Making meaning in classrooms: Social processes in small‐group discourse and scientific knowledge building (original) (raw)
Related papers
Scientific Reasoning in School Contexts
1994
This study investigates the fate of claims made by middle school science students working in collaborative groups in a multicultural urban classroom and the concomitant effects on engagement and understanding. Given problems of a complex and open-ended nature in a learning community setting, students were challenged to establish group positions and to explain these positions to the classroom community. In the negotiation and collective validation processes that ensued, consensus as the basis of acceptability was held as the standard. Individual claims often became the claims of groups of students as the class worked together to separate data from "noise". The study shows how groups of students and individuals within groups came to understand a number of science concepts relating to the kinetic molecular theory and how their understanding related to the ongoing bargaining process surrounding roles within each group. The researchers noted that students who were active in a wide range of group negotiations tended to develop deeper and more meaningful understandings of concepts, while less active students displayed a more limited understanding characterized by their ritualized use of scientific language. Student working groups each established its own unique patterns of interaction which often served the social aims of some group members. In general, collaborative activities appeared to best serve students who were already academically successful. (Author)
Science literacy is an often-stated goal of science education in the United States. According to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) science literacy encompasses not only a fundamental understanding of and familiarity with key concepts of science, mathematics, and technology, but also a capacity for scientific ways of thinking, knowing that science is a human enterprise, and being able to use scientific knowledge and ways of thinking for personal and social purposes (AAAS, 1989, 1993). This characterization suggests that school science should emphasize exploring questions, exercising critical though processes, and "doing" science. However, traditional approaches to school science largely emphasize learning facts, memorizing answers, and reading text (Nelson, 1998). These approaches, which seem to emphasize learning as an individual process, have not been adequate. American students have scarcely performed above the international average on tests of scientific knowledge that emphasize application of scientific principles, such as those taken as part of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (Gonzales et al., 2004). Perhaps traditional approaches to science education fail students because they de-emphasize the social nature of science and scientific knowledge. Driver, Asoko, Leach, Mortimer, & Scott (1994) argued that science knowledge is socially constructed and that learning science involves a process of initiation into scientific ways of knowing. One such process is argumentation, which is understood to be not only an essential process through which scientific knowledge is generated, but also an important practice associated with membership in a science community (Duschl & Osborne, 2002; Osborne, Erduran, & Simon, 2004). Project 2061 of AAAS has developed curriculum materials analysis criteria (Kesidou & Roseman, 2002; Roseman, Kesidou, & Stern, 1997) that have been used to identify science curriculum materials consistent with the AAAS view of science literacy. The purpose of this paper is to examine how middle school students learn science content and processes during participation in two lessons from a curriculum unit that is highly rated by Project 2061. Transcripts and video data from the lessons will be analyzed for evidence that students engage in dialogical argumentation to understand a benchmark science concept. Emphasis will be placed on how students navigate the social realities that coexist with science discourse in a middle school science classroom.
Research in Science Education, 1997
This article discusses the relation and patterns of intra-and inter-group discourse as middle school students explain particular phenomena. We present a framework of the dynamic process involved in generating collaborative knowledge. Our focus is on connecting students' thinking and experience with science concepts and explanations. Using the perspective of learning as a social activity, we are interested in science teaching that engages students in collaborative inquiry as a means for learning science content. Specifically, we examine the role of shared inquiry and the nature of consensusbuilding in students' development of explanations from a collaborative knowledge-building stance. Student discourse, in small (intra-group) and large (inter-group) contexts, is examined as an explicit mode of inquiry. While additional study is needed, we contend these two forms of discourse (constructive and generative; dialectic and persuasive) effectively promote progressive discourse and thereby facilitate shared coherent explanations of phenomena.
Constructing Scientific Knowledge in the Classroom
Educational Researcher, 1994
The view that knowledge cannot be transmitted but must be constructed by the mental activity of learners underpins contemporary perspectives on science education. This article, which presents a theoretical perspective on teaching and learning science in the social setting of classrooms, is informed by a view of scientific knowledge as socially constructed and by a perspective on the learning of science as knowledge construction involving both individual and social processes. First, we present an overview of the nature of scientific knowledge. We then describe two major traditions in explaining the process of learning science: personal and social constructivism. Finally, we illustrate how both personal and social perspectives on learning, as well as perspectives on the nature of the scientific knowledge to be learned, are necessary in interpreting science learning in formal settings.
