Effect of productive discussion on written argumentation in earth science classrooms

Abstract

Active teachers noted persistent problems in their classrooms, including low levels of student engagement and gaps in students’ use of evidence in forming arguments. Earth Science students provided written responses to two questions using the previously implemented Claim, Evidence, Reasoning (CER) framework. The first question was answered without a preceding discussion whereas the second question was answered following a discussion protocol—no discussion, discussion without Talk Science, and discussion with Talk Science. A ninth grade teacher more comprehensively implemented Talk Science by incorporating statements from all four goals whereas a seventh grade teacher did not. As a result, ninth grade students improved their use of evidence, reasoning, and content, but seventh graders did not show the same improvements. All students valued the discussion, but this study shows that Talk Science discussions can be used to improve students’ content knowledge and CER argumentation skills.     

学习契约:远程学习效果评价的书面协议

过程性评价是远程学习评价的重要部分.作为过程性评价方式的典型代表,学习契约正越来越受到教学评价理论和实践的关注.为了充分理解和有效操作远程学习中学习契约这一评价方法,本文在整合国内外相关资料的基础上,论述了学习契约的定义与类型,分析了学习契约在远程学习中的特征与优势、基本原则和设计方法,并且提供了四个设计模板.     

Validating written feedback in clinical formative assessment

Abstract

Formative assessment is widely accepted as being crucial to promoting student learning and, since 2010, the UK General Medical Council has mandated its use in workplace-based clinical training for all new doctors. As a result, the Royal College of Radiologists (RCR) instituted a range of formative workplace-based assessments including the Radiology Direct Observation of Procedural Skills (Rad-DOPS), in which supervisors appraise trainees’ performance in carrying out clinical procedures. This paper reports on the quality of the written feedback in 2,500?Rad-DOPS online feedback forms in addressing the aims of the new assessment approach. Random samples of 500 were selected from the first three years of the new assessment implementation, 2010–13, and from 2016 to 17. Using an appropriate coding frame, the feedback was analysed across the samples against key trainee attributes including stage of training and level of adjudged competence. Criteria for identifying high quality feedback were derived from the literature and a simplified form of qualitative comparative analysis was used to identify the conditions associated with high quality feedback. An average of 97% of the assessments contained written feedback but the number of instances of high quality feedback was found to be exceedingly small at around 5%. The paper offers suggestions for making the feedback process more purposeful in achieving the aims of formative assessment.     

Framing for scientific argumentation

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     

The domestication of legal argumentation: A case study of the formalism of the legal realists

This essay explores the discourse of the legal realists. The pragmatists and the legal realists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have become an important part of Anglo‐American jurisprudence. These jurists, lawyers, and legal theorists are considered to be influential legal scholars because of their critiques of transcendental, certain, and deductive proofs in legal argumentation. The essay argues that while the legal realists added to our understanding of informal logic and legal pragmatism, they nevertheless domesticated their arguments by replacing deductive formalisms with inductive formalisms.     

Using formative assessment to promote argumentation in a university bilingual science course

Formative assessment, bilingualism, and argumentation when combined can enrich bilingual scientific literacy. However, argumentation receives little attention in the practice of bilingual science education. This article describes the effect of a formative assessment-based pedagogical strategy in promoting university students’ argumentation. It examines the written and oral arguments produced by 54 undergraduates (28 females and 26 males, 16–21 years old) in Colombia during a university bilingual (Spanish-English) science course. The data used in this analysis was derived from students’ written responses, and audio and video recordings. The first goal of this study was to determine how this teaching strategy could help students increase the use of English as a means of communication in argumentation in science. The second goal was to establish the potential of the strategy to engage students in argumentative classroom interactions as an essential part of formative assessment. The findings show that the strategy provided participants with opportunities to write their argumentation in Spanish, in English and in a hybrid version using code-switching. Educational implications for higher education are discussed.     

University student anonymity in the summative assessment of written work

This paper provides an overview of the issue of student anonymity in the summative assessment of student work in higher education. It considers both theoretical literature pertaining to bias in the evaluation of the work of others and the limited empirical work undertaken on this issue in higher education. It then describes the experience of three higher education institutions in their institutional consideration of student anonymity in assessment. It concludes with an attempt to integrate three perspectives from teaching and learning theory into the anonymity debate, which has largely been conceived in terms of institutional policy, and suggests that there is scope for much further teaching and learning research in the area.     

The influence of student experience with word processors on the quality of essays written for a direct writing assessment

Although prior research has identified general procedural and qualitative differences between word-processed and pen and paper writing, little attention has been directed toward identifying how these differences relate to the prior word processing experiences of individual students. Additionally, few researchers have addressed the issue of fairness when discussing the use of word processors in writing assessment. This study investigates this relationship by comparing essays composed with pen and paper for a direct writing assessment to those composed with a word processor by students having different levels of experience with using word processors for writing.We observed differences between the two composition media similar to differences observed in previous studies of word-processed writing. That is, our results show that, overall, word-processed essays are neater and longer than were pen and paper essays. Word-processed essays also have a more formal tone and a weaker voice than their pen and paper counterparts. No composition medium differences were observed for the number of mechanical errors.In terms of how word processor experience interacts with writing quality, we found that word processors use neither improved nor worsen the quality of essays produced by students who have medium to high levels of experience using computers for writing. On the other hand, the word processor essays produced by students with a low level of experience writing with computers were scored, on a six-point scale, almost an entire point lower than those produced with pen and paper by these same students. Groups with high and medium levels of experience with word processors wrote slightly more words with a word processor than with pen and paper. On the other hand, the group with a low level of experience with using computers for writing wrote over 100 words fewer on word processors than with pen and paper. As for the number of simple sentences, groups with high and medium levels of comfort and experience with computers for writing wrote fewer simple sentences with a word processor than with pen and paper, while the group with a low level of comfort and experience with computers for writing wrote more simple sentences with word processors than with pen and paper. There were no group by media interactions for the number of mechanical errors.     

