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Engaging Students in the Scientific Practices of Explanation and Argumentation
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... Nevertheless, research concerning the development of students' eight scientific practices proposed by NGSS is limited. Reiser et al. (2012) examined in detail scientific practices of explanation and argumentation and concluded that these two practices depend on each other; it means that engagement in argumentation is necessary to practice explanation construction (p. 6). ...
... This close relationship between explanation and argumentation is also highlighted by other researchers (McNeill & Krajcik, 2012). In our case, it seems that suggestions of Reiser et al. (2012) for focusing on reasons for ideas, creating a climate that is safe for students to be wrong and asking students rich questions that have multiple plausible answers were not sufficiently cultivated. ...
... Maybe students were not efficiently engaged in temperature measurements, in estimation and comparisons of data, in sum and average calculation, in causeand-effect connection into a procedure, and in argumentation to solve a problem or to check a claim. Our findings are in contrast with these of Reiser et al. (2012) who examined in detail scientific practices of explanation and argumentation and found that students could argue for their provided explanations with elaborate and precise way which improved the causal account (p. 11). ...
A STEM education program entitled Come rain or shine implemented in a primary rural school in southern Greece as part of the Diffusion of STEM (DI-STEM) project and the results of its implementation are presented in this paper. The educational program deepened in weather education and intended to develop eight scientific practices for primary students proposed by the NGSS. Students' pretest and posttest questionnaires revealed difficulties in adopting meteorological vocabulary and relative scientific practices through weather measurements in their local environment. Students' answers indicate a variety in their conceptual progress depending on the scientific practice being investigated.
... • La metodología: a) Ha de promover el aprendizaje por investigación ; b) Con actividades para que los estudiantes formulen y contrasten sus hipótesis, las reelaboren de forma argumentada y las generalicen y apliquen en contextos diversos; todo ello con la orientación experta del docente (Jiménez-Liso;Martínez;López-Gay, 2023;Reiser;Berland;Kenyon, 2012 • La evaluación: a) Ha de basarse en el análisis de las concepciones y obstáculos del alumnado, para ajustar la enseñanza al aprendizaje y dotarla de una dimensión formativa (Belland; Burdo; Gu, 2015); b) Incluyendo también al propio docente y al diseño didáctico, dando participación a los estudiantes (Ibarra;Rodríguez-Gómez, 2014); c) Analizando el proceso de aprendizaje y no solo el final del mismo (Sanmartí, 2007), no identificando superficialmente evaluación con calificación. ...
... • La metodología: a) Ha de promover el aprendizaje por investigación ; b) Con actividades para que los estudiantes formulen y contrasten sus hipótesis, las reelaboren de forma argumentada y las generalicen y apliquen en contextos diversos; todo ello con la orientación experta del docente (Jiménez-Liso;Martínez;López-Gay, 2023;Reiser;Berland;Kenyon, 2012 • La evaluación: a) Ha de basarse en el análisis de las concepciones y obstáculos del alumnado, para ajustar la enseñanza al aprendizaje y dotarla de una dimensión formativa (Belland; Burdo; Gu, 2015); b) Incluyendo también al propio docente y al diseño didáctico, dando participación a los estudiantes (Ibarra;Rodríguez-Gómez, 2014); c) Analizando el proceso de aprendizaje y no solo el final del mismo (Sanmartí, 2007), no identificando superficialmente evaluación con calificación. ...
... • La metodología: a) Ha de promover el aprendizaje por investigación ; b) Con actividades para que los estudiantes formulen y contrasten sus hipótesis, las reelaboren de forma argumentada y las generalicen y apliquen en contextos diversos; todo ello con la orientación experta del docente (Jiménez-Liso;Martínez;López-Gay, 2023;Reiser;Berland;Kenyon, 2012 • La evaluación: a) Ha de basarse en el análisis de las concepciones y obstáculos del alumnado, para ajustar la enseñanza al aprendizaje y dotarla de una dimensión formativa (Belland; Burdo; Gu, 2015); b) Incluyendo también al propio docente y al diseño didáctico, dando participación a los estudiantes (Ibarra;Rodríguez-Gómez, 2014); c) Analizando el proceso de aprendizaje y no solo el final del mismo (Sanmartí, 2007), no identificando superficialmente evaluación con calificación. ...
