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REVEALING TENSIONS BETWEEN CURRICULUM AND TEACHERS’ VISIONS
OF COMMUNITIES OF SCIENCE PRACTICE

By

David J. Grueber

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of Teacher Education

2008

ABSTRACT

REVEALING TENSIONS BETWEEN CURRICULUM AND TEACHERS’ VISIONS
OF COMMUNITIES OF SCIENCE PRACTICE

By
David J. Grueber

This dissertation studies how three middle school teachers used inquiry-based
curriculum materials to construct classroom communities of science. Grounded in
sociocultural studies of teachers’ beliefs, knowledge, and practices of inquiry—based
science this work draws on a sociolinguistic approach to compare and describe teachers’
and students’ contributions to science knowledge and inquiry practices in order to
empirically explore how teachers’ commitments and resources shapes the classroom
community of practice. This study addresses the following questions: What did scientific
knowledge and practice look like in each classroom? What do the teacher student
interactions reveal about the social norms and sources of authority in the classroom?
What were the teachers’ commitments and resources to science content and practice that
influenced their curriculum construction? The sites of my research are three middle
school classrooms implementing a next generation curriculum materials, Investigating
and Questioning the World through Science and Technology (IQWST). The study
employs interpretive and discourse analytic methods to conduct in depth case studies of
three teachers’ curriculum construction. This study shows that three unique hybrid
communities of practice result from a mixture of ways in which commitments to
purposes of schooling and instructional strategies, and personal resources in terms of

science content knowledge and pedagogical strategies for distributing participation.

Implications of this dissertation include questions related curriculum design principles

and professional development.

Cepyright by
David J. Grueber
2008

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First I would like to thank the faculty in the College of Education at Michigan State
University who introduced me to so many new and interesting ideas about teaching and
learning. Specifically I extend my appreciation to my advisor, Dr. Charles (Andy)
Anderson who was always challenging, supportive, and patient. Also, I gratefully
acknowledge the members of my committee for their support and guidance: Dr.

Elizabeth Heilman, Dr. Ralph Putnam, and Dr. Michelle Williams.

Second, I would like to thank the members of the IQWST curriculum development
team who without which there would have not been a curriculum to study: Dr. David

Fortus, Jeff Nordine, Jeff Rozelle, Dr. Christina Schwartz, and Dr. Ayelet Weisman.

And finally, a special thanks to the teachers who enacted this curriculum and opened

their classroom and shared their practice with me.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................... viii
Chapter 1 ............................................................................................................................. 1
State of Reform ............................................................................................................... 1
Tension between Communities of Practice ..................................................................... 2
Teacher Role and Distribution of Participation .............................................................. 3
Overview of the Enactments ........................................................................................... 6
Dissertation Outline ........................................................................................................ 8
Chapter 2 ........................................................................................................................... 10
Theoretical Framework ................................................................................................. 10
Science as Inquiry Framework ...................................................................................... 11
Social Norms ................................................................................................................. 1 5
Curriculum Construction Commitments and Resources ............................................... 17
Summary ....................................................................................................................... 19
Chapter 3 ........................................................................................................................... 21
Method .......................................................................................................................... 21
The Case: IQWST Light Unit ...................................................................................... 22
Context: Participants ..................................................................................................... 24
Data Sources ................................................................................................................. 29
Analysis ......................................................................................................................... 31
Chapter 4 ........................................................................................................................... 35
Inquiry Analysis ............................................................................................................ 35
Results ........................................................................................................................... 38
Mr. Dee ......................................................................................................................... 39
Ms. Kay ......................................................................................................................... 56
Ms. Cee ......................................................................................................................... 80
Discussion ..................................................................................................................... 96
Chapter 5 ........................................................................................................................... 99
Social and Socioscientific Norms ................................................................................. 99
Results ......................................................................................................................... 101
Mr. Dee ....................................................................................................................... 103
Ms. Kay ....................................................................................................................... l 10
Ms. Cee ....................................................................................................................... 116
Discussion ................................................................................................................... 122

vi

Chapter 6 ......................................................................................................................... 125

Commitments & Resources ........................................................................................ 125
Results ......................................................................................................................... 127
Mr. Dee ....................................................................................................................... 127
Ms. Kay ....................................................................................................................... 137
Ms. Cee ....................................................................................................................... 147
Discussion ................................................................................................................... 158
Chapter 7 ......................................................................................................................... 160
Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 160
Implications ................................................................................................................. 162
APPENDIX A: Classroom Event Coding Scheme ........................................................ 169
APPENDIX B: EPE Table Lesson 6 ............................................................................. 170
APPENDIX C: IQWST Inquiry Practices Coding Scheme ........................................... 171
APPENDIX D: Viewing Session Interview Questions .................................................. 172
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................... 173

vii

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. Enacted Inquiry Events ..................................................................................... 38

Figure 2. IWST Transparency 6.4 .................................................................................... 77

viii

Chapter 1

State of Reform
In the 19605 an unprecedented effort of science education reform and

curriculum development was undertaken (DeBoer, 1991). The focus was on increasing
academic rigor and development of elite scientists. One result of the focus was
curriculum designed by scientists who did not consider the teachers’ role in enacting
curriculum (Duschl, 1990; Powell, F arrar, & Cohen, 1985). A recurring reform theme in
science education since at least the 1960’s is the use of inquiry as a method of instruction.
Yet, a present day look at classrooms continues to show that teachers use predominantly
didactic teaching methods (Weiss, Pasley, Smith, Banilower, & Heck, 2003). With the
didactic methods, teachers assume a role that maintains the mystique of science as an

authority distinct from students (Lemke, 1990).

Current national reform documents (American Association for the Advancement of
Science, 1993; National Research Council, 1996, 2000) and research literature (Krajcik,
Blumenfeld, Marx, & Soloway, 2000; White & F rederiksen, 1998) argue for the
importance of students understanding and engaging in communities of scientific inquiry
practice. Learning a practice requires learning new disciplinary concepts (such as
scientific models) and reasoning strategies (such as evaluating a candidate model’s fit
with observed phenomena). However, engaging in a practice is more than simply
learning the steps of a process — scientific practices have an important social element

(Fortus et al., 2006).

Varieties of inquiry such as project-based, or design-based have been designed in

attempts to reform curriculum and encourage the use of inquiry in classrooms (DeBoer,

2002; Singer, Marx, Krajcik, & Chambers, 2000). Along with the design of curriculum
that approaches science teaching and learning as participation in a community of practice,
there is an important need to understand the relationship between science teachers’
scientific practices, knowledge, and beliefs and the teachers’ role in scaffolding student

learning experiences consistent with reform-based agendas (Crawford, 2000; Keys &

Bryan, 2001; Putnam & Borko, 2000; Remillard, 2005).

If this generation of inquiry designed curriculum materials is going to influence
classroom practice, the curriculum materials need to include an educative feature that
scaffold teachers to learn new roles when teaching inquiry (Ball & Cohen, 1996).
Whether or not teachers can learn new ways of teaching may depend on their
commitments to inquiry teaching and their resources to enact inquiry teaching. If the
present reform efforts are to have a lasting effect, it is important to understand the
differences between teachers’ voices and curriculum designers’ assumptions of the role
of the teacher in the classroom (Keys & Bryan, 2001). The interactional turn in
education research has provided the tools to examine the complex social interactions that
occur when students and teachers make sense of their roles in the classroom (Erickson,
2006). To that end, I am studying teacher student interactions in science classrooms,
because I want to find out why enacted curriculum looks different than designed
curriculum, in order to understand how to design curriculum materials.

Tension between Communities of Practice
From a sociocultural perspective classrooms can be seen as distinct communities of
practice formed when multiple communities of practice merge in the classroom to create

a community that appears different from specific disciplinary communities (Hogan &

Corey, 2001; Keys & Bryan, 2001; Wells, 1995). Often this tension occurs when the
intended practices of reform oriented communities of practice (Engle & Conant, 2002;
Reiser, Krajcik, Moje, & Marx, 2003), merge with the traditional difficulties of teaching

(Floden & Buchman, 1993; Munby, Cunningham, & Lock, 2000).

As practitioners, teachers are wrestling with the problems of the classroom world
which is a hybrid space where the problems of the world are not just specifically the
problems of academic disciplines but also include a me’lange of historical and cultural
instructional practices (J. S. Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989; Cohen, 1990). Some
problems of a teacher’s world include maintaining social order of the classroom and
achieving a set of academic objectives within the time frame of a class period (Doyle &
Carter, 1984; Mehan, 1979). From a teaching as practice perspective, it is important to
understand the problems that teachers must solve, and their personal skills and

knowledge that are used to solve those problems (Cohen, 1988).

Often through a combination of language use and reducing complexity of academic
tasks (Carlsen, 1997; Moje, 1995; Page, 1999), teachers adapt academic tasks in such a
way that maintains a “mystique of science” (Lemke, 1990) which portrays science as a
body of fixed knowledge, and a process of verifying facts. Adapting academic tasks is an
inherent part of enacting them, and the need for adaptation seems to be particularly
prevalent for teachers developing practice associated with current reforms (Remillard,
1999)

. Teacher Role and Distribution of Participation
With the current views of science teaching and learning curriculum developers are

attempting to increase student learning and reduce the mystique of science by better

coordinating the knowledge and practice of science (Bransford, Brown, & Cooking,
2000; Duschl, Schweingruber, & Shouse, 2007; Krajcik, McNeill, & Reiser, 2008). A
number of curriculum design principles have been developed to help teachers develop a
learning environment similar to the scientific culture of practice (Edelson, 2001; Engle &
Conant, 2002; Singer et al., 2000). Within an environment of authentic disciplinary
practice, the teacher’s role is to choose activities that best afford opportunities for
students to learn the knowledge and practices of a discipline and model those practices
(Driver, Asoko, Leach, Mortimer, & Scott, 1994; Singer et al., 2000). A learning
environment modeled after authentic disciplinary practices adds to the complexities of
classroom teaching because teachers are now responsible for modeling both the cognitive
practices (Collins, Brown, & Newman, 1989), and the distributing the social participation
to afford students more authority in the production of knowledge (Engle & Conant,

2002)

Investigating and Questioning our World through Science and Technology (IQWST)
is a curriculum designed to support teachers in the design of an authentic disciplinary
learning environment with a learning goals driven design model and specific attempts to
develop learning performances that coordinate the content knowledge and practices of
science (Krajcik et al., 2008; Reiser et al., 2003). In order to help teachers reduce the
empirical and social complexity in science classrooms IQWST attempts to provide
teachers with educative cuniculum materials as a tool to solve the problems of their
classroom world (Ball & Cohen, 1996; Davis & Krajcik, 2005; Schneider & Krajcik,

2002)

However sustaining environments of authentic inquiry practice requires new forms of
teaching and instructional goals for students, and along with those new challenges in the
classroom (Crawford, 2000; Remillard, 1999). Lemke (Lemke, 1990) described teachers
using language to maintain the authority and mystique of science. IQWST materials that
are designed to reduce the mystique of science by providing teachers a tool with which
they can construct a learning environment that creates for students the opportunities to
participate in the cultural practices of science. From the IQWST perspective in order to
construct this learning environment the teacher needs to enact what I have called a de-
centered expert role. In this role, the teacher models the cultural tools, ranging from the
meanings of words, to methods of identifying and solving problems, and the norms for
appropriate methods of communicating arguments and critiques. The teacher also
coaches students in the appropriate cultural practices and over time fades while
distributing more legitimate participation opportunities to students. The teacher also

provides feedback and adjusts activities for student learning (Singer et al., 2000).

However, while observing the pilot enactment of IQWST lessons during the 2005-
2006 school year a number of instances occurred in the classrooms that appeared to be at
odds with the IQWST vision of the teacher’s role in modeling scientific inquiry practices.
For example, at the beginning of one class period the teacher instructed the students to
answer a question based on the evidence the students had collected. Students basing their
answers to questions on evidence they collect from the phenomena is one type of inquiry
practice intended to occur in the IQWST curriculum. Yet, at the end of the lesson the
teacher instructed the students to ignore the data they had collected and use the data the

teacher would supply because the student data had not turned out as the teacher expected.

This critical incident led to the consideration of the interaction between the teachers’
commitments to science teaching and their personal pedagogical resources used to enact
IQWST lessons, and the commitments to science teaching and necessary pedagogical
resources implicit in the design of the IQWST curriculum. This has led to the following

research questions that will frame this study:

1) What did scientific knowledge and practice look like in each classroom?

2) What do the teacher student interactions reveal about the social norms and
sources of authority in the classroom?

3) What were the teachers’ commitments and resources to science content and
practice that influenced their curriculum construction?

Overview of the Enactments
The three teachers that enacted the IQWST curriculum actually maintained the

mystique of science in quite different ways resulting from their commitments toward
authentic science content and science practice, and their personal resources that they use
in support of their commitments. In a sense where Lemke presented a case of
maintaining authority, I want to make clear that all three teachers in this study did not
attempt to maintain the mystique of science, but rather expressed as their personal goal
creating and sustaining opportunities for their students to learn science. However, in
effect their practice does maintain this mystique but in uniquely different ways and for

different reasons.

Mr. Dee maintains the mystique of science with his enacted role as “the nature guy.”
Mr. Dee wants students to learn scientific explanations for the world around them. He
uses rich experiences with natural phenomenon as the context for scientific explanations.
For his students Mr. Dee values not so much the epistemic practices of science, but the

stimulating wow factor of science. As a result with his emphasis on experiences with

nature and the explanations of those experiences he does not include how science comes

to know these explanations and in the process continues the mystique of science.

Ms. Kay maintains the mystique of science with her enacted role of “the gatekeeper.”
One of the definitions of a gatekeeper is one that tends or guards the gate. For Ms. Kay I
want to emphasize the notion of tending the gate, because she does this by watching over
and caring for her students’ learning of science. For Ms. Kay she sees science knowledge
as valuable and important to her students’ lives and she is doing her best to prove to her
students that science is valuable knowledge. Now, as this gatekeeper though she engages
students in experiences with science, and she mines those experiences for examples that
support and verify the already established scientific knowledge in order to prove to her
students that they can do science. She maintains the mystique of science though when
she tells students even though they were wrong they did a nice job and if they were paid

to work as scientists they could go back and redo the experiments like scientists do.

Ms. Cee enacted the teacher role of “tour guide.” Ms. Cee provides her students with
access to science materials and experiments and then after students have talked about
their experiences with the experiments Ms. Cee tells them what the scientific
explanations for the experiences are. Ms. Cee maintains the mystique of science by
leaving it a mystery what the connections are between the experiments and the
explanations for those experiments. In part this is both due to Ms. Cee’s commitment to
inquiry that students should be free to explore with materials their own questions and
discover their own answers, and her own knowledge that limits her ability to help
students reason and make sense of their experiences in the development of that

knowledge.

Dissertation Outline
Chapter 2 is a theoretical framework where I review three themes that frame both the

research questions and the analysis of the pilot enactment. These themes include defining
science as inquiry, social and socioscientific norms in a classroom community, and
teacher commitments and resources for curriculum construction. Science as inquiry
involves coordinating the content knowledge and practices of science for the purposes of
either building arguments from evidence, or using models to understand and explain
phenomenon. Within classrooms there are norms, roles, and responsibilities for teachers
and students. Ideally, for current curriculum reform efforts to work these roles, norms,
and responsibilities in some ways mirror the norms of scientific communities. And
finally, in order to create classroom communities with scientific norms teachers need
particular commitments to instructional goals and personal resources to construct that

environment.

Chapter 3 is the methods chapter. This study comprises case studies of three teachers
enacting the same curriculum unit. I am using an interpretive analysis to describe and
compare the three cases in order to explain the source of tension between the IQWST

model of a community of practice, and the three teachers’ community of practice.

Chapter 4 is a description of what scientific knowledge and practice looks like in the
three classrooms. I describe one lesson for each of the three teachers focusing on the
science knowledge and the science practices that occurred in the three classrooms. So,
what emerged are four different models of the relationship between knowledge and

practice, the IQWST and each teacher’s model. The relationship between science content

and practice is important because teachers’ particular views of science content influence

the types of valued science practices that are modeled in the classroom.

Chapter 5 is a description of the social and socioscientific norms that distribute the
participation in the classroom community. I describe the participation structures and the
associated roles and norms that are established for the teachers and the students, and the
associated rights and responsibilities for behavior on the part of students and teachers.
The social and socioscientific norms are important because in order to distribute
participation in a community of practice, the members of the community need to know
what appropriate norms for interaction are, and without these norms a community

modeled after scientific disciplinary practice will not be constructed.

Chapter 6 uses interviews from a viewing session with the teachers of the lesson
analyzed in chapter 4 and 5 to use the teachers’ voices in order to explain the underlying

mechanisms for the three different communities of practice and enacted teacher roles.

Chapter 7 is a discussion of conclusions and implications for designing educative
curriculum materials that are one element of the attempts to reform science teaching and

learning.

Chapter 2

Theoretical Framework
It has been a steady argument that the structure of science education should include

the key facts, procedures, and concepts of a discipline and their relationships to each
other (Schwab, 197 8), and this argument continues today as a part of national science
education reform efforts (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1993;
National Research Council, 1996). Schwab (1962) argued that science curriculum
development began to divorce the content and process of scientific knowledge so that
science in school began to be portrayed as a fixed and steady body of knowledge. More
recently other scholars have noted that the difference between the knowledge of authentic
scientific practice and the knowledge taught and learned in school continues to exist

(Duschl, 1990; Resnick, 1987).

Today the goal is still on the agenda of science education reform efforts with “the
conviction that scientific inquiry is at the heart of science and science learning” and that
“inquiry into authentic questions generated from student experiences is the central
strategy for teaching science” (National Research Council, 1996). However, with
contemporary views of science teaching and learning that focus on science as the process
of participation in the community of scientific practices (Bransford et al., 2000; Duschl et
al., 2007) there is a need to also attend to the cultural norms of participation in science
classrooms. These cultural norms, or syntactic structure (Schwab, 1978), define what

counts as appropriate methods of verification and justification of knowledge.

As a result of the coordination of both the substantive and syntactic nature of science

implicit in today’s reform oriented curriculum materials, teachers are being asked to

10

enact new roles in classrooms (Crawford, 2000). The extent to which teachers enact
these new roles is often a result of their personal commitments to what counts as the

nature of science (N. W. Brickhouse, 1990).

The following literature review is organized to first establish a framework for
describing the nature of science content and practice in the classroom. Then I describe
ways to examine the syntactic or normative aspects of the distribution of participation in
science classrooms. And finally, the relationship between teachers’ commitments and
resources used to support their aims of science instruction and their responses to both
curriculum tasks, and students encounters with the curriculum tasks.

Science as Inquiry Framework

Attempts to understand science as inquiry is complicated by the fact that the practices
of inquiry are embedded within the context of known and accepted science knowledge
(Duschl, 1990). When the content and practices of science are separated, the
fundamental nature of science as inquiry is changed. Therefore, learning should be
situated in the context of authentic science activities (J. S. Brown etal., 1989; Driver et
al., 1994) represented in national science education reform documents (AAAS, 1989;
NRC,1996; NRC, 2000). Because the IQWST intent is to model the students’ practice
after scientists’ I needed to develop a framework to analyze the nature of science in the
classrooms which includes two aspects, the nature of the content and the nature of the
practice. While I understand that the nature of science products and practice are
contested and can be examined from a number of viewpoints including political,
economic, gendered, and cultural views (Nancy W. Brickhouse, 2001), IQWST is

designed with an overall modern view of the nature of science (Good & Shymansky,

ll

2001) so 1 limit my framework to views of science in national science education reform
documents.
Nature of Scientific Kno wledge

Learning knowledge is one of the core activities of school, and the definition of what
content is or should be taught in school is often debated (Bereiter, 1994). It has been
argued that what counts as knowledge in traditional classrooms is “epistemologically
flat” (Duschl, 1990), and studies show that what counts as accepted scientific content for
many teachers and students are the patterns, or laws and truths of science (Akerson &
Hanuscin, 2007; Gallagher, 1991; McComas, Almazroa, & Clough, 1998; Smith &
Anderson, 1999; Yerrick, Pedersen, & Arnason, 1998). This traditional view of science
presented in textbooks and understood by teachers and students stands in stark contrast to
the view scientific knowledge as a product of disciplined ways of organizing and making
sense of the natural world (McGinn & Roth, 1.999; Osborne, Collins, Ratcliffe, Millar, &

Duschl, 2003).

What are the ideas, concepts, and theories of science that scientists use to organize and
make sense of the world? There is the book of nature or the experiences with the
material world, the symbolic world of science which includes the invented entities such
as atoms, electrons, light rays, and scientific laws, and finally the organizing ideas such
as models and theories (Dagher, Brickhouse, Shipman, Letts, & Sturt, 2004; Driver et al.,
1994). Because IQWST is modeled after the authentic activities of science, I used a
framework of scientific knowledge called Experiences, Patterns, and Explanations (EPE)
(Anderson, 2003b) to identify the nature of the science content in the classrooms enacting

the IQWST unit.

12

Within the EPE framework Experiences are the observable events such as light
detector readings, seeing or not seeing an object in a room and any other additional
experiences students have with the material world. Patterns are descriptive terms that
refer directly to measurable properties of observable objects. For example, the pattern,
“law of reflection,” has the measurable property of the light detector readings and the
descriptive term used for this pattern could be “v” shape. When combined with
additional patterns such as how light interacts with different properties of matter also
observable by light detector readings, these patterns can be represented by a few
Explanations. Explanations are theories or models that allow scientists and students to
predict and explain observable events like light detector readings to unobservable objects
and events like light rays and paths of light which are represented in the ray-diagram
model of light and vision. For an example of the experiences, patterns, and explanations
in lesson 6 see Appendix Table B.

Nature of Scientific Practice

The type of content knowledge that is valued in classrooms and the science
community has an implication for the types of practices that are common because the
nature of the reasoning practices depends on the epistemological criteria (Hogan &
Maglienti, 2001). With the epistemological criteria that science is a process of
knowledge revision the social practices for knowledge production include coordinating
the relationship between theories or models and evidence (Herrenkohl, Palinscar,
DeWater, & Kawasaki, 1999; Smith & Anderson, 1999). Two important scientific
practices for coordinating this relationship are building arguments from evidence

(Anderson, 2003b; Driver, Newton, & Osborne, 2000; Sandoval & Reiser, 2004)., and

13

model-based reasoning (Anderson, 2003b; Gilbert & Boulter, 1998; Windschitl,
Thompson, & Braaten, 2008, in press).

In the reformed vision of IQWST curriculum materials (Fortus etal., 2006; Singer et
al., 2000) and national reform documents (National Research Council, 1996, 2000) these
important scientific practices are further broken down into a number of scientific
practices. These practices include: identifying empirical questions; designing and
conducting investigations; using appropriate tools and techniques to gather, analyze, and
interpret data; developing descriptions, explanations, predictions, and models using
evidence; thinking critically and logically to make the relationships between evidence
and explanations; recognizing and analyzing alternative explanations and predictions;
communicating scientific procedures and explanations; and, using mathematics in all
aspects of scientific inquiry. The specific scientific practices I used for analyzing the
practice in this study were drawn from the IQWST learning progression for sequencing

scientific practices (Fortus et al., 2006), and listed in Appendix Table C.

This framework of science content and practices can be used to identify the types of
science content and practices that can be used to describe the nature of the classroom
community of scientific practice. It is important to do that because the activities of a
classroom community are framed by its culture (J. S. Brown et al., 1989), and
sociocultural research raises serious questions about relationship between what goes on in
schools and the cultural practices in which the living disciplines are constituted (Bereiter,

1994; Keys & Bryan, 2001).

14

Social Norms
In the previous section I constructed my framework for the substantive structure of

inquiry in the classroom in terms of the important content and practices. In this next
section I look at the syntactic structure, or in other words what are the socioscientific

norms that describe what counts as legitimate participation in the community?

Contemporary views of teaching and learning (Bransford et al., 2000) are grounded in
the perspective that drinking and learning is situated in the nature of a context, and that
learning a practice occurs best in a culture of authentic practice (J. S. Brown et al., 1989;
Lave & Wenger, 1991). Teaching and learning science as inquiry is also a cultural
activity that occurs within a classroom community (Duschl et al., 2007; Magnusson,
Palinscar, & Templin, 2004), where teachers and students engage in practices that
identify themselves as members of the community (Gee, 2004). As members of the
community, teachers and students take on roles which are patterned sets of actions and

behaviors.

There is a changing emphasis on the nature of teacher and student roles (Crawford,
2000; National Research Council, 1996). Lave and Wenger (1991) and Driver et a1.
(1994) argued from different premises toward a similar conclusion that teachers need to
take a “dc-centered expert” role in the classroom. If students are to take on the roles that
occur in social contexts that support intellectual practices being a hypothesizer, evidence
provider, maker of distinctions, checker of facts they must receive social support from

teachers (O'Connor & Michaels, 1996).

For a number of reasons, an implicit intent of inquiry-based curriculum is to establish

socioscientific norms and scientific inquiry practices that enable students to reason with

15

evidence. First, reasoning with evidence is a central practice in the design of inquiry-
based curriculum materials (F ortus et al., 2006; Singer etal., 2000). Second, evidence is
the authority that fills the authority vacuum when teachers enact alternative instructional
roles in the classroom (Minstrell, 1992; National Research Council, 1996). Third, quality
learning and the spirit and practice of scientific inquiry are lost when the evidence and
argument for scientific models are replaced by direct assertions by the teacher and text
(NRC, 1996). Finally, curriculum should teach how science comes to know (Duschl,
1990; Schwab, 1962).
Participation Structures

While authentic practice for scientists is ordered by attempts to solve problems and
produce knowledge that makes sense of the material world (Pickering, 1995), authentic
practice for teachers and students is often ordered by the sequence of activities and
contexts of a curriculum (Cazden, 2001 ). Classroom lessons have a particular structure
of activities and events which help coordinate the completion of a lesson (Mehan, 1979).
And within these events the organization of participation can shift on a moment to
moment basis, and teachers and students must recognize their roles and interpret the
relation between the teachers’ language forms and the intended appropriate social action
(Cook-Gumperz & Gumperz, 1982; F lorio-Ruane, 1987). These smaller units of activity
that orient the teachers and students in coordinated action are participation structures

(Cazden, 1986; Erickson, 1982; Philips, 1972).

Participation structures have a set of social norms that order individuals’ rights and
responsibilities for establishing who participates (Cazden, 2001; Cobb, Yackel, & Wood,

1989). These social norms are implicit rules that teachers and students use to determine

16

when it is appropriate for teachers and students to talk in the classroom, who has the
responsibility for changing the topic in the classroom, and in what ways the students are

teachers are responsible for listening to each other.

Participation structures also have a set of disciplinary norms (e.g., socioscientific) that
orient members to what counts as appropriate disciplinary participation (Cobb, Stephan,
McClain, & Gravemeijer, 2001; Engle & Conant, 2002; Erickson, 1982; Herrenkohl &
Guerra, 1998; Tabak & Baumgartner, 2004). For example, socioscientific norms in the
classroom are implicit rules that determine whether it is appropriate for the teacher or
students to talk about science content or explanations, and whether or not it is appropriate

for the teacher or students to make decisions about the validity of evidence.

With the view that learning occurs in communities of practice, and that authentic
scientific practice is the production and use of knowledge, there is need for teachers and
students to enact new classroom roles. I have described a framework for describing the
distribution of participation in the IQWST classrooms that accounts for both the social

and socioscientific distribution of participation.

Curriculum Construction Commitments and Resources
Enacting the de-centered expert role who models the social practices of the science

community requires teachers to use their full range of professional knowledge and
resources (M. Brown & Edelson, 2001; Cohen & Ball, 1999; Crawford, 2000; Schneider,
Krajcik, & Blumenfeld, 2005). Enacting this role is a difficult task because the
relationship between views of learning and pedagogy are problematic, and no simple
rules for pedagogical practice emerge from a constructivist view of learning (Driver et

al., 1994). Many studies demonstrate the influence of teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and

17

commitments to science and learning on their enactment of curriculum materials
(Blumenfeld, Fishman, Krajcik, Marx, & Soloway, 2000; Cronin-Jones, 1991; Roehrig,
Kruse, & Kern, 2007; Tobin & McRobbie, 1996).
Curriculum Construction

The enactment of curriculum occurs within an arena that has been described as
curriculum construction (Remillard, 1999). The curriculum construction arena is where
teachers and students transform the planned tasks of a curriculum into the lived
classroom events. The central teacher activity in the construction arena is task adaptation
which is the teacher’s unrehearsed adaption and adjustment to academic tasks in response
to their reading of both the academic task, and their students’ performance of the task.
The teacher’s responses to their reading of the tasks and students’ performance are
valuable indicators of teachers’ aims and goals related to what it means to know and do
science and their personal resources to improvise responses.
Commitments

Teachers on-the-spot adaptations of tasks are embedded in their commitments which
can be defined as orientations to teaching which include teachers’ beliefs about students
and the learning process, about the role of schools in society, and about teachers
themselves, the curriculum, and pedagogy (Pajares, 1992). These commitments include
teachers’ perceptions of and purposes for schooling which include providing credentials
and rankings, and preparing students to become workers and citizens (Anderson, 2003a).
Commitments include the forms of science content knowledge valued in the classroom
(Anderson, 2003b; Yerrick et al., 1998). Commitments also include teachers’ valued

ways of thinking and acting in the science classroom which may be different from the

18

habits of mind that occur in authentic disciplinary communities such as a commitment to
instituting norms of peer review and respect for evidence in the classroom (Engle &
Conant, 2002).
Resources

Resources include the knowledge (human resources) and tools (material resources) to
teach for understanding (Anderson, 2003a; Shulman, 1987; Wilson & Beme, 1999). For
example, these resources include the tools and teaching materials that support student
engagement, and an ability to design additional materials. Resources include an
understanding and ability to respond to students’ reasoning. Resources also include a
personal understanding of powerful ideas in science and scientific models, and the ability
to relate them to students’ ideas in order to establish the connection between data,
personal experiences, and scientific models. Also important are the pedagogical
resources to develop social norms for creating processes of building arguments from
evidence in classrooms where different norms prevail. And finally, the management
skills to maintain social control while holding a discussion that relinquishes control over
evidence and conclusions partly to the students

Summary

This framework is intended to describe and compare versions of communities of
practice. IQWST, through the curriculum material, has designed a community of
authentic inquiry practice that coordinates the content and practice of science to produce
powerful scientific models that can be used to explain phenomenon. In order to create
this community though, teachers play an essential link in the relationship between

teachers, students, and subject matter. It falls to teachers to establish the types of social

19

participation structures that result from commitments to a view of science teaching and
learning that values student participation in the construction of scientific understanding.
If the IQWST vision of practice is to be enacted in classrooms, then teachers must have
similar commitments to views of science and learning, and the necessary personal
resources to respond to the ambiguities and complexities when teachers and students

encounter the tasks.

