Navigating Disciplinary Practices in a Scientific Pursuit

• In Event: 60.026 - Learning Through Disciplinary Practices of Science

Abstract

The NGSS focuses significantly on engaging students in disciplinary practices. While there is extensive research on learners’ progress within particular practices, there has been little attention on students learning to coordinate multiple practices in an overarching pursuit of understanding. As an illustrative case, we present an extended discussion of fifth graders investigating evaporation. For 25 minutes, students pursued deeper understandings about what evaporation is and how it happens. We show that they coordinate various scientific practices within this pursuit, including asking questions, using analogies to build models, and presenting evidence in arguments, all as they refine their ideas about evaporation. The example, with others in the literature, supports arguments for cultivating disciplinary practices by first engaging learners’ curiosities about phenomena.

Authors

• Jessica Watkins, Tufts University

• Lama Ziad Jaber, Florida State University

• David Hammer, Tufts University