Teachers’ Concerns about Implementing Teaching/Learning Approaches Informed by Constructivism

Changing emphases in science education during the past decade have placed teaching/learning approaches informed by constructivism on the ascendancy. However, implementing these approaches, which are not the usual classroom practices for many teachers, is likely to create difficulties. In this study, these difficulties were examined in terms of concerns expressed by a group of eight science teachers in one school prior to, and upon completion of, an 18‐month inservice programme specifically aimed at promoting teaching/learning approaches informed by constructivism. Teachers’ initial concerns were related to how the new approaches would affect their own teaching and how they could fulfil their responsibilities for completing the required syllabus. Post‐inservice concerns changed to a focus on how to maximise student involvement in science learning and to the consequences of their teaching. This paper concludes with implications for teacher educators who wish to use teachers’ concerns as indicators of difficulties encountered by teachers implementing new teaching/learning approaches.     

Teacher Roles of Questioning in Early Elementary Science Classrooms: A Framework Promoting Student Cognitive Complexities in Argumentation

The purpose of this study was to investigate the various roles that early elementary teachers adopt when questioning, to scaffold dialogic interaction and students’ cognitive responses for argumentative practices over time. Teacher questioning is a pivotal contributing factor that shapes the role teachers play in promoting dialogic interaction in argumentative practice and that different roles serve different functions for promoting students’ conceptual understanding. The multiple-case study was designed as a follow-up study after a 4-year professional development program that emphasized an argument-based inquiry approach. Data sources included 30 lessons focusing on whole class discussion from three early elementary teachers’ classes. Data were analyzed through two approaches: (1) constant comparative method and (2) enumerative approach. This study conceptualized four critical roles of teacher questioning—dispenser, moderator, coach, and participant—in light of the ownership of ideas and activities. The findings revealed two salient changes in teachers’ use of questions and the relationships between teachers’ question-asking and students’ cognitive responses: (1) teachers increasingly used multiple roles in establishing argumentative discourse as they persistently implemented an argument-based inquiry approach, and (2) as teachers used multiple roles in establishing patterns of questioning and framing classroom interactions, higher levels of student cognitive responses were promoted. This study suggests that an essential component of teacher professional development should include the study of the various roles that teachers can play when questioning for establishing dialogic interaction in argumentation and that this development should consist of ongoing training with systematic support.     

Examining the literacy component of science literacy: 25 years of language arts and science research

This review, written to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the International Journal of Science Education, revealed a period of changes in the theoretical views of the language arts, the perceived roles of language in science education, and the research approaches used to investigate oral and written language in science, science teaching, and learning. The early years were dominated by behavioralist and logico-mathematical interpretations of human learning and by reductionist research approaches, while the later years reflected an applied cognitive science and constructivist interpretations of learning and a wider array of research approaches that recognizes the holistic nature of teaching and learning. The early years focus on coding oral language into categories reflecting source of speech, functional purpose, level of question and response, reading research focused on the readability of textbooks using formulae and the reader's decoding skills, and writing research was not well documented since the advocates for writing in service of learning were grass roots practitioners and many science teachers were using writing as an evaluation technique. The advent of applied cognitive science and the constructivist perspectives ushered in interactive-constructive models of discourse, reading and writing that more clearly revealed the role of language in science and in science teaching and learning. A review of recent research revealed that the quantity and quality of oral interactions were low and unfocused in science classrooms; reading has expanded to consider comprehension strategies, metacognition, sources other than textbooks, and the design of inquiry environments for classrooms; and writing-to-learn science has focused on sequential writing tasks requiring transformation of ideas to enhance science learning. Several promising trends and future research directions flow from the synthesis of this 25-year period of examining the literacy component of science literacy - among them are critical listening and reading of various sources, multi-media presentations and representations, effective debate and argument, quality explanation and the role of information and communication technologies/environments.     

Grade 5 Students’ Online Argumentation about Their In-Class Inquiry Investigations

This study examined the extent to which fifth-grade students participate in online argumentation and the argument patterns they produced about the inquiry-based investigations completed using the Science Writing Heuristic approach in their science classes. One hundred twenty-nine students from five classes of two teachers in a Midwestern public school completed two inquiry-based investigation units, one per semester, followed by asynchronous online discussions using the Moodle forum. Among the 129 students, 107 students produced 739 notes in the plant investigation online discussion and 111 students produced 686 notes in the human health investigation online discussion. Results indicate that students were actively engaged in the online discussions about inquiry investigations with comments being focused on providing more evidence and backing for claims and negotiating evidence in both investigations. The students also engaged in challenging and querying the test procedures and reference sources as the basis for evidence. Implications are discussed for science teaching and learning and further study on argument-based inquiry in online environments.     

Examining the Impact of Student Use of Multiple Modal Representations in Constructing Arguments in Organic Chemistry Laboratory Classes

This study was designed to examine students’ use of multiple modal representations within their written arguments as a consequence of completing a series of investigations of an organic chemistry laboratory course. One hundred and eleven students from a major Midwestern university were involved in using the Science Writing Heuristic (SWH) approach where they are required to use the argument structure of question, claim, evidence and reflection in completing the written report for their instructor on their laboratory investigations. Results indicate that students who achieved a high score for embedded multiple modal representations in the evidence section also constructed high quality arguments. That is, students who were able to embed multiple modal representations in evidence made strong reasoned connections to support their claim(s) and construct a cohesive argument. Further, there were strong correlations between the laboratory examination score and holistic quality of argument. This study suggests there is a need to build support structures pedagogically for the individual in order to help students understanding the role and function of multiple modal representations in science.     

Framing Classroom Discussion of Same‐Sex Marriage

Assuming that the issue of same‐sex marriage should be discussed in schools, how should the discussion be framed? Michael Hand first distinguishes this question from the related but distinct question of whether discussion on this topic should be steered. He then examines three possible frames for discussion of same‐sex marriage: the perfectionist frame, the antiperfectionist frame, and the practical accommodation frame. He defends the perfectionist frame over the two alternatives: the purpose of state involvement in marriage is to promote valuable forms of intimate relationship, so the case for enabling same‐sex couples to marry turns on the ethical claim that same‐sex and opposite‐sex intimate relationships are similarly valuable. Interrogation of this ethical claim must be central to classroom discussion of same‐sex marriage.     

Education for autonomy: a rejoinder to Aviram and Assor

Aviram and Assor try two strategies for rebutting my recent critique of autonomy as an educational aim. First, they argue that my objection to dispositional autonomy fails. Second, they identify and defend a technical sense of autonomy quite different from any that I consider. I show here that there are serious problems with both lines of argument.     

Religious Upbringing Reconsidered

There is, on the face of it, a logical difficulty as well as a practical one about ascribing to parents both a right to give their children a religious upbringing and a duty to avoid indoctrinating them. Curiously, this logical difficulty was largely overlooked in the debate on religious upbringing and parental rights between Terence McLaughlin, Eamonn Callan and Peter Gardner in the 1980s. In this paper I set out the terms of the logical problem and propose a solution to it.     

The Distribution and Predictability of Cinema Admissions

Using a time series data set covering the period 1936–1999, this paper investigates the statistical distribution of cinema admissions and attempts to produce a forecasting model using the ARIMA methodology.