Ready, Set, SCIENCE! Putting Research to Work in K-8 Science Classrooms (2008) / Chapter Skim
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5 Making Thinking Visible: Talk and Argument
5 Making Thinking Visible: Talk and Argument
Pages 87-108
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From page 87... ...
In this way, communities of scientists challenge and validate one another's ideas in order to advance knowledge. These practices have analogues in science classrooms.1 Effective science teaching can employ some of the same methods of communication and representa tion that are used by scientists in the real world.
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From page 88... ...
It is quite common, however, for children and adults alike to confuse specialized science definitions with the more familiar definitions commonly associated with those words. An example of this, as mentioned earlier, relates to the word "theory," which in science is understood to mean "a well-elaborated body of scientific knowledge that explains a large group of phenomena." In common parlance, the word "theory" is often used to refer to a guess or a hunch.
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From page 89... ...
Scientific argumentation focuses on ideas, and any resulting criticism targets those ideas and observations, not the individuals who express them. Scientists under stand that, ultimately, building scientific knowledge requires building theories that incorporate the largest number of valid observations possible.
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From page 90... ...
These "talk moves" implicitly communicate that it takes effort, time, and patience to explicate one's reasoning and that building arguments with evidence is challenging intellectual work. The table on the next page shows six productive classroom talk moves2 and examples of each, which teachers can use to help students clarify and 90 Ready, Set, SCIENCE!
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From page 91... ...
Examples include partner talk, whole-group discussion, student presentations, and small-group work. A number of studies have suggested that productive classroom talk has many benefits in the classroom.
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From page 92... ...
• It may provide motivation by enabling students to become affiliated with their peers' claims and positions. Many educators reading the classroom case studies in this book might doubt whether this kind of productive talk can really take place in science classrooms.
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From page 93... ...
In addition, it featured materials and scenarios familiar to the students, so that each student believed that they could anticipate the outcome. By using familiar materials and phenomena, students can more readily conjure up their own ideas and experiences and tap into these as they build explanations.
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From page 94... ...
In position-driven discussions, as in most effective classroom talk and argu ment formats, the teacher's role is to help students explicate their positions as clearly and cogently as possible, not indicating, even subtly, how close to the "right" answer they may be. The teacher does not evaluate student contributions as correct or incorrect, as is often common in traditional teacher-guided discussion or recitation.
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From page 95... ...
As we described earlier, the most productive classroom environments, in all subject areas, are those that are enriched by talk and argument. But many students and teachers are not accustomed to or comfortable with extensive student talk in the classroom, so it is important to understand how to define and establish effective, acceptable classroom norms for discussion.
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From page 96... ...
After one more warning, another infraction puts a student on red and the parent is called after school. If there is a serious infraction, she stops the class and has everyone turn to their Green Sheets to find the right or obligation that relates to that particular infraction.
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From page 97... ...
In addition, all students are shaped by their cultural backgrounds, and those backgrounds affect how they learn science and communicate in the science classroom. Today's students come from a variety of cultural backgrounds and have different ways of behaving, thinking, and interpreting the world, and they interact differently with the com munities and institutions that they encounter in their everyday lives.
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From page 98... ...
Some children even bring a second language to the classroom at a level of sophisti cation and fluency that few of their teachers are able to match. If all children have linguistic abilities, why does it sometimes seem that cer tain students are not adept language users?
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From page 99... ...
She found that the students' talk, when analyzed closely, showed evidence of rigorous thinking and of students hearing and building on one another's contributions. In addition to coming to school with different discourse experiences and styles, some children have had far less exposure than others to many of the kinds of practices that form the basis of scientific activities and investigations, including providing explanations, analyzing data, making arguments, providing evidence for their claims, and interpreting texts.
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From page 100... ...
The work of establishing, understanding, and modifying classroom norms for scientific thinking must be ongoing. Students themselves can help create these norms by proposing, debating, and establishing criteria for what counts as a good scientific question or what counts as persuasive evidence.
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From page 101... ...
His original intention had been to set up an experiment to establish whether ants prefer an environment that is dark to one that is brightly lit. But as this student imagined himself as an ant crawling through the soil, he began to wonder how either side of the chamber -- lit or unlit -- could possibly appear light to an ant underground.9 The Chèche Konnen research program demonstrates how the cultural practices of urban, language-minority students can be drawn on to support high-level scientific reasoning and problem solving.10 Some of the strategies discussed earlier in this chapter, such as student and teacher revoicing, the modeling of scientific argument, and the use of wait time, are especially helpful in classrooms in which there is great linguistic diversity among students.
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From page 102... ...
It exposes students to complex scientific rea soning, allows them to practice it with support and guidance from their teacher and peers, and gives them opportunities to become confident and competent in presenting their claims, models, and explanations as well as at challenging evi dence and asking questions. In establishing norms for inclusion so that students of different cultural backgrounds and experience can understand and build on one another's ideas, teachers must also find ways to ensure equitable access for all students to par ticipate in the talk that surrounds scientific investigations.
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From page 103... ...
This makes for a complex social dynamic that is critical for teachers and students to learn to monitor. In creating an environment that supports equitable participation in classroom discourse, it is critical to pay special attention to English language learners.
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From page 104... ...
native speaker of Haitian Creole, had moved to Ms. After a particular problem was posed, students Wright's class two months earlier from a transitional were asked to predict, by a class vote, whether the Haitian bilingual classroom.
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From page 105... ...
Ms. this five, two times five here and three time Wright performed the demonstration, which showed three is nine plus the one point is ten." that the scale did, in fact, balance.
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From page 106... ...
Representing ideas through talk and argument plays an essential role in learning in general and a more specialized role in the learning and practicing of science. In the science classroom, students need opportunities to talk through their own ideas and hear and respond to those of their peers.
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From page 107... ...
The methods described in this chapter can serve as entry points for improving the practice of classroom discourse and for adjusting the ways teachers may structure student interactions related to science. In order to do this, teachers will need opportunities to observe science classrooms like the ones described in this chapter.
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From page 108... ...
Chapter 9 in Committee on Science Learning, Kindergarten Through Eighth Grade, Taking science to school: Learning and teaching science in grades K-8 (pp.
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