade 11, Secondary School Science, Evaluation Methods, Student Interests, Student Experience, Educational Opportunities, Comprehension
DOI: 10.1080/10627197.2025.2504081
ISSN: 1062-7197
1532-6977
Abstract: Current reforms in science education envision students making sense of real-world phenomena in ways that leverage their ideas, experiences, and identities. Formative assessment is essential to this vision; however, we are still coming to understand how formative assessment design and enactment in classroom activity systems can support this vision. We present a framework for bringing the epistemological frames of sensemaking and answer-making and formative assessment together and use this to investigate students' opportunities to make sense of phenomena during one teacher's enactment of a formative assessment task for modeling energy in a biological system. Findings indicate that students had opportunities to share and leverage their personal connections and initial ideas through a sensemaking frame as the teacher interspersed and strategically leveraged answer-making moments. This case study illustrates how classrooms can frame students' ideas and prior experiences as epistemic resources to be leveraged through the enactment of formative assessment.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2026
Accession Number: EJ1492917
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0185386631;7ls01apr.25;2025May27.02:37;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0185386631-1">How Can Features of Classroom Activity Systems Center Students' Ideas and Experiences in Formative Assessment? A Study of Sensemaking and Answer-Making Frames </title> <sbt id="AN0185386631-2">Introduction</sbt> <p>Current reforms in science education envision students making sense of real-world phenomena in ways that leverage their ideas, experiences, and identities. Formative assessment is essential to this vision; however, we are still coming to understand how formative assessment design and enactment in classroom activity systems can support this vision. We present a framework for bringing the epistemological frames of sensemaking and answer-making and formative assessment together and use this to investigate students' opportunities to make sense of phenomena during one teacher's enactment of a formative assessment task for modeling energy in a biological system. Findings indicate that students had opportunities to share and leverage their personal connections and initial ideas through a sensemaking frame as the teacher interspersed and strategically leveraged answer-making moments. This case study illustrates how classrooms can frame students' ideas and prior experiences as epistemic resources to be leveraged through the enactment of formative assessment.</p> <p>The current wave of science education reform is founded upon a vision of learning and instruction that leverages students' innate curiosity and ability to make sense of real-world phenomena (e.g. National Research Council [NRC], [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref1">48</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref2">49</reflink>], National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine [NASEM], [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref3">44</reflink>]). Today's science classrooms should engage students in activities that combine science and engineering practices with disciplinary core ideas and crosscutting concepts, also called three-dimensional learning (NRC, [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref4">49</reflink>]). These reforms build on research that shows the importance of children's everyday scientific understandings as an essential element of science learning (NRC, [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref5">48</reflink>], NASEM, [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref6">42</reflink>]).</p> <p>Three-dimensional assessment should similarly be linked to compelling, everyday phenomena (Penuel et al., [<reflink idref="bib60" id="ref7">60</reflink>]) focusing on processes that provide opportunities for sensemaking through disciplinary practice (Bereiter, [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref8">6</reflink>]; Thompson et al., [<reflink idref="bib84" id="ref9">84</reflink>]) and that center students' interests and identities (NASEM, [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref10">43</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref11">44</reflink>]; NRC, [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref12">49</reflink>]). The role that assessment can play in supporting such a vision is especially salient in the context of formative assessment, or the assessment that teachers and students most frequently engage in during day-to-day classroom activity, for the purposes of eliciting and working with student thinking and providing feedback that moves learning forward (Council of Chief State School Officers, [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref13">14</reflink>]).</p> <p>Though curriculum and instruction have made great strides toward this new vision (e.g. OpenSciEd, [<reflink idref="bib58" id="ref14">58</reflink>].; Edelson et al., [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref15">19</reflink>]), the field is still learning how to design and enact assessments that align with it (Furtak & Lee, [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref16">24</reflink>]). Historically, assessment has evaluated canonically correct end-points of disciplinary knowledge with the goal of accountability rather than student learning (Shepard, [<reflink idref="bib76" id="ref17">76</reflink>]). To truly enact an equitable vision of science education, assessment practices must shift <emph>with</emph> curriculum and instruction to support classroom activity systems that balance disciplinary learning with opportunities for students to make sense of phenomena in the context of their own interests and prior experiences (Kang & Furtak, [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref18">32</reflink>]).</p> <p>In this paper, through a single case study of a classroom enactment of a formative assessment task, we seek to understand how classroom activity systems can leverage students' interests and identities as epistemic resources as they make sense of phenomena.</p> <hd id="AN0185386631-3">Theoretical framing</hd> <p>We ground our inquiry in sociocultural perspectives on learning, which recognize the social nature and influence of culture on learning (Rogoff, [<reflink idref="bib66" id="ref19">66</reflink>]; Vygotsky, [<reflink idref="bib87" id="ref20">87</reflink>]). This theory shifts away from focusing on knowledge-building inside students' heads, helping us broaden our focus beyond individual learners toward exploring what influences the learning environment, as learning cannot be separated from the context in which it occurs (Greeno, [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref21">26</reflink>]). Sociocultural views allow for a more expansive approach, beyond cognitive perspectives, to consider how learning is co-constituted within learners' contexts and lived experiences toward apprenticing into membership of a particular community (Lave & Wenger, [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref22">36</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0185386631-4">Literature review</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0185386631-5">The role of sensemaking in three-dimensional science learning</hd> <p>Current reform efforts in science education – as well as other disciplines – are deeply informed by efforts to engage students in disciplinary practice (Ford & Forman, [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref23">21</reflink>]). Built upon sociocultural theories of learning, the new vision – articulated in the <emph>Framework for K-12 Science Education</emph> ([<emph>Framework</emph>] NRC, [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref24">49</reflink>]) – highlights how science learning builds over time, is centered on students' interests and identities, and is developed through discourse-rich, collaborative opportunities to make sense of phenomena (NRC, [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref25">49</reflink>]). These reforms are intended to promote more equitable learning experiences and outcomes through disrupting dominant ideologies and epistemologies of science that have reproduced hierarchies in who gets to participate in and excel at science (Bang & Medin, [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref26">3</reflink>]).</p> <p>In 2013, the <emph>Framework</emph> informed the writing of the <emph>Next Generation Science Standards</emph> ([NGSS] NRC, [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref27">51</reflink>]), which are now adopted in whole or in part in the majority of states across the US. These standards are more complex than previous science standards, which focused on science concepts, or on science inquiry, without combining the two (NRC, [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref28">46</reflink>]). In contrast, the NGSS have the features of intertwining disciplinary core ideas, or the big ideas of science, with science and engineering practices, such as developing models and analyzing data, and crosscutting concepts, such as scale and proportionality. More recently, curricula have been developed to align with those standards, such as OpenSciEd (e.g. Edelson et al., [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref29">19</reflink>]).</p> <p>As these curricula and standards have come into more widespread adoption, sensemaking has emerged as a central component of students' three-dimensional learning experiences (e.g. NASEM, [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref30">43</reflink>]). Put simply, the term "sensemaking" refers to students having opportunities to make their own sense of the scenarios they are learning about in school. Such learning experiences better reflect the practice of scientists as they work toward building explanatory models and solving problems (Schwarz et al., [<reflink idref="bib72" id="ref31">72</reflink>]).</p> <p>Odden and Russ ([<reflink idref="bib57" id="ref32">57</reflink>]), in a systematic review, described sensemaking as the various ways in which students figure out the world around them, drawing upon everyday and formal knowledge in building and refining explanations while iterating through complementary and competing ideas. Sensemaking "extends prior visions of inquiry to define processes for building and refining scientific knowledge as a community" (Schwarz et al., [<reflink idref="bib72" id="ref33">72</reflink>], p. 7) – emphasizing students' role in actively deciding how to pursue answers to their questions through the use of the science and engineering practices.</p> <p>A key element of promoting sensemaking as part of students' three-dimensional science learning is orienting their activities around questions that arise as they encounter compelling phenomena in classrooms or in their daily lives. These questions can then become the basis for sequencing learning experiences, sometimes called "storylines," which are coherent from students' perspectives, rather than being oriented in ways that align with how experts think about the discipline (Reiser et al., [<reflink idref="bib64" id="ref34">64</reflink>]).</p> <p>Studies of sensemaking have found that students more readily forge connections between prior learning and new knowledge (e.g. Danielak et al., [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref35">15</reflink>]) and in doing so are able to transfer that disciplinary understanding to new scenarios (e.g. Nokes-Malach & Mestre, [<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref36">54</reflink>]). A key component of facilitating sensemaking is to support learners in identifying a gap in their current understanding of a scientific phenomenon and providing sensemaking opportunities to close that gap (Hutchison & Hammer, [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref37">31</reflink>]). Further, sensemaking is key for classroom learning that connects science to students' interests and experiences. For example, Rosebery et al. ([<reflink idref="bib67" id="ref38">67</reflink>]) explored how phrasing a question in the context of students' everyday experience, such as "Do plants grow every day?," created space for them to make sense of their everyday experiences.