Week 7 readings

Both readings this week in my opinon seemed like lab manuals. In both of the readings students use models such as white boards and  diagramns to reinforce the content learned. This is quite helpful for students struggiling in theese areas.  Sampson drives home the imporatnce of an argument based learning and non biased peer review. I've often heard the best way to really test if you have learned or amstered a concept is through teaching it to someone. I really enjoyed the fact that he states the importance of receiving constructive critisim after the first review . Students need to be able to improve and professors need to be able to see imporvement during this period. Raiser and others furthured this knowledge through practical application. In three diagramns studnets through equal participation showed that notonly their knowledge imporved but how they articualted it and presented it through  extensive peer review and seminar .  In conclusion theese readings gave a lot of light to the imporatnce of peer review and the good that can really come from it.

Week 7 readings

I enjoyed this week’s readings. I liked how both articles went into specific real-life examples that show how inquiry-based learning operates in action. The reading by Reiser and colleagues talk about the use of science practice in education. I find it interesting that the term “practice” is used instead of skills, because it’s fitting that science is not just an exercise to acquire knowledge, but also needs the ability to evaluate that knowledge and assign values to it. I think involving students in science this way would actually help them to think and make logical conclusions on their own. One uniting theme for the three examples given is that there is a lot of social aspect to science, because each student would voice their ideas and critique each other to refine or formulate ideas. In essence they’re doing what the scientific community does in discovering and communicating new knowledge, which is I think what should be done in classrooms so teaching doesn’t have to be memorization. The reading by Sampson talks about argument-driven inquiry, which allows teachers to integrate lab-based activities into science classroom. I particularly liked this article because it gives a complete rundown of the steps involved in a lab. I think it’s refreshing to not only think lab classes as merely a time to do some hands-on work, but also a true scientific experience from start to finish. From the identification of a problem to peer review near the end, it really feels like what a scientist would do in his daily tasks. I also appreciated the emphasis on writing and communicating findings and interpretations, whose importance is not restricted to science. My PI likes to say that whenever you’re writing a paper, you have to put it together like you’re telling a story, which I feel is the gist of argument-driven inquiry. In conclusion I thought the readings were really valuable.

Week 7 Readings--Ray

The readings this week are great—discussing the development of explanations or physical/scientific phenomena, and how to encourage students to construct these explanations. Reiser, Berland and Kenyon describe a small handful of in-class examples and how ‘meaningful engagement in explanation and argumentation’ construct sound explanations in a class setting. Sampson and Gleim detail a seven-step process called the Argument Driven Inquiry (ADI) Instructional Model. These seven steps guide the instructor along presenting the students with the phenomena, allowing them to construct explanation, and a refinement of the explanation through various means of interaction and critique.

            I really enjoyed the readings this week because allowing the learner construct solid conclusions on his/her own has always been a sort of pillar for me whenever I tutor/teach. I would never really follow a rigorous pattern when doing this though. Sometimes I would go ahead and present the learner with what I judged to be enough information to develop the explanation, sometimes I would try to completely remove myself and allow the learner to critique him/herself. But most of the time I would neglect to seek revision or critique more than once—how this looks is when the learner presents the explanation to me, I seek what faults lay between that explanation and the true answer, and try to bridge the gap there in one fell swoop. The Reiser, Berland and Kenyon piece demonstrated how allowing the students to discuss the explanation through multiple levels of critique and revision can guide the group as a whole to the best understanding possible of the problem. Some of the more effective elements of this discussion here involve one of the students acknowledging the perspective of another student and seeking compromise or common ground between differing explanations, and I appreciated how the model presented in that piece allowed for this to occur.

            I had always viewed this process as an extremely organic one without much structure or plan on the instructors end—rather, maybe just an intrinsic skill the teacher has (the ability to bring the class to the best possible explanation). The Sampson & Gleim piece’s rigorous process provided much more structure to this organic process. My favorite part of this model is the multi-step revision process, utilizing the other members of the class to review and revise written reports and arguments constructed after an argumentation session. The reports are considered incomplete until they are properly revised.  

            I see a lot of value in emphasizing this revision. The first reading showed that with just the right amount of intervention on the instructors part, the interactions between students give the group a greater wholesome understand of the issue and can more effective determine the weaknesses in their own explanation (and strength in others’). These also form good interpersonal skills (which I am ALL ABOUT) and expository skills as well—while sometimes underdeveloped in students, a formidable expository skillset enables them to approach an array of scientific challenges with the mindset they need—that of a scientist.