The Knowledge Building Approach to Science Education A Problem-Solving Perspective
The Knowledge Building Approach to Science Education: A Problem-Solving Perspective, 2019
Science education is reasonably constructed around a vision of authentic scientific practices. Yet, this vision of science is clearly a construct as seen when viewing its changes throughout the last 120 years, as well as viewing it through different theoretical perspectives. While there are diverse descriptions of science and its enactment, going back to Dewey and Peirce, the mission of science is commonly considered to be about the advancement of theory through inquiry where problems serve a central function. Beyond the challenge of constructing an understanding of scientific inquiry as theory development where the diversity in perspectives of scientists is seen as essential, there is the challenge of devising pedagogy and approaches that effectively promote this vision. There are a rich mix of approaches working at solving different parts of this complex problem. One such approach is called, "Knowledge Building" (Scardamalia and Bereiter, 2006). This approach seeks to scaffold classroom communities such that they develop and grow into a complex community where progressive science-theory improvement emerges. It is considered that these sorts of communities where innovation is the norm have relevance beyond the fields of science and STEM: innovation and knowledge creation is becoming the essential practice of the knowledge age. The Knowledge Building approach is designed to support the growth of classroom communities to become communities where progressive scientific inquiry is at the center of their daily activity, similar to that of communities of professional scientists. To effectively support this kind of classroom community development, the approach must take into account the unique assets and needs presented by the ever-increasing iv diversity of thinking and knowing that are emergents of the students' cultures, developmental levels, neurological diversities and networks of communities. Overall, this research sought to support and augment classrooms as they strive to grow into classroom communities of scientific inquiry. The research occurred in two stages. It first used philosophical methods to generate a simple, high-level model of problem-solving made possible by Popper's World-3 conception. This conception is a keystone in some epistemologies developed to support approaches aimed at helping students grow in knowledge-innovation practices. The visual problem-solving model that was developed seeks to provide students and teachers with a very simple yet flexible model allowing them to describe, analyze and reflect on the state of their community's knowledge improvement and through this understanding adaptively and effectively respond. The second stage of research utilized hybrid philosophical-empirical methods to develop a framework that describes science in terms of its mission to progressively improve theory through the iterative solving of and subsequent unfolding of new knowledge-problems. These research methods involved an iterative process where promising theories are tested on their ability to describe students' actual online knowledge-building discourse in a satisfying way. In this iterative process, empirical classroom data informed and yet also constrain the theory generation which was informed by diverse theoretical perspectives. These theoretical perspectives included for example, ideas of scientific practices, theories of design such as design thinking and v understandings of classroom diversity as represented in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013) which were intentionally founded upon theories of culturally responsive pedagogy. The developed framework seeks to scaffold teachers as they design and enact lessons aimed at growing communities of diverse scientists. Taken together, the products of this research seek to provide conceptual structures to aid the students and teachers in classroom communities as they seek to grow into complex communities of scientists, and to aid researchers as they seek to support and lead this process.
Guiding Students' Scientific Practice: Distinct and Common Roles for Teachers and Scientists
SAGE Open, 2014
Many science education programs involve scientists in K-12 education to support students' engagement in scientific practices and learning science process skills and scientific epistemologies. Little research has studied the actions of scientists in classrooms or how scientists' actions may (or may not) supplement or complement the actions of teachers. In this descriptive study, we explore how teachers and scientists, working in pairs, guide high school students in the practice of scientific experimentation. In particular, we study the ways by which teachers and scientists act independently and in concert to guide students in designing and conducting biology experiments with unknown outcomes. We analyzed video recordings of classroom instruction in two different school settings, focusing on teachers' and scientists' acts as they are manifested through their language-in-use during face-to-face interactions with students. We argue that scientists and teachers act to support students in scientific experimentation in both distinct and common ways influenced by the particular teaching acts they perform and distinct authority roles they possess in the classroom (e.g., classroom authority vs. scientific authority).
