Examining Middle School Students’ Use of Web-Based Annotations to Engage in Scientific Argumentation

• In Event: Roundtable Session 29
  In Roundtable Session: Investigating Different Ways of Knowing and Learning Inside and Outside the Science Classroom

Abstract

This study explored 6th graders’ use of digital annotation apps to engage in collaborative reading of a science text. Reading was positioned, together with first hand investigation, to support science inquiry and argumentation development in an instructional unit focused on climate change. Analysis revealed that students’ digital interactions involved defining terms, posing open-ended questions that invited others reactions, responding to questions, stating a claim, summarizing what the text or other students shared, disagreeing or challenging a peer, or extending a peer’s idea with more evidence. These exchanges drew on the process of collaboration as students adopted alternative perspectives or challenged each other based on evidence or counter-evidence from the text. This suggests that digital annotations supported participation in scientific argumentation.

Authors

• Jill M. Castek, Portland State University

• Richard W. Beach, University of Minnesota

• John Michael Scott, University of California - Berkeley

• Heather Cotanch, Teachscape, Inc.