Week 7 Readings

Wow, there was a lot of great stuff this week relevant to a lot of what we’ve been talking about with modeling, especially defending the model, and revising the model as appropriate.  Before I get into the readings, I think I ought to point out that this approach is only possible in an environment where the students are comfortable with being wrong.  The Sampson reading said it more explicitly, but both articles realize that we will lose students if they are so concerned with being right that they don’t participate.  And with that, on to the readings.

Sampson & Glein: This article promotes a specific model of teaching science using guided argument driven inquiry (ADI, their term).  This method, they argue, has the benefits of helping students learn the material effectively with the added bonuses of teaching them how to evaluate their own and others’ arguments and present them effectively both verbally and in writing.

•  This system has students essentially develop a model in groups to explain a dataset they have been given.  After developing their model, they defend it to the class in a low-pressure environment.  Then, they present a written defense of their model which undergoes peer reviewed revisions.

Reiser, Berland, & Kenyon: This article is similar to the other; however, it focuses more on constructing the explanation from evidence rather than the defense of said argument.

• The focus is on the evidence and getting students to support a claim, not because they believe it to be “the right answer”, but because it is supported by the data.
•  Like in the other article, it points out that having students defend their arguments helps them refine both their arguments and their understanding of the concepts.

I love this system of learning through explanation and argumentation for several reasons.  First of all, it is not uncommon in research for there to be multiple hypotheses to explain data, especially if that data appears to contradict itself.  Teaching through this method may help students realize that the answer is often far more complicated than it may appear at first glance.  Secondly, the interdisciplinary nature of this method, if applied broadly, will hopefully spare the next generation of scientists from having to read very poorly written papers.  I’m not even joking, some are painful to read.  More on topic, though, effective writing skills may be applied to any career the student chooses.  Finally, it can help students to critically examine their own ideas, theories, and belief systems and tweak or discard them as necessary.  Hopefully, if our students have been taught in this method, none of them will become anti-vaxxers. 

On this last point, I think an interesting idea to try might be to give students data and ask them to create a model using that data.  Then, after they have created, revised, and defended their models, give them new data that appears to contradict the original data at first glance and see how they adjust their models to fit that data.  For example, the theory of evolution is predicated upon slow accumulation of changes due to mutations (original model).  This tends to mean that we don’t see new features pop up all of a sudden.  However, we can observe in the fossil record that sometimes large changes occur quite suddenly, such as the appearance of feathers on some dinosaurs, despite the fact that scales do not appear to have much in common with feathers (new data).  The reconciliation came when it was discovered that the same gene, activated at different points in the embryonic stage, controls whether scales or feathers develop.  Having students work through this process could be valuable.

Blog post #6

Reiser et al., 2012 explains the benefits in engaging students in the scientific practices of explanation and argumentation. Explanation is the “process of evaluating ideas to reach the best explanation” in which students use models and evidence to support or question other explanations. Argumentation in science is the process of making a “justified claim about the world” and defending or modifying that claim against weaknesses identified by others. According to the authors, explanation and argumentation are scientific practices (rather than skills) because they involve the “coordination of both knowledge and skill simultaneously”.  The Argument Driven Inquiry (ADI) instructional model described by Sampson and Gleim effectively coordinates knowledge and skill by having students independently design experiments, construct and defend arguments, engage in peer review, revise their thinking, and synthesize this process into a piece of scientific writing.  This last step is crucial in that it gives students an opportunity to improve writing skills outside of the language arts and also serves to refine and make explicit student thinking and learning.

It is interesting to note that effective engagement in scientific practices of explanation and argumentation seems to hinge on the use of models and experimentation in the classroom. It is also interesting that these practices can work in both deconstructing an argument as well as synthesizing a new argument or model; thus, they are not always about defending individuals’ positions, but rather cooperating with others to build and improve models. Meaningfully engaging in these scientific practices can be scary for students because they rarely encounter these risks in science classes. Therefore, this model can only work within the context of a safe and positive learning environment, and creating this type of environment can become more challenging as class sizes become larger. In addition, the ADI model requires a lot of careful planning  and preparation on the part of the teacher in order to make sure that all students can equally participate in this type of learning (for example, English language learners may need more scaffolding as a good command of the English language is necessary for these types of activities). Very little information is provided about the student population in which this model was implemented - I wonder how this model can be modified to fit students with diverse needs. 