</p> <hd id="AN0185386631-6">Formative assessment, sensemaking, and three-dimensional science learning</hd> <p>Formative assessment has been identified as a critical element of three-dimensional science reforms (NRC, [<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref39">52</reflink>]). We define formative assessment as an ongoing process in which teachers and students surface and work with student thinking during instruction and provide feedback to move students forward in their learning (Council of Chief State Science Officers, [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref40">14</reflink>]), reflecting a view of assessments <emph>for</emph> learning, rather than <emph>of</emph> learning (e.g. Taylor, [<reflink idref="bib81" id="ref41">81</reflink>]; Wiliam, [<reflink idref="bib90" id="ref42">90</reflink>]). Formative assessment helps teachers gauge how students are progressing, identify next instructional steps, and are part of an important process of iterating on eliciting students' ideas and supporting those ideas in developing toward learning goals (NRC, [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref43">47</reflink>], Furtak & Heredia, [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref44">22</reflink>]).</p> <p>The phrase "formative assessment" has been used in many ways and can refer to the tasks or tools that structure processes of students sharing their thinking, along with processes or practices in which teachers and students engage (Bennett, [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref45">5</reflink>]; Furtak et al., [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref46">23</reflink>]). Scaffolds such as checklists and recurring formats for making models or writing explanations are essential resources for the design of formative assessment tasks and in turn these tools structure routines in which students share their ideas with each other and their teacher and offer feedback on students' learning from peers and their teacher (Kang et al., [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref47">33</reflink>]).</p> <p>Formative assessment tasks must be enacted within larger classroom activity systems that attend to the ways learners interact with each other, how time is distributed, and how the assessment is framed (e.g. if it will be graded or used to support students, see Ruiz-Primo & Furtak, [<reflink idref="bib70" id="ref48">70</reflink>]). The ways in which teachers enact tasks – even those designed around phenomena, and which engage students in challenging cognitive activity and science practice – are fundamentally related to students' opportunity to engage with and learn in school (e.g. Gresalfi, [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref49">27</reflink>]).</p> <p>Assessments can act as levers that influence learning (Shepard et al., [<reflink idref="bib77" id="ref50">77</reflink>]) by informing visions of what that learning looks like in ways that can constrain or expand students' opportunities to learn or, as we argue, ways that are more aligned with answer-making or sensemaking frames. For example, Kang et al. ([<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref51">34</reflink>]) found that higher cognitive demand tasks had the potential to support students in reasoning and sensemaking about phenomena around them; at the same time, they found that teachers, when enacting these tasks, could also lower the cognitive demand by overly focusing on answers by enacting the tasks with closed-ended questions that limited students' opportunities to engage with their own, and with others' ideas. Many researchers have identified these variations, including Torrance and Pryor ([<reflink idref="bib85" id="ref52">85</reflink>]) who described convergent and divergent approaches to assessment. Whereas teachers can enact assessment in ways that push (or converge) toward predetermined answers and where they seek to determine if students have accumulated the knowledge relevant to answer a particular question, divergent approaches are for the purpose of surfacing what students know, understand, or are able to do. Similarly, Dini et al. ([<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref53">17</reflink>]) found that teachers enacting formative assessment tasks might pay more attention to how students' ideas align directly with the canonical ideas or explanations – a focus more on answers – or they may selectively home in on facets of students' initial or incomplete ideas that can be built on as they support students in making sense of their ideas.</p> <p>When it comes to students' opportunity to engage in phenomenon-based, three-dimensional science learning, these differences in the enactment of formative assessment tasks can have real consequences. In order to support students in developing the knowledge and practices to transfer their learning outside the classroom to personally relevant problems or issues (NASEM, [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref54">44</reflink>]), teachers need to carefully use enactment strategies that balance students making sense of their ideas, while also helping them to pick up on and develop specific elements of those ideas that connect with the phenomenon at hand.</p> <p>We look to prior frameworks to help us understand the moment-to-moment interactions that can help teachers support students in the act of developing meaning by soliciting what students know and are able to do, and strategically picking up on and moving students toward particular understandings (Torrance & Pryor, [<reflink idref="bib85" id="ref55">85</reflink>]; Windschitl et al., [<reflink idref="bib94" id="ref56">94</reflink>]). Scott et al. ([<reflink idref="bib74" id="ref57">74</reflink>]) argued that supporting students' learning involves teachers alternating between discourse with different functions. They identified dialogic questions and discourse moves, which focus on students making meaning of each others' ideas, and where the trajectory of discussion is not predetermined. These are balanced with selective, strategic use of more authoritative approaches, which directs the course of conversation toward particular ideas (O'Connor & Michaels, [<reflink idref="bib56" id="ref58">56</reflink>]; Pryor & Crossouard, [<reflink idref="bib63" id="ref59">63</reflink>]; Scott et al., [<reflink idref="bib74" id="ref60">74</reflink>]).</p> <p>Effective facilitation of formative assessment must balance students' ideas with skillful listening and providing feedback that helps them move toward meeting ambitious, three-dimensional standards. For example, this can be done via moves that surface, work with, and deepen students' ideas and understandings about science (Duckor & Holmberg, [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref61">18</reflink>]; Windschitl et al., [<reflink idref="bib94" id="ref62">94</reflink>]); that is, teachers must use both dialogic and authoritative moves in balance, both valuing the ways students are making sense of the task at hand and also selectively pressing in particular directions. Instructional practices, such as these, are part of larger movements toward promoting equitable learning opportunities and outcomes for learners.</p> <hd id="AN0185386631-7">Two frames for science formative assessment: sensemaking and answer-making</hd> <p>We argue that different ways of enacting formative assessment in science classrooms are integrally related with the ways that the activity of formative assessment itself is framed, or more specifically, how teachers support what frames are taken up by students. Prior studies have examined how people come to view their current activity as a result of interpreting experiences in previous, similar activities, resulting in schema, or frames, that become useful for responding to different situations (e.g. Bartlett, [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref63">4</reflink>]; Tannen, [<reflink idref="bib80" id="ref64">80</reflink>]). With particular respect to knowledge and learning, these have also been called <emph>epistemological</emph> frames (Hutchison & Hammer, [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref65">31</reflink>]; Kapon, [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref66">35</reflink>]). From this perspective, formative assessment could support the epistemological frame of providing correct answers, such as in the instance of assessments critiqued by Shepard ([<reflink idref="bib75" id="ref67">75</reflink>]) for acting primarily as "early-warning" summative assessments that provide time to catch students up before the end-of-year standardized testing begins. Alternatively, formative assessment can be enacted in ways that align with <emph>Framework-</emph>era goals: to support the ways that students make sense of phenomena, and the ways that they apply their previous experiences and practices – both in and out of school learning – to those phenomena. We build on this assertion to refer to these two contrasting frames as <emph>answer-making</emph> and <emph>sensemaking</emph> frames.</p> <p>In a <emph>sensemaking frame</emph>, students view their prior experiences, interests, and identities as important epistemic resources for contributing to the knowledge-building and figuring out taking place in the classroom (Berland & Reiser, [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref68">7</reflink>]; Hutchison & Hammer, [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref69">31</reflink>]; Kapon, [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref70">35</reflink>]; Rosenberg et al., [<reflink idref="bib68" id="ref71">68</reflink>]). This frame involves students calling upon other sources of knowledge, not just a textbook or a single authority. Everyday experiences are seen as useful and productive – in fact, essential – for making sense of the problem at hand. Students are compelled by interest and relevance to call upon such personal experiences they may have had with the outside-of-school world. This frame of learning is viewed as productive toward a meaningful goal, such as figuring out a phenomenon, or applying their learning to an interest outside of school (Berland et al., [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref72">8</reflink>]).</p> <p>To support learners in taking up a sensemaking frame, teachers can encourage them to draw upon various epistemic resources, or resources that contribute to knowledge-building. Such epistemic resources are based in students' identities and backgrounds and include prior experiences and cultural and linguistic repertoires – which refers to the ways of participating that are unique to particular communities of practice (Gutiérrez & Rogoff, [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref73">28</reflink>]). Providing space for students to bring their whole selves to the classroom can disrupt expectations that science learning can only happen through the ways of doing and knowing that are connected to the field of science. To take up a sensemaking frame, knowing that various epistemologies and ways of participating are valued can involve students "moving in, between, and through multiple ways of knowing central to [the] curriculum design, implementation, and evaluation" (Bang & Medin, [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref74">3</reflink>], p. 1015). Over time, through dialogic interactions with their teachers and peers, students reconcile initial ideas with new evidence, weaving together scientific and everyday repertoires – in essence, supporting their sensemaking.</p> <p>In contrast to a sensemaking frame, <emph>answer-making</emph> (Chen et al., [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref75">12</reflink>]; Maloney, [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref76">39</reflink>]; Scherr & Hammer, [<reflink idref="bib71" id="ref77">71</reflink>]) is focused on students seeking particular knowledge that "counts" as determined by the authority in the classroom (Hutchison & Hammer, [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref78">31</reflink>]). When overly focused on answer-making, students come to view the teacher as the arbiter of knowledge who transmits it to students (Weiss et al., [<reflink idref="bib88" id="ref79">88</reflink>]) through predominantly authoritative approaches to classroom interactions, asking questions with little cognitive demand (Roth et al., [<reflink idref="bib69" id="ref80">69</reflink>]).