TE 403 Science Talk Analysis Tables

Name: Erica Heilbronn

Classroom: First Grade

Science Talk Topic + Initial Driving question: How plants grow, which quickly became how
plants die

Science Talk Analysis

Episode 1: Vines are dead

Paste transcript segment here:

Hayden: When I grew a watermelon (15 minutes) my grandpa was mowing the grass and it he cut the
the vine of the watermelon and the watermelon was about that big and it so we took it inside and we
just we just threw it in the trash
Erica: Cause what happened?
Henry: so when the vines was cause the vines of pumpkin
Erica: Talk to Hayden
Henry: when pumpkin vines and they and they cant grow anymore if the vines break like pumpkin
vines zucchini vines, watermelon vines, cucumber vines, if they break they cant grow anymore

What sense-making do you think students are making in this short episode and why?
-Students are calling on their previous experience to talk about how plants die and
other students are connecting and expanding on that

Evidence Table
What teacher talk moves
supported this or not?
How did students leverage
resources for learning (funds
of knowledge + prior
knowledge)?
How did students build on
each other? Did they use
student talk moves? Did they
add to, argue about, etc.
other student ideas?

Student led Using their previous Students had a discussion

knowledge to have with each other about why a
conversations with their plant would no longer grow
classmates about vines and once the vine was broken
how plants cannot grow when They added to and explained
 they are no longer on the about what was happening.
vines

Redirecting, when I said talk

to Hayden

Applying reasoning

Episode 2: Dill Pickles

Paste transcript segment here:

Sean: I ..I heard that potatoes dont grow on a farm they grow underground
Erica: Oh wait, has anyone else heard anything about that, about how potatoes grow
Dylan: Um they grow underground and its actually the root

What sense-making do you think students are making in this short episode and why?
- That some things grow differently than others and they build off of what other students
said

Evidence Table
What teacher talk moves
supported this or not?
How did students leverage
resources for learning (funds
of knowledge + prior
knowledge)?
How did students build on
each other? Did they use
student talk moves? Did they
add to, argue about, etc.
other student ideas?

Prompting students for further Students were able to recall One of the student added on
participation what they had learned about and talked about how they do
different plants grow underground and
specifically what part is
underground

Knowledge of the structure of

plants

Active Listening Using a students comment to

start a conversation and get
other students to think about
the knowledge they have
about potatoes

Episode 3: Scrumbled eggs

Paste transcript segment here:
Logan: um when they get scrumbled you cant make them grow cause they um grow you cant make
them go back again when they die um because my dad was growing a um garden at my uh cousins
house and uh they died
Erica: Can someone, can someone tell me what happened in his story, to the plants
Various students: they died
Erica: okay, but can you tell me what happened? How did they?
Ezra: they were crunched up
Erica: They were crunched up. So if something, if a plant dies can we try to make it grow again?
All: NO

What sense-making do you think students are making in this short episode and why?
-Students were able to recount the shape and structure of what a dead plant looked
like and explain why they know something is dead if it looks like that

Evidence Table
What teacher talk moves
supported this or not?
How did students leverage
resources for learning (funds
of knowledge + prior
knowledge)?
How did students build on
each other? Did they use
student talk moves? Did they
add to, argue about, etc.
other student ideas?

Asking students to restate They used their personal Thinking about what other
someone elses reasoning experiences and synthesized students said and making
sense of it in their own words
(Revoicing)

Prompting for further

participation (trying to get
them to answer specifics)

Restating

Active Listening Active Listening, were able to

recount his story

Apply their reasoning to

someone elses reasoning
(they were able to say that a
plant is dead if it looks like
that )
Episode 4: If a tree falls in the forest

Paste transcript segment here:

Eli: If plants are on a tree and they grow too big if they fall off and their branch falls off and the branch
hits the food the food will die and and it and it wont grow again
Erica: So, what was he talking about? What type of plant was he talking about?
Henry: He was talking about food on the trees like oranges, pears,
Logan: Apples
Henry: tomatoes, apple, bananas
Erica: Yeah, those are types
Eli: and there are these bugs that can be on plants and they eat the leaves then the plant dies
Dylan: um theyre called aphids
Erica: theyre called aphids? So that might also be a reason that sometimes plants dont live cause like
you said there are bugs that eat them and they die

What sense-making do you think students are making in this short episode and why?
-They are thinking about what types of plants there are (apples, bananas, etc.) and
what grows on them
-They are thinking about how the environment influences growth (if bugs eat the plant
the plant cannot grow)

Evidence Table
What teacher talk moves
supported this or not?
How did students leverage
resources for learning (funds
of knowledge + prior
knowledge)?
How did students build on
each other? Did they use
student talk moves? Did they
add to, argue about, etc.
other student ideas?

Prompting They applied this outside One of the students was able
knowledge about bugs and to provide more information
related it to how plants die about what the student said,
giving the name

Revoicing The students are using part They started building lists of
of their cornucopia fruits together
knowledge (they are going
over the different parts of
food and the food pyramid
and have talked a lot in class
about things like pears and
tomatoes and things that are
good for them)
 Pay attention to talk that
surprises or puzzles you-
bugs

Reflection: In 500 word use your science talk analysis to reflect on the following questions (start
each paragraph with the sentence starters):

As you answer these questions, especially the ones in yellow, use the episode analysis tables
above in your response below to make your thinking transparent.
One new idea about student sense-making I have based on this science talk is that students have
a lot of great ideas and it is really possible to have a conversation. The only issue seemed to be
pushing past the idea that they were giving answers to me and it was actually a conversation.
Once they seemed to realize it was not just about right answers I thought they supported each
other really well and had some great conversations.

One idea about student sense-making that challenged my thinking or surprised me is how
students did support each other. A couple of times Eli and Dylan, like in the aphid example,
would add on to each others ideas. It surprised me to know how they understood each other
when I do not see them interact as much as some of their other classmates

The things students said that made me want to learn more about my students resources and
funds of knowledge are how the students understood aphids and plants being able to bring down
trees in the rainforest. That answer completely surprised me. I talked to my mentor teacher after
the lesson and she said a lot of their answers, specifically aphids, came from the science
magazines they do together in class. I thought the science magazines were a great resource to
build up community knowledge. Overall talking to them and giving them a chance to talk freely
seemed to open up a lot of opportunity to learn about the students.

The teacher talk moves that worked well were prompting and revoicing. Prompting allowed a
student to specify what they saw with the plants, that they were scrunched up. Revoicing
allowed the student to know I was listening and help me understand more about what they were
saying. It also gave some students a chance to participate even if they were not sure of what to
say on their own. I was not calling on people, but they still raised their hands and I noticed more
hands went up when I asked someone to summarize what another person said.

The classroom culture shaped the science talk in the following ways, the way the talk was set up
I wanted everyone to be familiar with the set up so everyone was as comfortable as I could
control for. The students shifted the topic of the talk on their own, with the talk quickly
becoming how plants die, as many students were familiar with that.
The science talk supported equity-oriented science teaching by emphasizing that there are no
wrong answers when we are exploring what we have observed. I tried to remove myself from
position of knowledge holder by revoicing, redirecting (not featured in the segments I chose),
and using the other teacher talk moves to let students know I wanted to hear what they had to
share and that it is valuable.
How might you build on this in your lesson plan design? I will use this knowledge and
experience with my science talk to build my lesson plan by remembering that it is okay and I will
learn a lot if I am not strict about staying exactly on what I wanted. They were still on topic of
the growth cycle of plants, but they emphasized how plants die. I learned a lot more about their
experiences than if I had solely stuck to what I originally intended the lesson to be.