20

Chapter 3

Method
Investigating and Questioning our World through Science and Technology (IQWST)

is a curriculum materials development project that is addressing the problem of designing
a next generation of curriculum materials that promote deep understanding of science
while attending to national content standards, inquiry standards, and goals for science
literacy. This project uses a design-based research and development approach which
occurs in two stages (Cobb, Confrey, diSessa, Lehrer, & Schauble, 2003; Cobb et al.,
2001). In the first stage, or the design stage, the curriculum material is designed
according to a particular set of design principles (Krajcik et al., 2008; Reiser et al., 2003).
Second, in the feedback stage, an interpretive analysis (Erickson, 1986) of the use of the

curriculum material is performed to inform the revision of the curriculum material.

I used a comparative case study research design (Merriam, 1988; Yin, 2006) because I
wanted to address the descriptive question of what happened in particular classrooms
when three teachers used IQWST curriculum materials and understand why the teachers
enacted particular instructional roles in order to further inform the design and revision of

IQWST materials.

Seeing the Light: Can I Believe My Eyes? (Fortus et al., 2005) is a six-week physics
curriculum unit designed for 6th grade students, and is one of the 18 units designed for the
IQWST project. The enactment of the light curriculum served to bound the time and
events of each case. Following is a description of the case according to the design
principles of the IQWST project. Then the 3 contexts that the IQWST unit was enacted

in including the data sources. And finally, the methods used to analyze the case.

21

The Case: IQWST Light Unit
The IQWST light unit was designed with the following design principles: learning

goal driven design, motivating and contextualizing inquiry, preparing students for
inquiry, supporting inquiry, anchored in multiple and varied phenomena and
presentations, artifacts and culminating activities. Because the core focus of my analysis
is on Lesson 6: Scattering and Reflection of Light I will describe each of these design

principles in the context of lesson 6.

Learning Goal Driven Design. Learning performances are determined with a
backwards design approach (Wiggins & McTighe, 1998). First, essential content is
identified in the national standards, for example, “Light interacts with matter by
transmission, absorption, or reflection (including scattering)” (National Research
Council, 1996). Next relevant inquiry standards are identified such as, “Develop
descriptions, explanations, predictions, and models using evidence (NRC, 1996, A: 5-8)
and “Think critically and logically to make the relationships between evidence and
explanation. (NRC, 1996, A: 5-8).” The content standard and the inquiry standard are
then combined to develop learning performances such as the learning performances for
lesson 6: “Students investigate the law of reflection” and “Students use a model of light

to explain the difference between reflection and scattering.”

Motivating and contextualizing inquiry. The driving question provides an authentic
context for inquiry. In lesson 6, the driving question is, “Why can I see my reflection in a
mirror but not a piece of wood?” The science content and skills identified in the learning

performances are essential for answering the driving question.

22

Preparing students for inquiry. In order to help students develop understanding
about the subject matter teachers need to know what students already understand and
believe about the world. Lesson 6 begins with an activity in which the teacher reviews
what students have learned about the light model that has been developed to explain how
objects are seen. And the teacher learns about student experiences by asking them about

their experiences when their eyes may have been fooled when light bounces off an object.

Supporting inquiry. Several strategies are used to support students in learning
inquiry practices. Learning technologies are tools that support learners in authentic
inquiry including light detectors and data tables in lesson 6. Opportunities for
collaboration and discourse occur when students communicate scientific procedures and
explanations, collect data, analyze data, and communicate their findings to the class, and
query other students’ explanations as a part of developing legitimate skepticism. For
example, in Lesson 6 students analyze the data from light reflecting off a mirror identify
and communicate the pattern that light reflects in a “v” shape pattern. And finally,
scaffolds which are instructional supports that allow students to take part in tasks that
otherwise would be less accessible or productive. Teachers scaffold learning by
sequencing, modeling, coaching, and giving feedback. For example, suggesting to the
teacher that students should recognize that the meter sticks attached to the light detector
and flashlight “made a V” when the maximum light detector reading was recorded.
Scaffolded learning materials reduce complexity and highlight concepts and inquiry
strategies. For example, the student activity sheet for lesson 6 scaffolds the investigation
design. Procedures are given that describe where to place a flashlight and a light detector

in order to measure the amount of light that is reflected at different angles from a rough

23

and smooth surface. And the student activity sheet supports the subsequent data analysis
with data tables and questions to help students identify patterns with prompts such as,
“describe any differences you noticed in the data you gathered for the mirror and the data

you gathered for the piece of paper”.

Anchored in multiple and varied phenomena and presentations. Students
experience the phenomena through first-hand experiences in order to have concrete
representations to tie the various explanations together. For example in lesson 6 the
concrete experiences are with the light detector readings for reflected light from a mirror
and a piece of paper, also students are shown different materials that reflect and scatter
light, and a microscopic picture of paper to see the rough surface of paper. The
experiences with the experiments and the different types of materials are tied together to

explain why reflections can be seen in mirrors but not in wood.

Artifacts and culminating activities. Artifacts are embedded assessments or products
students create as they conduct investigations. In lesson 6, artifacts include the
predictions, and conclusion questions on student activity sheets, and the final product is a
revision to the class ray-diagram light model that includes the ways light can interact with

rough and smooth surfaces.

Context: Participants
The pilot enactment of the light unit occurred during the 2005-2006 school year in

three classrooms. Three teachers piloted the enactment of the light curriculum. The three
teachers enacting the unit were a convenience sample chosen to represent urban,

suburban, and rural classrooms. The teachers in this study were recommended by fellow

24

researchers and colleagues and chosen due to their willingness to pilot the light
curriculum.
Classroom One: Mr. Dee

Mr. Dee had been teaching physics and physical science for 16 years. He taught in a
variety of classrooms including a middle school in Florida with a mixture of urban and
suburban students, a Department of Defense school in Germany, and currently in a
suburban middle school in Michigan for the past six years. He has a BS. degree in
science education and an Ed.S. degree in curriculum and instruction with grades 7-12

certifications in general science, physics, and math.

The suburban middle school Mr. Dee teaches in has a student body that is 94% White,
not Hispanic; 2% Hispanic; 2% Asian/Pacific Islander; 1% Black, not Hispanic. 11% of
the students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. And on the state MEAP test the

school average for math proficiency was 86% compared to the state average of 72%.

In terms of the physical setting of the classroom, the room itself is quite large with
students seated at tables for two students. Displayed around the room are a number of
devices that Mr. Dee uses to demonstrate science concepts including a pop bottle radio, a
periscope from a military tank, etc. The class is well stocked with laboratory equipment.
There are a number of additional instructional tools such as computers, printers, and an
overhead projector that Mr. Dee has purchased on E-Bay or MSU surplus store in
addition to the appliances such as hot chocolate makers and dishwashers that make Mr.

Dee’s classroom a social hub of the school as well.

25

Classroom Two: Ms. Kay
Ms. Kay had been teaching for six years. For all six years she has taught science in

sixth and seventh grade at an urban middle school in a large city. She has a BS. degree
in education with a major in life science, and a minor in physical science. She is certified

to teach all subjects K-5, with a general science endorsement.

The urban school Ms. Dee teaches in has a student body that is 98% Black, not
Hispanic, <1% Asian/Pacific Islander, <1% Hispanic, and <1% White, not Hispanic.
15% of the students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch program. And on the
state MEAP test the school average for math proficiency was 91% compared to the state

average of 72%.

In terms of the physical setting, Ms. Dee’s classroom is quite cramped. There are six
laboratory tables affixed to the floor with typically 5 or 6 students per table. There are
cabinets along one wall with some laboratory equipment. And displayed around the
room are student posters and presentations from prior years.

Classroom Three: Ms. Cee

Ms. Cee has been teaching in rural schools for the past 13 years. She has taught social
studies, science, computers, and careers. She has a BS. degree in elementary education
with minors in math, science, and social studies, and a MS. degree in educational
leadership. She is certified all subjects K-8, with endorsements in math, science, and

social studies.

The rural school Ms. Cee teaches in has a student body that is 94% White, not
Hispanic, 2% Hispanic, < 1% Asian/Pacific Islander, and < 1% Black, not Hispanic. 31%

of the students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch program. And on the state

26

MEAP test the school average for math proficiency was 49% compared to the state

average of 72%.

Ms. Cee’s classroom is carpeted and serves multiple purposes as the science and
social studies classroom, and the after school day care program. There is no running
water or electrical outlets typical for a science classroom, and if Ms. Cee needs science
equipment she borrows the necessary equipment from the High School teacher.

The researcher: Mr. Grueber

In a study of the contrast between fundamental changes in policy and one teacher’s
practice Cohen (1990) raised a critical question, whose perspective on change is most
important, the observer’s or the teacher’s? Similar to the concern raised by Cohen, I seek
to honor both the perspectives of the teachers’ enacting the IQWST curriculum, and the
design principles used to construct the IQWST curriculum materials. Because the
observations and descriptions of the teachers’ practice also occurs within the context of
the researcher’s background and personal history I include here a description of my own
background as a classroom teacher, and relationship with the IQWST project design team

and teachers.

I was a high school science teacher for six years. During that time one of the
problems of my own practice that was particularly interesting to me was justifying to my
own students the explanations I provided. Often my students would ask me how science
had determined a particular explanation, and often my own explanation consisted of
repeating the explanations I had learned from either the book or my own professors. This

type of explanation often left both me and my students unsatisfied.

27

As a result of this and other dissatisfactions with my own practice I chose to pursue a
doctoral degree in science education. During this time I became involved with the
IQWST project and participated in the design of the “Seeing the Light” IQWST unit. I
appreciated the attempts of the IQWST unit to coordinate through the experiments the
content and practices of science for a number of reasons. One, the IQWST units are
designed to connect the content and practice both across the lessons in one unit, and the
entire 18 units. Second, the IQWST units are designed to include pedagogical strategies
to support teachers in creating a learning environment that affords students opportunities

to use evidence from the experiments as the basis of the explanations for the content.

I also appreciated and respected the efforts of the three teachers’ piloting the IQWST
unit. I was excited about working with Mr. Dee because I had attended his presentations
at the state science teacher convention and looked forward to observing his teaching
practice. Throughout the pilot enactment Mr. Dee contributed many valuable suggestions

that became included in revisions to the light unit.

I had fewer personal interactions with Ms. Kay throughout the pilot enactment
because in the school there were many demands on her time, and few opportunities to
talk with me. However, during other professional development workshops I had more
opportunities to sit and talk with Ms. Kay. During the enactment, one of the aspects of
Ms Kay’s practice that stood out to me was her classroom management skills, which I
sometimes used as examples in the context of the pre-service teacher education course I

was instructing.

I had the most personal interactions with Ms. Cee throughout the pilot enactment.

Because of Ms. Cee’s classroom schedule I had more opportunities to spend time with

28

her during lunch and recess periods. Ms. Cee was also very comfortable discussing with
me her difficulties with the lessons and expressed an interest in how the other two
teachers had dealt with problems that arose during the lessons, and what the IQWST team

had intended to occur.

So, against the backdrop of my own personal experiences with classroom teaching and
being a member of the IQWST design team I often shified between two points of view.
From one point of view as an IQWST curriculum design member, I was interested in
studying the fidelity of the enactment to identify ways to revise the IQWST materials.
From the second point of view as a teacher, I was interested in studying the ways teachers
bring together their own practices and the IQWST practices to create a new or hybrid
unit.

Data Sources

Observations of practice. Observations (Hatch, 2002) of each classroom were made
at least once per week for each classroom in order to understand the culture, and setting
of the classrooms in which the IQWST curriculum was enacted. While present in the
social setting of the classrooms, I recorded field notes of what the teachers and students
were doing and saying in order to get a sense of the norms and expectations of each
classrooms social and academic setting. Because the norms and expectations of social
situations are so nuanced, videotaped recordings were used as the primary source of data.
I personally observed Mr. Dee’s classroom on 9 occasions, Ms. Kay on 9 occasions, and

Ms. Cee on 6 occasions.

Videotape of practice. Raw video footage of each class period for the enactment was

shot continuously with little movement of the camera. The main advantage of this kind

29

of recording is that the video document provides a relatively comprehensive and neutral
record of the social interaction (Erickson, 2006). On average 28 class periods of
approximately 45—50 minutes were videotaped for each classroom. I transcribed and
coded 22 class periods for Mr. Dee, 31 class periods for Ms. Kay, and 21 class periods

for Ms. Cee.

Interviews. Semi structured interviews (Freebody, 2003) were conducted
individually with teachers at the end of the year to clarify their perceptions of inquiry,
how they managed the dilemma of what to do with problematic data, and their
perceptions of personal strengths or weaknesses related to the event, including their
thoughts on the students’ responses to this approach to learning. In addition to
demographic questions, and open ended questions (i.e., what they believe a good science
teacher should know and be able to do), for each interview I prepared a set of 6 video
clips from lesson 6 which I showed each teacher and asked them to comment on the clip
(Erickson, 2006). Each interview lasted approximately 1.5 hours. All interviews were
audio taped, and full transcriptions were made of each interview. The interview

questions are in Appendix D.

In addition to the interviews, after the observations on occasion there were
opportunities for personal communication with the teachers during which the teachers
commented on what did or did not go well in the lesson. Also on occasion emails were

exchanged with the teachers.

Additional artifacts. Classroom artifacts such as photographs, posters, charts,
models, students’ work, pre/post content tests, pre/post attitude surveys were also

collected.

30

These varied sources can be used to facilitate data triangulation in order to improve
confidence in the results of the findings (Hatch, 2002). In this study the primary data for
question 1 is the curriculum materials and transcriptions of videotape recordings of entire
lessons; for question 2, the primary data is the transcribed discourse of formulating
patterns and explanations events; and for question 3, the data includes the field notes,

transcribed discourse, and teacher interviews.

Analysis

Question 1: What did scientific knowledge and practice look like in each
classroom?

In order to describe the authentic community of classroom science I found
Remillard’s (1999) framework for studying teachers curriculum construction useful
because it frames both the teachers’ selection of IQWST tasks in the design arena, and
their response to the tasks in light of their personal aims and goals for science teaching
and learning in the construction arena. In the first stage of my analysis, which
corresponds to the design arena, I began by developing a coding framework for inquiry
events in order to determine the boundaries of classroom events. Because I was
interested in looking at the inquiry that happened in the classrooms I created definitions
of events based on types of inquiry and general classroom events (Lemke, 1990; Mehan,
1979) such as beginnings to lessons, transitions, and classroom business such as checking
homework. Using “The Five Essential Features of Inquiry” (National Research Council,
2000), and a learning progression of inquiry practices (Fortus et al., 2006) I developed
four inquiry events: Formulating and Asking Questions (FAQ), Data Gathering (DG),

Formulating Patterns and Explanations (FPE), and Connecting Explanations (CE). Two

31

additional events were Other IQWST events, and Non-IQWST events. The descriptions

of the events are in Appendix A.

The definition of events was necessary to be able to determine the context. A context
is a socially constituted environment embedded in time that can change from moment to
moment, and within each context there are particular actions that are considered
legitimate (Erickson & Shultz, 1981). For example a student handling light detectors in a
data gathering event is considered legitimate, whereas during a formulating patterns and
explanations event this might be considered an illegitimate action. I was particularly
concerned with the types of actions in the contexts that I have described as inquiry

events.

Then I watched each videotape and made a rough transcript of the video, a rough
transcript was simply as much as I could type while the video played in real time (Ochs,
1979). I then coded that rough transcript and wrote a narrative account of each class
period. With these rough transcripts and narrative accounts I constructed “event maps”
(Gearing & Epstein, 1982; Kelly & Crawford, 1997) of the inquiry events that occurred
during the enactment of the unit and which helped to determine the teacher’s selection

and design of IQWST tasks.

Once I transcribed and coded each class period I selected two lessons to make a more
detailed coding of what inquiry looked like in each classroom for the second stage of my
analysis. I selected these two lessons because a core activity in both lessons was
formulating patterns in evidence for the purpose of constructing and revising models. In
the second stage of analysis, which corresponds to the construction arena, I made a full

transcription of each lesson and micro analysis of the lesson episodes (Erickson, 2006).

32

An episode is identified by changes in the social setting, these changes were identified by
either a change in the substantive content of the talk, or the participants involved (Lemke,
1990). I coded those episodes with a framework for science content and science
practices. For my framework of content knowledge I coded the teacher guide and
classroom lesson for examples of experiences, patterns, and explanations described in
Appendix B. I coordinated the inquiry events with inquiry practices developed by
members of the IQWST team and also coded the episodes for the types of inquiry
practices defined in a learning progression for scientific practices and listed in Appendix

C.

Question 2: What do the teacher-student interactions reveal about the social
and socioscientific norms in the classroom?

For question 2, I used discourse analysis to find social norms in the classroom from an
emic perspective (Gee & Green, 1998). I continued to use the episodes I had identified in
the transcript for each lesson. At this point I was looking for the structure of the role
relationships among the participants, in other words, how the teacher and students orient
themselves to appropriate action. Participant structures can change within a single
context and each participant structure has particular ways of speaking, listening, getting
the floor and holding it (Cazden, 2001; Erickson & Shultz, 1981). Therefore to identify
the norms for the participant structures I looked for instances where the interactional flow
was disrupted (Cobb et al., 2001; Hymes, 1972). I focused on Formulating Patterns and
Explanations events and looked for the typical patterns of interaction that occurred in the
lessons. I then tested the typicality and a typicality of those participant structures in
Formulating Patterns and Explanations events from lessons 2 and 6 across the entire

spectrum of Formulating Patterns and Explanation events from all lessons and class

33

periods in the entire enactment (Erickson, 2006). I used the inquiry narratives and event
maps to identify the set of Formulating Patterns and Explanations events for each of the

three teachers.

Question 3: What are the teachers’ commitments and resources for constructing
a scientific inquiry community of practice?

Throughout my analysis of the three teachers’ curriculum design I looked for
instances where the three teachers had the opportunity to make decisions that would
result in instructional activities as IQWST envisioned them. For the purpose of
investigation, commitments must be inferred, and this inference may take into account
the ways individuals give evidence of commitments: belief statement, intentionality to
behave in a predisposed manner, and behavior related to the belief in question (Pajares,
1992). I also looked across all the lessons for teacher actions and behaviors as indicators
of commitments and resources that occurred in interviews with, and field observations of
the three teachers. While the video tapes and transcribed text provided the bulk of the
evidence of behavior related to the teachers’ commitments and resources to the IQWST
design principles, I also conducted a viewing session, or stimulated recall with each
teacher to identify the teachers’ aims and intents during the episode (Erickson, 2006). I
chose six clips to show to each teacher, and asked questions to explore their thoughts
about inquiry, their role, and their personal resources. The interview protocol is in

Appendix D.

34

Chapter 4

Inquiry Analysis
When constructing a community of inquiry practice teachers must wrestle with the

problematic relationships between scientific knowledge, the learning of science, and
pedagogy (Driver et al., 1994). One way of solving the problem of teaching academic
objectives in school has been to separate the knowing and the doing of science (J. S.
Brown et al., 1989; Duschl, 1990; Schwab, 1962). Current reform efforts (American
Association for the Advancement of Science, 1993; National Research Council, 1996,
2000) have advocated another solution to the problem of achieving academic objectives
by engaging students in the authentic practices of science defined as inquiry. To engage
students in the authentic practices of inquiry means viewing classrooms as a community
of scientific practice in which the solution to the problem of achieving academic
objectives is to engage students in the authentic practices of a community that combines
the knowing and doing of science where knowledge is socially constructed, validated,

and communicated (Driver et al., 1994; Duschl et al., 2007; Krajcik et al., 2008).

An inquiry community of practice constructs knowledge and understanding through
the coordination of science content and the science practices. IQWST curriculum has
been developed around learning performances that incorporate both the body of content
knowledge and the practices of the community of science (Krajcik et al., 2008; Singer et
al., 2000). One important premise of inquiry classrooms is that the science explanations
are grounded in actual experiential evidence that has been validated in the classroom
community. The IQWST light unit has implicit expectations for how the teacher models
the use of the cultural tools of science including the knowledge and practices of science.

To solve this problem and create a classroom of scientific practice it is essential for the

35

teacher to introduce new ideas or cultural tools when necessary and provide support and
guidance for students to make sense of these ideas and tools for themselves (Driver et al.,

1994)

In the introduction to the IQWST light unit the commitment to authentic practice is
expressed as the students’ construction of scientific understanding as students analyze
data and use scientific knowledge to interpret that data (Fortus et al., 2005). For
example, in lesson 6, students first use their experiences with mirrors to generate
questions and make predictions to test what happens when light interacts with matter.
Then students build connections between their experiences with light detector data and
patterns by analyzing data to validate the peaked pattern which represents the law of
reflection, and a flat pattern when light is scattered. Next, using these patterns and a ray
model of light students construct an explanation of phenomena such as why images can
be seen in a mirror and not wood. This final explanation results from a combination of
using the cultural tools of data tables and graphs, the law of reflection, and the reasoning
skills to develop arguments from evidence.

In the construction arena of classroom curriculum design (Remillard, 1999),
teachers adapt and invent the curriculum tasks to become classroom events. In the
construction arena the central teacher activity is task adaptation, the on-the-spot decisions
about how to adapt the curriculum in response to students’ activities. Teachers’ task
adaptation reveals their goals for the task and their ideas about what students’
understandings of scientific ideas should be. In this chapter I describe the community of

classroom practice that each teacher constructed.

36

For Mr. Dee, the three IQWST tasks were adapted to be grounded in experiences with
experiments in the curriculum material and additional experiences. However, the
practice that Mr. Dee modeled was that experiences are illustrations for the patterns and
explanations. Ms Kay worked very hard to adapt the tasks so that students collected
evidence from the experiences that could be used to prove the patterns and explanations.
However, Ms. Kay modeled the practice of selectively choosing evidence that supports,
or proves, pre-determined patterns and explanations. Ms. Cee also relied heavily on the
experiences associated with the tasks. However, she did not model expert practices to
help students make sense of the experiences.

First, I present the results of stage one of my analyses of the teachers’ curriculum
design after I coded the entire unit for 6 types of classroom events described in the
methods chapter, and illustrated in appendix table A. Then, from stage two which
represents the teachers’ constructed curriculum with a micro analysis of lesson 6, I
narrate the results through a chronology of classroom events interspersed with up close
detailed description and commentary of episodes alongside transcript text. The
commentary focuses on the type of science content and practice occurring in the episode.
Each commentary includes: 1) the observations for each episode that I coded for the
science content (experiences, patterns, or explanations in Appendix B) and the inquiry
practices (represented in Appendix C); 2) a description of the teacher’s reading of the
task and students’ performance, and their task adaptation; and, 3) a contrast with the
intended IQWST inquiry practice. Following the description of each classroom is a
within-case summary of the results, and the chapter ends with a cross-case summary of

all three teachers’ classroom practice.

37

Results

Inquiry in the Classroom Context
The results in Figure 1 show the enacted inquiry events that resulted from each

teacher’s selection and design of curriculum tasks and events.

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C

 

 

l FAQ DG FPE CE IQWST Non
Other IQWST

Types of Events

 

 

Figure 1. Enacted Inquiry Events.
The structure of events in all three classrooms included a balance of inquiry events,

there was time devoted to the inquiry events of formulating and asking questions, data
gathering, formulating patterns and explanations, connecting explanations. There were
also other non-IQWST events such as the time teachers spent beginning each class period
with attendance, or other classroom business. I have lefl these events out of the narrative
for each lesson and focused strictly on the four inquiry events. One type of non-IQWST

event that is included in the narrative are events where teachers adapted inquiry events in

38

ways not suggested in the IQWST light unit materials. Ultimately, Figure 1 shows the
teacher decisions in the realm of the design arena when teachers consulted with the
IQWST materials to select and design tasks for students. What follows are the results
describing how the three teachers constructed the curriculum in their classroom context.
For each teacher first I present a timeline for lesson 6, and a summary of the main
storyline that describes the patterns I will be developing for each teacher. Then the
narrative describing lesson 6. And finally, a summary of how each teacher puts together
the content and practice of lesson 6 compared to IQWST.
Mr. Dee

Mr. Dee enacted lesson 6 over two class periods. In the first class period Mr. Dee
used the data from an IQWST experiment with mirrors to identify for students the pattern
for how light reflects, and then the students experimented with light reflecting from
paper, after which Mr. Dee again analyzed the data and explained to the students that data
did not provide a good pattern. During the second class period Mr. Dee used
demonstrations, and stories to explain to students the pattern for how light reflects from

smooth and rough surfaces.

The key pattern in Mr. Dee’s practice is that Mr. Dee sacrifices the IQWST practice
of reasoning with evidence to construct a model of light and vision, and replaces it with a
practice of constructing an intuitively appealing story that explains the pattern of
reflection and scattering. Mr. Dee constructs this story by adding additional experiences
to the curriculum in non IQWST episodes. The practice of reasoning with data is less
significant to Mr. Dee because he quickly adapts the IQWST FPE episodes to dismiss the

data from experiments. Instead, Mr. Dee adapts the IQWST FPE episodes to construct

39

for the students intuitively appealing models of reflection and scattering rather than
revising the IQWST light model.
Law of Reflection

Lesson 6 began on Wednesday while Mr. Dee was at a school district meeting. The
class completed the experiment for activity 6.1. Mr. Dee returned to the class on

Thursday and continued with lesson 6.

Once the attendance was completed Mr. Dee checked the IQWST homework from
lesson 5 about shadows. Mr. Dee stopped at each student’s desk to evaluate answers, and
sometimes joke with the students about the quality of their illustrations and questions
about the content. The following episode begins with a student comment as Mr. Dee

approached the student’s desk.

 

Lesson 5 Non IQWST episode

 

Student: mine's pretty see look at my The content for this episode was
teddy bear. coded as an explanation for a shadow.
Mr. Dee: pretty ugly The practice for this episode is using
Student: Ooohhhl models to explain.

Mr. Dee: I’m kidding Mr. Dee’s question to the student and
Student: I think it’s beautiful his own answer exemplify his goal for
Mr. Dee: yeah well why's the shadow students’ to make a correct prediction
over here? Because there's light that for the location of a shadow. His

can get to that. response to an incorrect prediction is to
Student: well it’s not real accurate immediately point out why the student’s
Mr. Dee: well then it’s not pretty is it predicted shadow location is not
Student: uhh! accurate.

This represents an interesting contrast
to the IQWST goal for this question.
The IQWST goal was to use a model
developed in lesson 5 to explain the
formation of shadows. From an IQWST
perspective after asking the student
“why’s the shadow over there”, the
teacher practice could be to follow that
question with a prompt to use the model
from the experiment in lesson 5 and

 

4O

 

explain why the predicted location is
incorrect.

 

Thirteen minutes into the lesson Mr. Dee finished checking the homework, and briefly
reviewed the correct response with the whole class. He based his summary of the
homework on the themes he noticed in the students’ work. The theme from lesson 5 was
the relationship between shadow size and distance from a light source. In order to clarify
this theme Mr. Dee drew on the whiteboard his model of a balloon expanding as the basis

of the explanation for how shadows are made.

 

Lesson 5 Non IQWS T episode

 

Mr. Dee: Now, mostly you looked
pretty good on those uh those models.
This is what I saw mostly. I saw a
light source. With light coming out all
around it. Yup. I saw an eye, OK.
And then I saw some object I’ll draw
one that I liked fairly well... So when
the light hits the balloon it’s bouncing
off all over, 0k? Is it bouncing off this
way? Is it bouncing off this way?
Students: No

Mr. Dec: No? There’s no light
getting to it if we wanted to be sure
here. . .We can see the shadow because
there is light hitting here and bouncing
off, but there is no light hitting here,
from this light source. . .But when you
see a shadow like that and there's only
one light source you know we can see
the shadow because its that dark spot
where lights not getting to, OK?

The content of this episode still is
from lesson 5 but it is an explanation,
the explanation for how shadows are
seen. And, for the inquiry practice Mr.
Dee is using models to explain.

In response to the student work he
had just checked, Mr. Dee’s practice is
to use a model that intuitively explains
students’ experiences with shadows. As
he draws the light rays he involves the
students in making predictions for where
the light rays will go. He then provides
the explanation for how a shadow is
seen.

An interesting contrast here is that
Mr. Dee’s practice is to have students
make predictions about experiences
instead of the IQWST practice that
models are useful for making predictions
about scientific data.

 

Sixteen minutes into the lesson after Mr. Dee finished going over the shadow

homework he transitioned immediately into recapping what the students had completed

in lesson 6 the day before. For the first five minutes he recapped with the students the

experiment procedures from activity 6.1 with the mirror.

