We coded and counted teachers’ turns at talk to study their use of academically productive talk moves (APT moves) in facilitating science discussions. The coding scheme for teachers’ talk was similar to the one used in analyzing Grade 4 discussions, and was as follows:

Teachers’ Facilitation of Science Discussions:

1. Expand Moves (Say More, Revoice, Time to Think) (e.g., “Okay. Can you say a little more about that?”).
2. Listen Moves (Who can Restate/Repeat) (e.g., “Can someone repeat what Avery said in their own words?”).
3. Dig Deeper Moves (Press for Reasoning/Why, Challenge) (e.g., “What is your evidence?”).
4. Think With Others (Add On, Who Can Explain, Do you Agree/Disagree) (e.g., “Oh! Hmm..What do we think? Anyone want to, maybe want to revise Mario’s idea, maybe change it, add to it?”).

The analysis examined also various aspects of students’ participation in the discussions: students’ attempts to reason with and without core science ideas; their attempts to make sense of the science through various discourse moves; and their attempts to co-construct knowledge with peers. We coded and counted students’ turns at talk for the following:

Students’ Co-construction:

1. Agree (e.g., “I kind of agree with Daniel, because when you’re going to kick a soccer ball of course if it’s deflated you can’t really kick it that far.”).
2. Disagree (e.g., “No. But I disagree with what Daniel said with the salt being hot.”).
3. Ask for Clarification (e.g., “What do you mean when you say..?”).
4. Clarify Other (e.g., “I think what Shareen is trying to say, the water might dissolve into the salt and the salt might get dissolved, so the water level might go down a little bit.”).
5. Challenge (e.g., “But aren’t you pumping hot air into the ball? Because if you blow up, like a balloon, sometimes you pump in hot air and after that it starts making it rise kind of, and after that.”).
6. Add-On (e.g., “Um I also wanted to add on to Louie’s.”).
7. Restate Other (e.g., “She said there’s more space in the air particles. I mean when the particles are pushed like – yeah, pushed.”).

Students’ Reasoning:

Sense-Making Attempts: This category captured students’ efforts at making sense of the science.

1. Revise their own thinking (e.g., “Yeah, I agree that it’s Lela. Because after the — well, at first I thought it was Fern because I didn’t know that air had weight. Then after my education, I learned that Lela is probably correct.”).
2. Raise a related question (e.g., “I have a question. Where does the water go when it evaporates?”).
3. Propose test/thought experiment (e.g., “When Christiani said that if you put a cup and air in, but we’re not talking about a cup, we’re talking about a ball. So, if you have a scale and we fill it up with air, and it would not stay on zero. It would go — it would, um, go out between two, three — “).

Reasoning With Core Science Ideas: This category captured instances of students’ reasoning about the concept cartoon by drawing on core science ideas (classroom science investigations and scientific principles from the curriculum).

1. Reference to Classroom Science Investigations: Students referred to quantitative data and/or observations from previous and/or present science curriculum units (e.g., “Yeah. And they weighed the same, but then we kept one of the balloons not inflated and then we blew up the other one. And when we put it on that side was a little farther down, so that means it was heavier when it had air in it.”).
2. Reference to Scientific Principles: (Principles such as air is matter; matter has weight and takes up space; the particulate nature of matter, etc.) - Students referred to scientific principles, ideas from the particle model (e.g., “I respectively disagree with Kiaja because I do think air has weight and that I agree with Layla and that the inflated soccer ball weighs more than the flat one.“).

Reasoning Without Core Science Ideas: This category captured instances where students drew on ideas outside of formal scientific understandings.

1. Reference to Outside Experience: Students described experiences from everyday life (e.g., “I think that Tomas is right, because it’s the same. I don’t have a soccer ball, but I do have a football. And, when the football gets flat, it is heavier. But, um, but when, um, air goes into the soccer ball, um, it makes it lighter because of all the gravity around”).
2. Presenting Assertions/Opinions: These were instances where students presented assertions that were either opinions or facts that may have been accurate or inaccurate with respect to canonical science (e.g., “Well, Claire is the most right, but the soccer ball would probably be a little heavier, because air is like .000000000001 more heavier, and the flat ball is the same exact thing as the actual soccer ball, but it just doesn’t have any air in it, so it’s pretty much the same.”).
3. Analogy: This code captured instances where students drew similarity to other hypothetical situations (e.g., “ I have something- I agree with Ryan because if you take an air mattress out it would feel heavy and then when you blow it up it would feel easier to carry and lighter.”).
4. Logical Train: This code captured “if...then” statements expressing axiomatic reasoning and counterfactual thinking (e.g., “But if you think that the air has weight, like if it adds weight to it, then if you put a scale in the middle of the room right here there would probably be at least a pound showing on it.”).

The analysis examined also the accuracy of students’ ideas as they contributed to the discussions. One set of pre- and post-discussions each from two teachers was studied to understand the extent to which students offered correct ideas to the discussions.

Our findings suggest that after being introduced to various academically productive talk moves through the Talk Science program, the Grade 5 teachers incorporated the moves into their practice. In particular, they utilized talk moves to enable students to share and elaborate their thinking, and to deepen their reasoning with the help of data and models.

Students, on their part, engaged in the discussions actively by trying to make sense of the science and co-construct science understandings with peers. Further, in the post-discussions, students attempted to apply their understandings of core science ideas from the curriculum, as they drew on scientific principles and classroom investigations to reason about the concept cartoon.

A careful examination revealed that despite using more talk moves overall in guiding discussions, the teachers made less use of talk moves designed specifically to promote students’ active listening and responding to peers’ ideas. Further, although students made greater attempts at co-construction in the post-discussions, the attempts accounted for less than 20% of their turns at talk. These findings suggest that students may need support for listening and responding to their peers’ ideas. Therefore, teachers may need to guide students explicitly by using talk strategies to foster active engagement with peers’ ideas.

Here we amplify these findings with details regarding various aspects of teachers’ facilitation and students’ participation during pre- and post-concept cartoon discussions.