Sensemaking opportunities provided by college chemistry instructors

Abstract

Studies have shown that students often struggle to solve quantitative science problems because they fail to make connections between mathematical equations and associated scientific phenomena. This struggle has been attributed to instructors providing limited sensemaking opportunities that connect science and mathematics sensemaking. Our prior research on college instructors teaching population growth shows that the types of sensemaking elicited varied and were organized in different ways. This case study extends the research by exploring sensemaking opportunities about mathematical equations provided by three instructors teaching Gibbs free energy. This study also examines different levels of connection between sensemaking types within and across the science and mathematics dimensions and analyzes factors (i.e., pedagogical approaches, equation types) that might shape the types of sensemaking that were provided. The Sci-Math Sensemaking Framework was used to identify sensemaking opportunities provided by three instructors during the lessons and a comparative case study approach was employed. Findings showed that while each instructor provided both science and mathematics sensemaking opportunities, they had distinct ways of sequencing their sensemaking even when teaching the same scientific phenomenon using mathematical equations. Mathematics sensemaking was mostly presented separately from science sensemaking, with only a few instances of connected sensemaking occurring in instructors’ lessons, albeit at varying levels. When instructors expose students to connected science and mathematics sensemaking, they model for students how to use resources from two different disciplines to understand scientific concepts or solve quantitative problems. We provide evidence to show that levels of connection between sensemaking types within science and mathematics dimensions reflect distinct approaches to developing more robust scientific explanations or to working with equations. Based on these case studies, we suggest that instructors’ equation choices and pedagogical approaches support specific types of sensemaking and levels of connection between sensemaking opportunities.