Reiser et al’s article is about Engaging Students in the Scientific Practices of Explanation and
Argumentation. Instead of giving an
explanation of a process, explain why the process occurs that way. Effective classroom scaffolding for these
explanations will include prompting students to support claims with evidence
and reasoning. In order for students to
be successful in this process, they need to, meaningfully, engage and reflect
in scientific inquiry. The article them
provided some examples of classroom discussions where such meaningful inquiry
has occurred.
Sampson and Gleim’s article is about Argument-Driven Inquiry To Promote the Understanding of Important
Concepts & Practices in Biology.
The instructional model, Arugment-Driven Inquiry (ADI) integrates
inquiry-based laboratory experiences with other school subjects like, reading
and writing, in a way that promotes and supports learning. The steps in ADI include, the identification
of a task, a laboratory-based experience, the production of a tentative
argument, an argumentation session, a written investigation report, a double-blind
peer review, a revision of the report, and an explicit and reflective
discussion about the inquiry. In
contrast to Reiser et al, Sampson and Gleim recommend that the teacher provide
students with a list of materials that can be used in the investigation along
with some hints to get students started in a productive direction. They say that the first three steps of ADI
can be completed in two 50-minute class periods. Then the interactive argumentation session
can be completed using a “round robin” format to promote more individual
participation as well as seem less intimidating for some students. Writing an investigation report, having a
double-blind peer review, and then having a revision process is essential in
that it helps students understand how to development arguments and support
their claims with evidence. These steps
also help foster good writing techniques, which are skills that can be
transferred to any subject.
For Reiser et al’s article, I disagree that scientific
argumentation occurs only when a claim is in doubt or is contested. Like in the Galileo or Newton essays, it seems
to be beneficial to argue for one’s own claim before anyone has a chance to
doubt or contest it. Although novel for
their time, I feel like this is a very common practice now. I do not get why Reiser et al would frame
argumentation this way when just a paragraph later they mention that, “as
scientists consider alternative interpretations of the same observations, they
argue to identify weaknesses in various explanations.” To me, this seems as though a step a
scientist must take before stating a claim.
This article also mentions after one example that, “the spontaneity of
the students’ discourse…suggests that these interactions are meaningful,” and in
only one of the examples does a teacher have to guide his students, for which Reiser
et al do not really say anything about the significance of this guidance. This makes me question whether or not a
teacher’s guidance could also make interactions meaningful. In my experience, a teacher could ask one
well placed question in order to get his/her students thinking on the right
track. Obviously if the students are
“getting it,” no prompting would be needed, but that is not always the case. However, Sampson and Gleim do claim throughout
their ADI process, that the role of the teacher is essential to this process
for students because a lot of students will be unfamiliar with scientific
argumentation. They mention that
promoting critical reflection becomes easier over time as the students gain
more experience and educative feedback to improve their critical reflection
skills. As a future teacher, that is a
moment I will really look forward to in my classroom.
Kim, I thought you brought up a good point about the “spontaneity of the student’s discourse,” and that while ideal most oftentimes does not happen. These concepts of modeling are relatively newfound and therefore are not practiced in many schools. Thus, these “ideal” situations are not even relatively realistic. Thus, while hopefully schools while create an environment where students can reach this higher level thinking without prompting, teacher guidance is essential for this teaching instruction to even begin to occur. I would especially like to read articles about how/the best way to educate students about this new method, instead of just highly skilled classroom where modeling is in fully swing and the students already grasp this form of learning.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your argument against Reiser's belief that scientists reflect and look for problems in their work before they set it out to the community for other to either test out the hypothesis for themselves or critique the study. However, I feel that Reiser frames his method that way because he feels that students in k-12 may not have enough experience to reflect on their own work that well yet. The argumentation framework would give them practice arguing and defending their explanation. As the students move throughout the year they would get better.
ReplyDeleteI did not feel like Sampson's model had so many steps before I read your post. Now, I feel that his model may cause students to, maybe not get confused, but think that a unit is prolonged. Having to rewrite reports would make me feel apathetic about a topic. However, I guess it would teach students to write a better argument.
I don't know how I feel about how you feel. If Reiser et al truly believes that students in K-12 may not have enough experience to reflect on their own work in order to defend their theories, why should he expect them to be able to think spontaneously enough to get to a valid reasoning for whatever model they happen to be discussing. After reviewing the dialogues from the different classrooms, it seems like the only intention of them was to prove that discourse with peers aids in discovery or realization of a part of a model. Through this type of discourse, weaknesses in others' explanations were identified. I do wonder if that sequence occurred only because of how peer input was set up for those classrooms. If a teacher required students to prepare findings and give explanations for those findings with evidence to defend them, the students might be "forced" to consider alternatives beforehand.
DeleteI agree that although it might make for a prolonged lab experiment, the benefits to ADI are impressive. I hope that you would never feel apathetic about a scientific topic! But the teacher would have a difficult job of setting up the experiment so that his/her students' interests are always peaked.
piqued**
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