 

Lesson 6 Formulating Patterns and Explanations (F PE) episode

 

Mr. Dee: Yesterday you did a lab,
where you had something like this set
up. Oh I don't remember how many
there were there were

Student: Bout five.

Mr. Dee: It was like five, three,
something like that. Ok? So this was
five four three two one, and you had
something similar here. What was set
up right here?

Student: Mirror

Mr. Dee: Ok, so we had a mirror here.
That’s our mirror.

The content in this episode was coded
for experiences from mirror experiment
6.1. And the inquiry practice was
selecting/using appropriate instruments.

In terms of classroom practice, Mr.
Dee reviews with students the
experimental procedures. This type of
episode where Mr. Dee prompted
students to reply about the procedural
setup of the experiment was a common
practice Mr. Dee used to involve
students'.

The IQWST goal is to involve
students in the science practice of
identifying the relationship between
variables and the procedures to control
variables.

 

Once the details about the experimental setup were settled Mr. Dee asked students to

report their results for the light detector data collected from the mirror in activity 6.1.

 

Lesson 6 Formulating Patterns and Explanations episode

 

Mr. Dee: And so in this case give me
the number you guys have for number
one.

Student: Um, we got 177

Mr. Dec: 177. What did you get for 2?
Student: Um 126

Mr. Dec: 126. Three?

Student: 20

Mr. Dee: 20?

The content here is also coded as
experiences because it is the data from
the mirror experiment. The inquiry
practice here is recording data in an
orderly manner as Mr. Dee recorded the
students’ results on the overhead for the
class to see.

Mr. Dee’s classroom practice was to
ask the students to report their data. The

 

 

' Going through the procedures is one way Mr. Dee uses to increase student participation. One class period
[3-15] he went through the procedures in German while the students guessed what they were supposed to
do. Afterwards he told me he sometimes used German to liven up going through the procedures. The
students were excited because as they came in to classroom they were talking about the rumor that Mr. Dee

spoke German in class today.

 

Student: 20 inquiry practice of recording data was

Mr. Dee: What did you get for four? the third most common inquiry practice
Student: 4 occurring in the episodes. Mr. Dee

Mr. Dec: 4? ad0pts this practice because he values
Student: mmhmm students having experiences with data.
Mr. Dee: What did you get for five? The inquiry practice IQWST valued
Student: 2 would have been students

communicating the pattern in the data
they had analyzed rather than the data
itself which has not yet been analyzed.

 

After collecting the results from one other group Mr. Dee then asked the students if

they were recognizing a pattern in the data.

 

Lesson 6 Formulating Patterns and Explanations episode

 

Mr. Dee: What kind of trend are you In this episode the content is the math
seeing here? If the light’s at one and pattern that the peak detector reading is
the sensor’s at one you get your at the same position as the light. The
biggest value. If the light's at two and inquiry practice is identifying a pattern.
the sensor is at two you get your Mr. Dee’s classroom practice is to
biggest value. What does that tell you point out to students that a pattern exists.
about these angles? (no student When he asks students “what does that
response) tell you” he’s modeling the strategy that

patterns in data should be immediately
intuitive. This is a key pattern in Mr.
Dee’s practice that he explains in his
interview in Chapter 6.

The IQWST practice of students
sharing their ideas of what the pattern is
and then deciding as a group what
should be the valid pattern did not occur.

 

After Mr. Dee’s question no students volunteered an answer, and so Mr. Dee used a

model to represent the pattern and answer his question about the angles.

 

Lesson 6 Formulating Patterns and Explanations episode

 

43

 

Mr. Dee: Ok. I assume that you have
played pool at some point not
necessarily a whole game. I mean
even if you just rolled the ball with
your hands... If I send the ball in at
this angle which angle does it bounce
off?

Student: Inaudible

Mr. Dec: 1 will give you four choices,
OK? Will it go here, here, here, or
here? A B C D.

Students: D.

Mr. Dee switched the content focus
to another experience not in the IQWST
curriculum. With this other experience
the inquiry practice is using a model to
make a prediction.

Mr. Dee uses a model that is
intuitively comprehensible for the
students to understand the pattern for
reflection. He then checks the students
understanding of the pattern by asking
the students to make a prediction for
which angle the billiard ball will bounce
off the billiard table bumper. The use of
intuitively appealing models is a key
practice that Mr. Dee uses in his efforts
to build an explanation of reflection.
Asking students to make predictions is a
method that Mr. Dee commonly uses to
read students’ understanding, which he
also talks about in Chapter 6.

Mr. Dee’s practice is in contrast to
the IQWST science practice in which
students use the data from the
experiment and patterns that have been
validated as a group to revise the ray
model in order to describe how light is
reflected from surfaces like mirrors.

 

After many students correctly predicted position D, one student volunteered the

explanation “because this side has to equal that side.” After the student mentioned the

sides had to be equal, Mr. Dee came back to his example of shooting pool and ended the

activity with the comment “Alright, that’s the way things happen.”

Reflection and Scattering

Twenty five minutes into the lesson, Mr. Dee transitioned to activity 6.2 with the

announcement that the students were going to continue the lab. Mr. Dee distributed the

IQWST student activity sheet and read the purpose for the upcoming experiment to

compare the light detector data from the mirror with the light detector data from the

paper.

 

Lesson 6 Formulating and Asking Questions (FA Q) episode

 

T Mr. Dee: Before you get up and get The Episode content is experiences
any equipment let’s look at this. No I with the soon to be collected data from
said let’s listen. In the previous experiment with the paper and mirror in
activity you learned the rule for how activity 6.2. The inquiry practice is
light rays bounce off of a smooth generating questions.

surface like a mirror. In this activity Mr. Dee read directly from the

you will compare the way light IQWST activity sheet to establish the
bounces off a mirror to the way it purpose for the task. IQWST phrased
bounces off a non shiny object like a the purpose as “this will help you to
piece of paper. This will help you to understand,” and Mr. Dee did not
understand why a mirror looks change the word “understand.” The use
different from a piece of paper even of the word understand in this case
though light bounces off of both. You matches with Mr. Dee’s practice of
will use a light detector to keep track using experiences that he can use to

of light. Ok, where it goes after it teach students about reflection and
bounces off of a mirror and a piece of scattering.

paper. The IQWST practice of generating

questions was intended to be based on
students sharing their predictions of
what would happen with the rest of the
class. These predictions would have
been based on the pattern in evidence
that was validated with the pattern in
evidence from the mirror experiment.

 

After Mr. Dee looked at a few student predictions he announced to the whole class,
“Alright from what I’m seeing you guys aren't really looking at those directions.
Basically they’re asking you what would be the brightness of the light at one two three

,9

four and five. After Mr. Dee identified the variables in the experiment, and the students
individually wrote their predictions on their activity sheets, Mr. Dee instructed the

students to start the lab and turned off the classroom lights. As the students settled in to

45

work, it was apparent though that some students were still unsure of the purpose of the

data they were collecting and asked Mr. Dee for help.

 

Lesson 6 Data Gathering (DG) episode

 

Student 1: What are we doing? The content in this episode is the
Mr. Dee: What are we doing? You experiences with the light detector
need to look at your little procedure if readings from the mirror. The inquiry
you’re not sure. You're going to put practice is select and use appropriate
your light at three, then do it with the instruments.

mirror, and then the paper. (Mr. Dee Mr. Dee’s response to the student’s
walks away) question indicates his belief that the task
Student 2: I can’t even see the light at students should be engaged in is the
five. practice of following procedures and
Student 1: Mr. Dee, come back over having experiences with data.

here please. The IQWST practice would be to

help students understand the connection
between the data and the scientific
model and refer back to the patterns in
the light model and determine how the
variables in the model relate to the
instruments being used to collect data to
test the light model.

 

Fifty minutes into the lesson, the students finished collecting data from the
experiment, returned the materials, and returned to their seats. Mr. Dee began recording
student data on the overhead. First, he asked two groups to report their data from the
mirror. Then, Mr. Dee saw the pattern in the data, “Seeing a trend here aren't we? Any
surprises there?” The students replied “no” and Mr. Dee moved to the light detector data

from the paper.

 

Lesson 6 Formulating Patterns and Explanations episode

 

Mr. Dee: Situation 2, paper. Ok same The content in this episode is

thing, but here we go. Ok, what did experiences with light detector data from
you guys get? One two three four and the paper surface. The inquiry practices
five for the paper. are recording data, and comparing two
Student: Um, for the paper um 4.04 groups of data.

Mr. Dee: 4 Mr. Dee decided in this episode to

 

46

 

Student: 6 8 8 8 and 8

Mr. Dee: That’s not very good data.
Why is it only down in the eights
there? Did you have some setting on
your? Doesn’t sound right. Anyway
let’s here what you guys had.
Student 2: Us?

announce to the class that the data was
not producing a good pattern. First this
indicates his belief that students are not
responsible for validating the data. He
thought the problem may have been due
to students’ experimental error when he
asks them about the setting on their light
detector and continued to poll other
groups for their data. The key point here
is that Mr. Dee assumes the
responsibility for interpreting the
validity or usefulness of the data.

The IQWST practice was intended to
have the students compare the variation

, in the data from the paper and the mirror

and decided as a class that there was a
difference in the patterns which would
then be the evidence for the need to
revise the light model.

 

Mr. Dee asked the remaining five student groups to report their data from the

experiment. After he polled the entire class for their data he next asked the class what

setting their light detectors were on because he was not satisfied with the data.

 

Lesson 6 Formulating Patterns and Explanations episode

 

Mr. Dee: Well this is not nearly as
clear as this data up here was. What
would you expect to be the place
where it’s going to be highest?
Students: Three

Mr. Dee: Three. Also we do have
some tendency toward that, it’s kind of
like in the middle here. But it’s not
great data. I think our flashlights
probably spread out a little much Ok?
And had some problems like that. And
so our data wasn't quite as good. Do
you think maybe it would have made a
difference to set it on a more sensitive
setting on the light sensor?

Students: Yeah

The content in this episode is other
patterns when Mr. Dee notes that the
data is not as clear, and the content also
includes other explanations when he
introduces the explanation that the
flashlights spread the light out. The
inquiry practices Mr. Dee is doing are
identifying data ranges, and using
models to predict and explain data.

Mr. Dee has evaluated the data the
class collected implicitly in his head,
and decided to check if the students
understood that the data should have
shown a tendency toward position three.
After the students used the law of
reflection pattern to predict the correct
position, Mr. Dee explained the reason

 

47

 

for the unclear data. This was a key
pattern in Mr. Dee’s practice he assessed
both the data from the curriculum task
and the students’ understanding and then
he himself provided explanations and
suggestions for what problems with the
task may have been. He modeled the
practice of intuitively making sense of
the data rather than using the predictions
based on the IQWST light model.

The IQWST practice was intended to
have the students make the claim that
the data either was or was not clear data
and then collectively make a decision
about the quality of the data. Also, the
data was clear for the IQWST purpose
of illustrating light scattering.

 

Mr. Dee then asked the students leading questions to think of some reasons the
experiment setup could have been faulty and produce this unclear data. Then, he ended
the class with the claim that there was light pollution from the flashlights, informed the

students they had homework, and not to get up until the bell.

Friday lesson 6 continued when Mr. Dee began the class period with his explanation
for the “strange data.” Mr. Dee drew students’ attention to the variation in the readings
between the paper and the mirror. There was a large variation in the light detector
readings from the mirror, and there was a much smaller variation in the readings from the
paper. Mr. Dee explained that the smaller variation in the paper data was due to the
flashlight beam being too wide because some students had flashlights with adjustable

beams.

 

Lesson 6 Non IQ WST Formulating Patterns and Explanations episode

 

Mr. Dee: We have a couple different The content of the episode is an other
kinds of flashlights. We have a explanation and other experiences with
flashlight, and the beam is really kind the wide flashlight and the laser beam.

 

48

 

of wide. Then we have another
flashlight that might even look pretty
much the same, and the beam is really,
kind of straight. It’s more narrow
(drawing the light beams). So which
is going to be our high one when we
take our data? Eh? (Starring position
three on overhead). And if we had a
really really narrow beam like a laser,
it would be like zero zero a bazillion
zero zero ok? Because it’s only
coming in the one spot. But what if
we had one that was like, boy this is
really a wide beam flashlight. Well
we might get things that are you know
all over the place. Might still be a
little brighter in the middle. Well look
at the data that we got for the mirror.
We got, like 17 79 84 45 and 4. Huh,
that that’s definitely a kind of a wide
beam flashlight.

The inquiry practice is using models to
predict and explain.

With the use of other explanations
and experiences Mr. Dee chose to draw
for students a model of light rays
spreading from the flashlight drawn on
the whiteboard and proposed data that
more significantly illustrated a “peak”
pattern with the variation between zero
and bazillion. With the use of the
intuitively appealing example of a laser
beam, Mr. Dee demonstrated the
variation in the data was due to more or
less focused beams of light as he begins
to construct an explanation for the data.

Because the data that had been
collected the previous day provided the
evidence that IQWST intended, the
IQWST practice at this point would
have been for the teacher to introduce
the content knowledge by introducing
experiences with microscopic pictures of
paper to introduce the pattern that some
materials are rough and some materials
are smooth.

 

Nine minutes into the lesson after accounting for the difference in the range of data

from the mirror and the paper due to the width of the flashlight beam, Mr. Dee initiated a

non IQWST event, the Grandpa story telling event. He instructed the students to “Gather

round children. Grandpa’s gonna tell you a story.” Once the students were gathered

around, Mr. Dee used the materials from the experiment to demonstrate what scattering

and reflection would look like.

 

Lesson 6 Non IQ WS T Formulating Patterns and Explanations episode

 

Mr. Dee: Now let me ask you this,
Student: Woah

Mr. Dee: Can’t you see the light right
now?

Student: Yeah

The content in this episode is other
experiences because Mr. Dee is using
the materials from the experiment as the
experience rather than the data from the
experiment. The inquiry practice is

 

 

Mr. Dee: Ok coming in here we could
trace this thing. Let me turn it to
where. Ok, we could turn this thing
you know we could trace it with a
pencil and show you where it’s going.
It’s pretty clear it’s hitting the paper
here. It’s coming out here you know,
if I change the angle. Ok, so
obviously if I’m going to check the
light the the level of the light, if it’s
falling right there that's going to be the
most. If it’s over here it should be less
because there’s less light falling right
in there. And the more you go, that’s
less less less BRIGHT less less less,
ok?

using models to explain.

In this episode Mr. Dee’s classroom
practice is again using experiences other
than what was in the IQWST curriculum
material. Mr. Dee dismisses the use of
the students’ experimental data, and
instead uses the experiment materials to
illustrate his explanation for the
connection between the symbolic light
rays and light detector data that he had
just drawn on the classroom whiteboard.
He is on the spot constructing another
intuitively appealing example of the
reflection and scattering patterns.

From the perspective of IQWST
practice, it is not problematic that Mr.
Dee has proposed the alternative
explanation that the flashlight beams
have spread and caused poor data. It is a
problem however that Mr. Dee has not
repeated the experiment to test the
predicted data that should occur if the
flashlight beams width was controlled.

 

Fifteen minutes into the lesson, once Mr. Dee had constructed the pattern, or

explanation that because flashlight beams spread they cause a large variation in the light

detector data, he continued with the grandpa story telling event to model the experience

of light scattering and used this model to explain the light detector data from the paper.

 

Lesson 6 Other IQ WST episode — introducing rough and smooth

 

Mr. Dee: It’s like what if I had?
Bring me a couple more mirrors will
ya? From over there. (flashlight fell
to floor) Ahhh.

Student: Smooth.

Student: It’s still on.

Mr. Dee: Ok. What if I had a mirror
like this, and a mirror like this, and a
mirror like this, ok? These are all
three different angles aren’t they?

The content in this episode is once
again using other experiences. To
represent a rough surface Mr. Dee is
using many little mirrors aligned in
different directions to represent how
light would be scattered in many
directions from the light. The inquiry
practice is again using models to explain
a pattern.

In this case the classroom practice is

 

 

What if I shined it at all of them?
One’s coming this way, one’s going
that way, one’s you know. Even
though, say this is tight, you can kind
of see one of them is coming back at
me, one is going this way, and this one
I don’t know where it’s going, but I
think it’s going in to that one and then
coming back out. Ok, it’s all over the
place, because they're all at different
angles. That makes sense though
doesn’t it? You’ve got all these
different angles of mirrors, you should
get the light going out at different
angles. What if I had a million of these
little tiny mirrors? All at different
angles.

introducing an explanation for scattering
light with mirrors. Mr. Dee’s goal is to
demonstrate for the students why “it
makes sense” that while the law of
reflection is still true, the variation in the
data pattern from the paper will be less
than the variation in the data from the
mirror. With the few mirrors he
constructs an explanation that is at first
intuitive, then expands that to an
imaginary million mirrors ultimately for
the purpose of understanding why the
strange data from the paper made sense.

The IQWST practice for introducing
this explanation for scattering also
occurred with introduction of
experiences, but with a microscope
picture of paper to show the rough
surface of paper.

 

Mr. Dee ended the Grandpa story telling event and asked the students to return to their

seats. Then he continued to illustrate the relationship between rough and smooth

properties of matter and light scattering or reflecting with a bouncing ball analogy.

 

Lesson 6 Non IQ WS T episode

 

Mr. Dee: Ok, so that helps to explain
our data a little bit. Shhh shhh shhh. I
have a ball, a rubber ball, and I’m
going to bounce it on the floor. Here
we go, ready? An imaginary ball, you
ready? Bounce it. I caught it again
cause I'm really good. I bounced it.
Where was I waiting for the ball? It
came down here I was waiting for it up
here. Guess what? If I drop it again,
guess where it’s going to go, right up
here. I can predict that because this
floor is very very smooth compared to
this ball. What if instead, I brought in
a pile of bricks? I made myself
instead of a sandbox; I made myself a
brick box. And theLwere just piled in

In this episode the content is again
using other experiences. And, the
inquiry practice is using the model to
predict where a ball will bounce from a
pile of bricks.

Mr. Dee decided to ask students to
make predictions based on the model he
has constructed to explain the variation
in the data from the paper. He used the
grandpa to explain the data, now he’s
using another intuitive experience with
river rocks to give students a chance to
apply what they have learned. Mr. Dee
simplified the situation when he focused
the science content on the law of
reflection pattern and asked students to
make predictions for where the ball will

 

51

 

there every which way, can you
picture that?

Students: Yeah

Mr. Dee: Or, big river rocks, you
know like as big as your fist they're all
over the place. And I dropped my
rubber ball in there, where’s it going to
go?

Student: Any which way.

Student: anywhere

Mr. Dee: It depends on which rock it
hits, and which part of that rock it hits.
What if I had? Let’s make it simpler...

go from a rough or smooth light source.

The difference is that where the
IQWST practice asked students to make
predictions about data that was collected
and analyzed with the light detectors,
Mr. Dee is instead asking students to
apply their model and make predictions
to an analogy of balls bouncing from a
pile of bricks. Then the IQWST practice
was intended to use the model that
includes scattering and reflection to
make an explanation for how a person
can see an image in a mirror but not a
piece of wood.

 

Twenty minutes into the lesson, after Mr. Dee asked students to make a few more

predictions of where the ball, and then light rays would bounce he introduced the term

scattering. Earlier during the grandpa story telling event he had said scattering was a

possible description for what happened to the light rays bouncing from the paper but now

he specifically defined the term.

 

Lesson 6 Connecting Explanations episode

 

Mr. Dee: But now let’s draw another
mirror, but this time (Mr. Dee is
drawing a rough surface).

Student: It’s broken.

Mr. Dee: Ok? Alright, and we will
draw our light rays coming in, draw
five of them, how’s that? Guess how
they're going to go?

Student: Every which way

Mr. Dee: Every which way. This one
is hitting here is going to go off this
way. This one is going to probably
bounce here, hit this one and come up
this way. This one probably this way.
This one looks like a little bit up. This
one looks like it might come up this
way. They’re all over the place. This
is called scattering.

In this episode the content is the
pattern that some surfaces are rough and
scatter light to eye and smooth surfaces
reflect light to eye. There was not an
inquiry practice.

Mr. Dee’s practice is to draw a
representation of a rough surface, and
the light rays moving off in every which
way, again he adapts the task to ask
students to make predictions to read
their understanding of the pattern, and
finally introduces the name for the
pattern for how light bounces from
rough surfaces.

The IQWST practice in this case also
used a representation to show the way
light rays bounced off a rough surface
and introduce the term scattering for this

 

52

 

Student: What’s it called?
Mr. Dee: Scattering.

pattern.

 

Mr. Dee now has explained the relationship between the type of surface and whether

light has reflected or scattered. He has demonstrated that the law of reflection always

holds true even though the paper and mirror data were different. He used the analogy of

billiard balls bouncing off the pool table bumper as an analogy for the smooth surface of

mirrors reflecting light rays. And then he contrasted this with rubber balls bouncing at

random angles from a rounded surface similar to light rays scattering from the paper.

Twenty five minutes into the lesson, Mr. Dee then used the IQWST microscope

picture of a piece of paper to make the connections between the experiment, the mirrors,

and ball analogies in order to explain the results of the light detector readings from the

paper.

 

Lesson 6 Other IQ WST episode — introducing rough and smooth

 

Mr. Dee: And this is the comer of a
piece of it, can you see how if you had
light rays coming uh, see if I can get
this under here. If you had light rays
coming in to this thing and one of
them landed here it might go this way
but the next one came landed over here
might go back this way. This going to
give you scattering. Ok? You got
light rays coming in that go out all
over the place. So when we look back
at that paper that we did yesterday,
Ok? You’ve got scattering because the
surface is so rough compared to how
small those are, how small the little

In this episode the content is both an
experience with paper and the pattern
that rough surfaces scatter light. The
inquiry practice is an explanation that
includes a scientific principle.

Mr. Dee decided to use the IQWST
transparency with a microscope picture
of a piece of paper to show the fibers
that make the paper surface rough
relative to light rays. The picture is one
more tool Mr. Dee used to help
construct the intuitive understanding of
scattering. He ends the lesson after the
explanation for scattering which
indicates that Mr. Dee considered his

 

53

 

light beams are, the rays. academic goal for the lesson had been
achieved.

The IQWST practice for the end of
the lesson would have been for students
to use this scientific principle to
construct explanations for why images
can be seen in a mirror but not in a
rough surface like wood

 

Using the IQWST model to explain images
Mr. Dee did not use the IQWST light model to explain why images are formed in a

mirror but not a piece of paper or wood. Twenty eight minutes into the class period,
lesson 6 ended with the definition of scattering, and Mr. Dee began lesson 7 about
transmission of light by saying “Today we have to continue our activity and what we’re
going to do is we have looked at how light bounces off, it either bounces off or it bounces
off in a scattered way but you can see that light goes through this transparency this is
transparent.”
Summary Mr. Dee

The academic tasks in the IQWST curriculum unit are designed with a specific
sequence to structure students’ authentic performance of inquiry (Singer et al., 2000).
This performance perspective suggests that students construct knowledge in a classroom
community that requires them to use scientific inquiry practices to construct arguments
from evidence that builds on prior content knowledge. Where authentic performance of
science from an IQWST perspective is engaging students in a community that constructs
and validates knowledge, performance of science from Mr. Dee’s perspective is a type of
“nature study” (Driver et al., 1994) where the teacher organizes and makes sense of

curriculum tasks for students.

54

Mr. Dee adopted the IQWST tasks of collecting data with the light detectors and the
mirrors. However, in response to the students’ encounters with the IQWST experiments
Mr. Dee constructed intuitively appealing models (Lehrer & Schauble, 2000) that could
explain the pattern in the data. In Mr. Dee’s community of practice he introduced the
content, law of reflection, with the model of shooting pool. Then Mr. Dee adopted the
IQWST experiment and students collected data from the paper. However he adapted the
analysis of the data when he said the data didn’t sound right. In the process he implicitly
analyzed the data and modeled the science content as knowledge to be explained rather
than constructed. In place of the use of the ray-diagram model as a method to coordinate
the experiences and patterns he added new experiences when he used mirrors as a
teaching model (Gilbert & Boulter, 1998) to represent how a rough surface would scatter
light, and then used students’ experiences with bouncing balls off rounded surfaces to

explain the connection between the term scattering and the law of reflection.

Ultimately as a result of Mr. Dee’s practice of dismissing the analysis of data, and
instead explaining the data with the examples of balls bouncing the nature of the
knowledge that Mr. Dee constructed is that scientific knowledge is not something that is
socially constructed, but instead scientific knowledge is something used to apply to the
world. Mr. Dee used the IQWST experiments as a set of experiences that needed to be
explained, which he then explained in the context of what students already knew from
their experiences with the behavior of intuitive objects such as balls and a pile of broken
mirrors. IQWST intended the experiments with mirrors and paper as opportunities for
students to test their ideas and evaluate those ideas with formal scientific practices and

reasoning with evidence in the context of what was previously known of the light model,

55

and ultimately revise a single powerful hypothetical-deductive model (Duschl, 1990;
Lehrer & Schauble, 2000) model in order to understand and explain more experiences.
Ms. Kay

Ms. Kay enacted lesson 6 over the course of five class periods. In the first class
period Ms. Kay prepared the students to collect data for how light reflects from a mirror.
In the second class period the students collected data and Ms. Kay formulated the pattern
for the law of reflection with a class vote. In the third class period students collected data
for how light scatters from paper. In the fourth class period Ms. Kay announces to the
class that their data did not prove the scientific truth she intended to teach. And finally in
the fifth class period Ms. Kay repeated the experiment to collect data that did prove the

law of reflection is always true.

In Ms. Kay’s community of science, inquiry is a process used to validate the content
and prove that the content of science is true. For Ms. Kay the IQWST data gathering
activities are an important practice of science because correctly following procedures is
necessary to eliminate error and collect data that can be analyzed to prove that science
content is true. Ms. Kay adapts the IQWST FPE practices. However, when the practice
of collecting and analyzing data does not work because classroom science does not have
the time to repeat the procedures, Ms. Kay is there to explain to the students what the

data was intended to show.

Law of Reflection
On Wednesday January 18 Ms. Kay began lesson 6 with two journal questions
adapted from the IQWST teacher guide, and written on the overhead: “When light

reflects it _.; and, Can you name a time when reflection may have fooled your eyes

56

into thinking an object was there but really wasn’t? Describe it.” After a few minutes

she asked five students to describe their experiences when their eyes had been tricked.

Eight minutes into the class period, Ms. Kay transitioned from the first five IQWST
lessons that built the light model with a review of the questions that had been studied on
the Driving Question Board and what the students had learned about questions
specifically related to shadows. Then she distributed the IQWST parent newsletter for
the second set of three lessons and read with the class the newsletter for lessons 6 through
8. The IQWST newsletter is intended to communicate with the parents about what the
students are doing, and actually provided answers to the questions students investigated

in lessons 68

Eighteen minutes into the class period Ms. Kay distributed the IQWST student activity
sheet for activity 6.1 and asked the students to read the activity sheet and answer the

question, “What’s the purpose of this activity?”

 

Lesson 6 Formulating and Asking Questions episode

 

Ms. Kay: Clarence is gonna uh give The content in this episode is the
everyone The Law of Reflection six experiences in the form of the materials
point one. Ok lesson 6 is going to for the experiment with the mirror. And
happen in three lessons. We're going the inquiry practice is generating

to do the first portion of uh lesson six questions.

today. You guys are just going to Ms. Kay’s classroom practice is to
work with individuals at your tables. use the student activity sheet as the

Uh, once you receive your sheet put source of the purpose of the activity
your name on it, and I want you to which is to “show how light actually
quietly quickly read over what it is bounces.” She has changed the wording
you’re going to be doing... in the IQWST activity sheet for the
Students: (silently reading IQWST purpose of this experiment from
activity sheet) “investigate and compare” to “show.”
Ms. Kay: Ok what’s the purpose of The change in wording of this activity
this activity? Latrel? demonstrates Ms. Kay’s belief that
Student: Uh light, how light bounces scientific activity is a process of

off of things. confirmation with experiments rather
Ms. Kay: Ok, so it’s to show how light than a process of collecting data for

 

57

 

actually bounces off things. Good.

pattern finding and model building.

The IQWST intended practice is to
use students’ experiences with mirrors
that fool their eyes to suggest a question
that could be investigated in contrast to
Ms. Kay’s purpose for showing how
light bounces.

 

With that one student response for the experiment purpose, Ms. Kay immediately

moved to explain the procedures for completing the experiment and prepare the students

for data gathering. Again, Ms. Kay used the worksheet as the guide and directed students

to read the procedures.

 

Lesson 6 Data Gathering episode

 

Ms. Kay: 1 want you to look at those
directions silently and I want you to
describe what it is or tell me what
materials you need. Tell me what
materials are going to be necessary.
Once you find the material you can
write it, uh you can raise your hand
and tell us. Cameron?

Student: You need two meter sticks
Ms. Kay: Ok good, you're gonna need
two meter sticks. What else are we
gonna need? Clarence?

The content in this episode is once
again experiences, but with the materials
of the experiment. The inquiry practice
is selecting/using appropriate
instruments.

The teacher’s practice for data
gathering is students reading and
following the procedures and gathering
materials. For Ms. Kay correctly
following procedures is an essential
scientific practice which occupied a
significant amount of the classroom time
(15% of episodes) in lesson 6.

The intended IQWST practice is to
coordinate the question generated from
student experiences, with the variables
and the instruments that are going to be
used to investigate those experiences, as
opposed to the teacher’s practice of
following procedures to show how light
bounces.

