Learning to Notice: Supporting Students' Meaningful Engagement in Scientific Practices

• In Event: 63.018 - Promising Scholarship in Education: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research

Abstract

The reform vision articulated in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) is to involve
students in meaningful science and engineering practices to develop explanatory core ideas (National
Research Council, 2012; NGSS Lead States, 2013). Key to these efforts is for students to develop
explanatory models of phenomena using evidence and use argument to evaluate, compare, and reach
consensus on revised models (Lehrer & Schauble, 2006; Passmore & Svoboda, 2011; Schwarz et al.,
2009). Meaningful practice, rather than rote activity, requires that students understand what they are
doing, how it will help them to achieve their scientific goals, and what counts as successful engagement.
Existing classroom practices pose challenges for students taking up modeling as a meaningful
scientific practice, as many students and teachers have little experience using scientific practices in
authentic or meaningful ways (Banilower et al., 2013; Windschitl, Thompson, & Braaten, 2008).
Researchers have acknowledged that the proposed shifts in classroom practice are difficult to implement
without adequate professional support (Alozie, Moje, & Krajcik, 2010), yet the steps required to promote
and support these classroom shifts have not been fully developed (Windschitl, Thompson, Braaten, &
Stroupe, 2012). Much research has involved helping students engage in scientific practices by
emphasizing the nature of the steps or what the products should contain, such as stating that claims need
to be supported by evidence (e.g. McNeill, Lizotte, Krajcik, & Marx, 2006). While this can support the
characteristics or components of the desired knowledge product, it does not necessarily support
understanding why these aspects are important for achieving one’s goals. Consequently, students might
learn what to do at the rote level without connecting the epistemic questions guiding scientists’ work to
their own knowledge building. Thus, more work is needed to 1) develop an understanding of the meaning
that students and teachers apply to their use of modeling to explain phenomena, 2) understand the
successes and challenges involved in students’ and teachers’ attempts to interpret and implement these
new classroom practices, and 3) develop methods to help teachers support students’ meaningful use of
scientific practices to construct knowledge.
To contribute to our understanding of how to facilitate these shifts for students and teachers, I
conducted two studies that examine how supporting the epistemic dimensions of scientific practice can be
used to prevent the role use of these practices. These aspects are 1) the epistemic considerations (ECs),
which are the epistemic understandings or questions that implicitly or explicitly guide students’ scientific
decisions (Berland et al., under review); 2) participants' perceived epistemic aims, which are the goals for
acquiring some type of knowledge or understanding (Chinn, Buckland, & Samarapungavan, 2011); 3) the
extent to which participants have epistemic agency or “responsibility of shaping the knowledge and
practices of a community” (Stroupe, 2014, p. 488); and 4) the students’ interpretation for why they are
engaged in modeling and the role of modeling on their learning.

Author

• Abraham Lo, Northwestern University