How Teachers Promote Scientific Argumentation Between Students During School Science Laboratories

• In Event: 16.053 - Argumentation and Communication in Science Education

Abstract

In response to the call to engage students in generating and evaluating arguments, new instructional models have been designed to promote student engagement in scientific argumentation. The implementation of these instructional materials is an ambitious undertaking and teachers may implement these materials in ways that are not consistent with the intentions of the developers. To understand how to better supporting student argumentation, we described how 5 different teachers implement the same lessons using an argumentation instructional model over a school year. Our findings suggest that an instructional model designed to engage students in cognitively demanding and discursively rich learning opportunities can be enacted with different emphasis, depending on how the teacher frames the purpose of discursive argumentation events.

Authors

• Anna Margaret Strimaitis, Florida State University

• Patrick James Enderle, The University of Texas - Austin

• Jonathon Grooms, The George Washington University

• Victor Dale Sampson, The University of Texas - Austin

• Martin Bremer, Florida State University