As U.S. schools become increasingly culturally and linguistically diverse, educators must ensure all students have access to meaningful science learning. Classroom discussion is central to knowledge construction, yet not all students engage in or benefit from these opportunities, raising concerns of social justice and epistemic equity. This presentation focuses on the development and refinement of the Equitable Classroom Discussion Observation Protocol (ECDop), a checklist of observable teacher practices designed to promote students’ behavioral, cognitive, cultural-and-linguistic, social-emotional, and learning-materials-and-resources engagement in science discussions. ECDop can be used as a formative assessment tool, a guide for teacher self-reflection, or by external observers to examine how equitable and inclusive practices are enacted.
We describe how we operationalized equity in classroom discussion, consulted with external experts, revised the protocol and user instructions, and piloted ECDop with three elementary teachers. Drawing on teacher interviews, practitioner feedback, and researcher observations, we iteratively refined the protocol. Teachers perceived ECDop as user-friendly, practical, and helpful in supporting intentional planning and facilitating participation, particularly for culturally and linguistically diverse learners. Interrater reliability analyses indicated good-to-substantial agreement. By integrating practitioner and researcher insights, the refined ECDop offers a robust tool for assessing and fostering equity in elementary science classrooms.
