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                                The relevance and usefulness of the Comprehensive Approach
 (Weick et al., 2005, p. 409). This materialization of meaning is the end-result of an iterative and circular sensemaking process. Weick (1995) explains: “To talk about sensemaking is to talk about reality as an ongoing accomplishment that takes form when people make retrospective sense of the situations in which they find themselves and their creations” (p. 15). Making sense of new information through retrospection means that acting upon the sensemaking could precede the actual sensemaking itself. Through the continuous interaction between sensemaking and acting, teachers actively construct understandings through the lens of their pre-existing cognitive framework and practices (Coburn, 2001). Sensemaking is therefore not only highly personal, but also very selective (Spillane et al., 2002; Weick et al., 2005).
6.2.3 Practicality Theory
The selective nature of sensemaking often results in a heterogeneous interpretation,
adaptation, or even a transformation of the initial intent of a reform (Coburn,
2001) which can be connected to the fact that the reality of daily teaching practice
can have an influence on the sensemaking process. Practicality Theory (Doyle &
Ponder, 1977; Janssen, Westbroek, & Doyle, 2015) describes three criteria that
determine whether a reform is indeed deemed practical. The first criterion focuses 6 on the instrumentality of the reform, which means that a reform should have
classroom validity, i.e. a reform “must describe a procedure in terms which depict classroom contingencies” (Doyle & Ponder, 1977, p. 7). The second criterion of practicality is the congruence between the reform and the teacher’s own frame of reference. The level of congruence depends in part on the extent to which the teacher’s own frame of reference matches the perceived demands of the reform itself (Spillane et al., 2002; Coburn, 2001). Luttenberg, van Veen, & Imants (2013) distinguish two dimensions of attunement to examine the process of teacher sensemaking of reform (as depicted in Figure 6.1). The first dimension, the match/ mismatch axis, describes the extent to which a teacher aims at a match between their own frame of reference and the initial intention of the reform. The second axis, the own / other frame of reference axis, refers to the extent to which frame of reference predominates during the sensemaking process. Superimposing the two axes at a right angle to each other creates four types of search for meaning: assimilation, accommodation, toleration, and distantiation.
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