</p> <p>Classrooms solely focused on answer-making, even in the context of formative assessment, are not aligned with three-dimensional science learning reforms, in which the priority is for students to make sense of phenomena. That said, selective use of answer-making through targeted questions that help students navigate through multiple ideas and hone in on elements that will help them make sense of the phenomenon can support learning. Studies have found that teachers and students may shift in and out of approaches to classroom discourse with teachers strategically leveraging each to support students' processes of meaning-making (e.g. Dini et al., [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref81">17</reflink>]; Scott et al., [<reflink idref="bib74" id="ref82">74</reflink>]; Torrance & Pryor, [<reflink idref="bib85" id="ref83">85</reflink>]). In this way, students may engage in sensemaking with deliberate guidance from the teacher in particular directions that will be fruitful paths to support their learning.</p> <hd id="AN0185386631-8">A framework for sensemaking and answer-making frames in science formative assessment</hd> <p>In the following sections, we describe how formative assessment can be enacted within larger classroom activity systems (e.g. Furtak & Lee, [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref84">24</reflink>]; Greeno, [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref85">26</reflink>]), consisting of tasks, participation structures, teachers' talk moves, tools, routines, and larger classroom culture, which align with sensemaking or answer-making frames.</p> <p> <emph>Formative assessment tasks</emph> create space to surface what students know and can do so that teachers and students alike have information about the current learning goals. The tasks teachers select, design, or adapt define the bounds of student activity in classrooms, thus creating space to either open up or constrain student sensemaking (Tekkumru-Kisa et al., [<reflink idref="bib82" id="ref86">82</reflink>]).</p> <p>Tasks that are more likely to engage students in taking up a sensemaking frame provide more opportunities to think and reason, rather than featuring questions that involve simpler, factual recall (e.g. Tekkumru-Kisa et al., [<reflink idref="bib83" id="ref87">83</reflink>]). Such tasks have higher cognitive demand, involving problem situations with visual representations and require students to engage with underlying concepts and practices (Fine & Furtak, [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref88">20</reflink>]; Tekkumru-Kisa et al., [<reflink idref="bib82" id="ref89">82</reflink>]). Additionally, prior research suggests that particular task features can be more supportive of engaging students in developing an explanation for an observed phenomenon over others. In particular, contextualizing an assessment task with a compelling phenomenon along with other strategically placed scaffolds – such as sentence starters or checklists – support student learning (Kang et al., [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref90">33</reflink>]). While scaffolds may be necessary for students early in learning sequences, they may be faded over time as students develop the ability to more independently engage in science practices, such as explanation (e.g. McNeill et al., [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref91">40</reflink>]).</p> <p> <emph>Participation structures</emph>, or the different ways in which classroom activity organizes how students will engage in learning activities (Lemke, [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref92">37</reflink>]), like group collaboration or individual time, can be coordinated to support a sensemaking frame. For instance, students might be provided the opportunity to brainstorm initial ideas about a scientific phenomenon independently prior to subsequently sharing those ideas in small groups – coordinating two low-stakes structures for surfacing ideas and cuing sensemaking. In introducing a new phenomenon, the launch of an assessment task can also engage students' sensemaking repertoires by framing students' initial ideas and connections as important resources.</p> <p>Classroom activity can also organize opportunities for students to sensemake through engaging in disciplinary practices. The practices of modeling, conducting investigations, and argumentation, for example, necessitate participation structures that support iterating and revising ideas (Berland & Reiser, [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref93">7</reflink>]; Schwarz et al., [<reflink idref="bib73" id="ref94">73</reflink>]). For instance, engaging in the science practice of Developing and Using Models involves an iterative process of surfacing and reconciling ideas, incrementally toward being able to use a model for making predictions or asking new questions. Participation structures that support this iterating includes spaces and routines for surfacing ideas and making them public, and discourse in small and whole group for eliciting and refining understandings.</p> <p> <emph>Talk moves</emph>, or the ways that teachers prompt and respond to student thinking (e.g. Duckor & Holmberg, [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref95">18</reflink>]; Michaels & O'Connor, [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref96">41</reflink>]), play an important role in determining how students engage with learning and can lean toward supporting more of an answer-making frame or a sensemaking frame. For instance, talk moves that privilege only getting to canonical science ideas would be associated with supporting more of an answer-making frame, whereas talk moves that press students for evidence-based reasoning (Windschitl et al., [<reflink idref="bib94" id="ref97">94</reflink>]) and engage the science and engineering practices to help explain a phenomenon (e.g. Kang et al., [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref98">34</reflink>]) would support more of a sensemaking frame. Similarly, talk moves can skew toward calling on students to deliver an answer preconceived by the teacher, or contrastingly, can convey that students' ideas are seen as worthy of contributing to the knowledge-building taking place (Scott et al., [<reflink idref="bib74" id="ref99">74</reflink>]).</p> <p> <emph>Tools and routines</emph> scaffold student learning through material artifacts and processes that recur throughout instruction and across grade bands (e.g. Stroupe et al., [<reflink idref="bib78" id="ref100">78</reflink>]; Wertsch, [<reflink idref="bib89" id="ref101">89</reflink>]). Material artifacts should support and distribute the cognitive load of the task at hand, like "gotta have it" checklists for when students are still learning how to develop models (Windschitl & Thompson, [<reflink idref="bib91" id="ref102">91</reflink>]). A "notice and wonder" routine can elicit student ideas after the launch of a phenomenon (e.g. <emph>What do you notice? What do you wonder?)</emph>, and supports making ideas public (e.g. Reiser et al., [<reflink idref="bib65" id="ref103">65</reflink>]; Windschitl et al., [<reflink idref="bib92" id="ref104">92</reflink>]). Similar to talk moves, if the prompts embedded into these artifacts and processes are higher cognitive demand and dialogic in nature, then they can support more of a sensemaking frame. In contrast, routines can support more of an answer-making frame, like the Initiate-Respond-Evaluate routine, which are efficient at finding out if students have "right" answers and subsequently correcting students' ideas (Lemke, [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref105">37</reflink>]). Additionally, too much scaffolding can have the effect of limiting students in sharing their ideas and constraining their answers to what is defined by the curriculum materials.</p> <p>The <emph>classroom culture</emph> is crucial for how students will view the learning taking place; this is particularly salient in science classrooms, where norms that communicate the epistemic frame will influence how science is perceived and experienced by students (Tal & Kedmi, [<reflink idref="bib79" id="ref106">79</reflink>]). Classroom cultures that expand students' notions of what it means to know and participate in science can encourage a wider range of students to meaningfully connect with science (Bang et al., [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref107">2</reflink>]). To support a sensemaking frame, especially from a sociocultural perspective emphasizing collaboration, it is important to establish and foster a supportive and safe environment where students feel they can call upon prior knowledge, use everyday language, and be seen as contributors (Furtak & Lee, [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref108">24</reflink>]; Penuel et al., [<reflink idref="bib59" id="ref109">59</reflink>]). Further, teachers can take the epistemic stance that shifts themselves away from being the authority on knowledge and toward being in dialog with the students as knowledge construction takes place.</p> <p>Table 1 summarizes the characteristics associated with students' opportunities to take up sensemaking or answer-making frames, and outlines how each frame can be embodied through formative assessment tasks, participation structures, talk moves, tools and routines, and classroom culture. We use the blue-to-yellow color gradient to represent the view of classroom activity in supporting these two frames as fluid and dynamic, rather than viewing these frames as demarcated dichotomies.</p> <p>Table 1. Sensemaking and Answer-Making Frames in Science Classroom Assessment Activity Systems.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><tbody><tr><td /><td><graphic href="heda_a_2504081_ilg0001.jpg" content-type="Graph" /></td></tr><tr><td /><td>Sensemaking Frame</td><td>Answer-Making Frame</td></tr><tr><td>Description</td><td><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>Students view their prior experiences, interests, and identities as important epistemic resources for making sense of phenomena or solving problems</p></list-item><list-item><p>Learning science viewed as productive toward a meaningful goal, such as figuring out a phenomenon or solving a problem, connected to their own lives</p></list-item></list></td><td><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>Students seek out particular scientific knowledge</p></list-item><list-item><p>Focus on (re)producing canonical science ideas and explanations</p></list-item></list></td></tr><tr><td><bold>Supported Through ...</bold></td></tr><tr><td><bold>Formative Assessment Tasks</bold><italic>How will students' progress be assessed throughout a unit of study? How will next steps be informed?</italic></td><td><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>Assessment contextualized within a compelling and relevant scientific phenomenon, and being investigated in the current unit of study</p></list-item><list-item><p>Provides different ways for students to show what they know and can do; e.g. open-ended prompts, modeling</p></list-item><list-item><p>Opportunities for students to draw on prior experiences</p></list-item><list-item><p>Opportunities for students to use science practices and crosscutting concepts for making sense of disciplinary core ideas</p></list-item><list-item><p>Prompts are high cognitive demand</p></list-item></list></td><td><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>Assessment prioritizes canonically correct answers, rote responses, or formulaic processes</p></list-item><list-item><p>Students are prompted to use specific science practices</p></list-item><list-item><p>Prompts are low cognitive demand</p></list-item></list></td></tr><tr><td><bold>Participation Structures</bold><italic>How is classroom activity organized? How will students have varying opportunities for making sense of the phenomenon/scenario?</italic></td><td><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>Opportunities for students to share initial ideas with peers in low-stakes situations</p></list-item><list-item><p>Opportunities for collectively building science understanding around students' ideas</p></list-item><list-item><p>Opportunities for engaging in sensemaking using disciplinary practices (e.g. modeling, argumentation)</p></list-item><list-item><p>Privileges/values collaboration</p></list-item></list></td><td><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>Students communicate with and through the teacher</p></list-item><list-item><p>Focus is on understanding the teacher, rather than each other's ideas</p></list-item></list></td></tr><tr><td><bold>Talk Moves</bold><italic>How can we find out what students know? How can we support students towards figuring out the learning goals?