Using Knowledge Integration to Support English Language Learners in Science Practices

• In Event: Knowledge Integration: Trajectories, Opportunities, and Future Directions

Abstract

Objectives & Theoretical Framework. The Next Generation Science Standards ([NGSS]; NGSS Lead States, 2013) call for helping all students, including English Language Learners (ELLs), develop deep understanding of complex phenomena through science practices, such as designing and using a model (Krajcik, Codere, Dahsah, Bayer, & Mun, 2014). Yet engaging in such science practices can be language-intensive for ELLs who speak a language other than English at home. Modeling requires learners to extensively use language of the science classroom while making sense of scientific phenomena (Lee, Quinn, & Valdés, 2013). When carefully scaffolded, interactive visualization technologies have the potential to support ELLs’ engagement in such processes by providing concrete tools and visual resources (Ryoo & Bedell, in press). Research is needed to show how these technologies can benefit ELLs who are traditionally underserved in mainstream science classrooms (Buxton, 1999; Dixon, 1995; Hudicourt-Barnes, 2003). This poster explores how interactive visualizations supported by the Knowledge Integration (KI) framework (Linn & Eylon, 2011) can provide ELLs with opportunities to engage in discourse-rich science practices to understand energy and matter in life and physical sciences.
Methods. As part of a larger research project, 7th-grade and 8th-grade ELLs and non-ELLs from two low-income middle schools completed two web-based inquiry units in life science (7th-grade) and physical science (8th-grade). The units featured a range of interactive visualizations, scaffolded by KI guidance, to engage students in science practices associated with unobservable concepts of energy and matter in life and physical sciences. Given prior research on the benefits of ELLs working with non-ELLs (Carrier, 2005), ELLs were randomly paired with non-ELLs after considering suggestions from teachers. At least two pairs per class were selected and videotaped.
We analyzed 34 video cases that focus on three visualization activities using an animation, a simulation, and a modeling tool to capture ELLs’ discourse patterns while engaging in science practices. All video data were fully transcribed and broken into utterances for coding. Each utterance was coded using a coding scheme based on the KI framework and NGSS practices, as well as prior research on students’ scientific talk and argumentation (e.g., Berland & Reiser, 2009; Evagorou & Osborne, 2013; McNeill & Pimentel, 2010).
Results. Our preliminary findings show that the visualizations scaffolded by KI guidance helped ELLs make sense of complex scientific phenomena while engaging in six NGSS practices. The four NGSS practices that Lee, Quinn, and Valdés (2013) identified as important yet difficult for ELLs were frequently observed while ELLs interacted with all three types of visualizations. Specifically these four practices were used in rich collaborative interactions: (1) developing and using models, (2) constructing explanations, (3) engaging in argument from evidence, and (4) obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information. ELLs took advantage of scientific language functions, such as using evidence from visualizations to critique their partner’s ideas and verbalizing their interpretations of data by linking multiple representations.
Significance. These findings illustrate how KI guidance can create multiple opportunities for discourse-rich science practices for ELLs.

Author

• Kihyun "Kelly" Ryoo, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill