by Oliveira, Alandeom W.; Sadler, Troy D.; Suslak, Daniel F.

This study examines how participation in a verbal exchange during an inquiry-based classroom activity allows three college students and their science instructor to use linguistic signs (choices of words, grammatical structures, discursive structures, prosody and poetic discourse) to construct authority and expertise. Our work explores linguistic and interactional processes of identification (the dynamic construction and transaction of expert identity) and examines how discursive strategies adopted by the professor at different moments of the verbal exchange influence the students’ subsequent discursive practices and perceptions of authority. We adopt a dialogic, socio-constructivist perspective on identity, viewing personal identities as being partially constructed via interactional positioning. Our findings reveal that the attainment of expertise involves two different types of language-mediated processes: the transmission of a professional vision or intension and the emergence of a perception of agency among students. The former is centered on referential-denotative meanings of speech (elicitation of standard account and operational definition) while the latter requires effective use of pragmatic–performative functions of speech (non-evaluative and more than minimal recipient practices). Consideration is given to the need for science instructors to be able to utilize pragmatic functions of language strategically to encourage students to position themselves within the identity of science expertise.

DOI: 10.1007/s11422-006-9039-4
Online Date: 11/22/2006
Print publication date: 1/1/2007
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by Moje, Elizabeth Birr; Tucker-Raymond, Eli; Varelas, Maria; Pappas, Christine C.

In this piece, Elizabeth Moje discusses with the authors of FORUM: Giving oneself over to science: Exploring the roles of subjectivities and identities in learning science (Tucker-Raymond, Varelas, & Pappas) the challenges and potentials of theorizing about the role of identities in learning science. The authors debate how identities and subjectivities should be conceptualized, and whether learning science requires people to change identities and/or subjectivities. In particular, the authors discuss the potential for thinking about how identities are enacted in practices, and how teachers might construct practices that evoke the identities associated with science as a way of developing opportunities for deep science learning.

DOI: 10.1007/s11422-006-9016-y
Online Date: 11/22/2006
Print publication date: 2/1/2007
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by Martin, Sonya

This paper argues for an inclusive model of science education practice that attempts to facilitate a relationship between “science and all” by paying particular attention to the development of the relationship between the teacher, students and science. This model hinges on the implementation of cogenerative dialogues between students and teachers. Cogenerative dialogues are a form of structured discourse in which teachers and students engage in a collaborative effort to help identify and implement positive changes in classroom teaching and learning practices. A primary goal of this paper is to introduce a methodological and theoretical framework for conducting cogenerative dialogue that is accessible to classroom teachers and their students. I propose that researchers must learn to disseminate their findings to teachers in ways that are practical, in that they provide teachers with information needed to make concrete connections between the research and their teaching, while continuing to make available the theories that support their findings. Using an integration research framework in conjunction with a temporality of learning model, I introduce a method of disseminating research findings that provides both classroom teachers and researchers with access to different forms of knowledge about cogenerative dialogues in the same paper. In doing so, this article examines the relationships between teacher knowledge and researcher knowledge by exploring the practical application of cogenerative dialogues for classrooms teachers and the theoretical implications of using cogenerative dialogues for researchers.

DOI: 10.1007/s11422-006-9031-z
Online Date: 11/16/2006
Print publication date: 12/1/2006
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by Barab, Sasha; Ritchie, Stephen M.; Hwang, SungWon; Roth, Wolff-Michael

DOI: 10.1007/s11422-006-9021-1
Online Date: 11/14/2006
Print publication date: 2/1/2007
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by Hwang, SungWon; Roth, Wolff-Michael

How students come to know phenomena in terms of abstract concepts and theories through hands-on activities remains one of the open problems in science education. In this study, we develop a theory of learning science through design activities by employing a dialectical view of human activity that explicitly combines the mental and material in the same, irreducible unit of analysis. Dialectical contradictions embodied by this unit, here conceptualized as resistance experienced from a first-person perspective, constitute the inner forces that drive designing. Drawing on a large database of artifact designing constituted during a four-month unit on simple machines, we examine how resistance, in its dialectical relation to contradiction contributes to the unfolding design process and to the learning of scientific concepts and manual process skills during design. First, an inner contradiction emerges in the designers’ lifeworlds as an unintended outcome or a breakdown and thereby changes the perceived world of a designer collective. Second, the dialectic of contradiction and resistance realized in this manner constitutes a moment unfolding culture of science in its concrete form embodied in individual designers and therefore contributes to the production and reproduction of culture. We conclude with a reflection on the implications our study makes to a non-dualist view of knowing and learning.

DOI: 10.1007/s11422-006-9018-9
Online Date: 11/14/2006
Print publication date: 2/1/2007
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