Examining Elementary Students’ Development of Oral and Written Argumentation Practices Through Argument-Based Inquiry

Argumentation, and the production of scientific arguments are critical elements of inquiry that are necessary for helping students become scientifically literate through engaging them in constructing and critiquing ideas. This case study employed a mixed methods research design to examine the development in 5th grade students’ practices of oral and written argumentation from one unit to another over 16 weeks utilizing the science writing heuristic approach. Data sources included five rounds of whole-class discussion focused on group presentations of arguments that occurred over eleven class periods; students’ group writings; interviews with six target students and the teacher; and the researcher’s field notes. The results revealed five salient trends in students’ development of oral and written argumentative practices over time: (1) Students came to use more critique components as they participated in more rounds of whole-class discussion focused on group presentations of arguments; (2) by challenging each other’s arguments, students came to focus on the coherence of the argument and the quality of evidence; (3) students came to use evidence to defend, support, and reject arguments; (4) the quality of students’ writing continuously improved over time; and (5) students connected oral argument skills to written argument skills as they had opportunities to revise their writing after debating and developed awareness of the usefulness of critique from peers. Given the development in oral argumentative practices and the quality of written arguments over time, this study indicates that students’ development of oral and written argumentative practices is positively related to each other. This study suggests that argumentative practices should be framed through both a social and epistemic understanding of argument-utilizing talk and writing as vehicles to create norms of these complex practices.     

Teacher’s Role in the Oral English Class

English speaking has been paid more attention today, especially in the age of globalization. Teachers are attempting to find out more effective methods to enhance the teaching results of English speaking. Facing the great demands and present difficulties of oral English classes, teachers have to conduct more study and practice to find out what roles that an oral English teacher has to take in the oral English classroom. Compared with the traditional teaching role in the English classroom, an oral English teacher has to fulfill more than one role in the classroom teaching so as to provide better learning conditions for students. Lacking more exposure to the real interaction with native speakers, students expect the oral English teacher to be a creator of the language environment. With various teaching and learning activities in the oral English classroom, the teacher has to be a good organizer to ensure every student to achieve improvement. An oral English teacher also has to correct students’language errors while ensuring the smooth progress of the classroom teaching. Only when an oral English teacher make clear what roles he or she has to take in the classroom can he or she achieve effective teaching.     

Beliefs,Practices, and Reflection: Exploring a Science Teacher’s Classroom Assessment Through the Assessment Triangle Model

This paper describes the Assessment Practices Framework and how I used it to study a high school Chemistry teacher as she designed, implemented, and learned from a chemistry lab report. The framework consists of exploring three teacher-centered components of classroom assessment (assessment beliefs, practices, and reflection) and analyzing components with the assessment triangle model (Pellegrino et al. in, Knowing what students know: The science and design of educational assessment. National Academy Press, Washington DC, 2001). Employing the framework, I report the teacher’s assessment practices, report the alignment in her assessment practices through the three vertices of the assessment triangle (cognition, observation, and interpretation), and suggest relations between her beliefs and practices. I conclude by discussing the contribution and limitations of the Assessment Practices Framework while conducting future research and supporting science teachers in assessing student learning.     

Young Children’s Development of Scientific Knowledge Through the Combination of Teacher-Guided Play and Child-Guided Play

Research in Science Education - Play-based approaches to science learning allow children to meaningfully draw on their everyday experiences and activities as they explore science concepts in...     

Assessing the psychometric properties of Kember and Leung’s Reflection Questionnaire

Reflective thinking is often stated as a learning outcome of baccalaureate nursing education, and as a characteristic of a competent professional; however, no consistent method exists to assess the extent to which students engage in reflective thinking. To address this need, Kember and Leung developed and tested a self-report questionnaire based on Mezirow’s conceptualisation of levels of reflective thinking. The purpose of this study was to test the psychometric properties of the Reflection Questionnaire, developed by Kember and Leung. A convenience sample (n?=?538) of third-year baccalaureate nursing students from four collaborative nursing programmes in Ontario was used. Ethical approval was secured from 10 sites. Second-order confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) were used to test the factor structure of the Reflection Questionnaire. This research was part of a larger study on reflective thinking and is a first step in validating a four-level measure of reflective thinking, in educational environments, with baccalaureate nursing students. The results of the second-order CFA provide support for the construct validity of reflective thinking. Results of this study contribute to the evidence supporting the reliability and validity of the questionnaire. Nurse educators can use this information when implementing the questionnaire, and learning the extent to which students are engaging in the reflective thinking process.     

