Investigating Science Language Use in Sixth Graders' Development and Communication of Conceptual Knowledge About Matter and Molecules in WeInvestigate

• In Event: 46.086 - Roundtable Session 16
  In Roundtable Session: 46.086-4 - Investigating WeInvestigate: The Close Study of Cyberlearning in a Sixth-Grade Science Class

Abstract

While students’ learning of academic vocabulary has received increasing attention (e.g., Snow, Lawrence, & White, 2009; Lesaux, Kieffer, Faller, & Kelley, 2010), fewer studies examine students’ participation in disciplinary discourse and how this participation influences the development and communication of conceptual understanding in science. The purpose of this study was to explore how the WeInvestigate learning environment supported students’ development of science language practices and ability to communicate conceptual understanding. I asked:
1. Do students’ interactions with the multiple features of the WeInvestigate learning environment scaffold students’ development of science language and ability to communicate conceptual understanding in talk and writing? If so, how?
2. Is there evidence that ability to employ science language practices and communicate conceptual understanding developed during collaborative activities translates to students’ completion of individual tasks?

Consistent with a sociocultural perspective, I ascribe to the view that development of scientific understanding is supported by meaningful opportunities to practice “talking science” (Lemke, 1990), and that youth’s ability to articulate conceptual understanding is intricately bound to their science language resources. Gibbons (2004) and Mercer (2002) provide support for this perspective.

Seven sixth-grade students served as focal students in the WeInvestigate research and the participants in this study. Student collaboration is an essential feature of the curriculum, thus the students represent three partner groups. As described in paper #1, the tablet technology supported students’ collaborative viewing of simulations and videos, writing, model drawing, and reading of relevant text.

Data sources utilized in this study consisted of pre- and post-assessments; individual students’ writing samples; collaborative writing samples; audio recordings and transcripts of partner dialogue during selected lessons; and images, audio recordings, and transcripts from a word-sorting task and interview.

To address the research questions I employed a range of qualitative methods, including analysis of independent and collaborative writing samples (Miles, Huberman, & Saldana, 2013), partner dialogue during collaborative learning tasks (Mercer, 2010), and students’ pre- and post-assessment scores. In addition, I developed data displays of the word-sorting tasks (pre- and post-intervention) (Miles, Huberman, & Saldana, 2013) to investigate what these revealed about students’ appropriation of academic language.

The report of the findings focus on how WeInvestigate instruction supported students’ science language development and communication of conceptual understanding. There is emerging evidence that collective sense making and co-construction of written explanations was supported by talk between partners. Student dialogue demonstrated characteristics of exploratory talk, which supports students’ learning in science (e.g., Mercer, Dawes, Wegerif, & Sams, 2004).

There is also emerging evidence that science language practices developed during collaborative tasks translated to students’ completion of individual tasks. All participants’ demonstrated score gains from pre- to post- assessment and made some progress toward understanding and articulating the “thematic pattern” (see Lemke, 1990) of science terms related to matter and molecules.

The broad-scale implementation of cyberlearning in schools will depend, in part, upon the evidence that literacy learning goals can be supported and attained. Studies of this kind can inform educators and developers of the literacy challenges and opportunities in digital collaborative contexts.

Author

• Miranda Fitzgerald, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor