English Learners in STEM Subjects Transforming Classrooms, Schools, and Lives (2018) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
3 Relationship Between Language and STEM Learning for English Learners
3 Relationship Between Language and STEM Learning for English Learners
Pages 55-88
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From page 55... ...
THE ROLE OF LANGUAGE AND CULTURE IN STEM LEARNING All children grow up in communities that use language to engage in cultural practices that have developed historically and are shaped in ongoing ways to achieve the goals and values of the communities (Nasir et al., 2014)
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In turn, STEM students from a wide range of backgrounds bring the potential to contribute to shaping STEM fields in critical ways that transform and remake focal topics, practices, and contributions (Vossoughi, Hooper, and Escudé, 2016)
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The developmental pathways available to individual learners in STEM classrooms are influenced by the opportunities they are offered to participate in the practices and discourses of STEM fields. As described throughout Chapter 4, participation in these practices and discourses increases learners' capacities to generalize and express abstract ideas, develop disciplinary habits of mind and dispositions, and achieve success in STEM learning.
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developed systemic functional linguistics (SFL) , a theory of language that relates language choices to features of social contexts.
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Students use multiple registers as they engage in classroom activities in the same ways they use multiple registers as they engage in activities outside of school. Figure 3-1 shows how three aspects of a context, the content being engaged with, the relationships being enacted, and the modalities available to draw on, shape the actual language and meanings being presented.
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From page 60... ...
As they become more familiar with the technical aspects of the STEM concepts they are learning and the STEM practices they are engaging in, they move toward more disciplinary ways of talking about what they are learning, using technical language, sentence structure, and arguments more typical of written or formal discourse. This is how students develop new academic registers at the same time they learn new concepts, and teachers' awareness of the affordances of this register development over time can enable them to challenge ELs (Gibbons, 2015)
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That means that Sophia can make 15 tarts. Relationship Peer-to-peer, Reporting on Individual Author writing for face-to-face behalf of a small written a remote audience interaction group production for of learners the teacher Content Solving a Solving a Solving a Solving a fractions fractions division fractions division fractions division division problem problem problem problem In Context 1, the children first interact in a small group using manipulatives that represent the peaches to explore this problem.
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From page 62... ...
Through opportunities to engage with language in all these different forms of interactions, none of which is inherently "better" or "more appropriate" than any others in the abstract, learners are enabled to move between the language(s) and registers they bring to the classroom and the new registers they are learning to engage with as they participate in STEM learning.
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From page 63... ...
It is the committee's stance that through participation in such STEM learning contexts that engage all learners in using all of their meaning-making capacities, ELs will develop English language proficiency along with subject area knowledge, understanding, and practices. CURRENT CONTEXT OF STEM PREK–12 EDUCATION FOR ENGLISH LEARNERS In this section, the committee describes contemporary views of STEM education with ELs that provide important background for understanding the current literature; specific instructional strategies and the research associated with these views are discussed in Chapter 4.
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The Frame work recommends organizing science learning around three dimensions: scientific and engineering practices, crosscutting concepts, and disciplinary core ideas. The first dimension of scientific and engineering practices include the following: 1.
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As lessons fit together coherently and build on each other over the course of instruction, students develop deeper and more sophisticated understanding of science to make sense of the anchoring phenomenon for the unit of science instruction. As ELs develop deeper and more sophisticated science understanding over time, their language use becomes more sophisticated.
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. Knowledge-in-use in science education and language-in-use in second-language development complement each other, such that science instructional shifts promote language learning with ELs, while language instructional shifts promote science learning with ELs.
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The alignment of evidence in disciplinary-specific and genre-specific forms of language has entered studies of science education as argumentation (Duschl and Osborne, 2002)
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. Typically, aspects of technology education are incorporated into multiple disciplines (e.g., mathematics aligned to the Common Core State Standards, science and engineering aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards [NGSS]
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investigated the impact of interactive visualizations on 7th-grade students' coherent understanding of complex life science core ideas. These visualization technologies were embedded in Web-based inquiry instruction in science, and EL and non-EL students were randomly assigned to either a static or dynamic visualization condition.
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. Few studies have examined instructional materials that enable teachers of STEM subjects to support ELs in developing computational thinking.
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In 2012, the Framework (National Research Council, 2012) and the resulting NGSS articulated a new vision for three-dimensional learning by blending disciplinary core ideas, crosscutting concepts, and science and engineering practices that encompass both engineering and science.
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Mathematics and Mathematics Education The mathematics education community presents a contemporary view of mathematics instruction based on decades of research on mathematical proficiency and beliefs, and more recent research on mathematical practices, mathematical discourse, and the role of language in learning and teaching mathematics. Research focusing on language and mathematical discussions blossomed in the past 30 years (i.e., since Pimm, 1987)
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. These three aspects of mathematics instruction are based on mathematics education research and are evident in reforms initiated by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM)
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Such a narrow focus includes only procedural fluency while disregarding the other four components of mathematical proficiency. In particular, this narrow focus leaves out conceptual understanding, which supports accurate recall.
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Teachers who develop a contemporary view of mathematics instruction that does not rigidly prescribe the sequence of mathematical topics are better positioned to provide challenging grade-level instruction to ELs. An important result from research on mathematical proficiency is that students profit from exposure to advanced competencies as they build proficiency in less advanced competencies.
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. These proposals emphasize classroom activities that are developmentally appropriate approximations of academic mathematical practices.
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However, across these various communities and genres, there are common practices that can be labeled as academic mathematical practices (see CCSS mathematical practices listed above)
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In a classroom, a teacher's response to the first claim focusing on precision at the word level might be to ask a student to use a more formal word for "bigger." In contrast, a teacher focusing on precision at a discourse level would ask, "When does multiplication make a result bigger? " NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR EL STEM LEARNING Educational standards shape the educational system, students' experience within education, and the research that is conducted in education.
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Bilingual speakers have been documented using their two languages as resources for mathematical and science discus sions, for example, giving an explanation in one language and then repeating the explanation in another language (Moschkovich, 2002; Zahner and Moschkovich, 2011) or to support participation in mathematical practices (Moschkovish, 2015b)
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From page 80... ...
STEM subjects are best learned with the help of teachers who can support ELs in engaging in the disciplinary practices through which both disciplinary concepts and disciplinary language are developed simultaneously. Supporting language development across STEM disciplines requires that teachers develop both disciplinary concepts and practices, as well as knowledge about language and registers relevant to the discipline.
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. Conceptualizations of argumentation from science studies and the learning sciences and their implications for the practices of science education.
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' A study exploring students' justifications and decision-making. International Journal of Science Education, 34(3)
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. Epistemic practices and science education.
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. Science and language for English language learn ers in relation to Next Generation Science Standards and with implications for Common Core State Standards for English language arts and mathematics.
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. A Framework for K–12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas.
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. Language Demands and Opportunities in Relation to Next Generation Science Standards for English Language Learners: What Teachers Need to Know.
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Science Education, 93(4)
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