Self-Study of a Teacher’s Practices of and Experience with Emotion Regulation: Being and Becoming through Reflection and Engagement

ABSTRACT

Research on teacher emotion regulation is typically conducted by outsiders and focuses on how emotion is regulated. This self-study was conducted by a practicing teacher to explore the lived experience of teacher emotion regulation and the many influences that inspire the need for such regulation. Throughout a 14-week semester, daily “in-the-moment” recordings of emotion were collected as they arose, and analyzed weekly. With a critical friend, further analysis was conducted to explore the genesis of the emotion as well as the response and possible alternatives. We believe that understanding the experience of the emotion is possibly more important than how it is regulated. Through reflection, this teacher began to resolve deeper issues that had evoked negative emotions, which shifted her approach to difficult situations and reduced the amount of negative emotions experienced. We conclude that the research on emotion regulation should focus on understanding the underlying issue triggering the emotion than on controlling the emotions displayed.     

Exploring the Complexities of Children’s Inquiries in Science: Knowledge Production Through Participatory Practices

Beginning with the assumption that young children are capable of producing unprecedented knowledges about science phenomena, this paper explores the complexities of children’s inquiries within open-ended investigations. I ask two central questions: (1) how can we (teachers, researchers, and children themselves) use and build upon children’s explorations in science in practice? and (2) what pedagogical approaches can position children as experts on their experiences to facilitate children’s sense of ownership in the process of learning science? Six vignettes from a Kindergarten classroom are analyzed to elaborate the central claim of this work, which is that when children are engaged in collaborative open-ended activities, science emerges from their interactions. Open-ended structures allowed for teachers and children to facilitate further investigations collaboratively, and participatory structures mediated children’s representations and explanations of their investigations. Evidence of children’s interactions is used to illustrate the complexities of children’s explorations, and pedagogical approaches that create the spaces for children to create knowledge are highlighted.     

Understanding a High School Physics Teacher’s Pedagogical Content Knowledge of Argumentation

Scientific argumentation is an important learning objective in science education. It is also an effective instructional approach to constructivist science learning. The implementation of argumentation in school settings requires science teachers, who are pivotal agents of transforming classroom practices, to develop sophisticated knowledge of argumentation. However, there is a lack of understanding about science teachers’ knowledge of argumentation, especially the dialogic meaning of argumentation. In this case study, we closely examine a high school physics teacher’s argumentation-related pedagogic content knowledge (PCK) in the context of dialogic argumentation. We synthesize the teacher’s performed PCK from his argumentation practices and narrated PCK from his reflection on the argumentation practices, from which we summarize his PCK of argumentation from the perspectives of orientation, instructional strategies, students, curriculum, and assessment. Finally, we describe the teacher’s perception and adaption of argumentation in his class. We also identity the barriers to argumentation implementation in this particular case and suggest solutions to overcome these barriers.     

Tensions and the Teacher’s Role in Student Teacher Identity Development in Primary and Subject Teacher Curricula

This paper describes a 2-year follow-up study on teacher identity development in different types of teacher education programmes. Teacher identity development was analysed with a focus on student teachers’ views of teacher’s roles and tensions experienced during their studies. Student teachers (n?=?20) were interviewed at the beginning and end of the master-level studies. Three types of tensions were identified: (1) conception of self versus professional role, (2) role expectations versus university training, (3) and multiple professional role expectations. The follow-up study showed that tensions tended to accumulate to some extent. However, successful consolidation of tensions appeared to depend on how the student teachers were able to recognise resources at their disposal, with implications for organisation of reflection support in teacher education.     

Jocasta’s Crime and Fanyi’s Punishment: Reflection on Oedipus the King and Thunderstorm

From Oedipus the King and Thunderstorm, the masterpiece of tragedies, the author intended to throw light on the Jocasta and Fanyi, two female characters bearing sharply different cultural, social and religious mark, though, depicted similarly as unacceptable roles obsessed with the freak love and strong lust drive for their sons. Thus from the angle of respective emotional motivation, the author made a reflection on Jocasta’s crime and Fanyi’s punishment.     