</italic></td><td><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>High cognitive demand talk moves; press students for evidence-based reasoning; engage students to draw upon the science and engineering practices to help explain a phenomenon</p></list-item><list-item><p>Dialogic; where students' ideas come into conversation with and are seen as worthy of contributing to the knowledge-building taking place</p></list-item></list></td><td><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>Initiate-Respond-Evaluate interactions</p></list-item><list-item><p>Focus on facts or description of decontextualized procedural tasks</p></list-item><list-item><p>Authoritative; e.g. calling on students to deliver an answer preconceived by the teacher</p></list-item></list></td></tr><tr><td><bold>Tools and Routines</bold><italic>How can students be supported to show what they know and can do? How can they be prompted to draw on their prior experiences and backgrounds to support learning?</italic></td><td><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>Material artifacts support and distribute the cognitive load of the task; e.g. "gotta have it" checklists</p></list-item><list-item><p>"Notice and wonder" routine for eliciting student ideas after the launch of a phenomenon (e.g. <italic>What do you notice? What do you wonder?)</italic></p></list-item><list-item><p>Use high-cognitive demand talk moves</p></list-item></list></td><td><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>Artifacts or routines prioritize "right" answers and correcting those answers</p></list-item><list-item><p>Too much scaffolding that limits students' responses and constrains them to canonical science</p></list-item></list></td></tr><tr><td><bold>Classroom Culture</bold><italic>What are the norms that support learning science as a collaborative and meaning-making endeavor?</italic></td><td><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>Establish and foster a supportive and safe environment where students feel they can call upon prior knowledge, use everyday language, and be seen as contributors</p></list-item><list-item><p>Teachers take epistemic stance that shifts themselves away as the authority on knowledge and toward students as contributing to the knowledge construction taking place</p></list-item></list></td><td><list list-type="Bullet"><list-item><p>Norms uphold a classroom culture consistent with hegemonic ways of participating in and doing science</p></list-item><list-item><p>Teacher takes epistemic stance as the authority</p></list-item></list></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>In this paper, we examine how a <emph>Framework-</emph>aligned formative assessment task was enacted, paying particular attention to the elements of the classroom activity system that influenced the degree to which dialogic and authoritative discourse moves supported students in making sense of modeling and explaining a phenomenon. To that end, we pose the following research questions:</p> <p></p> <ulist> <item> How does a teacher use sensemaking and answer-making frames to support students' sharing and working with ideas in the enactment of a formative assessment task?</item> <p></p> <item> How do these frames relate to students' opportunities to engage in three-dimensional learning?</item> </ulist> <hd id="AN0185386631-9">Method</hd> <p>This paper presents the case of one teacher's enactment of a formative assessment task as part of a multi-year, research–practice partnership with high school science teachers in a large, socioeconomically, culturally, and linguistically diverse suburban school district in the Western US. The goal of the partnership was to support teachers in iteratively co-designing and reflecting on the enactment of formative assessment tasks for modeling energy transfers and transformations linked to a learning progression (Buell et al., [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref110">10</reflink>]; Furtak & Heredia, [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref111">22</reflink>]; Furtak et al., [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref112">25</reflink>]). Teachers in the study participated in bimonthly professional learning community (PLC) meetings facilitated by a member of the research team. Throughout the course of a school year, the PLC meetings supported two cycles of co-design and enactment.</p> <hd id="AN0185386631-10">Participants</hd> <p>This study focuses on one participant from one biology PLC, Riley [pseudonym]. To further de-identify Riley, we use a gender-neutral pseudonym and pronoun given the small size of each PLC in the study. Riley had 12 years teaching experience at the time of the study, and it was their second year at that high school. Riley taught general and AP biology and holds an undergraduate degree in ecology and evolutionary biology. We purposely selected Riley's enactment because they had participated in the professional learning for the longest time and for their enactment of the formative assessment task which seemed to provide rich opportunities for student sensemaking.</p> <p>There were 30 11th-grade students seated in groups of four or five on the day of the enactment. While our agreement with the school district did not permit us to collect individually identifying information from the students in class, the overall school serves a racially and ethnically diverse community with more than half of students receiving free and reduced-price lunch during the year of the study.</p> <hd id="AN0185386631-11">Formative assessment design process</hd> <p>As part of the larger research–practice partnership, Riley participated in regular, school-based professional learning meetings approximately twice per month for two academic years to focus on the iterative design, enactment, and reflection upon formative assessment tasks. These meetings were guided by the Formative Assessment Design Cycle (FADC), a process in which teachers <emph>identify learning goals</emph>, <emph>adapt or co-design formative assessment tasks, practice</emph> using those tasks with students, <emph>enact</emph> the tasks, and then <emph>reflect</emph> on evidence of student learning in order to support students in reaching learning goals (Furtak & Heredia, [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref113">22</reflink>]).</p> <p>Teachers' engagement in the FADC was founded on the idea that assessment design can be based on hypothesized trajectories of student learning (NRC, [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref114">47</reflink>], Shepard et al., [<reflink idref="bib77" id="ref115">77</reflink>]). Such trajectories, or learning progressions, can be a tool for guiding teachers with setting learning goals and supporting student progress (e.g. Council of Chief State School Officers, [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref116">14</reflink>]; Furtak & Heredia, [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref117">22</reflink>]; Heritage, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref118">30</reflink>]). In collaboration with our partner district, we developed a learning progression for modeling energy in systems that combined the science practice of developing and using models and the crosscutting concept of energy and matter (see Table 2 and Buell et al., [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref119">10</reflink>]).</p> <p>Table 2. Learning progression for modeling energy with look-fors in the context of cellular respiration.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><td>Level</td><td>Description</td><td>Sample Look-Fors</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><bold>5</bold></td><td>Students generalize their model to unknown or multiple phenomena and explain limitations of applying the model to a new phenomenon.</td><td>• [Task not designed for this level]</td></tr><tr><td><bold>4</bold></td><td>Approaching Level 4 Models illustrate a mechanism that can explain or predict the phenomenon, and make predictions about how changing one part of the model would influence energy flows elsewhere. Students explain how the total energy of the system constrains the magnitude of change possible. Students describe limitations of the model.</td><td>• Relationship between amount of inputs and rate of cellular respiration; • Indicators of conservation and dissipation through different parts of the body (mitochondria, cells to cells) • Food molecules and oxygen transfer energy to cell to sustain life's processes</td></tr><tr><td><bold>3</bold></td><td>Approaching Level 3 Students' models relate changes in the phenomenon directly to changes in energy through transfers/transformations by identifying specific, observable indicators. Students begin to show evidence that their model is accounting for conservation and dissipation. Model includes energy flows into, within, and out of the system.</td><td>• Relationship between amount of inputs and outputs in cellular respiration • Model relates changes in the phenomenon directly to changes in matter cycling and energy flow through transfers/transformations by identifying specific indicators (the person can run, less oxygen molecules are present, more CO<sub>2</sub> and H<sub>2</sub>O molecules present). • Indicators of conservation and dissipation; e.g. sweat, heat</td></tr><tr><td><bold>2</bold></td><td>Approaching Level 2 Students' models illustrate a relationship or pattern between the increase in one form of energy and the decrease in another form, or transferred from one location or object to another. Students identify the most relevant components and relationships in the model and distinguish between the system and surroundings. Model focuses on energy flows within the system only.</td><td>• Key inputs and outputs of cellular respiration (including oxygen, carbon dioxide); Energy from food to body • Shows a flow of inputs in and outputs of cellular respiration</td></tr><tr><td><bold>1</bold></td><td>Approaching Level 1 Students use or develop a model that shows, through drawings or labels, the components involved in a phenomenon, some (but not necessarily all relevant) energy forms, transfers, or transformations.</td><td>• Components involved in phenomenon: reference to playing football or football player • Components include food molecules or oxygen, but not a focus on how energy flows in cellular respiration</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>This work builds upon prior research on how students learn modeling (Pierson et al., [<reflink idref="bib62" id="ref120">62</reflink>]; Schwarz et al., [<reflink idref="bib73" id="ref121">73</reflink>]) and energy (Neumann et al., [<reflink idref="bib53" id="ref122">53</reflink>]; Nordine, [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref123">55</reflink>]), as well as taking into account the performance expectations of the NGSS that focus on this particular crosscutting concept (NRC, [<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref124">50</reflink>]). The learning progression served as a guiding framework for the co-design and enactment of formative assessment tasks to engage students in modeling energy to explain a phenomenon.</p> <p>Learning progressions can help fill a gap between the NGSS grade band requirements (e.g. Appendix E: Progressions Within the Next Generation Science Standards [NRC, [<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref125">50</reflink>]]) by providing more indicators of progress between the proposed specifications of proficiency. Thus, learning progressions can offer a tool for teachers and students to support learning on a smaller scale (e.g. Alonzo & Elby, [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref126">1</reflink>]). However, we caution that learning progressions represent <emph>one way</emph> in which students might develop and deepen their understanding of a particular topic or practice – not the <emph>only</emph> way.