Week 7 Readings

Reiser, Berland, & Kenyon: Engaging Students in the Scientific Practices of Explanation and Argumentation

The authors discuss the interplay of explanation construction and argumentation and how these concepts comprise crucial components of interacting with and applying science. In the authors’ definition of explanation, a student will be able to both define the concepts they are studying as well as provide a causal explanation for why and how things happen. Furthermore, in terms of argumentation, students will gain the ability to construct and deconstruct arguments, judge whether or not an argument’s logic is valid, and actively participate in scientific reasoning. When students engage with methods of argumentation and explanation in the classroom, they can work cohesively to create a larger “consensus explanation.”

• ·             Science as discourse: when students are actively involved in classroom and small group discussion, they are able to identify potential weaknesses with an argument, infer how data can support a hypothesis, and hear about alternative perspectives from teachers and peers.
• ·             Reasoning over accuracy: when students partake in a classroom culture where it is acceptable to fail, they are free to use evidence-based reasoning to attempt to explain why certain phenomena occur.

Sampson & Gleim: Argument-Driven Inquiry to Promote the Understanding of Important Concepts & Practices

In this article, the authors describe Argument-Driven Inquiry (ADI) and how it can be implemented in a classroom to promote conceptual scientific learning. ADI involves using student-created designs to investigate a topic, formulating arguments for explaining why they believe a certain phenomenon occurs, and capitalizing on students’ critical thinking skills to evaluate the effectiveness of models and arguments. The authors outline specific steps that a teacher can follow to introduce this methodology in their science classrooms.

• ·             Science as interdisciplinary: teachers can incorporate reading, writing, critical thinking by requiring their students to engage in peer review, defend an argument, write reports, and reflect on the process as a whole.
• ·             Teacher involvement: teachers should circulate around the room to ensure that students are engaging with the how and why of their investigations. Leading questions can guide the students to think more critically about their arguments.

Overall, these readings stress the importance of students’ active participation in methods of argumentation and explanation in the sciences. Science, the authors argue, should not be presented as final form, but rather as a dynamic field where students are allowed to interact with, argue for, and investigate their own models and hypotheses. However, both articles seem to agree that this sort of thinking is not natural for students, so students will require feedback and guidance from peers and teachers as they shift their mindsets toward argumentation in the science classroom. While I agree that techniques like ADI have an important role in the classroom, I wonder how we can gradually introduce and scaffold this method of inquiry so that students are not initially overwhelmed by this novel way of thinking.

Week 7

Sampson & Gleim:

o   Sampson and Gleim investigated the argument-driven inquiry (ADI) instructional model as a means to promote understanding of biological concepts. The ADI instructional model has a few key goals: to engage students in inquiry and to create a class atmosphere that values evidence and critical thinking. The steps of the ADI instructional model include identifying the task, a lab, producing an argument, arguing, investigating, reporting, and revising. This process emphasizes the self-driven desire in students to attempt to explain natural phenomenon, argue for one’s explanation, and revise one’s explanation based on peer critiques. Integrating science into the curriculum really stuck out to me, and one quote stood out in particular that involved the need for students to acquire chances to either succeed or fail. Realizing that failure is just as important as success is key for students since failure is often associated purely with its negative side, but there is no success without failure and failures offer students chances to learn from mistakes.

o   Thinking ahead to teaching in the future, I like the aspects of the ADI instructional model immensely. Creating the desire for students to resolve natural phenomenon rather than simply replicating textbook or teacher understanding is key. I’m curious though how to motivate students to identify tasks, or perhaps whether various identified tasks is a possible improvement in situations with unmotivated students.

Reiser, Berland, & Kenyon

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o   Reiser, Berland, and Kenyon investigated how argumentation influences students’ explanations. One example that I think showcased their investigation well was when students were considering why paper and a book fall differently. Students identified the “strength” of an object as its weight and said that the book had a greater “strength.” However, when the instructor crumpled the ball, some students thought that its “strength” increased while others didn’t agree. This discussion led to a new consensus, that the ball retained its size and therefore its “strength” when crumpled but that its shape changes, for the paper no longer drifts to the floor when crumpled. It was interesting to investigate how argumentation changed students’ explanations. I’ve realized before that new ideas and refined explanations can come through discussion with peers, but these clear examples demonstrated how student thinking changes through argumentation.

o   Thinking ahead to teaching in the future, emphasizing argumentation in the classroom through both probing questions from the instructor and from discussions amongst students can lead to refined explanations. I also was interested by the discussion of not simply replicating authoritative knowledge, either from textbooks or teachers, because students are often simply asked to regurgitate knowledge from either textbooks or teachers’ lectures, so moving away from that mentality is key to promote deeper understanding of material.