Este estudio analiza la mejora del profesorado universitario de disciplinas CTS (Ciencia, Tecnología y Sociedad) en proceso de formación docente, en base a las percepciones sobre las clases recibidas de 414 estudiantes de la Universidad de Sevilla. Se utilizó un cuestionario Likert con 26 ítems agrupados por parejas, reflejando cada pareja dos enfoques docentes contrapuestos: enseñanza centrada en el docente y enseñanza centrada en el estudiante, y organizados en 3 categorías: contenidos, metodología y evaluación. El análisis factorial y descriptivo muestra cambios hacia una enseñanza centrada en el estudiante en los siguientes aspectos: el trabajo con problemas, las interacciones entre los contenidos, las ideas de los
alumnos y una evaluación formativa y participativa. Se concluye que la formación está promoviendo mejoras en los profesores, aunque parciales, y que el cuestionario ha sido un instrumento adecuado para conocer las opiniones de los estudiantes.
... Campbell & Oh (2015) addressed key facets of modelling instruction or design features of modeling curriculum, without emphasis on other scientific practices. Reiser, Berland & Kenyon (2012) examined in detail scientific practices of explanation and argumentation in the light of the proposals of the NGSS. After defining argumentation and explanation individually, they concluded that "The two practices depend on each other: For students to practice explanation construction, they must also engage in argumentation" (p. 6). ...
... Although we did not interview primary students, we consider their final answers as written evidence that strengthen four examples referred by Reiser et al. (2012) that illustrate students' meaningful engagement in explanation and argumentation: arguing for prediction, reconciling competing explanations, building consensus from multiple contributions, and critique leading to clarified explanation. In other words, students' ability to construct explanations after the implementation of "The air we breathe" has been refined, deepened and elaborated. ...
... As mentioned above, Reiser et al. (2012) examined in detail scientific practices of explanation and argumentation through four examples. Although their research has quantitative characteristics, we discerned such elements in our students' responses. ...
... Com o objetivo de superar essas limitações e favorecer a alfabetização científica, pesquisadores têm defendido a integração das abordagens de ensino por argumentação e investigação (KRAJCIK; MERRITT, 2012;REISER;BERLAND;KENYON, 2012;BYBEE, 2011;FERRAZ;SASSERON, 2017). Nesse sentido, torna-se essencial a criação de materiais didáticos que articulem essas abordagens de ensino, assim como sua validação, uma vez que essa ação pode reduzir erros e ampliar o impacto significativo dos objetivos de aprendizagem dos estudantes. ...
... Com o objetivo de superar essas limitações e favorecer a alfabetização científica, pesquisadores têm defendido a integração das abordagens de ensino por argumentação e investigação (KRAJCIK; MERRITT, 2012;REISER;BERLAND;KENYON, 2012;BYBEE, 2011;FERRAZ;SASSERON, 2017). Nesse sentido, torna-se essencial a criação de materiais didáticos que articulem essas abordagens de ensino, assim como sua validação, uma vez que essa ação pode reduzir erros e ampliar o impacto significativo dos objetivos de aprendizagem dos estudantes. ...
... Com o objetivo de superar essas limitações e favorecer a alfabetização científica, pesquisadores têm defendido a integração das abordagens de ensino por argumentação e investigação (KRAJCIK; MERRITT, 2012;REISER;BERLAND;KENYON, 2012;BYBEE, 2011;FERRAZ;SASSERON, 2017). Nesse sentido, torna-se essencial a criação de materiais didáticos que articulem essas abordagens de ensino, assim como sua validação, uma vez que essa ação pode reduzir erros e ampliar o impacto significativo dos objetivos de aprendizagem dos estudantes. ...
The present article presents the process of validation process of a sequence that integrates Inquiry-Based Teaching and Argumentation, intended for future implementation in Chemistry Teacher Training Program. We invited three licensed Chemistry teachers holding a Doctor in Education or Chemistry Teaching, and possessing expertise in Inquiry-Based Teaching and Argumentation. These teachers assessed the sequence based on the adapted framework of Guimarães and Giordan, analyzing its structure and organization, problematization approach, capacity to promote argumentation, content and concepts, teaching methodology and evaluation, as well as its feasibility for remote teaching. The analysis highlighted positive aspects of the sequence, as well as areas for improvement. This process resulted in a sequence that holds the potential to enhance the teaching and learning process, aligning Inquiry-Based Teaching and Argumentation in the context of Chemistry Education.
... In the framework, the eight science and engineering practices collectively describe what students should be doing in the classroom to best represent authentic science. Understanding disciplinary core ideas and communicating science ideas with others become fundamental goals for the K-12 students in the framework and NGSS [2,3]. According to the NGSS, communicating science ideas can be achieved in multiple modalities, including the oral and written modalities, and through extended discussions. ...
To meet the needs of English learners (ELs) and the call of the Next Generation Science Standards to engage all students in communicating science ideas, a collaboration between science, second language acquisition, and disciplinary literacy teacher educators resulted in a trifocal approach within a reformed science teacher education program. The purpose of this study is to explore how TeachLivETM, a mixed-reality simulation technology, was used to prepare preservice teachers (PSTs) to support ELs in communicating science ideas through questioning. Findings from transcribed lessons, coaching sessions, and PST self-reports show that TeachLivETM provided opportunities to practice questioning and reflect on challenges, and was a collaborative learning context. The significance for secondary science teacher education and inservice teacher professional development is presented.
... In their iterative nature, doing science involve making decisions based on unexpected results at every stage of an investigation (Duschl & Bybee, 2014). Students would understand the uncertain nature and the processes of critiquing, defending, and refining a scientific explanation by actively participating in the explaining practice instead of rote learning a replica explanation (Reiser et al., 2012). Rote following step-bystep activities would not reflect this struggle, but students need to experience balancing both structured and unstructured investigations (Roth, 1994). ...
Recent science education reforms center at having students learn the practices of scientists. In this study, we aim at exploring how science curricular documents reflect the latest updates from the "practice turn" reform. To do that, we utilize the notion of the scientist's ways of doing science as a perspective to observe the distribution of components constituting scientific practices in national science curricula. Current literature provides several curriculum analysis frameworks based on taxonomies of cognitive demands or international tests. Still, those frameworks are either not intended for science curricula or limited in indicators and hence failed to capture an updating picture of science curricula that reflect the recent practice turn. We employ multiple case study research design and qualitative content analysis approach to compare learning outcomes in Taiwan and Vietnam's two national science curricula. Results from this study offer maps of scientific practices across curricular documents and relevant suggestions for stakeholders to improve science curricula. The study opens a new direction on researching science curricula to make science learning approaching the scientist's ways in reality.
While uncertainty is inherent to doing science, it is often excluded from science instruction, especially postsecondary chemistry instruction. There are a variety of barriers to infusing uncertainty into the postsecondary chemistry classroom, including ensuring productive struggle with uncertainty, evaluating student engagement with uncertainty, and facilitating engagement in a way that fits within the postsecondary chemistry context. In this study, we aimed to address these difficulties by designing an argumentation task that enables the direct observation of students interacting with epistemic uncertainty. This task was administered as a written assignment to a large-enrollment, second-semester general chemistry course. Student responses were analyzed to generate a rubric that captures the varied ways students grapple with epistemic uncertainty. In accordance with previous literature, we observed students not engaging with the uncertainty ( e.g. , generating vague, incomprehensible arguments) and selectively engage with the uncertainty ( e.g. , use data selectively to avoid uncertainty). However, we also observed the qualitatively distinct approaches students utilized to productively manage epistemic uncertainty. Importantly, we believe that these ways of productively handling uncertainty translate to the kinds of scientific reasoning, personal decision making, and socioscientific reasoning that these learners will continue to engage in. Therefore, this work has implications for supporting students’ scientific argumentation by offering instructors a practical way to engage their students with uncertainty and a model to interpret and respond to their students.