</p> <hd id="AN0185386631-12">Co-designed formative assessment task: the high elevation task</hd> <p>We focus on the enactment of one of the tasks co-designed as part of the larger project. The "High Elevation Task" was centered on the phenomenon of how athletes from visiting teams experience more fatigue when they come to play at Denver's "mile-high" sports stadiums (see online supplementary materials).</p> <p>Early in the academic year, teachers used the learning progression to identify focal units into which they would embed assessments and discussed criteria for high-quality formative assessment tasks and enactment. Working with a university-based facilitator and the second author of this manuscript, the teachers developed a draft version of the modeling prompt, questions to encourage students to provide an explanation, as well as an enactment guide for themselves that included showing a video, allowing students to work individually and then in groups, and holding whole-class conversations to surface and work with student responses.</p> <p>This task was embedded at the beginning of a unit on carbon cycling and was designed to take 1 day, eliciting students' initial ideas around energy transfer and transformation through cellular respiration, aligning with the NGSS performance expectation, HS-LS1-7. As a formative assessment task placed early on in the instructional unit, this task was designed to support levels one through three of the learning progression. To support teachers as they planned to enact the High Elevation task, teachers identified specific "look-fors," or indicators, of each level of the modeling energy learning progression that were based on student language and examples (see Table 2).</p> <hd id="AN0185386631-13">Data sources</hd> <p>We draw on two primary sources of data: the co-designed task and a video recording of Riley enacting the task with students. Members of the research team collected the video recording and took concurrent fieldnotes of Riley facilitating and students participating in the task. The video recording captures one full class period and is 54:33 in length. We also used the fieldnotes to provide additional context to supplement what was audible and visible in the video recordings.</p> <hd id="AN0185386631-14">Analysis</hd> <p>We developed a four-tiered, multifaceted coding system to understand the ways in which the classroom activity system and Riley's facilitation of the co-designed task created opportunities for students to make sense of the High Elevation phenomenon through modeling and explaining with the crosscutting concept of energy. Our coding system emerged inductively – intentionally staying close to elements of the classroom activity system observed through video recorded enactment and refined deductively based on scholarship around classroom activity, assessment, and discourse for promoting sensemaking (Kang et al., [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref127">33</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref128">34</reflink>]; Michaels & O'Connor, [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref129">41</reflink>]; Scott et al., [<reflink idref="bib74" id="ref130">74</reflink>]; Windschitl et al., [<reflink idref="bib94" id="ref131">94</reflink>]).</p> <p>First, we transcribed and reduced the video recorded class period into participation structures (e.g. group work, whole-class discussion; Lemke, [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref132">37</reflink>]) using the Vosaic video coding software to understand the classroom participation structures that organized the task. Segmenting the video also enabled us to reduce the overall data corpus to shorter periods of whole-class discussion for further analysis. This coding produced time-stamped episode lengths and a visual timeline, which we annotated with the specific activities that the teacher and students were engaged in (e.g. "students draw initial models"; see Figure 1 in Findings).</p> <p>Graph: Figure 1. Timelines of Riley's enactment of the high elevation task (visual produced from Vosaic video coding software)</p> <p>Next, we further segmented each discussion into idea units, which we defined as exchanges of discussion that could be distinguished as developing one particular idea toward understanding the phenomenon. For example, an idea unit where discourse was focused on making sense of "lighter air," or density, would be distinguished from an idea unit focused on how our muscles use oxygen. These idea units also capture how students' ideas get surfaced and worked with toward putting pieces together in service of making sense of the phenomenon. This coding identified 11 idea units in the first whole-class discussion, and 9 idea units in the second whole-class discussion.</p> <p>We then coded each of these idea units according to how students may be supported to take up a sensemaking or an answer-making frame. Drawing on descriptions of authoritative and dialogic approaches to classroom discourse (Scott et al., [<reflink idref="bib74" id="ref133">74</reflink>]), we developed codes that would capture a range of the nature of teacher–student interactions as evidenced by teacher and student utterances (These codes also overlap with convergent and divergent approaches to assessment [Torrance & Pryor, [<reflink idref="bib85" id="ref134">85</reflink>]]). For example, an idea unit where Riley prompted for a predetermined, canonical answer they wanted surfaced from students – "So what is the major input of energy that the football players are getting here?" – was coded as an authoritative teacher–student interaction, aligning more with supporting an answer-making frame. In another teacher–student interaction where Riley invited students' ideas broadly into the discussion – "I heard some great ideas at the tables I got around to. Just kind of wanted to come back together as a big group before I ask you to produce something with these ideas. So, what kind of ideas do people have?" – was coded as Dialogic, supporting more of a sensemaking frame. We also noticed teacher talk moves that pushed on student thinking to reach deeper understanding on a particular aspect of the phenomenon, drawing on Windschitl and colleagues' work ([<reflink idref="bib94" id="ref135">94</reflink>]) and naming this code, Pressing on Students' Ideas. Our coding scheme reflects how we view classroom activity in supporting these two frames as fluid and dynamic, rather than viewing these frames as demarcated dichotomies; we use the yellow-to-blue color gradient to represent this view (see Table 3). These codes were not mutually exclusive, meaning one idea unit could be coded with more than one of the teacher–student interaction codes as teachers worked with students to develop meaning. Throughout our findings, we include our codes alongside excerpts from the whole-class discussions.</p> <p>Table 3. Epistemological frame supported through teacher–student interactions coding approach.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><td>Epistemological Frame Supported</td><td>Nature of Teacher–Student Interaction</td><td>Description</td><td>Examples</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><bold>Answer-Making Frame</bold><graphic href="heda_a_2504081_ilg0002.jpg" content-type="Graph" /><bold>Sensemaking Frame</bold></td><td><bold>Authoritative</bold></td><td>Teacher determines course of instruction. Teachers and students interact in ways that prioritize/privilege canonical "right" answers; teacher determines what is right/wrong.</td><td>Teacher: OK, so, a lot of this is coming around to the idea of, like, where did they get their energy from? So another way that we may say that is like the input of energy. So what is the major input of energy that the football players are getting here Student: O2</td></tr><tr><td><bold>Students share ideas</bold>, and not taken up</td><td>Student/s share an idea within the idea unit BUT the idea is not taken up into discourse</td><td>Teacher: [student] can I get you to describe your model, what things did you put in your model? Student: I put an oxygen tank and the player... taking air Teacher: So, you have a picture of the player taking in oxygen, ok. [student] how about you, what was in your model?</td></tr><tr><td><bold>Pressing for ideas</bold></td><td>Teacher presses/pushes student thinking in a particular direction with goal of sensemaking, or encouraging deeper meaning Promotes students' thinking by asking to elaborate on their responses or thinking Provides descriptive or helpful feedback about quality of student idea.</td><td>Teacher: OK, so water may be a component of that, we certainly do have a dry climate here. I'm interested in one word you used, and that was that, I think you said the air was lighter. So we're talking about, like, thinking back to last year in chemistry. Teacher: so how would we change that statement from lighter to using the word density then. Teacher: The air is less dense.</td></tr><tr><td><bold>Dialogic</bold></td><td>Student ideas are at the center of instruction; student ideas become part of the facilitation or interaction; Student/s share an idea AND is in dialogue; Student ideas/experiences centered</td><td>Teacher: What was your example that you talked about [student name]? You had some friends who play soccer ... Student: Well like, I guess that in Argentina is like a great team, like one of the best in the world. Every time they go to Peru, they're struggling because of the high elevation, because they get tired faster, it's harder to breathe for them. Riley: Ok great. So maybe we could see that happening in another country, even besides the National Football League we see that happen in soccer games as well.</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>Finally, we coded each idea unit according to the levels of the modeling energy learning progression, applying the highest level of the learning progression evident during an idea unit. For instance, an idea unit where discussion was centered around why the heart would beat faster due to less oxygen available for cells to undergo cellular respiration and release energy was coded as working toward Level 3 – observable indicators connected with the energy flow in cellular respiration. We established reliability by training on the larger data corpus of video recorded formative assessment enactments (see Deverel-Rico et al., [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref136">16</reflink>]), independently coding each of the idea units within the periods of whole-class discussion and then coming together to discuss and adjudicate all disagreements.</p> <hd id="AN0185386631-15">Findings</hd> <p>Our analyses revealed notable nuances in how the classroom activity system facilitated by Riley supported sensemaking and answer-making frames as well the opportunities students had to bring their interests and prior experiences into conversations with the whole class.</p> <hd id="AN0185386631-16">Task design</hd> <p>The high elevation task provided opportunities for surfacing and working with students' ideas to make sense of the phenomenon, consistent with a sensemaking frame, by creating space for students to model and explain a relevant phenomenon. The task launch involved a 1-minute video showing how visiting players might experience more fatigue when playing at high altitude and need supplemental oxygen. Students were engaged in higher cognitive demand (Kang et al., [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref137">34</reflink>]) through constructing explanatory models and considered the why and how (Braaten & Windschitl, [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref138">9</reflink>]) of this phenomenon. A "gotta have it" checklist was embedded into the student-facing materials (see Figure 3), which functioned as a tool to scaffold modeling. Finally, this task was designed to organize participation structures for moments of individual think time, group collaboration, and whole-class discussions (see Figure 1). These structures provided students with multiple means of making sense of the phenomenon while also creating space for weaving students' initial ideas and everyday and scientific repertoires, supporting evolving understanding of the phenomenon.</p> <hd id="AN0185386631-17">Use of sensemaking and answer-making frames to support students' sharing and working with ide...