 

Reading the procedures and gathering the materials continued for the next 20 minutes

and 43 minutes into the class period, the students were ready to collect data. Ms. Kay

announced to the students, “Ok, you may begin” and for the remainder of the class period

the students collected light detector data and Ms. Kay circulated the room, and checked
on the students with comments like, “Ok, so now you complete and record for the first
set. So, second time around you move the flashlight, you leave it but you continue to

move the light detector.”

The class period neared an end after 52 minutes, and Ms. Kay reminded the
students about the skate party tomorrow and where to place the materials before she

dismissed them.

On Friday, class period two, Ms. Kay spent the first 15 minutes reviewing how to set
up the experiment in activity 6.1, “Ok, make sure you're being careful with your
positions. For example, Corbin just moved the flashlight which means if he consistently

does that you’ll get some data but it may not be the right data.”

Once the procedures had been reviewed the students continued to collect data for how
light bounced off a mirror in activity 6.1. Eventually when some students were finished
making observations with the light detectors and others were almost finished, Ms. Kay

announced the students should be looking for a pattern in the data.

 

Lesson 6 Formulating Patterns and Explanations episode

 

Ms. Kay: While we’re waiting on uh The content of this episode is the “V”
this group to finish, I want you all to pattern that light makes when it reflects
discuss any patterns that you observed from a mirror. And the inquiry practice
as you look at your data. So any is identifying patterns in data.

patterns that you observed from The teacher’s practice is to announce
making your recordings I want you to to the class that they should be

take a look at those and talk about any identifying patterns, they should identify
patterns that you see. I do not want the pattern by talking about what they
you to write because some of us have see with their group members. But more
some great data, some of us have revealing is the fact that she has also
soooommmmee great data BUT it announced to the students her evaluation
could be better, OK? Because it is of their data when she said

what it is. You observed exactly what “Soooommmeeee great data BUT...”

 

59

 

you did so we need to talk about it. So
before you write, I want you to just
discuss any patterns that you possibly
see.

she was using the tone of her voice to
cast doubt the validity of some groups
readings. Ms. Kay’s comment is
consistent with her purpose for the lab,
“to show,” and the value she placed
earlier on correctly following the
procedures. As she has been observing
the students she noted that some
students have followed procedures
correctly and produced the right results,
while other students failed to accomplish
the purpose of the experiment.

The teacher’s suggestion that
students talk about their patterns is in
line with the IQWST practice of
students sharing their ideas about the
patterns. However Ms. Kay’s evaluation
and validation of the data is premature.

 

After Ms. Kay’s announcement to look for patterns, the students completed recording

the light detector readings and talked in groups about the pattern Ms. Kay instructed them

to look for then put the materials away.

Forty minutes into the class period once the materials were put away Ms. Kay turned

on the overhead and asked groups to report their highest light detector readings for each

position of the flashlight and light detector.

 

Lesson 6 Formulating Patterns and Explanations episode

 

Ms. Kay: Ok good, now when we had
our light at position two where did you
get your highest reading? Uh
Adrielle?

Student: Uh, position number one.

Ms. Kay: Ok position number one. If
you received your highest reading at
position number one I need to see your
hand. So for number two, for number
two our light is here, if you received
your highest reading at position one I
need to see your hand. Two groups,

The content of this episode is the
experiences set in the data from the
experiment in activity 6.1. The inquiry
practice is recording data.

Ms. Kay’s practice was to spend
much of the class time in this fashion
recording the data that students had
collected. Ms. Kay spent the time
recording the students’ data because it
relates to her purpose for the data, that
scientific experiments provide data
which will show students how light

 

6O

 

Adrielle's group and Latrell's group.
Ok so we had two. I said people but
we know two groups. So we said two
people for position one anybody else?

interacts with matter.

The IQWST practice is intended to
ask students to share with the class the
pattern in the data that they had found as
a group. Based on Ms. Kay’s comment
that some groups had good and bad data
there was a rich opportunity for the
IQWST practice of students sharing
different patterns and potentially as a
class deciding which pattern was valid.

 

After all the students reported their highest readings for each flashlight position Ms.

Kay pointed out a pattern

 

Lesson 6 Formulating Patterns and Explanations episode

 

Ms. Kay: Ok so it’s a little messy but
I’ll talk about it as we go along. So
we’re going to circle, this is all of our
data, this is what we came up with. So
we’re going to circle the highest
number and see if we can develop a
pattern there Ok? The highest number
of groups. So usually when you vote
the majority wins right?

Student: Yes

Ms. Kay: Ok, and then we'll talk
about how we all did the same activity
but we possibly came up with some
different data.

The content in this episode is the
math pattern that there is a peak detector
reading when the detector and flashlight
are at the same position or angle. The
inquiry practice is identifying patterns.

Ms. Kay’s classroom practice is to
use the majority vote to establish the
valid pattern which is not a practice for
evaluating data and finding patterns
accepted as authentic scientific inquiry
practice. As Ms. Kay state’s here, the
data is “messy” so she decided to use a
vote as the method to analyze for
students the correct pattern. And her
last comment about how the students
possibly came up with different data
relates to the ways students did not
correctly follow procedures. However,
this is an important episode because of
the three teachers in this study, Ms.
Kay’s vote was the only method
explicitly used for identifying a pattern.
Ms. Kay talks about her “on-the-spot”
decision to use the vote in Chapter 6.

The IQWST practice for identifying
the “v” pattern was to use the data table
on the student activity sheet to show that
for each flashlight position the highest

 

61

 

light detector reading occurred when the
flashlight and light detector were at the
same angle. Now what the IQWST
material did not suggest was how a
teacher should direct the class in
deciding which group’s detector
readings was evidence for the most valid
pattern in the data.

 

After circling the vote that had the highest light detector reading for each flashlight

position, and tracing out on the overhead the lines connecting the light detector and the

flashlight Ms. Kay identified the pattern for the law of reflection.

 

Lesson 6 Formulating Patterns and Explanations episode

 

Ms. Kay: What do you notice? What
do you notice about the angle at which
our light reflected or bounced off of
our mirror? What pattern do you
notice? Even if you didn't get those
numbers, you look at it, you voted. So
we just went through we picked the
highest for each one. We just picked
the highest. We voted based upon the
data we collected. So even if, put your
hands down. What do you notice?
What pattern do you notice? At
position one we had our highest
reading at position one. Position two
we had our highest reading at position
two. Position three we had our highest
reading at position three. Position four
highest reading at position four. What
do you notice about that angle? The
angle at which. What pattern do you
notice? Travis?

Student: That the uh light reader is in
uh the same position

Ms. Kay: Ok what I want you to do
for homework tonight.

The content in this Episode is the
pattern “v.” The inquiry practice is
identifying patterns.

The classroom practice that Ms. Kay
used to validate the “v” pattern in the
data is the vote. For Ms. Kay the goal of
this activity is for the students to state
the pattern. She repeats her question
many times, “What pattern do you
notice?” She reminds the students that
the pattern in data is based on their
analysis with the vote. She asked one
student, and when the one student
replied that the pattern is the light reader
and flashlight is in the same position
Ms. Kay evaluated that as a correct
response and successful completion of
the task to prove the reflection pattern.
Also she asked one student and accepted
one response which illustrates a key
practice of individually proving the law.

From an IQWST perspective Ms.
Kay did model for the students the
validating of the pattern with a type of
strategy for validating the data. So it is
an interesting improvisation by Ms. Kay
that indicates her commitment to the
need to validate data. However it would

 

62

 

have been equally interesting to find out
whether or not the additional students
with their hands raised agreed with the
pattern in order to validate the pattern as
a community rather than individually by
the teacher.

 

Fifty minutes into the lesson, after Travis answered with the pattern that Ms. Kay and

IQWST intended the experiment to demonstrate, Ms. Kay assigned a True/False question

and asked the students to use their data from the experiment to support their answer.

 

Lesson 6 Non IQ WST episode

 

Ms. Kay: Ok so you have a true and
false question that you're going to
answer. The statement is, the angle,
what I mean by that the angle at which
light is reflected off of our mirror, is
equal to the angle at which light is
redirected. Is that statement true or
false? If it’s true, you need to use this
example. What you did to tell me
why. If you believe it’s false, you
need to use this to explain why. So,
it’s deeper than just a true or false
question. Explain based upon this
[tapping on chart on overhead] why
you believe that to be true.

The science content in this episode is
again the pattern “v”. The inquiry
practice is making a claim and using
evidence to support the claim.

With the True/False question Ms.
Kay has changed the IQWST goal for
this activity from students using the data
and patterns from the experiment to
represent light rays in the light model, to
demonstrating their understanding that
the law of reflection is true. Ms. Kay
created her own summarizing question
and used this question to make sure
students are connecting the data from
their experiments to the law of
reflection.

While Ms. Kay had not modeled the
IQWST practice of formulating patterns
in evidence or building arguments from
evidence with the data tables, she is
making an addition to the IQWST
practice that can be seen as modeling the
practice of warranting explanations with
patterns in data.

 

After checking to see if students had any questions Ms. Kay dismissed the students.

Monday the third class period for lesson 6 continued with Ms. Kay’ reference to the

investigation map, “Look at the investigation map this is where I want you to go. Take a

look at that, the top right section. What currently are we studying?” After a student

correctly replied, “Um why can I see my reflection in a mirror but not in wood?” Ms.

Kay reviewed with the class the relationship between the pattern in the flashlight position

and the position of the light detector with the highest readings from the mirror.

Next she checked students’ responses to the True/False journal question assigned as

homework, “How many of you uh, said true to that particular statement? [Students raised

hands] Ok, Very good. Yes that statement was actually true. Those angles are equal.”

Ms. Kay then introduced the name for the “v” pattern which is the Law of Reflection.

 

Lesson 6 Non IQ WST Formulating Patterns and Explanations episode

 

Ms. Kay: Your data proved that at
position one, well once we actually
calculated, did the voting and shared
between groups because we know a
couple of tables. We see the correct
data, but your data proves this. How
do you know? Why? Because I had a
light detector and at each point I tested
the light intensity or how much light
was given off at positions one two
three four five does that make sense?
Students: Yes

Ms. Kay: Good so that statement was
true. So, If we talked about the law of
reflection, what Chris was specifically
saying is the angle of reflection is
equal to the angle of incidence and this
was originally I believe the picture of
the diagram that we showed here when
we pointed out our “v” shape as we
collected our data for fourth hour. The
angle at which light reflects off a
mirror is equal to the angle at which
light is redirected, true or false? That

The content in this episode is the
pattern or law of reflection. The practice
in this episode is that a claim requires a
at least one piece of evidence.

Ms. Kay’s goal for this episode is to
introduce the term “law of reflection.”
Unlike Mr. Dee who introduced this
explanation with the intuitively
appealing examples of billiard balls, Ms.
Kay is using the “correct data” to show
the students that the connection between
the data and the laws of science “make
sense.”

From the perspective of IQWST the
goal of activity 6.1 was to construct the
ray model of light that shows light rays
interacting with a surface in a “v”
pattern. The law of reflection was
mentioned as background knowledge for
the teacher, but not deemed necessary to
introduce to students.

 

64

 

Statement was true.

 

After introducing the law of reflection Ms. Kay wrote the following problem on the
board and asked the students to apply the law of reflection, “If light enters at a 50 degree
angle light will leave at a _____.” This question didn’t take to long to answer, and after a
student responded correctly, Ms. Kay transitioned to activity 6.2.

Reflection & Scattering

Twenty minutes into the class period Ms. Kay distributed the IQWST activity sheet
for activity 6.2, read the introduction to the activity sheet, and instructed students to make
predictions, “What I want you guys to do right now is to listen carefirlly, the first
prediction you are going to make is for the mirror how do you think the light detector

reading will change as you move the detector from position one through position five.”

For the next five minutes students wrote their predictions, and started setting up
materials for the activity. Then Ms. Kay asked one student for his prediction, the student
replied, “If you move to position three you'll get the most reading and position five will
get the least all the others they'd be in between either the least or the urn most.” After

this she asked for two more student predictions for the paper experiment.

Thirty five minutes into the class period, after sharing three predictions Ms. Kay
prepared students to collect the light detector data in order to compare the paper and
mirror surfaces. As part of the preparation, Ms. Kay prompted the students for the
important parts of constructing data tables such as numbers and labels for measurements,
and columns to record the measurements. Once Ms. Kay felt the students were ready

with their data tables she told them to begin collecting data, “Any questions? Ok, you

65

may begin. You need to to move wisely and very quickly, wisely and quickly because I

want all the data collected today.”

Forty five minutes into the class period the students began collecting data for activity
6.2. However, not every group had been listening about how to make data tables, one
group of students began asking each other what the chart was that Ms. Kay had just
drawn on the board and what they were supposed to do next. Once this particular group
began collecting their data they teased each other about who knew how to draw graphs,
who was afraid of Ms. Kay, and argued about how many zeroes to record from their light

detectors.

Fifty five minutes into the class period Ms. Kay prompted the whole class to think

about why there were different light detector data from the mirror and piece of paper.

 

Lesson 6 Non IQWS T episode - Closing class period

 

Ms. Kay: Five four guys three. The content in this episode is the
Everybody just freeze for a second experience in the form of data from
right where you are. I definitely want experiment 6.2. The inquiry practice
you to get your data for six point two here is comparing two groups of data.
for both. Excuse me. The mirror and Ms. Kay’s classroom practice is

the piece of paper. We're way in. prompting the students to compare the
Getting your data. We will compare data but not providing the specific tool
the data tomorrow. Take a look at your or suggestion that would be used to
data. Compare your data, and see if compare the data, a graph. What is

you can figure out or start thinking important to note here is that again the
about why your numbers were pattern, the law of reflection, is what
different in both of those instances. If Ms. Kay is using to make predictions
the law of reflection is true, why did and the purpose for this activity is to test
you get different numbers as you the truth of the scientific law of

tested the smooth surface and then the reflection.

non shiny surface from a piece of From the perspective of IQWST the
paper? You can leave your setup purpose is not to test a law of science.
exactly as it is maybe it will save us a Instead, the purpose is to use the content
little time next hour. Just turn off the knowledge embedded in the light model
flashlight. You guys are dismissed. for the way light interacts with matter to

compare the predicted light detector data
with the observed light detector data for

 

66

 

the purpose of revising the model to
explain why images can be seen in
mirrors but not wood.

 

The next day, the fourth class period for lesson 6, began when Ms. Kay assigned a

journal question from the IQWST transparency 6.3 which asked students to draw how

light rays would reflect or scatter from rough and smooth surfaces. After five minutes

Ms. Kay asked a volunteer to share on the overhead her prediction for where the light

will bounce from a smooth surface. After the student drew light rays Ms. Kay asked the

class to raise their hands if they agreed with the picture. A majority of the students raised

their hands. Then, an interesting moment occurred after Ms. Kay asked the class how do

you know what the student had drawn is true?

 

Lesson 6 Connecting Explanations episode

 

Ms. Kay: Ok, How do you know that
this is true? How do you know that
this is true? What did we do in order
to prove that this is true? What
activity, Travis?

Student: Yesterday when you told us
the light goes at specific angles
because of “v” shape

Ms. Kay: Ok, yeah I did tell you that,
and that’s absolutely correct. Did you
do an activity that proved that?
Students: Yeah

Ms. Kay: Talk to me. Tell me. It is
important. I always tell you it’s about
what we observe in here, reading,
writing, listening, and speaking. I'm
glad that you were listening to what I
said, but I only said that based upon an
activity.

The content is the pattern that rough
surfaces scatter light and smooth
surfaces reflect light. The inquiry
practice is that a simple claim requires
evidence.

Ms. Kay’s classroom practice or goal
for this episode is to help the students
make the connection between the picture
the student had just drawn, and the
lesson activity that had provided the
evidence to prove the student’s picture
was true. However, the actual practice
that occurs is a student uses Ms. Kay’s
claims, in this case the “v shape” or law
of reflection that Ms. Kay had told them
about the previous day, as part of the
explanations. However, she does not
accept this answer but continues to
prompt the students to talk to her, tell
her what they had been doing the past
few days because she is committed to
the practice of using evidence to prove
the content of science is true.

 

67

 

In terms of the IQWST practice, Ms.
Kay is attempting to support students’
inquiry with verbal prompts that suggest
students use evidence from the
experiments rather than prompting the
students to use the light model as a tool
to think about what evidence they had
collected.

Following Ms. Kay’s prompt to “talk to me,” one student responded “Well we did
that uh investigation the first time, we showed that the, it had made v shape.” After Ms.

Kay accepted this response, she told the class to finish collecting their data.

While some students finished collecting their data, Ms. Kay asked other students a
True/False question to scaffold pattern finding, “Ok, true or false were the measurements
near zero at all positions except position three?” Once a group answered Ms. Kay moved

to another group and continued asking her True/False questions to other groups.

Eighteen minutes into the class period, the students finished collecting data for activity
6.2 and the class came back together as a whole group. Ms. Kay first asked volunteers to
review the experiment set up for students absent the day before, and in the process
reviewed with the class the variables being compared. Ms. Kay also asked the students to
look at the Driving Question Board to focus students on the purpose for this experiment,
and how the experiment helped provide evidence for how light interacts with matter.

Then Ms. Kay asked groups to report their light detector data from the mirror surface.

 

Lesson 6 Formulating Patterns and Explanations episode

 

Ms. Kay: Let’s hear from you guys. The content in this episode is the
Student: Uh 0.07 math pattern that there is a peak light
Ms. Kay: 0.07 detector reading at the same angle as the
Student: The second one was 0 flashlight. The inquiry practice is

Ms. Kay: I’m sorry sweetie? identifying data ranges.

 

68

 

Student: The second one was 0.00,
third one was 0.26, the fourth one was
0.19, and the fifth one was 0.00.

Ms. Kay: Zero point?

Student: 0 0

Ms. Kay: Ok so all near 0. However
they did show a larger number here
[marking position three]. Ok so we
had one true, for this first question,
and the rest were false. Ok, our
second question, was the data for
position three higher or lower? And I
would imagine based upon those
results one group, actually two groups,
only two groups had, so for two
groups high, the rest were low. Ok
Any questions here? You guys are just
analyzing, we're just taking a look at
our data. We’re not even starting to
draw conclusions, cause we may have
some problems with our data. Ok?
Analyze your data.

Ms. Kay’s classroom practice is to
use a True/False question to scaffold
students’ identification of the data range.
Ms. Kay expects that students will find a
larger number at position three and
make the True/False question true.
However, four groups found the
question false So, Ms. Kay’s
attempted scaffold did not support the
pattern finding and prove the law of
reflection as she intended. Instead she
told the class they would not be able to
draw conclusions from the data. So in
effect what is evident here is how Ms.
Kay attempts to use evidence but when
that attempt does not work out, she tells
the students what the evidence or pattern
should be.

From the perspective of IQWST
practice, the data in this experiment if
graphed did show the type of pattern that
was expected from the experiment and
the data did produce a pattern that could
be used to explain light scattering from
the paper.

 

Ms. Kay continued to ask students what their light detector data was from the paper

surface. She continued to use her True/False questions to help students analyze the data.

She kept track of the votes from groups as an attempt to validate the decision about

whether or not the questions were true or false. Eventually though Ms. Kay abandoned

the attempt to validate the data with the students’ votes when she asserted an explanation

that included the statement “our data contradicts the laws and truths we’re trying to

explain.”

69

 

Lesson 6 Formulating Patterns and Explanations episode

 

Ms. Kay: OK now our data in this
class. First hour collected data today,
we didn’t analyze all of their data.
However, we went through these same
questions today and we came outwith
the correct data to make everything
that we’ve done up to this point true.
Now you guys all followed the same
set of directions. Um, you all
collected data. We came up with data,
but our data contradicts what the laws
and the truths are that we’re trying to
explain. Ok? So bottom line, this data
doesn’t fit what I’m trying to teach.
Ok? Does that make sense?

Students: Yes

Ms. Kay: Now, if you take a look at,
our first um, our first two questions,
that question response that we were
looking for, that was a true statement.
But the problem is we had one group,
only one group, that came up with the
correct or pr0per responses

The content in this episode is an
other explanation. There is no inquiry
practice.

Ms. Kay’s classroom practice is to
use the laws and truths of science as the
method to validate the appropriate
patterns and evidence that students were
supposed to have found. She is
consistent in her goal to show the
students that if they follow the
procedures of scientists they will be able
to also prove what scientists know. This
is an accepted practice in the class
because the students reply “yes” after
Ms. Kay asks if this “makes sense.” The
class has now come full circle from the
beginning of this class period to support
the implicit classroom practice
illustrated earlier when Ms. Kay asked
the students “How they know” and the
student replied “because you told us
yesterday.”

The IQWST practice is also intended
to teach the students scientific content,
the intended content learning goal is to
learn about the ways light interacts with
matter. But IQWST also intended
students to construct that understanding
through the participation in the practices
of inquiry which includes the classroom
community validating the evidence
rather than the external authority of
science laws and truths.

 

And then Ms. Kay explained how the one group came up with the proper response,

“and you know just grace allowed our votes to come out appropriately, however, we did

not all, come up with the exact same results.” Once Ms. Kay asserted that the data was

wrong and grace allowed the data from one group in this class and an earlier class period

to be right she asked students what were possible reasons the data was off. The students

provided a number of possible procedural reasons such as the flashlight beam being wide

or narrow, the edges of the rulers not being lined up, or the paper angle sheet was not

lined up. After the students postulated a number of potentially valid reasons why the data

was “messed up” Ms. Kay told the students what happens in the real world of science.

 

Lesson 6 Formulating Patterns and Explanations episode

 

Ms. Kay: So all possible reasons as to
why, or reasons why, our data was all
over the place, or our data is not going
to line up with what it is that we're
going to attempt to explain before you
guys leave today. That happens in
science all the time, you know that’s
why science changes every day, we
have people investigating every single
day. Now in the real world, if you
were paid to do this every day you
probably would do the entire
experiment over until get the right
results. Now it just so happened, I
know exactly what it is that we were
supposed to see, but if I didn’t know

' what we were supposed to see, then
our data was on two different sides of
the fence, so how were you supposed
to explain the concept where the data
did not all line up or that did not
match? But we gave some possible
reasons as to why that could have
been. Messed up, right? Ok, let’s look
at um, group one’s data just because it
was kind of data that matches what we
were looking for.

The content in this episode is an
other explanation. There was no inquiry
practice.

This is a key point for illustrating Ms.
Kay’s model of science practice. It is
important because here she contrasts the
authentic practice of scientists with the
practice that occurs in school. She
establishes two points. First, scientists
practice science until they get it right.
Second, she knows what the valid
argument is supposed to be and she will
show students what data and evidence
they should have finished with which
continues to illustrate her commitment
to a positivist view of science content.

This is in contrast to the IQWST
perspective of science practice. IQWST
assumes that science knowledge is
socially constructed in a community of
validators. If students are to learn
science, an important part of that is also
learning how a community validates
knowledge. The teacher and the IQWST
materials are meant to support students
in learning this process of validating and
constructing knowledge in the
classroom.

 

Forty six minutes into the class period, after Ms. Kay reviewed what the students were

supposed to have found she ended the class period with a homework question essentially

the same as the journal prompt at the beginning of the class period, “Think about these

two pictures __ _ . Why do you think these pictures look different?”

The fifth and final class period for lesson 6 began on Wednesday when Ms. Kay
demonstrated for the class the experiment from activity 6.2. Sixteen minutes into the
class period Ms. Kay had collected the following data set from the mirror 0.19, 0.26,

22.43, 4.04, and 0.19. The data set from the paper was 0.64, 0.77, 0.83, 0.70, and 0.64.

Ms. Kay asked the students which positions got the highest and lowest readings, and
then she asked if anyone was surprised that the readings for both the paper and the mirror
were highest at position three. Some students said they were surprised and others weren’t
surprised. Ms. Kay asked the students who were surprised to explain their surprise. One
student was surprised because, “the other ones had uh had uh like different readings and I
thought that uh it would be the same.” Ms. Kay asked him “what other ones” and the
student explained he thought this way because the light readings from previous class
periods had not always had the highest reading at position three. To which Ms. Kay
responded, think back to the light detector readings from activity 6.1 which demonstrated
the law of reflection, and asked the students, “Did you think about that as we were doing
6.2? Make that connection, so automatically you would think that it had the highest
reading at position three right?” Then she asked “those of you that were surprised that
position three had the highest reading, are you sure? Ok, now I want you to...” she went
on to ask the students to explain why since the law of reflection is true, they thought there
was a difference in the data for the mirror and paper. She gave the students a chance to

think about it, and then began to ask groups for their explanation.

72

 

Lesson 6 Connecting Explanations episode

 

Ms. Kay: Ok uh, we’ll start with table
two. What did you come up with?
Why do you think our readings were
different?

Student: I think our readings were
different, the difference between a
mirror and paper because the urn
they're two different objects, the
mirror is like shiny and the paper isn’t
shiny.

Ms. Kay: Ok, so maybe we have two
different readings because we have
two different objects. Ok. Um one is,
you said, how did you describe it?
Student: Shiny was one

Ms. Kay: and one was

Student: was not shiny.

Ms. Kay: So two different objects, two
different forms of matter.

The content in this episode is the
explanation that part of the light model
has been revised to include how light
reflects off different surfaces. The
inquiry practice is using a reason that
includes a scientific principle.

Ms. Kay’s classroom practice is to
ask the student what an explanation
could be. And then after that student
answers, Ms. Kay focuses the classroom
attention on particular descriptions of
matter that were in the student’s
response.

From an IQWST perspective, while
the content part of the student’s answer
is acceptable, the teacher’s practice of
emphasizing those terms is less
acceptable. For example, to support
inquiry the teacher should provide
opportunities for discourse among the
students. In this case, the
communication was between the teacher
and one student only.

 

Then Ms. Kay returns to her purpose for this lesson and asks the students what the law

of reflection is, and they state the law correctly, then she asks the students if the law of

reflection applies on a bumpy surface, the students reply “no.” To which she replies

“Who said no? We had our light at position three right? We received our greatest reading

at position three for both the paper and the mirror right? Yes, so was our law of reflection

still true? Absolutely true, but why is it that we get different readings?”

She then asked students for their thoughts, and three students replied, but here is

where Ms. Kay appears to contradict the very law of reflection she’s been trying to prove,

“if we think about what Aja just said, we have a bumpy surface. Does that mean that the

law reflection of reflection is totally false? Absolutely not. But you have a bumpy

surface that means light is actually [drawing scattered on overhead] going out but its

doing what? Starts with an S,” and the students replied “scattering.”

So, apparently Ms. Kay has explained that the law of reflection is true for all surfaces,

but contradicted herself when she says hedges the rule with “totally false” to include a

form of reflection, scattering occurs on bumpy surfaces. Ultimately, she attempts to

explain that reflection and scattering are two different ways light bounces depending on

the property of surfaces.

 

Lesson 6 Other IQWST episode — introducing rough and smooth

 

Ms. Kay: Why do we get different
results on the smooth surface versus
the rough surface? It has all to do with
the type of surface that it is. Key word
there is surface. So, when you have
light bouncing off of a very smooth
surface that’s called reflection. When
light bounces off of a rough surface
that's called scattering. So my
question to you Erin was do you think
that smooth surfaces and scratchy
surfaces yield the same type of
reflection?

Student: Yes

Ms. Kay: Yes, why?

Student: Because its still light being,
light bouncing off in ways in less light
is going to show up

Ms. Kay: I'm not asking you if we're
going to see light, but do you think
that the pattern of reflection is going to
be the same?

Student: No

Ms. Kay: No, why?

Student: Because like you said it
bounces off a rough surface it scatters
and if when um, in terms of surface if
its smooth

Ms. Kay: Ok, now you did a nice job
responding to me, but does that make

The content in this episode is the
pattern some surfaces are rough and
scatter light while other surfaces are
smooth and reflect light. There was no
particular inquiry practice the teacher
guide suggested the teacher introduce
the terms.

Ms. Kay’s practice was to state that
light scatters or reflects from different
surfaces as suggested in the IQWST
teacher guide. Then she asked a student
to use the terms in an explanation as a
method to check if students could apply
the explanations of rough and smooth
surfaces to different light detector
readings. However, this is a significant
episode because it illustrates a
breakdown in the routine when the
student can not explain the different
readings. Ms. Kay feels that she has
explained and emphasized the key
point—that rough surfaces scatter light.
The student is actually pointing to the
contradiction between Ms. Kay’s
expectation for the paper and mirror
experiments to demonstrate the law of
reflection, and her explanation that light
bounces off the two surfaces differently.
The breakdown in Ms. Kay’s lesson is in
contrast to Mr. Dee who provided a

 

74

 

sense to you?

Student: No

Ms. Kay: Ok, I want to help you, what,
what's the in the way part?

Student: Um, I don’t understand the
the comparison. What I don’t
understand is, when light bounces off
of rough surface how does it compare
to smooth surface?

scientifically accurate explanation for
the difference in the detector readings.
The IQWST practice was for the
teacher to introduce these terms, but
after the ideas of smooth and rough
surfaces had been anchored in multiple
representations with experiences from
the transparencies of a microscope
picture of paper, and two iPod surfaces
that were smooth and scratched. Ms.
Kay did use the microscope picture, but
her limited understanding of the light
model caused her to run into problems
when she attempted to explain the
difference in the light detector readings.

 

After listening to Erin’s question Ms. Kay provided an example to help out Erin and

the other students.

 

Lesson 6 Non IQ WS T episode

 

Ms. Kay: Ok, think about, and Erin
says that she kind of understands, but
she doesn’t understand why light will
scatter off a bumpy surface, and I don't
know if this is a proper analogy but
when light bounces off a smooth
surface its called reflection. When
light bounces off a rough surface its
called scattering. I don’t know if this
is um, a safe analogy. Ok, so you have
a car right? Now You guys are on
your way down I-75, Ok? Going
south right? You guys are cruisin,
you're having a good time that’s a nice
well paved road right? Right, you see
that? Now, the further you go down
going into Ohio your road goes from
being (drawing a bumpy road) smooth
to what?