In this paper, we argue that there is an emergent confusion in the literature in the use of the terms “argument'' and “explanation.” Drawing on a range of publications, we point to instances where these terms are either used inappropriately or conflated. We argue that the distinction between these two constructs is, however, important as a lack of clarity of fundamental concepts is problematic for a field. First, a lack of common conception hinders effective communication and, second, it makes defining the nature of the activity we might expect students to engage in more difficult. Drawing on a body of scholarship on argument and explanation, this paper is an attempt to clarify the distinction and to explain why such a distinction might matter. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed95:627–638, 2011
Constructing scientific explanations and participating in argumentative discourse are seen as essential practices of scientific inquiry (e.g., R. Driver, P. Newton, & J. Osborne, 2000). In this paper, we identify three goals of engaging in these related scientific practices: (1) sensemaking, (2) articulating, and (3) persuading. We propose using these goals to understand student engagement with these practices, and to design instructional interventions to support students. Thus, we use this framework as a lens to investigate the question: What successes and challenges do students face as they engage in the scientific practices of explanation and argumentation? We study this in the context of a curriculum that provides students and teachers with an instructional framework for constructing and defending scientific explanations. Through this analysis, we find that students consistently use evidence to make sense of phenomenon and articulate those understandings but they do not consistently attend to the third goal of persuading others of their understandings. Examining the third goal more closely reveals that persuading others of an understanding requires social interactions that are often inhibited by traditional classroom interactions. Thus, we conclude by proposing design strategies for addressing the social challenges inherent in the related scientific practices of explanation and argumentation. (C) 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 93:26-55, 2009
In this article, the author presents the science and engineering practices from the recently released "A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas" (NRC 2011). The author recognizes the changes implied by the new framework, and that a new generation of science education standards will present new perspectives for the science education community. Although the NRC report is a framework and not standards, it is prudent for those in the science and technology education community to begin preparing for the new standards. This article focuses primarily on one aspect of the new NRC framework--science and engineering practices--because these practices are basic to science education and the change from inquiry to practices is central. The new emphasis on practices reinforces the need for school science programs to actively involve students through investigations and, in the 21st century, digitally based programs and activities. This innovation for the new standards will likely be one of the most significant challenges for the successful implementation of science education standards. (Contains 8 figures.)
What role can technology play in cultivating a disciplinary stance — raising questions, planning investigations, interpreting data and constructing explanations in a way that reflects disciplinary values and principles? How can overt and tacit expert scientific knowledge be captured, represented and used to design software that enables novices to assume a disciplinary stance in their investigations? We present
The Galapagos Finches
software designed to foster a biological and evolutionary stance. Our approach, Discipline-Specific Strategic Support (DSSS), translates the main variable types, comparison types and relationships in a discipline into manipulable objects in the interface. Pre/post-tests show how DSSS helps achieve a balance between content and process goals. A contrastive-case microanalysis of high, medium and low-achieving students’ inquiry shows progress toward a disciplinary stance. Our study shows how software representations carry multiple levels of meaning, and that the efficacy of learning technologies hinges on reflection at both the navigation and disciplinary-signification levels.
In recent years, research on students' scientific argumentation has progressed to a recognition of nascent resources: Students can and do argue when they experience the need and possibility of persuading others who may hold competing views. Our purpose in this article is to contribute to this progress by applying the perspective of framing to the question of when and how a class forms and maintains a sense of their activity as argumentative. In particular, we examine three snippets from a sixth-grade class with respect to how the students—and the teacher—experience, or frame, what is taking place. We argue that they show dynamics of framing for individuals and for the class as a whole that affect and are affected by students' engagement in argumentation. We close the article with implications of this perspective for research, teaching, and instructional design. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 49: 68–94, 2012
Scientific explanation plays a central role in science education reform documents, including the Benchmarks for Science Literacy, the National Science Education Standards, and the recent research report, Taking Science to School. While scientific explanation receives significant emphases in these documents, there is little discussion or consensus within the science education community about the nature of explanation itself. However, debates about scientific explanation have been a mainstay for philosophers of science for decades. We argue that a more clearly articulated conceptualization of scientific explanation for science education is necessary for making the vision of science education reform a reality. In this essay, we use major philosophical theories of scientific explanation as lenses to examine how the science education community has constructed the idea of explanation. We also examine instructional practice in school science settings, including our own classrooms, where teachers and students are working to explain natural phenomena. Using these examples, we offer suggestions for preparing both educators and young learners to engage in explanatory discourses that are reasonably accountable to authentic epistemic practice in science. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed95:639–669, 2011
Making sense of argu-mentation and explanation
- L K Berland
- B J Reiser
Berland, L.K., and B.J. Reiser. 2009. Making sense of argu-mentation and explanation. Science Education 93 (1): 26–55
Seeing the science in children's thinking: Case studies of student inquiry in physical science
- D Hammer
- E H Van Zee
Hammer, D., and E.H. van Zee. 2006. Seeing the science in
children's thinking: Case studies of student inquiry in physical science. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.