The Role of Cognitive Apprenticeships in Constructing and Critiquing Scientific Explanations and Engaging in Argumentation

• In Event: Millennium Hotel Roundtable Session 4
  In Roundtable Session: The How and the Why: Exploring the Role of Argumentation in Academic Writing Contexts

Abstract

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) call for students to engage in scientific practices, such as constructing explanations and engaging in argumentation with evidence (NRC, 2013). Many studies in science education focus on engaging students in explanation and argumentation—on constructing, critiquing, and responding to scientific explanations and arguments with evidence and reasoning orally, (Osborn, et al., 2004; Ford, 2008; Berland & Hammer, 2012) although a growing literature also draws focus to the same in writing (Sandoval & Millwood, 2004). In this study, we provided instruction to and report on these learning outcomes for 33 seventh-grade students with varying academic profiles who received science instruction a large school district in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States.

Authors

• Susan De La Paz, University of Maryland

• Daniel M. Levin, University of Maryland - College Park

• Yewon Lee, University of Maryland - College Park