Students: Bumpy

Students: Rough

Ms. Kay: Bumpy. You have your car,
so are you having a nice smooth ride

The content in this episode is an
other experience. The inquiry practice
was using a model to explain.

Ms. Kay’s practice is resorting to the
use of a model of light anchored in
students’ experiences with driving on a
bumpy road as a metaphor for the way
light interacts with matter. She is
making an on-the-spot decision when
she says “I don’t know if this is a proper
analogy but...” in order to achieve her
purpose for proving the law of
reflection, with this model she is saying
that the law of reflection has two
different names, scattering or reflection,
depending on what type of surface light
is bouncing off, a smooth or bumpy
surface but there is still a true law. In
the process she has abandoned the use of
the light detector readings as the
explanation for the way light interacts
with matter. In effect she has used the
road analogy similar to the way Mr. Dee

 

75

 

Trevor? Nice? No. You’re going,
right? Can you see that on the road?
Does that make sense? So when light
hits or enters a smooth surface its kind
of smooth sailing (drawing V’s off
road surface) equal equal. But now,
we have a rockyroad here (drawing
scattered light rays), so its still going
to reflect, but you got more bumps, so
lights going to go in more directions.
Yes no?

Students: Yes

used the bouncing balls analogy.
However, where Mr. Dee abandoned the
data early in the lesson, Ms. Kay
continued to attempt to use the data until
the very end of lesson 6 when it was
evident that her attempts to prove the
law of reflection with the data had
failed.

The IQWST practice was also
intended to use experiences and a model,
but those experiences were the
microscope picture of paper, the iPods,
and the IQWST light model.

 

Following the road explanation Ms. Kay asked Erin if she understood and Erin replied

yes. Ms. Kay also commented that Erin’s question was an excellent question and

probably helped other students who didn’t speak up and ask a question. After Ms. Kay

asked the whole class one more time if they were sure they understood, she moved to the

final activity of lesson 6.

Using the model to explain images

Thirty five minutes into the class period Ms. Kay used the IQWST transparency 6.4

(Figure 2) that was intended to provide an opportunity for students to apply the light

model in order to explain why images can be seen in mirrors, but not in wood.

76

 

 

Show students the top half of transparency 6.4 by blocking out the bottom with a sheet of
paper. Tell them that the rays represent light leaving a flashlight that is somewhere
underneath the paper, and ask them to predict the location of the flashlight.

\lll/

 

 

34-1

‘0...”
0.0.9...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Transparency 6.4 Shown with the paper covering the bottom half, covering the mirror
image only, and with the paper removed showing the mirror image.

 

Figure 2. IWST Transparency 6.4.

 

Lesson 6 Formulating Patterns and Explanations episode

 

Ms. Kay: Ok. If I put this particular The content in this episode is the
picture (Figure 2), show me the experience with images formed in
direction of my light source. Where is mirrors. The inquiry practice is using
my light source point? Where is my models to predict or explain.

light source point? So you guys see, I Ms. Kay’s classroom practice is also
have those representing light rays having students make a prediction. She
coming up. Show me the direction of has at this point spent a lot of time

my light source. If you believe my attempting to prove the law of reflection
light source is like this (holding up a with the evidence from the light
flashlight) I want to see your hand. detectors, and finally explained it with
And I’m giving you options. We’re her model. Now, she has adapted the
going to give four options, so do you IQWST task by giving students four
think my light source is like this (up)? choices for what could be causing the
Like this (to left)? Or like this (to light rays on the transparency.

right)? Or like this (down). Ok? However, the majority of the class
Students: Yes answered wrong. But consistent with
her practice, she asserts to the class that
Ms. Kay: Why do you think my light Travis’s response is absolutely correct
source is like this (up)? The ninety and that the rest of the class was wrong
nine point nine percent of you. because they didn’t have enough of the
Cameron? procedural details to answer this

 

77

 

 

Student: because the arrows are
straight up.

Ms. Kay: Because the arrows are
going straight up, right?

Student: yeah

Ms. Kay: 0k why? Anybody else
disagree? Well a ton of you raised
your hand, you guys agree with his
point? Ok how many of you picked
here (down)? Travis, why do you think
my light source is there?

Student: Because if it were pointed
down it could have been reflected and
came back up.

Ms. Kay: Did everyone hear that?
Students: hmm hmm

Ms. Kay: Absolutely correct.
Students: Ohhhh

Student: inaudible

Ms. Kay: And if you’re making
connections between surfaces and
angles you tell me details. That’s the
problem, if I don’t give you all the
factors you can’t come up with the
answers. So you tell me details. You
ask me questions.

question, but if they had talked to her,
and asked her for details they would
have been able to answer the question.
The IQWST practice was intended at
this point for students to use the model
that had been revised to include
scattering and reflection in order to
apply that model and make a prediction
for what caused the light ray
arrangement on the transparency. I
actually think this is a faulty task in the
IQWST material that doesn’t really
serve the purpose of students applying
the model. However, Ms. Kay has
chosen to adopt the task and repair this
faulty IQWST task with her own
practice of asserting to the class the
answer because she knows the necessary

details.

 

After this assessment and 40 minutes into the class period, Ms. Kay began to

summarize and end lesson 6. She reviewed what had been covered in all six IQWST

lessons up to this point, and specifically what students were to have learned from lesson

6.

 

Lesson 6 Other IQWST episode

 

Ms. Kay: Ok., so scattering and
reflection is determined by what? The
type of what? Pat.

Student: Surface.

Ms. Kay: The type of surface we had.
According to the law of reflection
what two angles are equal? Taylor?
Student: The angle at which light

The content in this episode is the
pattern that the some surfaces scatter
light and some surfaces reflect, and the
law of reflection. There was no inquiry
practice.

Ms. Kay’s classroom practice is to
emphasize the content that had been
learned in the lesson by asking students

 

 

enters to state the terms. Her goal for this

Ms. Kay: And the angle at which light lesson was for students to identify two
enters is equal to the angle at which forms of matter that cause light to scatter
light is reflected or comes off. Does or reflect, and define the law of

that make sense? reflection.

Student: Yes The IQWST practice for ending the
Ms. Kay: I don’t know, we’ll see. lesson was to have students use the light
Um, J oi is going to giveyou all lesson model to explain an answer to the

6 reading. question that contextualized the lesson,

why can I see an image in a mirror but
not a piece of wood? Then to use the
next question on the Driving Question
Board as a purpose to continue
investigating and revising the light
model.

 

After J oi had distributed the homework from lesson 6 Ms. Kay dismissed the students.

Summary Ms. Kay
Ms. Kay read the IQWST curriculum tasks and responses to the students encounter

with the tasks from a traditional perspective of classroom science, a tradition that uses
laboratories to allow students to verify a concept (N. W. Brickhouse, 1990; Roehrig &
Luft, 2004), but when the verification failed the explanations were asserted with a
“rhetoric of conclusions” (Schwab, 1962). Her traditional aims and practices were
evident when she said “I know the laws and truths,” and “if we were paid to be scientists

we could go back and do this right.”

A significant amount of Ms. Kay’s teaching practice was devoted to making sure the
experiment procedures were followed correctly. She also spent a lot of her effort
analyzing the data and asking the students to think about “How do you know?” Ms. Kay
valued the experiences in the form of data from the IQWST experiments, because the
verification of science is an important academic goal for her. She wants her students to
be able to reason for themselves and make connections between the experiments and the

explanations, and not just accept what she told them the day before. However when the

79

data didn’t fit what Ms. Kay expected she used non inquiry reasoning strategies to make
the data prove the content. Ultimately, in terms of the content of the lesson Ms. Kay
emphasized experiences and patterns rather than the construction and revision of the
IQWST light ray-diagram model. Rather than using the scientific practices of
identifying pattems’in evidence with charts and graphs, Ms. Kay created non authentic
scientific inscriptions and reasoning strategies with the votes and True/False questions for
the purpose of proving laws and scientific knowledge, versus the IQWST practice of a
community that reasons with data and models to construct understanding of scientific

knowledge.

Ms. Cee
Ms. Cee enacted lesson 6 in three class periods. In the first class period the students

collected data for light bouncing from the mirror. Then in the second class period,
without first formulating the law of reflection, the class collected data for light bouncing
from the paper. In the third class period Ms. Cee led students to the definition of

scattering and reflection.

In Ms. Cee’s community of science practice the process of completing the
experiments will enable students to investigate and express their own ideas about
scattering and reflection. For Ms. Cee, the key pattern of practice is the process of doing
science which means investigating with the experiments and sharing ideas after the
experiments. The IQWST practice of formulating patterns in the evidence is not an

essential part of constructing scientific knowledge in Ms. Cee’s classroom.

80

Law of Reflection
Wednesday April 26 Ms. Cee began lesson 6 with the question from the IQWST

teacher guide, “Alright so today we’re going to talk about light and what happens when it
hits an object. Have you ever had something that kind of hit an object and it kind of
tricked you in way?” Students replied with experiences when riding in a car on the
highway and seeing another car’s wheels apparently rolling backwards, or moments when
it looked like there were puddles ahead on the road. Ms. Cee commented that these were
interesting experiences, but never returned to them to either use them as ideas to be

tested, or explained at the end of lesson 6.

Two minutes into the lesson Ms. Cee told students what they were going to be doing

today in class.

 

Lesson 6 Formulating and Asking Questions episode

 

Ms. Cee: Cool. Ok so what you’re The content in this episode is the
going to do today is, we're going to experiences with mirrors. The inquiry
study how light bounces off a mirror. practice is generating questions.

Ok? What happens when it bounces Ms. Cee decides the purpose for
off a mirror? lesson 6 is to “study” light. Note the

difference between Mr. Dee’s purpose,
“to understand” and Ms. Kay’s purpose
“to show.” This difference will be
explained in Chapter 6. For now it is
important to note that Ms. Cee does not
adapt the IQWST investigation to the
student’s experiences, nor does she
return to the students experiences later
in the lesson. Instead we begin to see
Ms. Cee’s emphasis on science as a
process of study. The practice in Ms.
Cee’s classroom becomes a task to
complete, as she often says “git er
done.”

The IQWST goal is to use students’
experiences as ideas to test, and
ultimately retum to those ideas and
explain them with the model that is

 

81

 

constructed by the class.

 

Following the introduction of the question to be investigated, Ms. Cee distributed the

IQWST student activity sheet 6.1 with the procedures for the experiment and spent the

next 15 minutes explaining how to set up the experiment with interactions similar to the

following episode.

 

Lesson 6 Data Gathering episode

 

Ms. Cee: Ok. This is what your setup
is going to look like. I made this
transparency so that we could figure
out what was going on. Do you see
how this is like a wall right here?
Students: Hmm hmm

Ms. Cee: And this is a flat surface.
Ok? Everybody got that part?
Students: Hmm Hmm

Ms. Cee: Ok. So what you’re going
to do is, each group's going to get two
rulers. To one ruler you're going to
tape your light sensor and to the other
ruler you're going to tape your
flashlight. Ok?

Students: Hmm Hmm.

The content in this episode is the
experience with the materials of the
experiment. The inquiry practice is
selecting/using appropriate instruments.

Ms. Cee’s practice for the task is to
focus exclusively on the process of data
collection. Her strategy is to read
through the directions with the students.
This focus on following the procedures
was a similar pattern among all three
teachers.

In contrast, IQWST envisions the
inquiry practice here to be identifying
the relationship between the variables of
flashlight position, light detector
position, and reflecting surface, and the
use of the experiment instruments.

 

Twenty minutes into the lesson, Ms. Cee instructed the students, “Now you may find

your spot and start getting set up,” and the students began collecting data. As the

students moved to their spots and began collecting data, there was a lot of confusion with

the instructions on the student activity sheet 6.1. Ms. Cee moved around the room

answering groups’ questions about how to set up the experiment. As time went on,

frustration became evident in both the teacher and students’ voices.

 

Lesson 6 Data Gathering episode

 

 

Ms. Cee: Go ahead, what now?
Student: Then it says without touching
the meter stick with the flashlight
rotate the meter stick with the detector
around on a point where all the lines
meet on the point of the paper to find
the position at which the reading.

Ms. Cee: Right. Now here’s where
you’re going to do that.

Student: Well it says to do that with
the one that has the meter detector.
(Ms Cee reading the directions)

Ms. Cee: You do that first, find out
where the light detector it’s the biggest
number OK? And then draw the
orientation of the two meter sticks.
Draw what it looks like right there.

So, till you find brightest spot and then
you show me where the meter sticks
are on here. Ok?

Student: Ok.

Student 2: Ok if you said we got to put
it like that how do we hold that up?
(sounds like a lot of attitude)

Ms. Cee: Part of this has to be flat, on
the ground, or on the table. (said with
some frustration in her voice)

Student 2: Oh, Ok.

The content in this episode is the
experience with the materials for the
experiment 6.1 with mirrors. The
inquiry practice is selecting/using
instruments.

Ms. Cee’s goal for the task is for the
students to successfully follow the
procedures. The students had difficulty
interpreting the procedures and Ms.
Cee’s response was to read and interpret
the directions herself to make sure that
she and the students knew what to do.
However it was a common occurrence
that Ms. Cee’s strategy of adhering
solely to what was printed in the IQWST
materials was not effective because both
she and her students often indicated their
frustration.

Whereas the IQWST practice would
expect the teacher to scaffold and
inquiry support by making the
connections between the variables, the
instruments, and the question more
explicit for the students since the
activity sheet procedures were difficult
for the students.

 

Thirty five minutes into the lesson, two students thought they had finished recording

the light detector readings but when Ms. Cee asked them if they had done part two of the

experiment the students replied, “oh, no.” As students continued to ask Ms. Cee about

the experiment it was clear that the students were focused on completing the procedural

aspects of completing the data gathering.

83

Forty minutes in to the lesson near the end of the class period, some students had

finished making the light detector readings and asked Ms. Cee for help to answer the last

question on the activity sheet, the question is italicized in the following episode.

 

Lesson 6 Connecting Explanations episode

 

Ms. Cee: I don’t know if there's
enough help in the world for you bills.
Ok, the diagram below shows the light
rays as they leave the source, ok?
Some light rays will hit the mirror
shown in the diagram. Based upon
what you’ve learned in this activity
and how light bounces off a mirror,
use the ruler to draw the path each
light my will take as it bounces of the
mirror. If the light hits there what path
is it going to take?

Student: It's probably going to hit there
and go.

Ms. Cee: Right. What about this one?
Student: It’s going to go that way.

Ms. Cee: What's this one going to do?
Student: It’s going to go that way and
this one’s going to.

Ms. Cee: That’s what you got to do is
draw those on there.

Student: Ok, so we use the ruler?

Ms. Cee: Yeah.

Student: Ok

The content in this episode is the “v”
pattern for light reflecting off a mirror.
The inquiry practice is using models to
predict where the light rays will bounce.

The question the student is trying to
answer is the last question for activity
6.1, and was intended to be answered
after the teacher and class had
collaborated to identify a pattern in the
light detector readings. However, Ms.
Cee decided to help the student answer
this question now. Also, her strategy for
helping the student is to simply read the
question and focus the student’s
attention to one light ray at a time when
she asks the student “if the light hits
there...” For Ms. Cee the discussion
related to “based upon what you’ve
learned...” is not important because the
student correctly draws where the light
ray will go after bouncing off a mirror.
For Ms. Cee the purpose for activity 6.1
is complete, the student successfully
drew light rays in the “v” pattern. Ms.
Cee does not see the use of data or
patterns in data as an important part of
the science process, her conception of
evidence is discussed more in chapter 6.

The IQWST practice intended
before students answered this question
to come back together as a class and see
if the class noticed a pattern. A key point
here is that there were class activities in
between the data gathering and using the
model in the last question from activity
6.1 that were not completed as a class to
validate patterns and evidence.

 

84

Forty five minutes into the lesson, Ms. Cee announced “What we’re going to have to
do is we're going to have to shut things down for a minute alright? Since it’s the end of
the day, not to forget that we will be picking this up tomorrow.” The students then
packed up and put the materials away for the day.

Reflection & Scattering

Thursday morning Ms. Cee decided to use the social studies time as additional time
for science. She began class with the announcement, “So this morning we’re going to
continue on with our 6.1 6.2 labs, OK?” The students asked a few questions about where
to turn in their homework. Then Ms. Cee gave a few instructions about where materials
were located, asked if the students had any questions, and sent the students to their task

with the following statement, “Anything else? Ok. So, git her done.”

Two minutes into the class period the students were up and moving about the room,
gathering the materials for finishing experiment 6.1 with the mirror as the reflective
surface. Ms. Cee did not have a discussion with the class about the results from
experiment 6.1 before the students continued with experiment 6.2.2 Those students that
finished experiment 6.1 the previous day started experiment 6.2 with the paper as the
reflective surface. The students’ apparent confusion with how to do the experiment
continued from yesterday because Ms. Cee was very busy checking on each groups’

progress separately.

Twenty five minutes into the class period Ms. Cee recognized students were finished
recording data for the paper in experiment 6.2 and told them to return to their desks and

work on completing the activity sheets, “I would like you to, you’ve got your readings,

 

2 In the interview with Ms. Cee she stated she organized the lesson this way because since the students
already had the materials she didn’t want to interrupt the process of completing the experiments.

85

continue working, and what we’re going to do is when we come in this afternoon for

science we’re going to go over these two and then we're going to wrap it up with one

more experiment.”

Twenty nine minutes into the class period, as the groups worked on finishing the

student activity sheet a critical incident occurred when one student initiated a question

about the homework the student had been completing the night before.

 

Lesson 6 Formulating Patterns and Explanations episode

 

Student: I have something to say about
that homework When my mom read
that paper that you told us to take
home, she said that light doesn’t
bounce off rough surfaces.

Ms. Cee: Did you try it?

Student: No, because the only brick
wall we have at home is our entire
house, and I wasn’t (inaudible).

Ms. Cee: ok

In this episode the content is an other
experience not in the IQWST
curriculum. The inquiry practice was
evaluating and comparing the IQWST
model with his mother’s explanation.

Ms. Cee’s decision about how to
resolve this student’s alternative idea
was to ask the student if he had tried it.
Her suggestion to the student to “try it”
emphasizes her goal to prioritize the
procedural process of science. Her
practice is to ask students questions that
prompt action, but do not give away the
explanation because she wants students
to construct and test their own
explanations. In contrast to Mr. Dee and
Ms. Kay, Ms. Cee does not use a model
of any type to explain to the student why
light does bounce off brick walls.

From the perspective of IQWST Ms.
Cee’s practice could have been to refer
back to the data that had been gathered
in the experiments as evidence that light
does bounce off rough surfaces.

 

Shortly after this discussion with the student, the rest of the students began turning in

their activity sheets. Ms. Cee announced they would continue with this lesson in the

afternoon and the class period ended after 31 minutes.

Thursday afternoon class period began when Ms. Cee asked the students about the

patterns they had noticed in the experiments, “Oh you just sit right there, that’s good.

Bout ready? Obeekaby. What patterns? When you were doing your experiment with six

one, what kind of patterns did you notice?” Ms. Cee then asked a few students about the

patterns they noticed. In contrast to Mr. Dee and Ms. Kay, she did not ask the students to

report the light detector data that had been collected. Instead after two students identified

other patterns, Ms. Cee prompted a student to share with the class what he had noticed

the previous day.

 

Lesson 6 Formulating Patterns and Explanations episode

 

Ms. Cee: Ok, one two three four five.
Ok, so you noticed the brightest light
when the flashlight was in what kind
of a shape? You said it yesterday.
Student 1: Uh v

Ms. Cee: In a v shape

Student 1: Yeah

Ms. Cee: Right?

Student 2: All of them are v's
practically.

Student 3: But like

Ms. Cee: That’s true

Student 4: But

Student 3: At every angle

Ms. Cee: That's true

Student 3: The closest v shape.

Ms. Cee: The closest v shape. But
they were all v shapes right? So that’s
when you were dealing with mirror,
the light would make a what shape?
Student 3: A v shape

Student: v

Ms. Cee: And you found that the
maximum amount of light was always.
Always came about when this v shape
was?

The content in this episode is the “v”
pattern that is found with the light
detector readings from the mirror. The
inquiry practice is identifying patterns.

Ms. Cee’s goal for this task was for
the students to identify the “v” pattern in
the data they had collected. She asked
students for the pattern they saw until
finally she called on a specific student
who had mentioned the “v” shape the
day before. For Ms. Cee it is important
for students to come up with their own
ideas and identify the pattern. As a
result, she does not introduce the pattern
herself, but calls on the student who she
knows has identified the pattern.
However, the underlying evidence for
the “v” pattern is never introduced
because Ms. Cee has achieved her goal
of engaging students in the process of
science and then directing students
toward identifying the pattern just to
make sure they’re getting the right
answer according to the IQWST teacher
guide. What is also important to note is
that unlike Mr. Dee and Ms. Kay, Ms.
Cee did not distinguish between the
variation in the data from the paper and
mirror. This failure to distinguish the

 

87

 

difference becomes an issue later when
students’ argue about what is a smooth
or rough surface.

The intended IQWST practice for
identifying the pattern was to notice in
the data that there was a peak in the light
detector readings when the flashlight
and light detector were at the same
angles with respect to the reflecting
surface.

 

Then Ms. Cee asked the students to apply what they had learned about the “v” shape.
She asked the students what happens to a light ray when it hits the mirror at a 45 degree
angle, and when the students replied it bounces off at 45 degrees, she summarized what
the class had learned, “So we found out a couple things here. We found out that it likes
to make a v shape, and we found out that we get the maximum when both of them are at

the same angle, right?”

Four minutes into the lesson once the “v” pattern had been formulated without
examining the mirror and paper data, Ms. Cee introduced the concepts of rough and

smooth surfaces.

 

Lesson 6 Other IQWST episode — introducing rough and smooth

 

Ms. Cee: Ok, now. Let’s think about In this episode the content is the
something else here. Lets look at uh pattern in matter that there are rough and
what happened to the rays in six one, smooth surfaces. There was no inquiry
and to rays that happened in six two. practice.

You had two different surfaces there Ms. Cee’s goal for this task was to
didn't you? The mirror surface was introduce the explanation for the

more of a what surface? different behavior of the light rays
Student: a surface that reflects light bouncing from the paper and mirror.
Student: shiny Ms. Cee continued to use her practice of
Ms. Cee: was a shiny surface and it verbally leading students to produce the
was what? (pointing to student) answer, although in this case she had to
Student: one that got like light introduce the terms “smooth” and
bounced off a lot more. “roug ”to be used in the explanation.
Ms. Cee: It bounced off a lot more, This contrasted with Mr. Dee who

 

88

 

and we might call if we were going to
say rough or smooth what would we
call it? (eye contact with student)
Student: smooth

Student: smooth?

Ms. Cee: we call it a smooth surface.
And the paper was more of a?
Student: Smooth

Student: Rough

Ms. Cee: Rough surface right?
Student: It is?

Ms. Cee: Ok. So, if we look at this,
ok.

introduced the difference with
intuitively appealing examples of rough
and smooth, and Ms. Cee’s example of a
bumpy road. When the student asks “it
is?” after Ms. Cee has achieved her
purpose of directing students toward the
idea that the paper was rough, unlike
Mr. Dee or Ms. Kay she continues to
move on with the lesson because the
answer from the teacher guide has been
produced, and the process can continue.
In the IQWST teacher guide this was
meant to be an opportunity when the
teacher would introduce the terms of
rough and smooth, with additional
experiences such as a microscope
picture of a piece of paper to
demonstrate the rough surface.

 

Now, after only five minutes into the class period Ms. Cee had formulated the “v”

pattern of the law of reflection and introduced the explanations for scattering and

reflection depending on the types of surface that light bounces off. Next, Ms. Cee began

the activity to introduce the terms “scatter” and “reflect” with the IQWST transparency of

rough and smooth surfaces.

Ms. Cee asked a volunteer to draw the paths of light that would be expected to bounce

from a smooth surface. When a student drew the all the light paths from the smooth

surface with “v” shapes, Ms. Cee asked the class if anyone disagreed with the drawing.

When the class all agreed the drawing was correct, Ms. Cee said “good” and asked for a

volunteer to draw the light path from a rough surface.

The first student did not draw uniform “v” shapes and instead drew light paths in

random directions after hitting the surface. Ms. Cee asked the class if they agreed with

this, and students replied no. Then Ms. Cee asked other volunteers to draw what they

thought was the correct path of light from the rough-surface on the same transparency.

The second student drew light paths that zigzagged in the air, the third student drew light

paths in the same “v” as from the smooth surface, and the fourth student drew light paths

bouncing back off the surface in the same direction. After the four drawings were

completed on the same transparency, the end result was one picture with many scattered

light paths bouncing off of the rough surface in random directions. The following

episode shows the end of this sharing and drawing activity after which one student

recognized there were four different theories and Ms. Cee’s response to the different

models.

 

Lesson 6 Connecting Explanation episode

 

Student 1: Four different theories that's
a lot of theories.

Ms. Cee: However, we did have four
different ideas but its going to end up
pretty much in way we want it, and I'll
tell you why in a minute.

Student 2: Its going to go everywhere
cause it shines more

Student 3: Cause it goes everywhere
Student 4: Cause its a brighter light,
because it doesn’t reflect as much
Ms. Cee: Well, wh

Student 1: That's why I put a little
squiggly in mine because it

Ms. Cee: It does what? It?

Student 1: It spreads

Ms. Cee: Spreads, Another word for
that might be?

Student: Everywhere

Student 1: Separate

Student: 5 Explodes

Ms. Cee: Scatters?

Students: Scatters

Ms. Cee: Scatters.

In this episode the content is an
explanation not in IQWST, and there
was not a specific inquiry practice.

Ms. Cee read the students’
performance of drawing the scattered
rays as a success because the students’
drawing was similar to the drawing in
the IQWST teacher guide. More about
Ms. Cee’s sense of success will be
discussed in Chapter 6. She was about
to continue her practice of moving on
through the lesson, but the students were
not willing to wait for “in a minute” and
they proposed explanations. For Ms.
Cee though this is not a problem,
because students are coming up with
ideas, and she uses this as an
opportunity to “direct” students toward
producing the answer when she asks
students for what light does and
eventually introduces the term ending in
a question, “Scatters?” and when the
students repeat scatters she has again
achieved her purpose of directing
students toward the appropriate content.

From an IQWST perspective the
appropriate practice would have been to

 

90

 

validate the explanation for the drawing
by connecting the drawing for scattering
on the overhead to the pattern of even
light detector readings from the paper
and mirror experiment in activity 6.2.

 

Then Ms. Cee also took a moment to go back to the first drawing and introduce the

term “reflecting” for when light bounced off smooth surfaces like the mirror.

 

Lesson 6 Connecting Explanations episode

 

Ms. Cee: So we notice that when
we’ve got the mirror, it goes down
[pointing to the top picture in Figure
3] should be straight, reflects off and,
Oops, I gave it away, eh, it comes off
there and we call that reflecting cause
its like the exact thing isn't it?
Student: Hmm Hmm

Ms. Cee: Same angle reflecting off.
But, here [bottom picture Figure 2] it
just goes willy nilly. It’s all what?
Student: Everywhere

Student: Scattered

Ms. Cee: Scattered, so it’s scattering.
So when we have a rough surface we
have scattering. When we have a
smooth surface we have reflection.
Do we understand that? Any questions
about that?

In this episode the content is an
explanation not in IQWST, and there
was not a specific inquiry practice.

Using the two pictures in Figure 3 that
the students had drawn, Ms. Cee has
reached her goal of directing the
students toward producing the
explanation for the difference between
scattering and reflection. Also, what is
revealing in this episode is the “Oops, I
gave it away.” This mistake further
indicates her goal that in inquiry the
students should produce the correct
conclusion. In her interview in Chapter
6 she talks more about her sense of
success and failure in this episode.

From an IQWST perspective the
appropriate practice would have been to
validate the explanation for the drawing
by connecting the drawing for scattering
on the overhead to the pattern of even
light detector readings from the paper
and mirror experiment in activity 6.2.

 

Using the Model

Thirteen minutes into the lesson, Ms. Cee distributed the IQWST student activity

sheet 6.4, and introduced the activity by reading from the activity sheet, “In this activity

you will use a model of seeing, the model of seeing, to explain why it is possible to see

an image of yourself in a mirror, but not in a piece of wood, ok?” Next she reviewed

with students the four conditions necessary to see an object that had been developed in

previous lessons. Once the conditions had been reviewed she showed students the

IQWST transparency 6.4 (see Figure 2), and asked students to predict where a flashlight

would be to make those light rays. After students made their predictions Ms. Cee

revealed the location of the flashlight, and many students responded.

 

Lesson 6 Connecting Explanations episode

 

Ms. Cee: Well let me just, now
remember this is our eye, remember
what we said about seeing, so let me
just show you a little bit more here.
Students: Aahhhh

student: Cheater, there was a mirror
Ms. Cee: Cheater? [laughs] I don't
think so.

Student 1: You can see the light, you
can still see the light if its coming right
at you.

Student: You didn't tell us there was a
mirror there.

Students: Yeah

Ms. Cee: Now

Student: You gotta be kidding me
Ms. Cee: Now, what happened?
Student: It reflected

Student: Yeah

Student 1: But I still think ours is
right

Student: It reflected

Student 2: [to student 1] Yeah because
it can go up and you can still see it.
Student: You cheater

Student: Is it how that looks up there?
Student 2: So I think that my thing is
still right

Ms. Cee: Ok, that explains why (Ms.
Cee revealed the third part of the
transparency)

The content in this episode is
students’ experiences with images in
mirrors. The practice is using a model
to explain the experiences with images
in mirrors.