Cambridge Journal of Education, 2015
I'm doing my research on viability of running Gadamerian hermeneutical dialogue in community of philosophical inquiry in multicultural settings. I will argue that in order to establish a hermeneutical dialogue, we need to reflect on epistemic barriers and injustices that minority groups in our classroom can suffer. View project Teaching students to use and interpret representations in science is critically important if they are to become scientifically literate and learn how to communicate their understandings and learning in science. This study involved 248 students (119 boys and 129 girls) from 26 grade 6 teachers' classes in nine primary schools in Brisbane, Australia. Teachers were randomly allocated by school to one of three conditions: the contemporary science + representations condition (Experimental a ), the contemporary condition (Experimental b ), or the comparison condition as they participated in an eight-week inquiry-science unit on Natural Disasters. Data on students' discourse were collected at two time points during the implementation of the unit and data on the concept maps were collected preand post-intervention while data on the reasoning and problem-solving (RP-S) task were collected following the intervention. The results show that when students participate in an inquiry-based science unit that is augmented with a variety of multimedia resources presenting a range of current contemporary events (Experimental a and Experimental b conditions), they demonstrate significantly more social language and basic scientific language and marked increases in moderate scientific language than their peers in the comparison condition. Interestingly, although there were no significant differences on the Personal Concept Map scores between the conditions at Times 1 and 2, the students' scores in all conditions improved decidedly across time. It appears that as the children had more time to engage with the material, participate in cooperative peer discussions, and receive encouragement from their teachers to provide elaborated feedback to each other, their conceptual understandings of earthquakes were enhanced. However, although the children in the experimental conditions demonstrated significantly more social and scientific language than their peers in the comparison condition, these oral language skills did not transfer to the RP-S task, possibly because they may not have had enough time to consolidate their application in a novel context where they had to work independently.
This study investigated high school students' perception and understanding of scientific argumentation. The sample consisted of 245 high school students. Two questionnaires were administered with the sample resulting in quantitative data. Qualitative analyses of students' responses were also carried out. The results indicate that students' understanding of scientific argument particularly with respect to their differentiation of justification is quite limited. Students have difficulties in understanding types of justification. Even though students appreciate the role of argumentation and discourse in science teaching and learning, their perceptions of the use of various strategies in the implementation of argumentation were contradictory. Students' perceptions of discourse are based on categories classified as knowledge, implementation, understanding, importance of science, actions by students and teachers, and classroom management. Students' perceptions' of argumentation include similar themes as in perceptions of discourse. There were only two different themes which were related to knowledge and nature of science instead of classroom environment and importance of science, respectively. This study contributes to the evidence base for understanding the connection between students' argumentation perceptions and their improved engagement in argumentative discourse. Additionally, the study suggests the need for developing students' metacognitive skills.
Argumentation is highlighted as one of the most important activities of science education by many researchers. The main aim of this research is to examine primary school students’ nature of science classes and argumentation skills in terms of their academic success in primary science classes. Thus, the main interest of the study is centered on the nature of science lessons, the structure of the argument and an effort to scaffold students’ understanding concerning the argument’s structure. As this was considered the initial, but students have to acquire fundamental skills before dealing with the inner validity of an argument. Moreover, successful and chosen students for this study were studied carefully dense by the researchers. In that scope, the study was designed on qualitative research techniques which are detailed as explorative and fundamentally interpretation for the related topic. Since a particular school’s successful students are considered in the research, it could be viewed and designed as a case study. The study is conducted with 8th graders with the age of 12-13 in a private elementary school. Focus group interviews and classroom observations during science lessons were the basic tools to obtain data. The results were grouped under the following aspects: objectives of science education, science teaching methods of teachers, teaching materials and teacher’s attitudes towards his/her students during the class. Two science teachers in this school both give importance inquiry based teaching science. This research has demonstrated that even the most successful 8th graders in science classes do not necessarily understand fundamental concepts about nature and science. The science teachers in this research also mentioned that the interactive nature of information technologies can support students in carrying out inquiry-based activities, using problems, questions, and even theories that they themselves define and develop argumentation. Keywords: Science education, Elementary science, Argumentation, Scientific discussion