The role of task design and argumentation in cognitive development during peer interaction: The case of proportional reasoning

This paper examines task design that affords deep changes in mathematical thinking in the context of peer interaction. We describe a study in which 60 low-level high-school students solved a proportional reasoning task, the “blocks” task as individuals and/or in dyadic interaction. We show that we could tailor the design of the task in order to create a cognitive conflict among dyads, notwithstanding the strategies used by the students. We show that students' proportional reasoning strategies did not improve as a result of discussion even when guided by an experimenter dedicated at reaching consensus; however the introduction of a hypothesis testing device and the guidance of the experimenter to accommodate divergent views led peers to impressive conceptual change in their discussion and in an individual post-test. Examination of one case of dyadic interaction shows that beyond the value of given characteristics of individuals or of tasks, the process of argumentation that takes place between the peers explains the subsequent gains of the individuals. The conditions under which conceptual change was attained challenge theoretical views on cognitive development and social interactions.     

Starting small in assessment change: short in-class written responses

This paper is focused on an innovation which involved students being assessed on short written responses to an issue to be addressed in the following classroom session. The innovation was evaluated through a student survey, individual and focus-group interviews with participants, and the analysis of a critical friend. Positive findings included promoting student preparation and reflection, and enabling the teacher to understand students’ prior knowledge before the next session. Challenges included some student misperceptions about the assessment innovation, and the difficulty of assessing the short responses efficiently and reliably. The analysis suggests that starting small is a useful principle for assessment change. The discussion also brings out some wider issues of incentives and barriers for assessment innovation, and sketches some related future research directions.     

高校实验室文化管理刍议

通过对实验室文化管理含义和特点的表述,从目前高校实验管理的现状及文化管理的必要性出发,指出了实验室文化的对策。     

Dangerous liaisons: Reflections on a pilot project for state-mandated outcomes assessment of written communication

This study details the development and results of a campus-based writing assessment plan that was mandated by a state-wide university system in order to explore the “value-added” from a writing program curriculum to undergraduate students’ competence with written expression. Four writing samples (two timed essays and two conventional essays) that are produced before, during and at the close of enrollment in the writing program are scored for critical thinking, genre knowledge, rhetorical skills, and mechanics. The results indicate that local campus student achievement related to writing is comparable with performance captured by nationally normed technologies and larger assessment projects at similar state universities. The data also suggest significant performance difference related to the institutional position of students’ instructors as well as students’ own enrollment status. The article concludes that while the data produced by this research project are compelling, the policy and political implications of the undertaking suggest greater sensitivity to the institution's culture and program direction as well as its impact on instructor morale, student learning environment and the place of composition studies in the university.     

The effect of goal instructions and need for cognition on interactive argumentation

This study examines the effect of goal instructions on students’ reasoning and argumentation in an interactive context (discussing a topic on-line). Goal instructions specify the goal of a discussion. General goals (to persuade or explore) were crossed with specific goals (to generate reasons or counterarguments/rebuttals) in a 3 × 3 randomized design using 224 undergraduates. The design also controlled for need for cognition, which measures dispositions to think. The goal instruction to “generate as many reasons as possible” resulted in deeper, more contingent arguments, closer to Mercer’s (1996) notion of exploratory talk, whereas the persuade goal resulted in arguments that were more adversarial and somewhat better supported. The other goals had less dramatic effects. Need for cognition also predicted total argument claims and depth. These findings have important implications for building richer interactive discussions that promote the integration of ideas.     

Effectively feeding forward from one written assessment task to the next

Most studies into lecturers’ written feedback focus on the types of feedback found to be effective when students have the opportunity to act on that feedback, revise their written assignment and improve the mark they receive. But often students do not have this opportunity. Typically, they receive a mark and feedback on an assignment that they will never be able to rework and resubmit. This can leave students unsure about what to do with the feedback they receive. This paper reports on the use of high impact written feedback from lecturers that significantly improved student outcomes and grades from one assessment task to the next. It examines a range of factors which together make feedback in this context effective including: assessment design, use of grading standards and tutor training. These findings from a very large unit have significant implications for teaching staff who want to use feedback to feed forward and make a real difference to their students’ learning.     

CIPP评价模式对ESP教材编写的启示

ESP(English for Specific Purpose)教材是进行ESP教学的基础和核心,教材的研究将有助于ESP教学的改革和发展。而CIPP模式是一种被广泛认可接受并具有很强的实用性评价模式,适用于ESP课程改革,对于ESP教材的编写也将具有一定的指导意义。本文以CIPP评价模式为基础,讨论目前存在的问题,提出建议,以推动和完善该课程的建设。