Ms. Cee’s classroom practice was to
follow the instructions in the IQWST
teacher guide for what to show the
students. When the students saw the
actual location of the flashlight, they
were disturbed and many students spoke
out of turn, called Ms. Cee a cheater,
and proposed their own explanations.
Ms. Cee values the explanations with
her laugh, because along with her aims
for science, students are participating in
the process and expressing their own
ideas. In the end Ms. Cee still does not
personally explain the answer, but
allows the IQWST transparency to
“explain why” to the students what their
drawing should have looked like, but
doesn’t have them redraw the correct
position of the flashlight.

The IQWST practice here was
intended for students to use the light
model to explain the arrangement of
light rays on the transparency. One
problem with the IQWST activity itself
was making the connection between this
two dimensional model on the overhead
and students three dimensional
experiences with mirrors, and Ms. Cee

 

92

 

didn’t know how to resolve the multiple
student claims about what was really
going on in the diagram.

 

Ms. Cee pressed on with the activity, the next diagram is meant to illustrate what

happens when light scatters off a rough surface like a piece of wood. And this time the

students anticipated being tricked by the diagram. But once Ms. Cee reveals the answer

for the diagram she attempts to conclude the lesson with an explanation for how people

see.

 

Lesson 6 Formulating Patterns and Explanations episode

 

Ms. Cee: So what does that tell you
about the way that we see?

Student 1: We see scattered light

Ms. Cee: Ok, and what about a
reflection?

Student 1: We see reflected light.

Ms. Cee: We do when we’re, the
smooth, like a mirror or that type of a
surface. What if I had something like
um, uh, a silver

Student: Piece of plastic

Ms. Cee: iPod. The real shiny silver.
Is it sometimes we get a reflection in
that?

Student: yeah

Ms. Cee: Smooth?

Student: hmm hmm

Ms. Cee: Ok. Ok.

Student 1: But you don't get. You don't
get reflection in all smooth things.
Student 2: Yeah cause this is smooth
(touching the side of the overhead
projector)

Student 1: You don't get reflections on
paper.

Ms. Cee: That's [referring to overhead
projector] not smooth [laughs].
Student 2: It’s smooth [touching
overhead again].

The content in this episode is
students’ experiences with images in
mirrors and wood. The practice is using
a model to explain the experiences with
images in wood.

At this point Ms. Cee was just about
to wrap up the lesson, she had used the
smooth shiny iPod as an example to
explain that images can be seen in
smooth objects, but then the student
challenged this claim that all smooth
things make reflections. Now at the end
of the lesson a significant breakdown
occurs because the students are
proposing ideas, which normally is an
encouraged activity in Ms. Cee’s
classroom, but at this point she’s already
directed students toward the appropriate
content with the iPod example that we
see reflection in smooth objects. When
the students challenged the definition of
what was smooth Ms. Cee did not have
an answer from IQWST to direct the
students toward. With the interruption
at the door she was able to suggest to the
class that the process of the lesson
continue and students could finish the
activity sheet on their own. So in effect,
the content issue was never resolved.

 

93

 

Ms. Cee: It’s not smooth either. Ok,
we’ll talk about that.

Student: Smooth things are like glass
and stuff, like glass.

Student: Glass you can see reflections
off sometimes.

Student: Is paper smooth?

(a knock at the classroom door)

Ms. Cee: Um, yup. Ok um finish up
your conclusion on there, and then you
have a reading assignment up there to
work on.

For Ms. Cee, unresolved content was not
a problem because her aim for authentic
science is to provide students with
experiences in the process of science and
opportunities to express their ideas.

The IQWST inquiry practice for
resolving what was a very teachable
moment to model building arguments
from evidence would have been to go
back to the data with both the mirror and
the paper which felt smooth, there were
different patterns in the data, and since
the paper felt smooth, the sense of touch
was not a valid criteria for defining a
smooth surface that reflects light. The
IQWST material did not support Ms.
Cee in making sense of unintended
student claims, and Ms. Cee did not
have the personal resources to formulate
an argument that would make sense to
students.

 

Twenty seven minutes into the lesson as the students are working on the reading

assignment, Ms. Cee moved to the comer of the room where I was sitting and commented

to me about the students’ responses in the class period, “I like the way they’re inquisitive

but when you’re here it throws me.” We then went on to discuss the sequence of student

ideas and how she could have responded to the students’ claims. At the end of this

discussion she was excited about what she had learned from talking with me and

commented that she would go back over this tomorrow with the students.

Summary Ms. Cee

In IQWST what it means to know and do science is an act of performing inquiry

practices with the help of an expert to construct understanding of key scientific content.

In Ms. Cee’s curriculum construction arena a discovery-oriented process of “doing

science” (Haigh, France, & Forret, 2005) and completing the curriculum tasks is

considered authentic science practice. With a discovery-oriented teaching practice
(Driver et al., 1994; Roth, 1991) it is believed that if students simply engage in the
activity of experiments and have a chance to express their thoughts they will construct an

understanding of science.

With Ms. Cee what it means to know and do science, or the classroom science
practice, was to do the process of experimenting in the IQWST materials. Ms. Cee told
the students to “git er done.” When the students had questions she read the instructions
from the IQWST materials. She spent two class periods experimenting during which
both Ms. Cee and the students used the IQWST materials as a set of procedures to follow
rather than treating the experiments as useful sources of data and experiences to test and
build arguments with. When Ms. Cee needed to support the student performance of the
curriculum tasks she did this by reading either the experiment procedures with the
students, or reading what the teacher guide said. Where IQWST did not provide specific
support such as in methods to find patterns in evidence Ms. Dee did not supplement this
practice instead she introduced the key patterns as words or concepts which the students
repeated. When students asked questions that IQWST did not provide answers for Ms.
Cee did not provide answers either. When the students were talking out of turn and
making claims about what was smooth Ms. Cee did not stop the student talk, in fact she

valued students expressing their ideas.

In contrast to IQWST, Mr. Dee, and Ms. Kay the science content knowledge was not
the scientific law, but instead a set of separate concepts or words to represent scattering
and reflection. The inquiry practices associated with modeling and coordinating the

relationship between theory and evidence were not practiced. In Ms. Cee’s classroom

95

practice meaningful science practice meant that the students were active by completing
the tasks and sharing their ideas.
Discussion

In this chapter I described what the authentic community of scientific practice looked
like in the three classrooms. The current science education reform efforts view authentic
inquiry practice as both a form of teaching and a process of learning. It’s a process of
learning by participation in the practices of the science community (J. S. Brown et al.,
1989; Driver et al., 1994) Participation in this community is being able to use both the
essential content and the social practices of the science, because the objects of science are
not the phenomena of nature but constructs that are advanced by the scientific community

to interpret nature” (Driver et al., 1994).

IQWST is attempting to design curriculum materials that support teachers designing a
classroom environment with a sequence of activities designed for student participation in
science practice and construction of a deep understanding of the light ray-diagram model.
However, teachers’ read the purpose of curriculum tasks through their own, local context,
aims and purposes for science content learning and authentic practice (Keys & Bryan,

2001; Remillard, 1999).

For Mr. Dee and Ms Kay inquiry practice, or teaching and learning, was a process of
students’ coming to comprehend and accept the ideas of science because these ideas are
intelligible and rational, rather than the IQWST model that science ideas can be
constructed by students. Mr. Dee made the ideas intelligible and rational with his use of
intuitively appealing models and using those models to help students make connections

between their experiences at the macro level with the world, and the micro level or

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symbolic levels of science. He did not find the authentic inquiry practices of IQWST
useful. Instead, with his aim for teaching the laws of science content, his traditional
linguistic practices (Cazden, 2001; Chin, 2007) of asking students to vote, but not explain
their decisions for the vote became the accepted science practice in Mr. Dee’s classroom

community.

Ms. Kay also constructed a classroom science community of practice with the goal of
students coming to comprehend and accept the ideas of science. Ms. Kay attempted to
use the inquiry practices of science to prove that the ideas of science are intelligible and
she asked the students often “does that make sense?” However Ms. Kay also used
traditional linguistic practices with the cue of “does that make sense” to maintain
participation in the classroom community, because she was unable to use the authentic
science inquiry practices to prove the ideas were rational and resorted to appeals to

scientific authority.

Ms. Cee on the other hand designed an inquiry classroom that focused on the
processes of participation in science practice. However, unlike Mr. Dee and Ms. Kay,
Ms. Cee neither supported the key practices or key ideas. Participation in the practices of
analyzing and making sense of data were not modeled. While in Ms. Kay’s classroom
there was more opportunity for students to participate and propose their own ideas, there
was not the important underlying scientific content and practices to support their ideas.

Claims about key content ideas were left open on the classroom floor.

What I’ve described in this chapter is how the three teachers and IQWST all have
different visions of classroom communities of practice. Depending on the view of the

nature of science content, the teachers and IQWST all had different views of what is

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authentic scientific classroom practice. For IQWST’s vision of science knowledge being
socially constructed, the authentic inquiry practices of science are necessary. For Mr.
Dee and Ms. Kay’s vision of science content being externally fixed and true knowledge,
that knowledge is constructed by the teacher and authentic student practice becomes a
form of procedural display. For Ms. Cee, there is true science content knowledge, but
what are more important is students’ own ideas about that knowledge, and the authentic
practice to construct that knowledge occurs when students engaged in the process of

“doing” science.

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Chapter 5

Social and Socioscientific Norms
In Chapter 4 I described the three classrooms communities of science practice.

Essentially in each of the three classrooms, the science practice is a hybrid of both the
teachers’ vision and the inquiry-based vision of IQWST curriculum materials. In each of
the three classrooms, the objects of science were either experiences or laws of nature, and
the practices were closer to a form of procedural display. IQWST intends student
learning to occur through socialization into the discourse and practices of the science
community (Singer et al., 2000). However, this view of learning requires us to see that
people’s activities are also part of a larger community of practice which includes more

than just the science community (J. S. Brown et al., 1989; Gee, 2004).

Because learning can be defined by the patterns of social interaction that occur in the
classrooms, the question of what counts as learning (Gee & Green, 1998) from an emic
perspective can be studied with discourse analysis to identify what the members of the
classrooms need to know, produce, predict, interpret, and evaluate to participate
appropriately (Gee & Green, 1998). In this chapter I am focusing on two aspects of
appropriate participation, the social and socioscientific norms (Cobb et al., 2001;
Erickson, 1982) that were considered appropriate in the three classrooms. The social
norms govern how the teacher and students exchange turns at speaking and coordinate
listening behavior (Cazden, 2001; Erickson, 1982). The socioscientific norms govern
what counts as appropriate scientific practice for the teacher and student (Cobb et al.,

2001; Erickson, 1982).

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In a community of practice teachers and students are engaged in repeatable sorts of
social practices. These repeatable sorts of social practices include ways that people talk,
think, act and become recognized as a group. Within science classrooms in general, and
IQWST classrooms in particular social practices include debating ideas, designing and
conducting investigations, reasoning logically, using evidence to support claims, and

proposing interpretations of findings (F ortus et al., 2005).

These social practices set up roles and networks of obligations that identify members
of the community as legitimate and illegitimate members of the community(Cobb et al.,
1989; Gee & Green, 1998). Roles are socially expected behavior patterns usually
determined by a person’s status in a particular social setting. These socially accepted
behavior patterns, or norms, are principles of right action that guide members of a group
in determining acceptable behavior. In classrooms social participation structures are a
patterned sets of constraints on the allocation of interactional rights and obligations of
teachers and students (Erickson, 1982). Two common roles in participation structures are
speaker and listener roles. When one person is speaking the listener is obligated to listen,

and the speaker has the right to nominate the next topic or speaker.

In classroom communities there are a set of teacher and student roles. In traditional
classrooms one of the teacher’s roles is to deliver information and the students’ role is to
receive information. And in IQWST there are also intended roles for the teacher and
roles for the students (Singer et al., 2000). Included in the IQWST design principles
(Blumenfeld et al., 1991; Krajcik et al., 2008; Singer et al., 2000) is commitment to an
apprenticeship method of teaching (Collins et al., 1989; Lave & Wenger, 1991). In

IQWST the teacher’s role as a de-centered expert is to model, coach, provide feedback,

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and scaffold assistance facilitating over time students’ enculturation into an IQWST
classroom. The students’ role is to find solutions to real problems by asking and refining
questions, designing and conducting investigations, gathering and analyzing data, making
interpretations, drawing conclusions, and developing authentic artifacts such as scientific

models (Fortus et al., 2006)..

While IQWST has a commitment to the social norms of a scientific community of
practice, this commitment is implicitly embedded in the design of the material, but when
it comes to the teachers enacting the material their commitments and resources take the
foreground. So, while IQWST is committed to inquiry and community of practice, this is
a new role, with new types of responsibilities for teachers and students (Crawford, 2000).
In this chapter I investigated the second research question, “What do the teacher student

interactions reveal about the social and socioscientific norms?”

Results

In chapter 4 I described the classroom practices occurring in the three classrooms
according to the four science social practices of formulating and asking questions (FAQ),
data gathering (DG), formulating patterns and explanations (FPE), and connecting
explanations (CE). Because describing the norms for all four social practices is too much
for this chapter I chose to examine the norms evident in the participation structures
associated with the social practices FPE events because building arguments from

evidence is a core activity of inquiry practices (Driver et al., 2000).

In order to identify the typicality or atypicality of the participation structures in FPE
events, first I identified the participation structures during FPE events in the

microanalysis of lessons 2 and 6. For each episode I looked for the social interaction

10]

patterns of who talks and when, and the socioscientific patterns associated with who talks
about experiences and data, patterns, and explanations or models and theories. Then, I
compared the participation structures with participation structures in F PE events I had
identified in all ten IQWST lessons during the initial rough transcription of the entire

enactment.

I identified the participation structures as patterns by finding when the norms were
broken (Cobb et al., 2001; Hymes, 1972). For example in Mr. Dee’s classroom students
are allowed to call out objects that Mr. Dee can use as part of an explanation, but these
objects must fit with or be useful for Mr. Dee’s explanation. The following two episodes

illustrate the accepted and not accepted responses.

Mr. Dee: Now mostly you looked pretty good on those uh those models. . .This is
what I saw mostly. I saw a light source, with light coming out all around it, Yup.
I saw an eye, OK. This is a eye with uh, yeah ok so you, you get it though. And
then I saw some object I’ll draw one that I liked fairly well.

Student: A balloon.

Mr. Dee: Ok, now these light rays are coming out all over the place. Not just to

the eye to the balloon but everywhere, going in to the paper and out of the paper

everywhere 3d.

Versus a similar episode

Mr. Dee: It depends on which rock it hits, and which part of that rock it hits.
What if I had? Let’s make it simpler.
Student: What about a football?
Mr. Dee: Footballs bounce crazy. What if I had a boulder? A perfectly round
sphere of a boulder and its down there half buried in the ground...
In both examples of this participation structure in terms of the social norm the students
have the right to provide an answer without being called upon. In terms of the

socioscientific norm, the students’ role is to suggest an example. The teacher role is to

provide explanations with everyday objects that students have experienced. In both

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episodes the social norm is maintained, there was no pause or indication that a norm had
been broken when the student called out the answer. In terms of the socioscientific norm,
students can suggest experiences, however it is the teacher’s obligation to reject the
suggestion of a football because it did not serve as a useful object for building an
explanation because “footballs bounce crazy” and would not be useful for illustrating the
science rule of the law of reflection since objects bounce predictably according to the law

of reflection.

What I will do now is present the transcript of a critical incident for each participant
structure, followed with an analysis of the structure, and a list of additional instances of
the participation structure which includes the lesson, the date of the lesson, and the
transcript line (e. g., Lesson 2 [12-5 line 56]. Each participant structure occurred in the
context of IQWST activity 6.2 during an FPE event when the classes were reasoning with
evidence from the paper and mirror experiment.

Mr. Dee

In Mr. Dee’s classroom I identified four participation structures including the report
data, predict, grandpa, and analogy participation structures. These structures are used to
achieve “the types of interactions for the purpose of solving problems and carrying out
academic tasks” (Collins et al., 1989, p. 488). In Mr. Dee’s classroom the problem to be
solved is how the teacher can best construct for students an explanation of scattering and
reflection. While at the same time he is constructing the explanation, he does include
students in the classroom practice by allowing them opportunities to make observations
and predictions. So, in terms of the social norms in the participation structures Mr. Dee

has established a community in which students are encouraged to talk about the topic that

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Mr. Dee has nominated. However, consistent with his efforts to construct a comfortable
atmosphere for the students Mr. Dee maintains the socioscientific norm that the teacher is
ultimately responsible for determining what counts as an appropriate scientific claim.
Report Data Participation Structure

In the report data structure it is a social opportunity to afford students more chances to
participate and open the floor to conversation, but ultimately for the socioscientific
norms, the teacher makes the decisions for what counts in the data. Mr. Dee is asking

students to report data from the experiment with paper.

1. Mr. Dee: Yeah so this was our position right? Ok and what other groups have not

Mr. Dee: 4 All the same pretty much huh?
Student: Well yeah the the point numbers were different.
. Mr. Dee: All right
10. Student: Hundreds
11. Mr. Dee: Yeah but not much difference.
In terms of the social norms for the teacher and the student roles, the teacher exercises

reported back on this?
2. Student: Ours
3. Mr. Dee: Ok tell me
4. Student: 3 4 4 4 4
5. Mr. Dec: 3 4 4 4
6. Student: 4
7.
8.
9

the right and obligation to begin the episode by nominating a student to talk in turn 1.
Once the episode has begun both the teacher and the students have the right to speak.
The student’s right to speak is evident in turn 10 when the student interrupts Mr. Dee and
Mr. Dee acknowledges the interruption, and continues speaking indicating that the social

norm was unbroken.

However, in terms of the socioscientific norm for the student role it is also evident in
the exchange of turns that while the student has the right to speak about the data, in turn

11 it is evident the student does not have the right to evaluate the data when Mr. Dee

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discounts the content of the student’s claim. For the socioscientific teacher role, in turn 7
and 11 Mr. Dee exercises his right to evaluate the pattern in the data and is not obligated
to model his reasons for evaluating the data. Also, Mr. Dee decides that the variation in
data is not enough, yet he is not obligated to explain why the hundreds reading on the
light detector do not matter, he does not model his expert knowledge of the uncertainty of

measuring devices.

Additional instances of the reporting data participation structure occurred in lesson 2
[2-07, line 462]; and Lesson 10 [3-13, line 127]3.
Predict Participation Structure

The predict structure usually occurred when Mr. Dee wanted to determine if the
students can apply the explanation he has constructed. Once again, this is a social
opportunity for students to talk to Mr. Dee and participate as legitimate members of the
classroom community. Also, by reducing the complexity of what counts as scientific
participation, the socioscientific norm that the teacher will supply the explanation
increases students’ participation in the community. In this episode Mr. Dee is asking

students to predict what they think the light detector readings from the paper should be.

1 Mr. Dee: What would you expect to be the place where it’s going to be highest?

2. Student: Three.

3. Student: Three.

4. Mr. Dee: Three. Also we do have some tendency toward that, it’s kind of like in
the middle here but it’s not great data. I think our flashlights probably spread out a
little much? Ok? And had some problems like that. And so our data wasn't quite
as good.

In terms of the social norms for getting the turn, the teacher nominates the topic,

which is asking the students to make a prediction. All students are granted the right to

 

3 Lessons 4, 5, and 7 also had data that was collected, but consistent with Mr. Dee’s practice of dismissing
data, after the students collected the data from the IQWST experiments he skipped the students data
altogether and modeled the results.

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speak with the request for a prediction. Then the teacher listens to and evaluates the
students’ predictions in turns 2 and 3. When the students reply with a correct prediction

Mr. Dee is obligated to provide an explanation for the prediction.

In terms of the socioscientific norms for the teacher role, the teacher is obligated to
nominate the scientific content, or pattern that students use to make their predictions in
turn 1, and the teacher is responsible for providing the explanation for the pattern in turn
4. In the student role, students are responsible for providing a predicted experience
which in this case is where the light detector reading will be the highest. The students are

not obligated to talk about why they thought position three would be the highest.

Additional instances of the predict participation structure occurred in Lesson 6 [2-23
lines 714, and 303; 2-24 line 189]; Lesson 8 [3-1 lines 144, and 191; 3-6 lines 100, and
112]; and Lesson 10 [3-14 line 90; 3-15 line 114].

Grandpa Participation Structure

The Grandpa structure usually begins when Mr. Dee wants to demonstrate something
for the students and it begins with the comment, “Gather round...” It is a structure that
Mr. Dee uses to repair instances of what he called “strange data.” This is another social
opportunity for the students to comment about their observations. However in terms of
the socioscientific norms, the grandpa structure is an opportunity for Mr. Dee to use
evidence that is more intuitively appealing than the IQWST evidence to support his

scientific claims.

Mr. Dee: Gather round children. Grandpa’s gonna tell you a story.
Students: Yeah.

Student: No.

Student: (inaudible)

Mr. Dee: Not to close.

9:599)?"

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““95”.“9‘

r-‘O

12.
13.

14.
15.
16.

Student: Look at it.

Mr. Dee: Yeah. Now let me ask you this,
Student: Whoa.

Mr. Dee: Can’t you see the light right now?

. Student: Yeah
. Mr. Dee: Ok coming in here we could trace this thing. Let me turn it to where,

oops sorry. Ok, we could turn this thing you know we could trace it with a pencil
and show you where it’s going. It’s pretty clear it’s hitting the paper here, it’s
coming out here. You know if I change the angle, ok? You know? Alright, yeah.
Ok, so obviously if I’m going to check the light the the level of the light, if it’s
falling right there, that’s going to be the most. If it’s over here it should be less
because there's less light falling right in there. And the more you go, that’s less
less less BRIGHT less less less, ok? Now, when we do this with a piece of
paper... lets do it like this. We're going to use this to hold it up... Where’s my
flashlight...We’ll make a couple of creases here to hold things in place...oops that
mirror is flexible buddy. Ok, so now we’ve got a nice piece of paper that is, can I
see your envelope there whoever's it is? That’s ok. Ok, if I shine this in there
yeah I get some kind of like reflection back, but is it so clear like the mirror was?
Students: No

Mr. Dee: Well, no it’s kind of blurrier, what’s another word? Um spread out
maybe

Student: Fuzzy

Student: Scattered

Mr. Dee: Fuzzy, scattered, maybe that’s it. Ok.

In terms of the social norms for the teacher role, Mr. Dee nominated the topic of

showing students the pattern for how light reflects when he initiated turn 1. In this
structure both the teacher and students have speaking rights, there are no interruptions
after which a participant told not to speak. The students in their role, have the right to
speak when Mr. Dee asks a question, and, in turn 8 for example, students have the right
to comment on the demonstration or apparatus. Again Mr. Dee has the listening
responsibility of checking to see if the students are following along, in turn 13 Mr. Dee
evaluates the response in turn 12 as a correct response and exercises the obligation to

explain and continue nominating new topics.

In the teacher role, the socioscientific norm for the teacher can be seen in turn 11

when Mr. Dee uses the materials students are looking at as “physical models” (Lehrer &

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Schauble, 2000, p. 41) that draw on resemblance to sustain a connection between the
physical world, the light detector data, and the world being modeled, the scientific pattern
of reflection. Later during this grandpa episode Mr. Dee used many small mirrors to
model a “rough” surface that scatters light. The socioscientific norm for the student role

in the grandpa structure is to report what they see the teacher showing them.

Additional instances of the Grandpa structure occurred in: Lesson 1 [2-1, line 76]
Lesson 2 [2-7 lines 524, and 693; 2-8 lines 413, 491, and 524]; Lesson 3 [2-9 lines 70,
and 115]; and Lesson 7 [2-27, line 140].

Analogy Participation Structure

Mr. Dee uses the analogy structure to provide explanations after giving students the
opportunity to provide explanations. Consistent with the social norm that students’ have
the right but not responsibility to talk about the topic, Mr. Dee opens the floor with wait
time after asking a question. He also maintains the socioscientific norm that the teacher

will provide the scientific explanation.

Mr. Dee: This is called scattering.

Student: What’s it called?

Mr. Dee: Scattering.

Mr. Dee: Why would this happen? (silence 3 seconds)

3" 99°F?

Mr. Dee: Because the surface is too rough. These are like little mirrors. Each
little part is reflecting a part. Now, I have a piece of paper. I should be able to
see my lovely uh well, my face, ok? But this paper is really rough. You know
what if, if the paper was on the floor and I bounced a ball on it, not rough to that
ball. But the little light rays they're so tiny little, they're cute they’re so tiny.

The social norm for the teacher role the teacher nominates topic with a question in
turn 3, the teacher has the listening responsibility of waiting and signals an opening in
the conversation for students to speak with the pause, however if no student responds,

then the teacher has the obligation to provide a response to his own question. In the

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student role, the students have the right to speak and volunteer explanations when the

teacher pauses after asking the question in turn 4, but there is no obligation to respond.

The socioscientific norm for the teacher role is to provide terms for patterns such as
scattering in turn 1. The teacher’s obligation is to provide explanations for why the
pattern occurs in turn 5. Usually the teacher does this with “syntactic models” (Lehrer &
Schauble, 2000, p. 43). Syntactic models are analogies based on the epistemological
claim that one system functions like another, similar to this episode where the teacher
claims that multiple tiny mirrors function much like the multiple fibers in a piece of
paper.

Additional instances of the analogy participation structure occurred in: Lesson 2 [2-23
line 290; 2-24 line 225]; Lesson 6 [2-23 line 290]; Lesson 8 [3-6 line 128]; and Lesson 10
[3-13 line 75; 3-14 line 97].

Summary of Mr. Dee Participation Structures

In the IQWST community of practice, the teacher is expected to enact a de-centered
expert role in order to model in situ the norms or patterns in behavior of the members of a
community of scientific practice (J. S. Brown et al., 1989; Singer et al., 2000). In this
role, the teacher needs to balance both the social norms of maintaining order, and the
socioscientific norms of participation in a scientific culture which includes practices such
as debating ideas, designing and conducting investigations, reasoning logically, using

evidence to support claims, and proposing interpretations of findings.

Mr. Dee enacted a teacher role which I have labeled, the nature guy. As the nature
guy the social order Mr. Dee maintained provided students the opportunities to speak

when they felt comfortable, in the predict structure he allows the students to call out

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responses, in the analogy structure he asks a question but continues if no students have an

explanation.

As the nature guy, Mr. Dee enacted socioscientific norms where the teacher was solely
responsible for the scientific practices of reasoning logically when he comments on the
data in the report structures; using evidence to support claims when he uses imaginary
numbers in the grandpa structure; and proposing explanations of the findings like the
flashlight beam spreading in the predict structure. The student socioscientific norm was
to participate by demonstrating their understanding of Mr. Dee’s explanations with
simple predictions. However, the students were not responsible for proposing

explanations for their predictions.

Mr. Dee’s nature guy role supported his aims of explaining the content, and the
classroom practice of constructing scientifically accurate and intuitively appealing
explanations that I described in Chapter 4. In one way Mr. Dee’s role paralleled the de-
centered expert role as the person who models for students the appropriate scientific
claims. However, his enacted role contrasted with the IQWST de-centered expert role as
a teacher with the responsibility of modeling the distribution of participation in the
classroom to provide opportunities for students to propose and evaluate ideas as a group.

Ms. Kay

In Ms. Kay’s classroom she established three participation structures including
reporting data, express understanding, and evaluate use of terms to organize the
interactions in the classroom for completing the academic tasks Ms. Kay’s purpose for
the IQWST tasks was to use evidence to prove the scientific patterns and laws. She also

had the goal of providing her students opportunities to express their understanding of

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these scientific laws. The social norms for when students talked were much more strictly
governed by Ms. Kay, Ms. Kay initiated the turns for students to speak. This social norm
is consistent with Ms. Kay’s socioscientific norm that what counts as appropriate
scientific practice is proving the laws of science because Ms. Kay maintains the
responsibility to find the evidence in the student experiments that supports the scientific
claims. Ms. Kay then checks the students understanding of these claims by how well the

students can use scientific terms as part of their responses to her questions.

Reporting Data Participation Structure
Ms. Kay used the reporting data participation structure to collect the student data from

the experiments. The social norms for initiating turns to talk is strictly controlled by Ms.
Kay for the socioscientific purpose of Ms. Kay gathering evidence to talk about the data
and develop a pattern. In this example the students are reporting their data from the

mirror experiment.

1. Ms. Kay: Uh, last one, Latrell lets go with your group. At position five where
did you have your highest reading?

2. Student: At position four

3. Ms. Kay: At position four.

4. Ms. Kay: If at position five you had your highest reading at position four I need
to see your hand. Two groups. Ok, so two groups at position four. Ok someone
else. Uh, Adrielle what did your group have?

5. Student: We had our highest one at level, I mean, at position five.

6. Ms. Kay: At position five. Ok so if you had your highest reading and your light
was at position five if you had your highest reading at position five, let me see
your hand. So we got one two, is that an up or down? One group, two groups,
three groups, four groups, that’s four groups at position five.

7. Ok so it’s a little messy but I’ll talk about it as we go along. So we’re going to
circle this is all of our data, this is what we came up with. So we're going to circle
the highest number and see if we can develop a pattern there Ok?

So in terms of the social norms associated with the teacher and student roles. As the

teacher Ms. Kay nominates both the turn in the conversation and the topic in turn 1 and

turn 4. Students do not have the right to nominate the topic or the turn, each turn a

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student takes occurs after an initiation by Ms. Kay. Ms. Kay has the obligation to listen
to the students and record the students’ observations without judgment while recording

the data. Ms. Kay maintains a tight social ordering and control of the classroom.