</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0185386631-18">Participation structures</hd> <p>Representing the classroom enactment on a timeline enabled us to identify how participation structures set up students' opportunities to make sense of the phenomenon at the outset of the task (Figure 1). Riley began the lesson with a whole-class discussion to surface students' ideas and support them in making sense of what this phenomenon was, before asking them to draw initial models. This sequence of participation structures provided students with the opportunity to hear how others were thinking of the phenomenon and lent itself toward supporting a sensemaking frame by allowing students' initial ideas to drive the tempo of the discussion:</p> <p>Today, what we're gonna focus on is, you know, last week we were talking a lot about photosynthesis and cellular respiration, how they overlap. Today we're gonna look at a phenomenon like that, that has elements of that. We're gonna see what you got from our discussions last week. So, I'm gonna start out with a quick video. If you've ever been to a Broncos game you may recognize this video.</p> <p>This excerpt illustrates key decisions even in the first moments of the task, whereby students are encouraged to leverage their learning in a context they might be familiar with.</p> <hd id="AN0185386631-19">Whole-class discussions: talk moves, tools, and routines</hd> <p>Our analysis of the whole-class discussions similarly revealed opportunities for students to make sense of the phenomenon through talk moves, tools, and routines. Enactment of the task in Riley's classroom featured discourse with students' ideas, sometimes pushing toward expansive meaning, while sometimes focusing the students on a specific answer.</p> <p>In the first whole-class discussion, which took place following the launch of the phenomenon, more of the teacher–student interactions during each idea unit featured dialogic exchanges between teacher and students; whereas in the second whole-class discussion, after students had developed initial models, there was more of an even distribution among moving between exchange of ideas and the teacher pushing toward particular ideas (see Table 4). These patterns reflect how talk moves can create opportunities for students to access epistemic resources, such as their initial ideas, lived experiences, and prior learning, as they make sense of the phenomenon and construct meaning (Scott et al., [<reflink idref="bib74" id="ref139">74</reflink>]). For example, following the video, Riley invited students to share their ideas:</p> <p></p> <p> <ephtml> <table><tbody><tr><td>Riley: I heard some great ideas at the tables I got around to. Just kind of wanted to come back together as a big group before I ask you to produce something with these ideas. So, what kind of ideas do people have? Yeah, what do you got? Student: Well near or at sea level, a lot of the water heats up and mixes with that air and stuff, so it makes it like heavier. And, now that we're up here it's so much lighter. So much drier, it like affects our lungs more so the people who travel from say New York to here, they have, they're used to like a bunch of water being in their lungs when they come up here. It's like more dry.</td><td><bold>Dialogic</bold> Student ideas are centered, subsequently leveraged into discussion</td></tr><tr><td>Riley: OK, so water may be a component of that, we certainly do have a dry climate here. I'm interested in one word you used, and that was that, I think you said the air was lighter. So we're talking about, like, thinking back to last year in chemistry.</td><td><bold>Pressing for Ideas</bold> (Listening for indicators) Supporting students in weaving together everyday and scientific repertoires</td></tr><tr><td>Riley: What would be the term maybe that we would be using for, [several students say, density] Riley: Oh, I heard it - density. Yeah, okay, so how would we change that statement from lighter to using the word density then. Student: The air is less dense.</td><td><bold>Authoritative</bold> Asking for a particular scientific term <bold>Pressing for Ideas</bold> Supporting students in weaving together everyday and scientific repertoires</td></tr><tr><td>Riley: The air is less dense here. Okay, alright. So I think we're on to something there ... Student: Um, [for] people in Colorado the air is less dense with oxygen...</td><td /></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>Table 4. Summary of Riley's whole-class discussions.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><td /><td /><td>Whole-Class Discussion 1</td><td>Whole-Class Discussion 2</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td /><td><bold>Summary</bold></td><td /><td /></tr><tr><td /><td> Duration</td><td>5.90 minutes</td><td>6.12 minutes</td></tr><tr><td /><td> Number of Idea Units</td><td>11</td><td>9</td></tr><tr><td><bold>Answer-Making</bold><bold>↔ Sensemaking Frame Continuum</bold><graphic href="heda_a_2504081_ilg0003.jpg" content-type="Graph" /></td><td><bold>Nature of</bold><bold>Teacher–Student Interactions</bold></td><td><bold>Percentage of idea units (n)</bold></td><td><bold>Percentage of idea units (n)</bold></td></tr><tr><td> Authoritative</td><td>18 % (2)</td><td>44 % (4)</td></tr><tr><td>Students share ideas (not taken up)</td><td>9 % (1)</td><td>0 % (0)</td></tr><tr><td> Pressing for ideas</td><td>27 % (3)</td><td>55 % (5)</td></tr><tr><td> Dialogic</td><td>82 % (9)</td><td>33 % (3)</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>In this excerpt, Riley combined talk moves to support students in interweaving everyday language with scientific language, for example, by picking up on use of the word "lighter" to describe how much air there was at higher elevation. Riley then supported students in intertwining their everyday and scientific understandings by pointing to the term "density" and then providing space for the student to take that up and fold it in with their previous understanding, a way of strengthening both scientific and everyday understandings (e.g. Tzou et al., [<reflink idref="bib86" id="ref140">86</reflink>]).</p> <p>Riley also elevated small group contributions to the whole class, which allowed more student ideas and experiences to be shared with others, as shown in the following example:</p> <p></p> <p> <ephtml> <table><tbody><tr><td>Riley: Ok, any other things that people wanted to add to that conversation? What was your example that you talked about [student name]? You had some friends who play soccer ... Student: Well like, I guess that in Argentina is like a great team, like one of the best in the world. Every time they go to Peru, they're struggling because of the high elevation, because they get tired faster, it's harder to breathe for them. Riley: Ok great. So maybe we could see that happening in another country, even besides the National Football League we see that happen in soccer games as well.</td><td><bold>Dialogic</bold> Connecting science to students' interests and experiences</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>Riley also took opportunities to highlight elements of students' conversations that drew out main ideas from the examples they had shared in small groups. In this way, Riley homed in on key indicators of respiration that were a key element of the formative assessment task.</p> <p></p> <p> <ephtml> <table><tbody><tr><td>Riley: OK, so, a lot of this is coming around to the idea of, like, where did they get their energy from? So another way that we may say that is like the input of energy. So what is the major input of energy that the football players are getting here, [Student]? Student: O<sub>2</sub></td><td><bold>Authoritative</bold> Teacher-directed line of questioning</td></tr><tr><td>Riley: Okay. O<sub>2</sub>. All right. So does oxygen directly provide energy? Student: No Riley: It doesn't. OK. Do we need oxygen to produce that energy? Student: Yes. Riley: OK. All right. So what is providing the energy directly then?</td><td><bold>Pressing for Ideas</bold> Teacher pushes student thinking in a particular direction, encouraging deeper meaning; high cognitive demand</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>Here, Riley supported the students in reconciling their initial understandings and focused on the interactions between components in students' models for supporting an explanation of the phenomenon. Riley helped students identify the role of oxygen in producing energy and then using that to make sense of the high elevation fatigue. While these talk moves were more focused on answer-making, Riley did so not by correcting students' initial idea that oxygen provides energy, but rather by pressing with questions to further probe students' thinking.</p> <hd id="AN0185386631-20">Classroom culture</hd> <p>The talk moves and participation structures enacted around the task also took place within a classroom culture that signaled different framing of students' ideas. Riley took efforts to take the same stance as students, seeking to make sense of the phenomenon and connect it with prior lived experiences, even responding to students' questions. The following exchange took place at the end of the first whole-class discussion, after students had surfaced their initial ideas about the phenomenon.</p> <p>Student: What's the truth? What's [your opinion]?</p> <p>Riley: Ah, here's what I know ... kids I went to high school with, they would travel to like Flagstaff, Arizona, which is really high in elevation to go train before they went on races um and things like that. So I know that part of it. So I'm interested to see what you can apply though from all that information.</p> <p>In this instance, Riley modeled the value of making connections with prior experiences for students, and in the end reserved the figuring out for students. Riley's classroom cultivated a culture that supported more of a sensemaking frame. Riley invited and elevated students' personal connections and built on students' ideas throughout the discussion while modeling connecting the phenomenon to everyday experiences and at the same time stepped away from the role of arbiter of knowledge.</p> <hd id="AN0185386631-21">Students' opportunities to engage in three-dimensional science learning</hd> <p>Students in Riley's class had opportunities to reach Levels 2 and 3 of the modeling energy learning progression. When we applied the levels of the learning progression to the idea units segmented from the whole-class discussions, the majority of idea units in Riley's class were coded at Level 2, with about a quarter of the idea units spent on Level 1 in both whole-class discussions, and a quarter spent on Level 3 during the second whole-class discussion (see Table 5). From the look-fors identified for Level 2, working toward this level would mean including the key inputs and outputs of cellular respiration, combined with how they flow in and out resulting in energy for the running back to play football.</p> <p>Table 5. Percentage of idea units in whole-class discussions (WCDs) spent working toward the modeling energy learning progression levels in Riley's class.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><td /><td>Percentage of WCD Spent Working Towards the Modeling Energy Learning Progression Levels (n)</td></tr><tr><td>Whole-Class Discussion</td><td>Level 1</td><td>Level 2</td><td>Level 3</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td> WCD 1 (<italic>n</italic> = 11 idea units)</td><td>27% (3)</td><td>64% (7)</td><td>0% (0)</td></tr><tr><td> WCD 2 (<italic>n</italic> = 9 idea units)</td><td>22% (2)</td><td>44% (4)</td><td>22% (2)</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>1 WCD = Whole-Class Discussion; The percentages may not add up to 100 because each teacher had at least one idea unit coded as supporting the logistics of the task (e.g. providing instructions), so a learning progression level was not applied in these instances.</p> <p>Riley's students started with initial ideas that align with the first level of the learning progression which Riley leveraged with talk moves that pressed on students' ideas to reach levels two and three. This is demonstrated in the following excerpt from the second whole-class discussion where Riley and their students are discussing some written response questions:</p> <p>Riley: Ok, so, if we think about...the second question, let's assume every week that running back before he plays a game, he eats a big plate of spaghetti and meatballs, and, sounds good, right? [responding to students comments] ...and then the day of the game in Denver at noon, he ate a plate of meatballs and spaghetti but he was really tired. He got fatigued, he got cramps, he was breathing heavy, his heart was beating faster. Why? What did people come up with?