Establishing an argumentation environment to foster scientific reasoning with Bio-World (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Science Teacher, 2013
A Framework for K-12 Science Education (NRC 2012) and subsequent Next Generation Science Standards (Achieve Inc. 2013) will substantially influence the teaching and learning of science in the United States. The Vramewor, for example, calls for students to learn about several practices related to scientific argumentation. These practices--arguing from evidence (practice #6) and obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information (practice #8)--are embedded throughout the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Many teachers, as a result, need to re-focus their curriculum and methods to teach these practices. This article will help teachers understand the nature of scientific argumentation so they can help students reach the new benchmarks. It will also explain challenges students face when they participate in scientific argumentation and will list resources teachers can use to help students learn from and about scientific argumentation in the classroom. What counts as an argument ...
Science Education Promoting Students ’ Attention to Argumentative Reasoning Patterns
2016
Argument-based interventions in science education have largely been motivated by the perspective that students lack knowledge of argument. Recent studies, however, suggest that contextual factors influence students’ argument quality. The authors hypothesize that a key limiting factor lies in students’ abilities to recognize when to employ knowledge related to argumentative reasoning. Students hold knowledge that can remain inert if the context fails to trigger access. The article reports on two experiments exploring the influence of context on recognition of argumentative reasoning. Each experiment used performance on a categorization task as the dependent variable. The first experiment (E1) tested the effect of targeted cues on participants’ identification of fallacious reasoning patterns. The second experiment (E2) examined the role of scenario context. E1 revealed a significant advantage in promoting detection of fallacious reasoning patterns when targeted cues were present. E2 s...
Utilizing Technology to Support Scientific Argumentation in Active Learning Classrooms
Active Learning in College Science: The Case for Evidence-Based Practice, 2020
Over three decades of research on scientific argumentation supports the notion that constructing, critiquing, and refining evidence-based arguments are not only central to the practice of science (Allchin 2012; Latour 1999) but also to the effective learning of science (Osborne 2010). The purpose of this chapter is threefold. First, the chapter provides an overview of a popular framework researchers use to make sense of student arguments in science classrooms. This includes the introduction of a diagramming system that allows the reader to visualize the structure of arguments and to gauge the relative difficulty different forms of arguments pose for science learners. Second, we provide a review of research supporting why argumentation is important for science learning. A case will be made that promoting evidence-based argumentation can help mitigate for multiple generations of science instruction indoctrinating students with a misleading view of what science actually is. Finally, after establishing what scientific argumentation is and why it is important, we will provide a practical, On/Beneath/Beyond-the-Screen heuristic that college science educators can utilize to support argumentation in their classrooms with current technologies. Through a case study of a technology designed to promoting evidence-based argumentation, we provide an example of how to apply this heuristic in your own practice.
Facilitation of Scientific Argumentation to Support Knowledge-Building Discourse
While argumentation plays a critical role in advancing science knowledge, there is criticism that argumentation and debate currently promoted in schools do not qualify as knowledge-building discourse. This paper examines the extent to which existing instructional designs that facilitate scientific argumentation support knowledge-building discourse. Six instructional designs that facilitate scientific argumentation through varying extent of teacher facilitation and computer support were reviewed using a set of three commitments for knowledge-building discourse as the theoretical framework. My analysis indicates that all the reviewed instructional designs are well-designed to support the commitment to progress, some have support for the commitment to expand the base of accepted facts, but only one instructional design supports the commitment to seek common understanding. This commitment needs to be emphasized by instructional designs for facilitating scientific argumentation, so that argumentation can support knowledge building in the science classroom.
2014
Technology based settings have variety of assets and possibilities for learning elementary level science. This study has designed and developed a computer based environment, Argümantaryum. It provides virtual experiment facilities, visually rich multi representations of contents, video and simulations at which students may base their arguments and learn some elementary level science units. It has also a built-in discussion forum and an instant messaging component both contain argumentation sentenceopeners. Following the implementation, the system was tested in real classroom settings under different study schemes for different learning units. When the system is used in the mode of a peer collaboration supported by a teacher (compared to individual use without a teacher support), it helps students to make progress in terms of both scientific discussion skills and knowledge of the learning units accommodated in the platform. Though, similar results were obtained when the same usage scheme is followed for another learning unit, we could not entirely confirm the previous finding. Further, the system performance in supporting collaborative work with teacher guidance was compared to lecture based learning. Although both collaborative use of the system under teacher guidance and the lecture based activities significantly helped their students to develop knowledge of the learning unit, the lecture based activities helped to develop better scientific discussion skills. The students who used the system individually without teacher guidance could not benefit from the system as much as collaborative groups who also received teacher guidance. Finally, the report provides a discussion and a set of recommendations on how to further test the platform facilities.
Scientific argumentation as a foundation for the design of inquiry-based science instruction
The Journal of Mathematics and Science: Collaborative Explorations, 2013
Despite the attention that inquiry has received in science education research and policy, a coherent means for implementing inquiry in the classroom has been missing [1]. In recent research, scientific argumentation has received increasing attention for its role in science and in science education [2]. In this article, we propose that organizing a unit of instruction around building a scientific argument can bring inquiry practices together in the classroom in a coherent way. We outline a framework for argumentation, focusing on arguments that are central to science—arguments for the best explanation. We then use this framework as the basis for a set of design principles for developing a sequence of inquiry-based learning activities that support students in the construction of a scientific argument. We show that careful analysis of the argument that students are expected to build provides designers with a foundation for selecting resources and designing supports for scientific inquiry. Furthermore, we show that creating multiple opportunities for students to critique and refine their explanations through evidence-based argumentation fosters opportunities for critical thinking, while building science knowledge and knowledge of the nature of science.
Enhancing the quality of argumentation in school science
… of Research in Science …, 2004
The research reported in this paper focussed on the design of learning environments that support the teaching and learning of argumentation in a scientific context. The research took place over two years between 1999 and 2001 in junior high schools in the greater London area. The research was conducted in two phases. In the first developmental phase, working with a group of 12 science teachers, the main emphasis was to develop sets of materials and strategies to support argumentation in the classroom and to assess teachers' development with teaching argumentation. Data were collected by videoing and audio recording the teachers attempts to implement these lessons at the beginning and end of the year. During this phase, analytical tools for evaluating the quality of argumentation were developed based on Toulmin's argument pattern. Analysis of the data shows that there was significant development in the majority of teachers use of argumentation across the year. Results indicate that the pattern of use of argumentation is teacher specific, as is the nature of the change.