In terms of the socioscientific norms Ms. Kay in the teacher role organizes the
students’ reporting of their experiences, or data. Once the students have reported the data
in turns 2, 4, 5, and 6, Ms. Kay nominates a new topic in turn 7, evaluating the data. She
is responsible for the scientific practice of evaluating the data when she comments that
the data is messy, and she suggests the method of evaluating the data. The students are

not given an opportunity to talk about any patterns they may have noticed in the data.

Additional instances of the report data structure include: Lesson 2 [12-06 line 463];
Lesson 4 [12-14 line 130]; Lesson 6 [1-20 line 120, 1-24 line 149, and 1-25 line 87]; and

Lesson 8 [2-8 line 126].

Express Understanding Participation Structure
The express understanding participation structure is an initiate-respond-evaluate type

structure which I described in Chapter 4 as a common classroom practice of procedural
display. In terms of the social norms, Ms. Kay expects the students to take a turn at
speaking and express whether or not they understand the science explanations. And for
the socioscientific norm, what counts as appropriate practice is for Ms. Kay to provide
the explanations while the students are responsible for expressing agreement or
disagreement with the explanation. By asking students to express whether or not they
understand but not explain what they understand Ms. Kay is able to introduce the
scientific laws the data was intended to show. This example occurs after Ms. Kay has

analyzed the data from the paper with True/False questions.

112

1. Ms. Kay: OK, now our data in this class, first hour collected data today, we didn't
analyze all of their data. However, we went through these same questions today
and we came out with the correct data to make everything that we’ve done up to
this point true. Now you guys all followed the same set of directions. Um, you
all collected data. We came up with data, but our data contradicts what the laws
and the truths are that we’re trying to explain. Ok? So bottom line, this data
doesn’t fit what I’m trying to teach. Ok? Does that make sense?

2. Students: Yes.

3. Ms. Kay: Now, if you take a look at, our first um, our first two questions, that
question response that we were looking for, that was a true statement. But the
problem is we had one group, only one group that came up with the correct or
proper responses.

In the teacher role, it is the social norm for the teacher to nominate the topic in turn 1
and ask the students if the topic makes sense. The normative response for the students is
to reply “yes,” and when the students reply yes the teacher can continue with the topic. It
is the students’ obligation to indicate their understanding in turn 2. Also, when the
students reply no, the express understanding rule is broken and the teacher may either re-
explain the topic, or ask the students if they are sure the answer is no, at which point the
students can change their answer to yes without having explained why they changed their

answer, and the teacher continues with a new topic.

In terms of the socioscientific norm, the norm for the teacher role is to provide the
explanation or pattern that the students should have been able to produce. The students
are not obligated to describe their ideas about data, patterns, or explanations, unless a

student replies no, at which point the teacher attempts to determine why the student is not
replying yes.

Additional instances of the express understanding participation structured occurred in
the following lessons: Lesson 2 [12-05 line 264; 12-06 line 284; 12-07 line 390]; Lesson

6 [1-24 line 125, and 397]; Lesson 7 [1-27 line 95]; Lesson 8 [2-9 line 90]; and Lesson 9

[2-27 line 59].

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Evaluate Use of Terms Participation Structure
This is an important participation structure for Ms. Kay because it represents the type

of interaction that is important for Ms. Kay’s goal for her students to participate

successfully by repeating the correct scientific terms.

we

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10.
11.

12.
l3.
l4.

. Ms. Kay: So was our law of reflection still true? Absolutely true, but why is it

that we get different readings? What happens to the light on this bumpy surface?
Smooth surface light's angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection. What
about on this bumpy surface? Travis, what are your thoughts?

Student: It’s not completely reflection on a bumpy surface.

Ms. Kay: Did you get some reflect, did you see some light? You saw some light
right? Aja?

Student: Well uh,

Ms. Kay: Huh?

Student: It was like different angles in different direction.

Ms. Kay: Ok, so it’s gonna go [drawing on overhead]. I'll take that. And then
Jarrod, let’s see what you have to say.

Student: Oh um, when we watched that movie Bill Nye the science guy, it said uh,
it said uh [inaudible] and if it’s not a smooth surface then it will slow down and
change directions. So maybe because the paper is not that smooth it slowed down
and it changed directions and it didn’t get all the light.

Ms. Kay: Ok good. So, if we think about what Aja just said, we have a bumpy
surface. Does that mean that the law of reflection is totally false? Absolutely not.
But you have a bumpy surface that means light is actually [drawing scattered on
overhead] going out but its doing what? Starts with an S

Student: Scattering.

Ms. Kay: It’s actually scattering. What causes light to scatter versus smooth
reflection? The type of what?

Students: Surface.

Ms. Kay: Does that make sense?

Students: Yes.

In terms of the norms for social participation, the pattern is much the same as the other

two participation structures. Ms. Kay initiates the t0pic in turn 1 and has opportunities to

talk in turns 1, 3, 7, 9, and 11. Students have the right to talk about their own ideas

represented by the three separate student turns in this episode. Ms. Kay though has the

responsibility to listen to the student turns, and while Ms. Kay listens she decides to refer

back to Aja’s correct use of terms in turn 6.

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In terms of the socioscientific norms for who talks about what, in this structure
students have the speaking rights to express their ideas for the explanations. However,
the teacher has the right to ultimately make the final decision about which student idea is
most appropriate as indicated in turn 9 when after having nominated three separate turns
to provide an explanation Ms. Kay accepts Aja’s explanation in turn 6 where Aja used the
words angle and direction which are parts of the description of the law of reflection. Ms.
Kay does not distribute the participation to other students to consider which of the three
student explanations may be most appropriate. In effect, the students are obligated to use
scientific terms “scattering” and “surface” for their explanations in turns 10 and 12,

which Ms. Kay has decided is the science goal for her explanation.

Additional occurrences of the evaluate use of terms participation structure include:
Lesson 2 [12-07 line 349, 373, 387, and 412]; Lesson 6 [1-25 line 177, and 212]; Lesson

7 [1-27 line 86, and 90]; and Lesson 9 [2-15 line 18].

Summary of Ms. Kay Participation Structures
In Chapter 4 I described Ms. Kay’s authentic community of practice, as one in which

the objects of science are the laws and truths of science, and the practices are intended to
use evidence to prove explanations. One of the ways Ms. Kay sustains this community of
practice is with her social authority, in each of the three participation structures it is the
social norm for Ms. Kay to initiate the topic and the turns to speak. She also maintains

the social norm of the teacher’s responsibility to listen and make sense of student ideas.

In terms of what counts as appropriate scientific participation for the teacher and
students in Ms. Kay’s classroom similar to IQWST, the students have opportunities to

communicate their findings with reports of their data, and they have opportunities to

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propose explanations in the evaluate use of terms participation structure. However, in
contrast to IQWST, there is not a norm obligates students to critique and evaluate each
other’s data and explanations, that responsibility is left to the teacher. In the express
understanding participation structure Ms. Kay models the practice of evaluating claims as
comparing the claims to a standard of scientific truth rather than the evidence collected in

the classroom.

Ms. Kay uses both her social authority who distributes participation and academic
authority as one who happens to know what the answers should be to determine what
counts as explanations and so instead of the IQWST socioscientific norms associated
with students supporting arguments from evidence, Ms. Kay’s establishes the
socioscientific norm for supporting claims with social authority. This is different from
Mr. Dee who similar to Ms. Kay, has the social authority to maintain classroom order but
in contrast uses students’ experiences and intuitively appealing models and analogies to
establish the socioscientific norm for explanations.

Ms. Cee

In Chapter 4 I described Ms. Cee’s classroom as a community in which the science
practice is doing the process of science, and the science content are descriptions of
experiences, in contrast to the explanation of scientific laws in Mr. Dee and Ms. Kay’s
classroom. In Ms. Cee’s classroom community there were three types of participation
structures in F PE events including the tour guide, moving on, and IQWST teacher guide

that organized participation in the community.

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Tour Guide Participation Structure
The tour guide participation structure occurs for the purpose of identifying the key

patterns or explanations that Ms. Cee wants the students to come up with after
completing experiments. Because Ms. Cee values students expressing their ideas, it is the
social norm that students can express their ideas without specific nominations from the
teacher. However, for the socioscientific norm Ms. Cee decides which ideas are
scientifically correct and is responsible for identifying the correct ideas. The following

example occurred after students had collected data from the mirror and the paper.

1. Ms. Cee: Ok, so you noticed the brightest light when flashlight was in what kind

of a shape? You said it yesterday [points to student 1].

Student 1: Uh a “v”?

Ms. Cee: In a “v” shape.

Student 1: Yeah.

Ms. Cee: Right?

Student 2: All of them are “v's” practically.

Student 3: But like

Ms. Cee: That's true [replying to student 2].

. Student 3: But

10. Student 4: At every angle

11. Ms. Cee: That's true [replying to student 4].

12. Student 3: The closest “v” shape.

13. Ms. Cee: The closest “v” shape. But they were all “v” shapes right? So that’s,
when you were dealing with the mirror, the light would make a what shape? [head
nod to student 3]

14. Student 3: A “v” shape.

15. Student 2: “v”

cwseweww

In terms of the social norms for the teacher role, in turn 1 the teacher has the right to
nominate the topic, the teacher has the right to respond to students but not an obligation
to reply to all students for example, the teacher responds in turn 8 to an earlier student
response in turn 6. Once the topic is identified, the students have the social right to

decide when to speak also, in turns 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, and 15 students talk without

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being specifically nominated for a turn to speak by the teacher. In turns 3, 8, 11, and 13

the teacher has the listening responsibility of pointing out the correct student comments.

In terms of the socioscientific norms associated with the teacher and student roles, the
teacher has the responsibility of identifying the topic the students should be expressing
their ideas about, in this case the topic the teacher had nominated is the pattern that the
students saw in the results. It is the students’ responsibility to pick up and use this
description of the pattern. In turn 6 one student actually questioned the value of
describing the pattern as a “v” shape because all the shapes were “v’s practically.” And
in turn 12 a student proposes the v shapes that matter were “the closest.” However,
ultimately the teacher in turn 13 has the responsibility of pointing out to the rest of the
students which expressed idea is the correct idea. So, what the students contribute ideas,
but ultimately what counts for the final explanation is what the teacher has pointed out to

the students.

Additional instances of the tour guide participation structure include the following:
Lesson 2 [3-29 line 427, 468; 4-11 line 66, 230, 304]; Lesson 4 [4-14 line 86, 101];

Lesson 5 [4-24 line 51]; Lesson 6 [4-27 line 70; 4-28 line 7]; Lesson 8 [5-5 line 64].

Moving On Participation Structure
Moving on is a participation structure that occurs when Ms. Cee decides to not

provide feedback to a student response. This structure is consistent with the social norms
of the classroom because Ms. Cee encourages students to share their ideas. The structure
is also consistent with the socioscientific norm that what counts is the presentation of

scientific ideas because Ms. Cee presents the explanation from the IQWST teacher guide,

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and the student presents her own explanation. This example occurs near the end of lesson

6 after Ms. Cee has explained the difference between scattering and reflection.

1. Ms. Cee: So it’s scattering. So when we have a rough surface we have scattering.
When we have a smooth surface we have reflection. Do we understand that? Any
questions about that?

2. Student: Why do we have light in our room? Because we have a rough surface
out there. I decided that.

3. Ms. Cee: Uh huh, that’s good. You’re putting it together in the real world, that's
good.

4. Ms. Cee: Alright, now, I'm going to have Ms Katie, that's you. Would you hand
these out please dear?

In terms of the social norms, the teacher nominates the topic in turn 1, but the students
also have the right to add to the topic in turn 2. So again, both teacher and student have
the right to speak, in turn 2 the student was not specifically nominated by the teacher.
However, unlike the tour guide participation structure, in turn 3 the teacher does not have
the obligation to listen for a specific student response instead the teacher replies with a

generic positive evaluation, and in turn 4 Ms. Cee moves on to the next curriculum task.

In terms of the socioscientific norms that determine who talks about what, in the
moving on structure in turn 2 it is appropriate for the student to initiate either a question
about an experience, or in this case an explanation for the experience. In turn 3 when Ms.
Cee comments the student is putting it together followed by turn 4 moving to the next
topic, the norm that student expressing their ideas is an appropriate contribution to the
process of doing science, but because the teacher doesn’t ask what the student meant, or
nominate another student to respond, but instead moves to the next activity this structure
also demonstrates the norm that what counts as science practice is continuing doing the

lesson. What distinguishes the moving on structure from both the tour guide and teacher

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guide structures is that it usually ends with student ideas not specifically identified in the

IQWST teacher guide.

Additional instances of the move on participation structure include: Lesson 2 [3-29
line 348]; Lesson 4 [4-11 line 273]; Lesson 5 [4-20 line 88; 4-24 lines 43, and 68]; and

Lesson 6 [4—27 lines 492, and 603].

IQWST Teacher Guide Participation Structure
This participation structure is similar to the both the tour guide and moving on

structure because the students express their ideas which is the social norm that Ms. Cee
values in the community. However, in this structure Ms. Cee is unable to draw the
appropriate response from the students and instead reads the expected response directly
from the teacher guide which represents the socioscientific norm that what counts as
appropriate explanations actually comes from the IQWST teacher guide. The following
example occurred after an episode described in chapter 4 using an IQWST transparency
to apply the light model. Ms. Cee has now revealed the location of the flashlight and is

explaining why the flashlight should be pointing at the mirror.

Ms. Cee: That explains why we can see things in the mirror.
Student 1: Cause light reflects off of it.

Student 2: But, I was

Ms. Cee: So you thought you saw it down there right?
Student 3: You can still see it.

Ms. Cee: But if you remember

Student 4: You can still see it with your eye.

Ms. Cee: Yeah, [response to student 4] but if you remember we said that
the light bounces off to the eye.

9. Student: I didn't know there was a wall.

10. Ms. Cee: So it’s actually the what? That’s coming back.

11. Student 2: Oh, it would have to hit something.

12. Student: Reflection.

13. Student: The mirror is the object.

14. Student 3: Reflection or light.

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15. Ms. Cee: Ok? Ok. So, in activity 1 your drawing should look similar to
this right here.

16. Student: Darn.

17. Ms. Cee: Except for the dotted lines don't do that part.

18. Student 3: Do we have to draw it again?

19. Ms. Cee: No we’re just telling ya. Ok?

20. Ms. Cee: Ok, so our eye is the detector of the light rays that hit it. Ok,
like I said before we can only see based upon what actually hits our eye.
This is why our eyes can be fooled by a mirror. It makes it seem like our
eye, to our eye, like the light is coming from a different place where the
light source actually is.

Similar to Ms. Cee’s other participation structures, the social norm for the teacher is to
nominate the topic in turns 1 and 20, but Ms. Cee does not nominate the students to speak
in turns 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16 and 18. The teacher talks to particular students in
turns 4 and 8 because these student comments about reflect and eye relate to the topic she
nominated for this episode. The episode ends when the teacher reads the answer for the

topic from the IQWST teacher guide.

In the IQWST teacher guide participation structure it is IQWST that is responsible for
providing the explanation. In turns 1 and 15 Ms. IQWST talks through Ms. Cee when
she reveals the different parts of the transparency. Both the students and the teacher talk
about their own ideas. It is interesting to note that Ms. Cee’s ideas are also incorrect in
turn 17. The dotted lines are important for the explanation, but Ms. Cee doesn’t
recognize this and tells the students not to draw them. So, when Ms. Cee then reads the
IQWST explanation in turn 20 it is evident that IQWST is responsible for the explanation

that is considered appropriate.

Additional instances of the teacher guide participation structure include: Lesson 2 [4-
11 line 32] Lesson 4 [4-14 line 80]; Lesson 5 [420 line 67, line 90, and line 99]; Lesson

8 [5-4 line 58, line 75].

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Summary of Ms. Cee Participation Structures
So, for IQWST, the teacher needs to balance both the social norms of maintaining

order, and the socioscientific norms of participation in a scientific culture which includes
practices such as debating ideas, designing and conducting investigations, reasoning

logically, using evidence to support claims, and proposing interpretations of findings.

In a sense the social norms that Ms. Cee maintains, allowing students to voice their
ideas, is close to a culture that affords opportunities for ideas to be debated. For Ms. Cee
all three structures serve her purpose of allowing students opportunities to express their
ideas, but the moving on and teacher guide structures reveal her goal of also doing the
science when she moves on without making sense of the students’ ideas. The process of
making sense with appropriate methods of debating and reasoning need to be modeled by
the expert. In many cases Ms. Cee does not model debating ideas, in the tour guide
structure, Ms. Cee uses a strategy of “guess what I’m thinking” to lead students toward
the appropriate idea when she selects student answers that are what she intends to direct
them towards.

Discussion

In communities there are participation structures with implicit norms and roles which
include rights and obligations for legitimate participation in the community (Erickson,
1982; Gee & Green, 1998). IQWST aims to establish norms for participation that include
the distribution of the right to propose explanations and ideas to the students. The
IQWST de-centered expert teacher role is to model, coach, and provide feedback for 1)
the science reasoning practices, 2) the social opportunities for critique, and 3) the
language or tools to put the practice of building arguments with scientific reasoning

practices into practice (Fortus et al., 2006). Yet in all three cases the teachers’ established

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norms that maintained the teacher’s right to contribute the final explanations and ideas

that were deemed correct.

In part this difference in distribution of participation can be linked to the different
views of content and practice described in chapter 4. While both IQWST and the three
teachers value the goal of maintaining social order and completing the academic goal for
the lesson (Doyle & Carter, 1984; Mehan, 1979). The IQWST goal to grant students
legitimate opportunities to formulate patterns in evidence and in the process construct
their understanding of a scientific model, asks teachers to assume new roles that place
different challenges and responsibilities on the teachers. Not only are the new IQWST
roles difficult for teachers to manage, this role must also be read through the teachers’
purposes and aims for authentic science practice (Remillard, 1999). What I described in
this chapter are the patterns of interactions in the three teachers’ classroom that served the
purpose of supporting their aims and goals for authentic practice described in chapter

four.

In chapter four, I described what is considered authentic classroom practice indicated
by the ways the three teachers adapted and improvised the IQWST tasks to achieve their
goals for knowing and doing science. IQWST has as its goal that the community
constructs with practices of science the scientific ray model of light. The three teachers
have a different goal for the final product of the lesson. In all three classrooms the
socioscientific norms established in the classrooms did not hold teachers accountable to

modeling disciplinary norms (Engle & Conant, 2002).

Mr. Dee himself is constructing a story of reflection and scattering with the grandpa

and analogy structure that is scientifically accurate and intuitively appealing to the

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students, he does the reasoning practices when he dismisses data from the report structure
and proposes explanations but doesn’t model these reasoning practices for the students.
Ms. Kay demonstrates that the reasoning practices are unimportant in the express
understanding structure because the students didn’t prove the law of reflection and
emphasizes the use of vocabulary in the term structure. Ms. Cee provides many
opportunities for students to voice their ideas in all three structures, but does not model
critique of the ideas, or model the use of the reasoning practices and tools, instead
organizes interactions that support doing the experiments by moving on to the next
activity. In the next chapter I will use the teachers’ commitments to science content and
practice, and their personal resources for constructing that practice in the classroom to

describe the patterns in their classroom communities.

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Chapter 6

Commitments & Resources
In the previous two chapters I have described a picture of three teachers’ curriculum

construction and classroom community of practice. For IQWST curriculum materials
designed with an inquiry-based community of practice in which students and teachers
coordinate the science content and the science practice, the teacher plays an essential role
in adapting and responding to students’ ideas and performance with academic tasks
(Driver et al., 1994; Singer et al., 2000). The selection of tasks and adaptation to students
is a very difficult part of curriculum construction for a number of reasons. For one
reason, the relationship between views of learning as participation in a culture or
community of practice and pedagogy is problematic and there are no simple rules for
pedagogical practice in a constructivist classroom community (Driver et al., 1994). A
second reason orchestrating the balance of organizational, social, and cognitive norms
intended in inquiry-based curriculum is difficult because it requires commitments to the
knowledge, practices, and habits of mind associated with scientific inquiry, and

classroom management resources to enact such lessons (Schneider & Krajcik, 2002).

As the teachers designed their curriculum and classroom community they were
engaged in two processes of task selection and task construction (Remillard, 1999).
During task selection teachers decide which IQWST activities to select and alter, and
then as they interacted with the students and the subject matter they continued to
construct adjustments to the tasks. Both of these processes occur as teachers actively
shape the classroom community according to their commitments to the purposes of
school, scientific ideas, and their personal resources for enacting that vision (Anderson,

2003a; M. Brown & Edelson, 2001; Cohen & Ball, 1999).

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In order for teachers to design the IQWST vision of inquiry the teachers need to have
similar personal resources and commitments to science content, scientific practices, and
social and socioscientific norms. It is also possible that while the teachers may have the
commitments that parallel IQWST when it comes to making the practice of analyzing
data and formulating patterns and explanations the teacher’s may not have the personal
resources to realize their commitments to instructional goals. And, it is also important to
recognize that personal resources are not the only influence on changes in teacher
practice, teachers are historical beings working within a profession with a complex

mixture of past and present practices (Cohen, 1990).

I have constructed a picture of the classroom community of practice each teacher
constructed with all the associated forms of science content, science practices, and norms.
I constructed that picture by examining the choices and decisions teachers made during
the enactment in response to their reading of the tasks which reveal their commitments
and resources relative to the IQWST vision of practice. In this chapter I use the
teacher’s interviews to explain their choices, why they at times chose to adopt IQWST
tasks, and at other times adapt and invent their own tasks. First, I will briefly review the
findings from the previous two chapters that represent a model of the three teachers’
community of practice. I have organized the headings according to chapters 4 and 5.
Chapter 4 described the teacher’s community of practice that I have continued to describe
according to their commitments and resources for science content and science practice.
Chapter 5 described the social and socioscientific norms, and the participation structures

those norms were embedded in.

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Results

Mr. Dee

In Mr. Dee’s community of science practice he enacted a teacher role which can be
described as “the nature guy.” He has a commitment to a model of science teaching and
learning which consists of explaining the story of science knowledge. However, he has
the necessary personal content knowledge resources to enact the IQWST inquiry model if
he chose to. As the nature guy, Mr. Dee is committed to the knowledge of experiences
and explanations. As a result of this commitment, he envisions his role is to organize the
experiences and explanations in the curriculum to provide students with the best chance
to learn the content and explain their understanding. Because he views his role as
providing the connections between experiences and explanations Mr. Dee uses the
students’ experiences and his own scientific models to help students make connections
between their experiences and the scientific explanations instead of engaging students in
the practice of formulating patterns. The social and socioscientific norms in the
classroom are Mr. Dee is expected to show students science phenomena, students are
allowed opportunities to make predictions about phenomena volunteer explanations, and

finally Mr. Dee provides the abstract scientific explanations.

I begin with Mr. Dee’s commitment to his aims and goal for the purpose of science as
it relates to his decisions about what to teach. This comment I think in part explains why
Mr. Dee is not as committed to the IQWST practice of students constructing scientific

models.

“I guess there's also decisions made about which topics maybe are more
important. Let’s say if we had to do astronomy kinds of things, ok? Is it
important to know? Yeah. Is it going to affect any part of their daily life?
Probably not. But what about friction? Well that affects everyone everyday. So
do you spend more time with that, things that are going to affect business or affect

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how up to date someone is on a certain topic when they go to vote on things.
Because we’re educating people to be citizens, voters, problem solvers, and
whatever other reason we have for teaching science. . .so if I have to short change
something I have to look at those issues.”

This comment along with a personal communication following the IQWST lesson 3
about models, during which Mr. Dee commented that the lesson was busy work, explains
Mr. Dee’s decisions to construct explanations for his students. He makes his decisions
based upon a personal commitment that the purposes of schooling is to provide students

with the information they need to know to be a citizen which contrasts with the IQWST
purpose of learning to participate in scientific community of practice.
Content Commitments and Resources

Content Commitments. Mr. Dee departed from the IQWST design and invented
many non IQWST tasks because for him, the authentic science content is the patterns in
science (e.g., the law of reflection) in contrast to the IQWST commitment to scientific
explanations in the form of the light ray model. His goal for science teaching is “to have
kids understand it.” He later goes on to describe what the “it” is when he described his
purpose for using discrepant events, “with discrepant events, or whatever, they're really
interested in you know, knowing the explanation, which is what you want them to do in

the first place. You know is to understand this thing.”

In addition to his interview comments from lesson 6 Mr. Dee introduced the purpose
of the experiment is “to understand” which contrasted with Ms. Kay’s purpose “to show”
and Ms. Cee’s “to investigate.” And finally, Mr. Dee’s last words in lesson 6 were
another indicator of his content commitment to explain scattering, “You’ve got scattering
because the surface is so rough compared to how small those are, how small the little

light beams are, the rays.” The commitment to explain the content contrasted with the

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IQWST content goal of ending lesson 6 with a revision to the scientific model that could

be used by students to explain additional phenomenon.

Content resources. Of the three teachers, Mr. Dee has a deep understanding of the
science content. During the interview while he was remembering the context of a video
clip he mentioned, “Now we hadn't really talked about whether it’s going to be the angle
of incidence compared to the normal or the angle between the bumpers or the flat part of
the mirror or something like that.” Angle of incidence and normal are two specific
science terms, and knowledge of science terms is one way to capture teachers’ science

knowledge (Wilson & Beme, 1999).

However, Mr. Dee’s reading of the content purpose for the data from the mirror was
different from the IQWST purpose which may have led Mr. Dee to quickly dismiss the
data, “Because I think that the beam was diverging quite a bit and causing it to read high
in like several areas where it shouldn’t, I mean it shouldn’t be spiking but it should have
been a little more obvious.” So in effect, while Mr. Dee has a wealth of content
knowledge necessary to respond to students’ reasoning, he was at the same time reading
the IQWST task with a different conceptual model of what the data should have been
representing. What the tension in the content resources shows is the intimate link
between the content and the practices Mr. Dee used to complete the academic task.
Practices Commitments and Resources

Practices Commitments. Mr. Dee departed from the IQWST tasks in part because he
had different beliefs about the purpose of learning science. I asked Mr. Dee what
students should be able to do with science and he said, “be able to apply it to you know

everyday situations.” The practices associated with applying knowledge are certainly one

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important aspect of science. However, IQWST also is committed to students learning the
inquiry practices associated with systematically producing science knowledge by
formulating their own ideas about the patterns in experience and proposing arguments to

support those patterns with the social practices of science.

Mr. Dee expressed a commitment to a different type of science practice for producing
knowledge when he commented that the IQWST experiment procedures were to

prescriptive.

“Now with some activities you don’t want to have such prescribed procedures. It
might be we did this one with mirrors, but how would you set this up to see what
happens with paper and reflection. . .To where they're experimenting to see what's
happening. It’s kind of like that messing around with science stuff.”

In a way Mr. Dee is describing a practice similar to the IQWST practice of testing ideas
based on a model, but Mr. Dee is emphasizing the students’ experience with the mirror as

a point to start from and then students can mess around.

Because for science a part of messing around is the analysis of the results, I asked Mr.
Dee about the purpose of graphs and he replied, “With graphs, 1 mean that’s just a visual
representation of the data.” So, this also indicates his commitment to the practice of
science being intuitive, and explains his practice of dismissing the data quickly and
providing other examples like the billiard and bouncing balls. For which he explained his
reason, “I think probably getting to the playing the pool thing was tying it to other
situations they’ve seen that eh, acted in a similar way, and probably at least touching on

the idea of light as a particle.”

Practice Resources. The previous comment also indicates Mr. Dee’s wealth of

personal resources for thinking quickly about examples that are visually appealing and

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scientifically accurate for explaining the content. Mr. Dee easily creates other ways to
visually relate the students’ experiences with the light detectors and scientific data to
science content. He often added other non IQWST activities because the IQWST
activities were not rich enough, for example he talked about the anchoring question for
the IQWST unit, “There wasn’t enough difference to have much interest in that activity
so the kids were uh, feeling, you know like it’s a waste of time.” And in many of the
other lessons he added stories like controlling variables with the carburetor on his lawn
mower, why the shirt color he picked at home in his closet looked different at school, and

had many objects like polar bear fur and periscopes to illustrate science concepts.

So, because of his personal knowledge and pedagogical resources for explaining
concepts, when the IQWST data wasn’t illustrative enough, he quickly found other
examples to illustrate the content as a substitute for utilizing scientific practices. In fact,
some of the additions Mr. Dee provided were incorporated into the revision of the
IQWST materials.

Social Norm Commitments and Resources

Social Norm Commitments. A common concern of teachers and the IQWST
materials as well, is that a learning environment is developed in which students feel that
their contributions to the classroom will be valued. Mr. Dee is committed to providing a
comfortable social classroom atmosphere in which students feel as though they are part
of the classroom conversation and safe when their ideas are shared. Mr. Dee’s use of the
predict participation structure is consistent with his commitment to maintaining a social

norm where each student can safely participate with their own individual predictions.

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Mr. Dee is able to draw on the predict structure because of his personal resource
knowledge of situations for which students can make predictions including the rubber
bouncing ball prediction, and predictions from other lessons about how hot a potato will
get, or what color a shirt will be. He uses the predict structure as a tool to both structure
the participation by limiting the opportunities for student failure, and as way to provide

students more turns in the academic conversation.