</p> <p>Student 1: I said that heart, his heart rate They're, not, they're getting less oxygen per breath than they are in like their hometown, so like their heart is working harder to pump blood.</p> <p>Riley: Oh ok. So what's the significance of blood and oxygen?</p> <p>Student 1: Your heart needs oxygen to pump blood.</p> <p>Riley: Your heart needs oxygen to pump blood, ok and why do we need blood being pumped?</p> <p>Student 1: That keeps you alive.</p> <p>Riley: Ok, alright, it does. Why does it keep you alive? Can you add to that [student 2's name]?</p> <p>Student 2: It brings oxygen to the cells.</p> <p>Riley: It brings oxygen to the cells. Ok so, the blood is also helping carry that oxygen. So I love what you said, the heart's going to beat faster. Right, because it needs more oxygen.</p> <p>In this exchange, Riley and the class worked toward level three of the learning progression in beginning to make connections between the components of cellular respiration and how the high elevation is accounting for the output difference by identifying specific, observable indicators – "their heart is working harder," and "breathing faster."</p> <hd id="AN0185386631-22">Summary of Riley's classroom activity system</hd> <p>Elements of the activity system constructed around the same task worked together to support student sensemaking and engagement with the learning progression related to the phenomenon. Students were given a formative assessment task that was set up to support a sensemaking frame, and as a result, students were able to engage with a locally relevant phenomenon that required three dimensions to make sense of. Tools and participation structures organized opportunities for students to surface and build on their initial ideas: varied participation structures like opportunities for individual think time, small group collaboration and whole-class discussions, and tools like a gotta-have-it modeling checklist.</p> <p>From the start, Riley's students had the opportunity to discuss the video they had just watched in small groups, and subsequently surfaced those ideas and brought them into conversation toward figuring out the phenomenon during the whole-class discussions. Riley facilitated these discussions with students in ways that were more dialogic in nature, inviting students to share their ideas and personal connections to the phenomenon, using those as seeds for building knowledge and figuring out the phenomenon together. We also saw moments where Riley's talk moves leveraged an answer-making frame at key moments for achieving consensus before moving forward. Riley's overall approach of supporting <emph>more</emph> of a sensemaking frame, while fostering a supportive environment, did not sacrifice the academic rigor but rather made it possible. Riley took up students' ideas into the discussion and pressed on those ideas to build toward higher levels of the learning progression.</p> <hd id="AN0185386631-23">Discussion</hd> <p>In this study, we have applied sensemaking and answer-making frames as lenses that reveal the nuances in how classroom activity systems can expand students' opportunities to participate in making sense of phenomena relevant to their daily lives. Riley's enactment began with a formative assessment task that was designed to support sensemaking from the start. Riley fostered a classroom culture where students felt safe and valued in sharing their initial ideas and experiences, while they honored and built on students' ideas to make sense of the high elevation phenomenon. We observed participation structures that were varied and organized to support an iterative process of eliciting ideas and collectively working toward figuring out the phenomenon; in essence, features of participation structures that aligned with a sensemaking frame. For example, students had opportunities to think individually, share in small group settings, and engage in whole-class discussions where the class could benefit from hearing one another's ideas and how those ideas built toward deeper understanding. Such activity is also more conducive to discourse where students and teachers are in dialog with each other as students make sense of the problem at hand.</p> <p>These elements of Riley's classroom activity system align with shifts in classroom instruction highlighted in a NASEM, ([<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref141">45</reflink>]) report, <emph>Equity in K-12 STEM Education</emph>, in the service of promoting more equitable learning opportunities for students by drawing on asset-based perspectives, centering students' sensemaking as tied to their cultural and sociopolitical worlds, and framing STEM practices and knowledge as dynamic, evolving, and connected with other disciplines both within and outside of STEM.</p> <p>Educators often worry that they cannot spend the time to support students in making these connections because it detracts from the academic objectives (Reiser et al., [<reflink idref="bib64" id="ref142">64</reflink>]). Our analyses show that academic rigor did not decrease in a sensemaking frame; in fact, there may have been a deeper connection and understanding developed <emph>because</emph> students engaged in more sensemaking practices to figure out the phenomenon (Hammond, [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref143">29</reflink>]). Indeed, there was deep attention to the disciplinary substance of what students were modeling, and the teacher's attending to everyday ideas did not happen at the expense of movement along the progression of learning (Coffey et al., [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref144">13</reflink>]). With that, leveraging an answer-making frame at times did not mean abandoning the classroom culture of care and sensemaking.</p> <p>At the same time, we emphasize that these findings do not suggest that <emph>only</emph> a sensemaking frame be used with formative assessment tasks. As Scott et al. ([<reflink idref="bib74" id="ref145">74</reflink>]) found, a combination of dialogic and authoritative teaching moves helps to support meaning-making. (Torrance and Pryor ([<reflink idref="bib85" id="ref146">85</reflink>]) observed similar findings with balancing between convergent and divergent formative assessment). As our analysis has shown, Riley leveraged strategic answer-making at key moments to achieve consensus or to draw out important indicators relevant to the phenomenon before moving forward.</p> <p>There is an ongoing imperative to broaden participation in science, and the <emph>Framework</emph> (NRC, [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref147">49</reflink>]) argues that connecting science learning with students' interests and identities, and students' diverse backgrounds are essential for furthering understanding in the classroom and of the field of science itself. When phenomena are specifically selected that help students historically marginalized in science classrooms to see themselves, their interests, and community values in school, there is more space for students to feel what they know is relevant in science and worthy of contribution. Such phenomena are not only important as the basis for instruction, but also for classroom assessment.</p> <p>We contrast this case with less effective practices for supporting sensemaking. In an analysis of our full data corpus (nine teachers and accompanying video recorded enactments), we observed some classroom activity systems that tended toward supporting more of an answer-making frame – with whole-class discussions analyzed as more authoritative in nature and fewer opportunities for students to engage in sensemaking and leverage prior knowledge or experiences (see Deverel-Rico et al., [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref148">16</reflink>]). This finding also aligns with implementation progressions of the OpenSciEd curricula (an open source, high quality, phenomenon, and storyline-based set of K-12 science curriculum), which describe emerging practice as focusing on right or wrong answers and while students' ideas may be elicited, those ideas do not get taken up into the pursuit of collaborative sensemaking (Center for Public Research and Leadership [CPRL], [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref149">11</reflink>]). Further, classroom activity that is built around less varied structures and fewer or no opportunities to collectively elicit and build on students' ideas can support more of an answer-making frame, which is likely accompanied by the view that students' ideas are not seen as equally valuable as the teacher or textbook. Examples include direct instruction, or only individual work time with little or no opportunities for collaborative learning.</p> <hd id="AN0185386631-24">Formative assessment design and enactment are key</hd> <p>This case also highlights the importance of design <emph>and</emph> enactment in supporting equitable learning environments and opportunities to make sense of phenomena. These findings are in line with previous analyses of formative assessment which suggest that enactment is a crucial element of students' opportunity to learn (e.g. Dini et al., [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref150">17</reflink>]).</p> <p>Our study raises larger questions about the form and purpose of formative assessment in science learning; that is, whether formative assessment is only for the purpose of checking students' progress and giving specific feedback, or whether it seeks heterogeneity in student responses, and builds on those ideas to support students' subsequent learning (e.g. Pierson et al., [<reflink idref="bib61" id="ref151">61</reflink>]). This difference is consequential when we consider how formative assessment, as part of larger classroom activity systems, can serve purposes of promoting equitable science learning (Furtak & Lee, [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref152">24</reflink>]). Providing students with opportunities to engage with a phenomenon that is relevant to their lives, and then encouraging students to make sense of those connections, can create space for students to have agency in their own learning processes, and to identify how their prior experiences can serve as resources for their subsequent learning (Wright & Riley, [<reflink idref="bib95" id="ref153">95</reflink>]).</p> <p>Our study also suggests that tools, like a learning progression with co-designed "look-fors," can be an important resource for teachers in taking the next step with students' initial ideas (e.g. Windschitl et al., [<reflink idref="bib93" id="ref154">93</reflink>]). Rooted in student language and examples, look-fors tied to a learning progression serve the function of guiding teachers' interpretation of everyday ideas and examples, aiding teachers in listening for and picking up on key elements of phenomena they want to support, such as oxygen in the case of cellular respiration. Such a tool can serve to disrupt looking only for canonical responses.</p> <hd id="AN0185386631-25">Ongoing challenges despite high-quality curricula</hd> <p>As more high-quality science curricula become available and are studied, a pattern has emerged with what remains challenging to enact such curricula: moving from inviting and surfacing students' ideas to working with those ideas to build toward explanatory models (CPRL, [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref155">11</reflink>]). This also aligns with how Windschitl et al. ([<reflink idref="bib93" id="ref156">93</reflink>]) observed early career teachers' pedagogy, with the support of tools and routines, moving from supporting students to observe components of a phenomenon (or the "what"), building understanding of the "how" and "why," toward mechanistic and causal explanations.</p> <hd id="AN0185386631-26">Toward clarity on supporting students in taking up a sensemaking frame</hd> <p>This case study offers more clarity and examples of enacting such ambitious science instruction. We have built on Scott et al. ([<reflink idref="bib74" id="ref157">74</reflink>]) and Torrance and Pryor ([<reflink idref="bib85" id="ref158">85</reflink>]) to describe how teachers <emph>and</emph> students participate in the science classroom activity system and to home in on sensemaking as key for engaging in science learning to figure out phenomena, through the lens of sociocultural perspectives on learning and assessment. Our conceptual framework builds on this prior work by also centering students, in addition to teachers, and thereby expanding our lens on formative assessment in three-dimensional science learning to include whether the teacher is supporting students to take up a sensemaking or answer-making frame.