Knowledge Restructuring in the Development of Children’s Cosmologies

The development of children’s cosmologies was investigated over a 13‐year period, using multi‐modal, in‐depth interviews with 686 children (217 boys, 227 girls from New Zealand and 129 boys, 113 girls from China), aged 2–18. Children were interviewed while they observed the apparent motion of the Sun and Moon, and other features of the Earth; drew their ideas of the shape and motion of the Earth, Moon and Sun, and the causes of daytime and night‐time; then modelled them using play‐dough; which led into discussion of related ideas. These interviews revealed that children’s cosmologies were far richer than previously thought and surprisingly similar in developmental trends across the two cultures. There was persuasive evidence of three types of conceptual change: a long‐term process (over years) similar to weak restructuring; a medium‐term process (over months) akin to radical restructuring; and a dynamic form of conceptual crystallisation (often in seconds) whereby previously unconnected/conflicting concepts gel to bring new meaning to previously isolated ideas. The interview technique enabled the researchers to ascertain children’s concepts from intuitive, cultural, and scientific levels. The evidence supports the argument that children have coherent cosmologies that they actively create to make sense of the world rather than fragmented, incoherent “knowledge‐in‐pieces”.     

Knowledge of persuasion and writing goals predict the quality of children’s persuasive writing

Reading and Writing - We assessed the influence of genre-specific discourse knowledge and writing goals on the persuasive writing of 4th and 6th grade students with and without learning...     

Tradition and Innovation in the Practical Culture of Schools in Franco’s Spain

The paper reviews school practice in Spain through the long historic period of the dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco between the 1936 Civil War and Franco’s death in 1975. For this purpose, an analysis is made of the most relevant documents (school materials, reports, direct testimonies by practising teachers, scientific papers on education and education legislation) of each period of Franco’s Regime. Those different types of documents objectify, in accordance with Agustin Escolano’s terminology, three distinct modalities of school culture: the practical, experience‐based culture which is shaped and transmitted by teachers while practising their profession; the scientific culture, which is organized around the knowledge acquired from teaching speculation and research; and the political culture, which comprises political‐institutional discourses and practices that are translated into regulatory provisions supporting the formal organization of education. These three different cultures were supported by three different logics, which proved to be autonomous and at the same time interdependent during the long Franco period. The result will be a presentation of the different importance attached in school practice to tradition, teaching innovations, professional routines and changes.     

Capturing the Transformation and Dynamic Nature of an Elementary Teacher Candidate’s Identity Development as a Teacher of Science

This study examines the transformation and dynamic nature of one teacher candidate’s (Susan) identity as a learner and teacher of science throughout an innovative science methods course. The goal of this paper is to use theoretically derived themes grounded in cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) and situated learning theory to determine the ways in which Susan’s identity as a learner and teacher of science was influenced by her experiences in the course, and to describe how she made meaning of her transformative process. The following are the three theoretical themes: (1) learning contributes to identity development, (2) identity development is a dialogical process that occurs between individuals, not within individuals, and (3) social practice leads to transformations and transformations lead to the creation of new social practices. Within each theme, specific experiences in the science methods course are identified that influenced Susan’s identity development as a teacher of science. Knowing how context and experiences influence identity development can inform design decisions concerning teacher education programs, courses, and experiences for candidates.     

Beliefs About the Teacher’s Role in the Mathematics Classroom: One Student Teacher’s Explorations in Fiction and in Practice

This case study of a preservice secondary mathematics teacher focuses on the teacher’s beliefs about his role as mathematics teacher. Data were collected over the final 5 months of the teacher’s university teacher education program through interviews, written course assignments, and observations of student-teaching. Findings indicate that the preservice teacher valued classroom roles in which students, rather than the teacher, explained traditional mathematics content. As his student-teaching internship progressed, the teacher began to develop new roles and engaged students in additional mathematical processes. These results emphasize the need for preservice teachers to recognize how teacher and student roles impact interrelationships between understanding and mathematical activity, and illustrate the nature of teacher learning that can occur during an internship.     

Elementary Teachers’ Mathematics Subject Knowledge: the Knowledge Quartet and the Case of Naomi

This paper draws on videotapes of mathematics lessons prepared and conducted by pre-service elementary teachers towards the end of their initial training at one university. The aim was to locate ways in which they drew on their knowledge of mathematics and mathematics pedagogy in their teaching. A grounded approach to data analysis led to the identification of a ‘knowledge quartet’, with four broad dimensions, or ‘units’, through which mathematics-related knowledge of these beginning teachers could be observed in practice. We term the four units: foundation, transformation, connection and contingency. This paper describes how each of these units is characterised and analyses one of the videotaped lessons, showing how each dimension of the quartet can be identified in the lesson. We claim that the quartet can be used as a framework for lesson observation and for mathematics teaching development.