Funneling versus Focusing: When talk, tasks, and tools work together to support students' collective sensemaking

Sara Hagenah; Carolyn Colley; Jessica Thompson

Sara Hagenah Department of Curriculum, Instruction, and Foundational Studies, Boise State University, Boise, Idaho
Carolyn Colley Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
Jessica Thompson Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington

Abstract

Rigorous and responsive science teaching is based on supporting all students in making progress in their understanding of important science ideas over time. In this article, we explore how did classroom talk patterns of funneling and focusing support student sensemaking. We share how talk, tasks, and tools within classroom activity work together to either funnel students toward reproducing normative scientific answers or focus students on deepening their understanding about unobservable causal mechanisms of phenomena. We use classroom examples from two science lessons where students used data to describe and communicate about how and why stars change over time. By recognizing these funneling and focusing patterns in classroom activity, teachers can attend to and modify the talk, tasks, and tools to improve and support opportunities for students’ sensemaking about important science ideas while they make progress on revising their own ideas over time.

References

Herbel-Eisenmann, B., and Breyfogle, M. (2005). Questioning Our Patterns of Questioning. Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School, 10 (9), 484-489.

NGSS Lead States. 2013. Next Generation Science Standards: For States, By States. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

Sohmer, R., Michaels, S., O'Connor, M. C., and Resnick, L. B. (2009). Guided construction of knowledge in the classroom: The Troika of well-structured talk, tasks, and tools. In B. Schwarz & T. Dreyfus (Eds.), Advances in Learning and Instruction (pp. 105-129). London, England: Elsevier.

Thompson, J., Hagenah, S., Kang, H., Stroupe, D., Braaten, M., Colley, C., and Windschitl, M. (2016). Rigor and Responsiveness in Classroom Activity. Teachers College Record, 118 (5), 1-58.

Wood, T. (1998). "Alternative Patterns of Communication in Mathematics Classes: Funneling or Focusing?" In Language and Communication in the Mathematics Classroom, edited by Heinz Steinbring, Maria G. Bartolini Bussi, and Anna Sierpinska, pp. 167-78. Reston, Va: NCTM.