</p> <p>Though there seems to be consensus in the field that sensemaking should be occurring in science classrooms (NASEM, [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref159">44</reflink>]), it is not always clear <emph>how</emph> exactly sensemaking can be supported, particularly through assessment. Indeed, Odden and Russ ([<reflink idref="bib57" id="ref160">57</reflink>]) discussed how sensemaking is relatively new to the field of science education, with a lack of consensus and clarity around its theoretical and practical meaning, making it that much more important to characterize and describe what teachers and students are doing in support of sensemaking. In drawing on the notion that the classroom activity system can prompt students to take up more of an answer-making frame or more of a sensemaking frame, we have shown how formative assessment practices can be designed and enacted in ways that, overall, support more of a sensemaking frame. There is particularly high potential in day-to-day assessment practices to support opportunities to make sense of scientific phenomena as part of a more equitable vision of science education (Kang & Furtak, [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref161">32</reflink>]), and we have seen through this case study what such practices can look like, sound like, and feel like. Specifically, we see the need for varied participation structures that support sharing of initial ideas and leveraging of those ideas toward deeper understanding; we should hear students making personal connections to phenomena, and students should feel safe and supported in sharing their developing ideas and personal connections. Educators, curriculum and assessment designers, coaches, and administrators can all apply the lessons we have learned from Riley's enactments.</p> <p>Furthermore, a sensemaking vision of formative assessment moves away from privileging canonical science ideas toward engaging three-dimensional learning where students grapple with observations, evidence, models, and competing arguments to make sense of phenomena, and has the potential to broaden participation in science and connect learning with students' interests and identities. Examples of assessment that take up this perspective include the work of the 5D Assessment project, which supports teachers in rural areas of Colorado in developing assessments centered around knowledge of their students and communities (Lo et al., [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref162">38</reflink>]) and the work done as part of the State Performance Assessment Learning Community (see contextus.science).</p> <hd id="AN0185386631-27">Wider support for enacting equitable classroom activity systems</hd> <p>We also acknowledge that our framing of formative assessment as a process of supporting student sensemaking may be counter from the answer-making frame that has historically been a focus in science classrooms. As such, classroom activity systems must also be supported by shifts in other systems – teacher professional learning, school administration, district and state assessments – to support changes across multiple levels (e.g. Shepard et al., [<reflink idref="bib77" id="ref163">77</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0185386631-28">Future directions</hd> <p>Notably, the <emph>Framework</emph> (NRC, [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref164">49</reflink>]) emphasized that learning experiences should center the ideas and experiences of students long held at the margin of science education, including students of color, students living in poverty, and multilingual students (NRC, [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref165">49</reflink>], NASEM, [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref166">43</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref167">44</reflink>]). This study has contributed further evidence to the ways formative assessment can play a supportive role in achieving such an equitable vision of science education. At the same time, we acknowledge that this study has limitations given its small sample size. Future studies might draw on these preliminary findings to explore going beyond supporting sensemaking as we have presented it here and take up a more expansive view of sensemaking that makes space for the diverse ways in which different communities know and do science (Bang et al., [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref168">2</reflink>]), along with incorporating such approaches into classroom assessment. Further research could also explore the idea that sensemaking and answer-making are among many epistemological frames that students may take up and be supported in science classrooms, as well as explore the complex relationship among them.</p> <hd id="AN0185386631-29">Disclosure statement</hd> <p>No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).</p> <hd id="AN0185386631-30">Institutional review board statement</hd> <p>The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the Institutional Review Board of the University of Colorado Boulder (protocol code 14–0689, approved August 8, 2018).</p> <hd id="AN0185386631-31">Informed consent statement</hd> <p>Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.</p> <hd id="AN0185386631-32">Supplementary material</hd> <p>Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10627197.2025.2504081</p> <ref id="AN0185386631-33"> <title> References </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref126" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Alonzo, A. 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Header DbId: eric
DbLabel: ERIC
An: EJ1492917
AccessLevel: 3
PubType: Academic Journal
PubTypeId: academicJournal
PreciseRelevancyScore: 0
IllustrationInfo
Items – Name: Title
  Label: Title
  Group: Ti
  Data: How Can Features of Classroom Activity Systems Center Students' Ideas and Experiences in Formative Assessment? A Study of Sensemaking and Answer-Making Frames
– Name: Language
  Label: Language
  Group: Lang
  Data: English
– Name: Author
  Label: Authors
  Group: Au
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Clarissa+Deverel-Rico%22">Clarissa Deverel-Rico</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Erin+Marie+Furtak%22">Erin Marie Furtak</searchLink>
– Name: TitleSource
  Label: Source
  Group: Src
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Educational+Assessment%22"><i>Educational Assessment</i></searchLink>. 2025 30(2):91-114.
– Name: Avail
  Label: Availability
  Group: Avail
  Data: Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
– Name: PeerReviewed
  Label: Peer Reviewed
  Group: SrcInfo
  Data: Y
– Name: Pages
  Label: Page Count
  Group: Src
  Data: 24
– Name: DatePubCY
  Label: Publication Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2025
– Name: SourceSuprt
  Label: Sponsoring Agency
  Group: SrcSuprt
  Data: National Science Foundation (NSF)
– Name: NumberContract
  Label: Contract Number
  Group: NumCntrct
  Data: 1561751
– Name: TypeDocument
  Label: Document Type
  Group: TypDoc
  Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Research
– Name: Audience
  Label: Education Level
  Group: Audnce
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22High+Schools%22">High Schools</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Secondary+Education%22">Secondary Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Grade+11%22">Grade 11</searchLink>
– Name: Subject
  Label: Descriptors
  Group: Su
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Formative+Evaluation%22">Formative Evaluation</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Biology%22">Biology</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Science+Education%22">Science Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22High+School+Teachers%22">High School Teachers</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22High+School+Students%22">High School Students</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Grade+11%22">Grade 11</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Secondary+School+Science%22">Secondary School Science</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Evaluation+Methods%22">Evaluation Methods</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Student+Interests%22">Student Interests</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Student+Experience%22">Student Experience</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Educational+Opportunities%22">Educational Opportunities</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Comprehension%22">Comprehension</searchLink>
– Name: DOI
  Label: DOI
  Group: ID
  Data: 10.1080/10627197.2025.2504081
– Name: ISSN
  Label: ISSN
  Group: ISSN
  Data: 1062-7197<br />1532-6977
– Name: Abstract
  Label: Abstract
  Group: Ab
  Data: Current reforms in science education envision students making sense of real-world phenomena in ways that leverage their ideas, experiences, and identities. Formative assessment is essential to this vision; however, we are still coming to understand how formative assessment design and enactment in classroom activity systems can support this vision. We present a framework for bringing the epistemological frames of sensemaking and answer-making and formative assessment together and use this to investigate students' opportunities to make sense of phenomena during one teacher's enactment of a formative assessment task for modeling energy in a biological system. Findings indicate that students had opportunities to share and leverage their personal connections and initial ideas through a sensemaking frame as the teacher interspersed and strategically leveraged answer-making moments. This case study illustrates how classrooms can frame students' ideas and prior experiences as epistemic resources to be leveraged through the enactment of formative assessment.
– Name: AbstractInfo
  Label: Abstractor
  Group: Ab
  Data: As Provided
– Name: DateEntry
  Label: Entry Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2026
– Name: AN
  Label: Accession Number
  Group: ID
  Data: EJ1492917
PLink https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=eric&AN=EJ1492917
RecordInfo BibRecord:
  BibEntity:
    Identifiers:
      – Type: doi
        Value: 10.1080/10627197.2025.2504081
    Languages:
      – Text: English
    PhysicalDescription:
      Pagination:
        PageCount: 24
        StartPage: 91
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Formative Evaluation
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Biology
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Science Education
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: High School Teachers
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: High School Students
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Grade 11
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Secondary School Science
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Evaluation Methods
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Student Interests
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Student Experience
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Educational Opportunities
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Comprehension
        Type: general
    Titles:
      – TitleFull: How Can Features of Classroom Activity Systems Center Students' Ideas and Experiences in Formative Assessment? A Study of Sensemaking and Answer-Making Frames
        Type: main
  BibRelationships:
    HasContributorRelationships:
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Clarissa Deverel-Rico
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Erin Marie Furtak
    IsPartOfRelationships:
      – BibEntity:
          Dates:
            – D: 01
              M: 01
              Type: published
              Y: 2025
          Identifiers:
            – Type: issn-print
              Value: 1062-7197
            – Type: issn-electronic
              Value: 1532-6977
          Numbering:
            – Type: volume
              Value: 30
            – Type: issue
              Value: 2
          Titles:
            – TitleFull: Educational Assessment
              Type: main
ResultId 1