“But I’ve found in other situations where I want to do a prediction, and I really
want them to have a stake in it is I’ll have them all stand up. I'm like Ok, if you
think this is gonna happen sit down, that way by the end everyone has voted,
there’s no one left, unless you're left standing. So I tell them there's going to be
three options, you can vote this way, or this way, or if you think something else
might happen but you're not necessarily sure, Ok? And uh, so by the end of it
they vote, well, they think that every single person in the room has noticed what
their vote was, and no one cares a bit, ok? But they're like I've put it out there,
you know?”

IQWST also use predictions as method to make ideas public and stimulate the purpose
for testing investigations, but Mr. Dee changes the nature of the prediction to both

stimulate participation and control the floor of scientific ideas.

Social Norm Resources. It is interesting that Mr. Dee expressed the idea that he uses
the grandpa structure as a pedagogical strategy to change up the participation structure

and allow students more opportunity to be involved.

“I think that having them come close that’s good because it’s more of a
conversation kind of like the nature guy, come here and oh, look at this plant, you
know. Everybody gathering around looking at it, you know it’s more of a
relationship kind of discussion or explanation. Rather than you know here it is
flowing this way from the podium kind of thing.”

However, my analysis in chapters 4 and 5 both show that all that really changes in the

social norms for participation is the physical proximity. In the end his commitment to his
role of clarifying knowledge changes the tool he intends to use to distribute participation

into one more strategy for maintaining the social norm that students have the opportunity

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to share ideas with Mr. Dee but those turns maintain the teacher student dyad relationship

rather than the student to student sharing of ideas.

Socioscientific Norm Commitments. In contrast to Ms. Kay and IQWST, Mr. Dee
did not value the practice of analyzing data. He commented about what he was doing
when he asked groups for their data and pointed out the trends in the data to the students
during the report data participation structure, “I guess I was trying to walk them through
the data.” So in Chapter 5 when Mr. Dee discounted the student’s claim about the values
of the data, Mr. Dee had decided it wasn’t important for walking the students through the
data because of the model he was using that there should be more variation. In other
lessons Mr. Dee continued to quickly dismiss the data, for example in lesson 8, when the
data from the experiment was not rich enough, he quickly demonstrated a different
experiment. Walking students through the data is consistent with Mr. Dee’s role of the

nature guy because it enables him to show students what the data represents.

But Mr. Dee also has a commitment to students being active thinkers in the classroom
which he supports with the predict participation structure, and so when the data threw Mr.
Dee he instead asked the students to predict where they thought the light detector reading

should be the highest. And he did this because,

“I think that um I was trying to keep the kids from grabbing on to a misconception
as being the truth, and that happens sometimes when you have something that
doesn’t work out, and you're quick to oh it did this, but that's not the way its
supposed to have worked, there's something else going on here.”

So in contrast to IQWST where students are intended to reason with the data and decide
that the data is bad, Mr. Dee adapts the task to make the task simpler. Also he doesn’t

believe students will reason with scientific norms.

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“some of it I think has to do with the kids that you’ve got, if they’re a fairly sharp
group, that can handle having various opinions and being able to hear them all
and then you know finally stick on one even though maybe another one seems
more popular”

So, while the IQWST commitment is to the practice of building arguments from evidence
which requires that some arguments are to be made. Mr. Dee however purposely adapts
tasks to avoid alternative ideas either because the data was faulty, or he believes students
will decide what counts based on popularity rather than the analysis of the data so he does
not even attempt pedagogical strategies to establish the scientific norms of peer review
and critiquing arguments. Instead, he uses the grandpa participation structure because the

norm is for the teacher to

“Know lots of different ways of explaining something, to be able to create
equipment or demonstrations or something as the need arises to get kids to
understand something if a question comes up, or you know just part of your
regular curriculum.”

Here Mr. Dee defines the socioscientific norm for the teacher as having to move kids to
the instructional goal with different ways of explaining which includes making materials
that represent those explanations. And as a part of that norm it is necessary for the
teacher to be confident in the activities, “its important that it get clarified, and that the
kids are confident that the teacher understands it. Because I think that the day before it
probably came across that I was not liking the data.” In the end Mr. Dee is committed to
the socioscientific norm that the teacher should clarify knowledge, and it is the teacher’s

responsibility to be confident in those clarifications.

Mr. Dee altered the IQWST practice of modeling when he used models to relate
students’ experiences with intuitive objects to connect the data from the experiments to
the explanations he constructed. He values the analogy participation structure because

his role is to identify intuitively appealing explanations for students, “I'm trying to get

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them from something that seems very obvious with mirrors that they would understand to
this more abstract diffuse reflection thing.” Again once more we see the commitment to
his role as being responsible for making the connections for students between their
experiences and the explanations. And he sees the need for this because the classroom

does not have the tools of science,

“There are so many things in science that are too small, too big, too fast, too slow
for kids to experience. We don’t have the materials, the equipment to magnify
this and have kids see the light's coming in this way and reflecting off all these
different ways. So we have to have a model of some sort.”

When in effect, IQWST intended the data tables to be the tools, or equipment of science
to show students the ways light comes in and reflects off. So, what is evident here is a
different socioscientific norm from IQWST in which students together construct the
explanation, whereas for Mr. Dee what counts as an appropriate scientific explanation

must be intuitive.

Socioscientific Norm Resources. What is interesting is that Mr. Dee used the report
data as a way to maintain the social order in the claSsroom while he is personally

responsible for evaluating the evidence.

“I think what happened was I was probably thrown by the data. . .That’s why I
polled the whole class, to see holy cow are we having a problem with equipment
here? With this group I was like, ok, anybody else? You know give me some
more data, something’s not working out here.”

In lesson 6 Mr. Dee stated to the class that the data “didn’t sound right” and no student
questioned that claim. It was clear that the socioscientific norm of Mr. Dee providing

explanations had not been broken.

Mr. Dee is quick to depart from IQWST tasks and use analogies because he can

which is consistent with his wealth of personal content and pedagogical content

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knowledge resources. In the interview while watching the clip, on the spot he came up

with another way to get the students from something obvious to abstract,

“So, these mirrors that are all at different angles and that would probably be an
interesting thing to do, with like Styrofoam or something like that, is to have a
sheet of all these little mirrors that are all at different angles, Ok? And have that
be a model of the diffuse reflection.”

And Mr. Dee does use as a personal resource equipment and demonstrations. After the
interview in his classroom he showed me a lot of equipment that he has built to
demonstrate concepts, and throughout the pilot enactment he made numerous suggestions
about how to improve the experiment materials.
Summary

In a culture of scientific practice the role of the teacher is to mediate scientific
knowledge for the students. . .rather than to organize individual sense making about the
world (Driver et al., 1994). I think Mr. Dee operates more with this role in mind of
organizing the sense making of the students. With his comments about walking students
through data, and his construction of materials that are neat, interesting, and useful for
clarifying concepts Mr. Dee instead attempts to “extend his students’ knowledge of
phenomena — a practice perhaps more appropriately called nature study” (Driver etal.,
1994, p. 8). Also, necessary to a community of validators of knowledge, Mr. Dee does
not share with IQWST the core commitment to a community inquiry practice in which
teacher and students “problematize the content” (Engle & Conant, 2002). Instead, he
purposely does not introduce or allow students alternative ideas in the classroom because
he believes it is possible that students will remember the alternative ideas rather than the

canonical explanation.

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Ms. Kay
Ms. Kay’s enacted teacher role is “the gatekeeper,” she has the commitment to a

model of scientific inquiry practice that proves science content. However, her personal
resources in terms of content and practice conflicted with the view of knowledge in the
IQWST inquiry community. Ms. Kay engaged students in the practices of gathering data,
and analyzing data but ultimately when the data does not fit the scientific laws and truths
that Ms. Kay is trying to teach, Ms. Kay chooses the data that provides the patterns
science has claimed as true. While Ms. Kay’s role is to provide the final authoritative
explanations for what the truths are, she also has the role of making sure her students feel
successful at their work, and the students have the responsibility to talk to Ms. Kay and

let her know when they do not understand the science laws.

Ms. Kay adopted many IQWST tasks because she is committed to using inquiry in her

classroom.

“I think that ever since this popular inquiry has come up. . .I think that it is
definitely important that the teacher has had some sort of opportunity to be in
some sort of inquiry workshop, or see some sort of example as to what inquiry
should look like. . .this new age science teaching.”

However, in the following sections I will show that her commitments and resources to
more traditional forms of content and practice mix with her commitments to the IQWST
design to explain why she enacts the gatekeeper instructional role.
Content Commitments and Resources

Content Commitments. In order to indicate the form of science knowledge that Ms.
Kay valued and contributed to her mixture of reform-based IQWST and traditional
practice, note her introduction to the experiment in lesson 6 was “to show.” She also

indicates her commitment to knowledge with the way she ended lesson 6, the last point

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she stated was the law of reflection. In effect, Ms. Kay has a commitment to content that
differs from IQWST, because Ms. Kay is committed to proving patterns or scientific laws

in contrast to the IQWST commitment to the construction of scientific models.

She states a number of things in the following quote that indicate the law like nature
of the science content she values. First she explains the value of data, then that the lesson
was a good attempt to follow the IQWST curriculum, and finally what she was looking

for.

“It was a good day if you get good data, but here it didn’t work. So, this is great
because it’s a true sign of somebody reading a booklet and attempting to produce
what’s in black and white, you know?...But, ‘initially it didn’t work guys, this
ain’t what we're supposed to have. I told you, we have this truth and this was
supposed to prove that truth and it and it didn’t.’ So now you're [Ms. Kay] caught
between a rock and a hard place, so that's where I was... but you're looking at a
teacher that had to have black and white. Develop question, we're going to work
through, and that's how I operated you know. So to me, there it was a freak out.”

In Ms. Kay’s description of the events of lesson 6 it is evident that Ms. Kay saw
breakdowns in the lesson, or as she said “a freak out” because the experiments had not

provided data to prove the black and white science content she valued.

Another way Ms. Kay differed in content commitment from IQWST is the difference
in learning goals. An IQWST learning goal includes both the content and the scientific

practice, whereas Ms. Kay focused on the content as her learning goal.

“I always know learning goals, that was just something day one. I was like ok I
can teach it... I know what the learning goal is, and I'm now if I worked through
all the junk, I can handle the craziness, but I understand my real purpose in mind.”

Ms. Kay values the content of the learning goals because as she stated here in all the
uncertainty of a class day, the one thing that she can rely on being certain of is covering

the content in the learning goal.

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Content Resources. Later in the interview we were talking about how to help
students make connections between the experiments and the learning goals and it was
here that Ms. Kay stated the IQWST learning goal of revising models never occurred to
her. I had just asked her how IQWST could put in the teacher guide an emphasis on

revising models,

“Good point, yeah how could you? Cause I think that that’s so important early
on... to have that in your mindset. . .and the big thing there was models, and
making your models work and revising when you come up with a new discovery,
or new idea, or new phenomenon or whatever. . .so I think it’s a very important
component, something I hadn’t even thought about...but that was the furthest
thing from my mind you know. I’m thinking of the immediate, this data got to
prove something.”

So what was missing here is her personal resource understanding of the purpose of
models, and the second half of IQWST learning goals, the practice of revising models.
And on that note of personal understanding necessary to teach the IQWST learning goal,
it was also evident when I observed Ms. Kay’s classroom and talked to her after class that
Ms. Kay’s content understanding of the data pattern her class collected in lesson 6 was
different from the IQWST content. The data pattern had in fact supported the IQWST
goal for representing scattering and reflection. But it was apparent that in the class period
two days later, that Ms. Kay understood the data pattern should provide evidence that the
law of reflection still applies to paper and other rough surfaces. So, similar to Mr. Dee
she was also using a conceptual model different from the IQWST model.

Practices Commitments and Resources

Practice Commitments. In Chapter 4 I described Ms. Kay’s science practice as a
process of verifying science knowledge. Yet verifying knowledge is not the intended
IQWST process of constructing knowledge, so why did Ms. Kay adopt the IQWST use of

experiments and evidence? Ms. Kay stated “the initial attraction to the whole IQWST,

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was bridging that gap. Um, to foster... their own learning through investigations, hands
on, the desire, you know to kind of learn.” For Ms. Kay the valued way of thinking is
using science ways of thinking in their everyday life, “to get kids to understand that
science contrary to belief is needed in everyday life, bridging that gap from in the
classroom to outdoors... letting them know, hey this is real world you see it in so many

life applications.”

But here is where the interesting contradictions between Ms. Kay and IQWST begin
when she stated, “So, I guess I just feel deep down passionate about certain things as it
relates to keeping kids convinced.” This is interesting because IQWST envisions
students bridging the gap from in the classroom to outdoors through a process of
constructing understanding of knowledge that has been validated as a community. Ms.
Kay values a way of thinking and acting in the classroom that keeps kids convinced,
which is why in terms of the IQWST practices of students reasoning with evidence Ms.

Kay is not as quick to adopt the scientific reasoning practices in IQWST.

Her beliefs about students and the learning process of science is that students expect

the process and product of science to work.

“So just from some sort of experience in my early years with something not
working, kids get sick of ‘Oh yeah, trial and error. It didn't work, human error.’
So I’ve come to realize that things are not going to work. It's just kids expect
stuff to work and when it doesn't, ‘Hey what happened? Because you said you
know this, you said research tells us this is supposed to work, and if this surface is
in fact smooth, it’s supposed to be equal. What happened?’ You know. So that’s
just kind of how I operate”

So, in lesson 6 when Ms. Kay stated to the class that their data did not support the laws
she was trying to teach, she was operating with her commitment to the relationship

between science content as proven research and the practice of science does not work in

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the classroom. In effect there is a tension between the IQWST commitment to the
practices of constructing understanding, and her commitment to the practice of proving

what science knows and what kids expect to happen.

Practice Resources. Ms. Kay adopted the IQWST driving question board as a tool to
help students establish the connections between their daily life and their classroom

experiences.

“And you know you have this driving question. . . getting them to understand that
every day you come in here. . .you always tell the kids ‘guys there's something that
we’re doing in here... and you ask yourself, and you can’t think of how it relates
to our Driving Question then you need to ask me.”’

But other tools in the teacher material she did not find as useful to use. Where IQWST
considered the data to be a key resource for constructing understanding, Ms. Kay found
the data problematic, “we’re trying to get some data so we can come up with some
evidence right? Inquiry right? [laughs] Kids get some evidence right? To develop some
sort of conclusion, whoa.” Ms. Kay had two methods of attempting to respond to students

reasoning with data, first was to make sure the students followed the procedures.

“I'm certain that I spent so much time there because I've had a disaster before
where I said set it up. So you've wasted an entire class period where somebody
has interpreted the directions as being this way, so we haven't had any
consistency... I'm almost a hundred percent sure as to why I spent that time on the
front end with set up... I mean clearly, we would do the same thing as it relates to
setup.”

But Ms. Kay recognized that students were not following the procedures carefully.
And so, that leads to her second method of attempting to relate students experiences with
the data to the laws she is trying to prove by using the vote, “Clearly there were some

changes in data, so you go to the podium and majority wins, which was the rationale

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behind that last comment.” The vote was Ms. Kay’s pedagogical resource to demonstrate

to the students her understanding of what the data from the mirror represented

“I'm trying to make this look like what you [students] have. Let you know there
is a pattern. You’re not crazy, I’m not crazy, and this is gonna be the best way for
me to point out this V pattern based upon what we see. So, that was really the
rationale, bout how I, no thought process, I remember thinking of it on the spot.
I'm gonna do a chart, lord I’m on tape, oh my god, what am I going to do? Ok,
let’s draw it out cause I mean I probably drew it six seconds before that.”

One might think that Ms. Kay did not have the personal understanding of how the

community of science analyzes data, but she immediately identified the contradiction

between her practice, and the practice of science.

“I had prepared to just do a traditional chart, cause you tell your kids you want to
put your data in a chart. When you think of collecting data, that's [the vote] not
even a traditional way that you would even collect data or even organize data.
You teach them process skills, when you make observations during the
investigations you're going to take this data, put it in a chart or a graph, you're
going to interpret a chart or graph, so that was clearly a non traditional way. So,
what I had prepared and what I did was just clearly not gonna work, I'm gonna
draw something real quick, I just drew it to try to make sense of it. And, um,
what probably prompt that on that spot was me going to see that hey, this data
really isn't perfect.”

Ms. Kay has the personal understanding of scientific practice, she identified the
difference between the authentic practice of making data charts and graphs, but in her on
the spot decision she decided these were not persuasive enough to prove to the students.
So, she manipulated the chart to prove the pattern they were supposed to find.
Social and Socioscientific Commitments and Resources

From Ms. Kay’s previous comments it is evident that tensions existed between the
IQWST commitment to using the practices of science to construct understanding of
models, and Ms. Kay’s commitment to using practices to prove scientific laws. So, in the
next section I explain the norms in the classroom that were consistent with Ms. Kay’s

goal to help students understand the content and see the value of science in their lives.

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Social Norm Commitments. Ms. Kay described her goal to be a facilitator that
guides students with the best possible instruction. And she also said that her commitment
is to the black and white content because when it isn’t “then it only pulls them so much
further away from science and why they need it.” And Ms. Kay wants her students to be
successful in science class and she knows they can be “You know, I'm going to pull it out
of my kids because I know its in you. . .but just in my mind I was going to guide them
anyway.” Because in Ms. Kay’s classroom the valued content is the black and white
knowledge, the term participation structure is a valued way of drinking and acting which
is different from an IQWST way of thinking and acting if students were constructing
knowledge and understanding. This structure was consistent with her commitments to
the content being black and white because vocabulary is an easily identified form of
understanding, and because vocabulary is a brief response Ms. Kay could quickly
nominate students to provide the correct response and pull the right answer from her

students.

Social Norm Resources. However, while she referenced the ways de-centered expert
facilitates the discussion by pausing, reflecting, and giving students an opportunity to
reflect, when students aren’t reflecting on what they have learned she refers to the

traditional facilitation she was trained to do and what she has learned from experience.

“Because you’re trained to believe that if they're not giving you what you ask, you
help them out... I’ve just learned you know, you just kind of help them out, you
assist them, you meet them where they are and then you gradually help them.
How do you help them? By maybe having them pause or reflect on what they've
said, of have them think about and then rephrase. But really, just giving them an
opportunity to as opposed to taking over you know which is clearly how I started.
Clearly, I mean without a doubt.

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But she also mentions as a part of learning how to help students out, that the prompts in
IQWST are helpful but kids have their own ideas that IQWST didn’t prepare her for.
And, when kids“ have other ideas that make the logic of the lesson difficult to complete,

she again guides the students.

“Cause you expect it as a teacher to work, they [IQWST] said it was going to
work if I follow these procedures. They [students] didn’t ask. Because you had
the wonderful guide that it prompts you, but they [students] didn’t say that. This
is what I need them to say in order for this to be a smooth transition, so what do
you do? You quickly guide them to what you want them to say. You basically
make the sentence and let them fill in the blank.”

So in effect she uses the term structure to distribute participation because this is
consistent with her personal understanding of the black and white nature of science
content which is easily defined with specific vocabulary terms in contrast to ways
students might describe their own ideas. And she trades the students’ making sense of
the experiment, for the process of completing the lesson. In one sense she differed from
IQWST because she believed the curriculum material would work, that it is a trusted
resource. But when the educative material did not provide the necessary information she
resorted to her past traditional training. And this is an important point because in contrast
to Ms. Kay and Ms. Cee, Mr. Dee did not mention lack of support from the curriculum
material due to his personal resources necessary to make his own sense of students’

responses.

Socioscientific Norm Commitments. In the report participation structure Ms. Kay
asked students for data, then explained to the students what the data should show. This
process fits with the science practice in Ms. Kay’s classroom because of her commitment

to her role in the learning process. The socioscientific norm for this process determines

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what is considered appropriate in terms of expected contributions to knowledge, and who

makes decisions about evidence.

“And kind of what led me to the vote, well my thing is you tell kids. Kids are
expecting, no matter what you tell them, they are expecting that when you do an
investigation, it's going to come out right. ‘You are the teacher and you told me
that if I put, this half a potato in a bag on some wet moist paper towel, that I’m
going to have some sprouts.’ So and in a kids mind, it’s always ‘Oh yeah it didn’t
work. It never works.’”

She is describing here her thoughts about how participation in a science classroom is
expected to be distributed. Students expect to do things that will turn out right, and when
things do not go right the teacher’s job is to figure out a way to make it appear right so
students do not think science does not work. The socioscientific norm is consistent with
her commitment to science content as something black and white and science practice as

a process that works.

Socioscientific Norm Resources. Ms. Kay used the report structure as a pedagogical

resource to model the practice of creating arguments from evidence.

“They've engaged in an investigation, and I was just attempting to make sense of
it, my collecting data and see if they can see some trends so that they can even
realize that it was evidence, according to some claim. Taking a look as a class
together.”

While the practice of reasoning with evidence is important to both IQWST and Ms. Kay,
she adapted the practice of validating the evidence with a vote. And, what also is
important is that Ms. Kay states here that again, it is the teacher’s responsibility to make
sense of the data because Ms. Kay is committed to a process of science that works to
prove the truth of the content. However, in terms of a mixture of traditional and IQWST
practices, Ms. Kay’s report structure is important because in contrast to Mr. Dee and Ms.

Kay who did not attempt to model reasoning with evidence, Ms. Kay did attempt to

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establish the socioscientific norm that patterns in data are an important part of science.
While Ms, Kay had the classroom management resources to distribute participation and
nominate students to propose their own ideas and make sense of the data, Ms. Kay did

not use this resource to respond to student reasoning.

So, she’s committed to the “role as a teacher being a facilitator to make this effective.”
But when after an experiment and she has asked the kids where the evidence for the
explanation comes from and the students have not made the connections she explains that

she resorts to what she calls her traditional training.

“Oh, Lord, we have done that, I mean in my mind, I'm thinking, we just done that,
and they don't even remember why, what was the? They just thought we had
mirrors and a meter stick it didn’t even click. So initially after a hand didn't go up
to say ‘oh the mirror’ I'm like, God, it didn’t work. What? So, that's kind of why I
keep ‘talk to me guys, come on think, yeah you're right, think, think.’ So clearly,
just trying to help them make connections.”

So, in order to figure out what students are thinking Ms. Kay asks them “does that make

sense” and when the students reply she can continue with the lesson. And while she is

committed to helping the students make sense, her pedagogical resource is consistent

with the socioscientific norm that distributes responsibility to the students for telling her

when they do not understand, so she can continue to try to make the connection for the

students between the process of experimenting and the laws of science that data is meant

to prove.

Summary Ms. Kay

In the end I think Ms. Kay is a really interesting mixture of commitments to content

and commitments to practice. She has a commitment to laws of science, in contrast to the

IQWST commitment to models built upon the scientific laws. And therefore, this

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commitment to laws is reflected in her commitment to a scientific practice that should

prove the laws.

With both her own commitment to the black and white content of science and the
students’ expectations that science works, the socioscientific norm that the teacher’s role
is to reveal the scientific truths to the students is consistent with the scientific practices
Ms. Kay models. So she manipulates the practice of science with the vote, but she also
realizes her students do not understand the law of reflection with the evidence and in the
end uses the analogy with the road that is in effect similar to Mr. Dee’s use of bouncing
balls to explain scattering and reflection. So she sacrifices her commitment to process
and practice of science in exchange for science content that is absolute and true.
Although she is open to the view of science as building and revising models from
evidence as IQWST intends, and at least in the interview she sees the usefulness of
constructing and revising models, Ms. Kay often resorts to what she calls her traditional
training to achieve her academic goals for the lesson.

Ms. Cee

Ms. Cee’s enacted role as “the tour guide” is another interesting mixture of her
commitment to an alternative vision of inquiry and limited personal resources necessary
to sustain the IQWST vision of inquiry. She values the students’ experiences with the
activities in the IQWST curriculum and provides the explanations. She welcomes the
opportunities for students to do science, do the experiments, but when it comes to
analyzing the results, she does not model the practice of formulating patterns and

explanations. Instead, she sees as her role the importance of providing the opportunities

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for students to explore and talk about their ideas, and then read to them the right

knowledge in the form of explanations from the curriculum material.

Ms. Cee also expressed as her teaching goal a commitment to inquiry when she

described her goal for science teaching.

“Well definitely to ah create kind of mini scientists [laughs] I would say. I want
kids to kind of learn that aspect of it more so than ‘Ok, here's the worksheet. This
is what's going to happen and do it.’ I want them more inquiry based. Them to
learn how to do it. Them to be able to come up with their own ideas. Do you
give them a question? Ok.”

So, where Mr. Dee and Ms. Kay expressed a commitment to inquiry practice that was
concentrated on the content, Ms. Kay expressed a commitment concentrated on the
process of science. For Ms. Cee, her goal is to transform her students into mini scientists

by investigating phenomena just like scientists.

Content Commitment and Resources

Content Commitments. For an indicator of Ms. Kay’s commitment to the nature of
content best suited to the learning of science I go back to part of the previous quote,
“here's the worksheet this is what's going to happen and do it.” With this I think Ms. Kay
is expressing her discontent with the traditional forms of school content found in
worksheets, but at the same time she follows that with a preference for “Them to be able
to come up with their own ideas.” Students’ coming up with their own ideas is not the
same commitment to content found in IQWST where students validate accepted
canonical science content, but does explain why of the three teachers she is most likely to
have students propose alternative ideas in the class. However, unlike Mr. Dee and Ms.
Kay, Ms. Cee does not have the same commitment to the explaining or proving the

science content.

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Content Resources. A number of indicators of Ms. Cee’s limited personal content
knowledge resources occurred during the viewing session. She expressed her struggle

with making sense of the content and students’ reasoning.

“I think that the discussion part went fairly well. And I remember struggling with
which is another thing that teachers should be prepared is, how to actually get to
the point that they want to get at. And I struggled a lot with that with a couple of
things. And I’m not sure why that was, whether it was because I wasn’t quite sure
where I was at. I thought I knew, and then all of a sudden when I got there, its
like well, wait a minute I thought I knew this, I read this, I did this, um, but now
I’m a little unsure on something.”

And Ms. Cee commented on her own need to use more scientific terms while watching

another clip about her explanation of scattering and reflection

“I think this teacher needs to learn some more scientific terms. Willy nilly I’m
telling ya. ...Now see that wasn’t good. I never really specifically explained to
them, ‘Ok, so that was scattering.’ Now which one of those did we end up really
doing? If I was a kid, I'd say ‘ok, it’s scattering, but if I had to come up and draw
it again. If I had to come up there and draw that again which one of those four am
I supposed to pick? Which one of those four was it supposed to be?’ I think it’s
good I’m going to computers. [laughs] Anyway’s no. Yeah, definitely needed to
have more clarification on that.”

This shows her own personal lack of knowledge about what scattering and reflection are,
she expressed her own dissatisfaction with her use of “willy nilly” as a scientific term..
She also recognized now she had not responded to students’ reasoning and clarified the
scientific explanation. In addition after this particular lesson during a personal
communication with me I had tried to explain to her what scattering actually was and she
said she felt terrible about not clarifying the content and would make sure to go back and
explain that the next day. There were many other additional instances throughout the unit

when students proposed explanations that were actually more scientifically accurate, yet

Ms. Cee continued to assert her own inaccurate explanation.

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Practices Commitments and Resources
Practice Commitments. I asked her about the IQWST material itself, and this

demonstrates her commitment to authentic practice which is students learning science by

doing the science.

“But, I do think that they have a good solid structure, and I like the way they
[IQWST] interweave the different things like modeling, and data, and you know
doing this along with the subject. I think that makes it a lot easier on the kids,
because they don’t even realize that they’re also getting these other things like
you know the driving question board, and they don't even realize they're getting
that.”

What is important and different from IQWST is Ms. Kay’s comment that “the kids don’t
even realize.” IQWST expects the teacher to model and coach students in these scientific
practices. However, Ms. Cee believes students will learn simply by engaging in the

process of completing the IQWST activities.

She also identified her commitment to the practice of learning science when she noted

that her beginning of lesson 6 was not actually how she had intended.

“Well in that particular clip I don’t see any inquiry per say. Well maybe a little
on the questioning, but not what I consider to be, I mean. I I just told them they
were going to set this up, so I've set it up for them. I didn’t ask them, ‘ifI wanted
to do this, how would I set it up?’ I didn’t give them a goal, ‘ok this is our
purpose, now how are we going to set this up? How are we going to do it?’ I got
some materials here...”

I asked her about her decision to start this way and she asked me if something happened

before this clip “Do you know if before we went to question board?” I told her she had
not gone to the question board and this was how she began lesson 6. She noted she
should have but then went on to express a commitment to the process of learning science

through the experiment.

“But still, the lesson is the lesson. The experiment is the experiment. Which if it
be true inquiry it wouldn’t be. Unless, I think I probably was trying to follow the

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format per se. Other than maybe not the driving question board, you know the lab
part of it to the uh instructions. Knowing that we're trying to test this out.”

What this quote explains is why Ms. Cee conducted the experiments with the mirrors and
the paper back to back without discussing with the students the pattern that the mirror
experiment was intended to produce. While she expressed a commitment to a community
of practice where students test their own ideas, she believes the learning process is
facilitated through following the format of the investigations. Ms. Cee’s commitment to
the practice of science is different from IQWST, Mr. Dee, and Ms. Kay who all in
different ways expected the teacher to take an active role in helping students make sense

of the process.

Practice Resources. To teach for understanding in the IQWST vision, a teacher
needs to have the personal understanding of the scientific practice of inquiry, and Ms.

Cee identified her own limited understanding of the nature of inquiry.

“So if you wanted to make it a little bit more inquiry, a little bit more freedom in
there, you can have guided inquiry. But, so another thing is, you’re going to have
to have a teacher who really understands what inquiry is. Which is a very
difficult thing. And I can’t tell you that I do completely either.”

In part this may have explained why in the previous section Ms. Cee explained her valued
way of acting as following the format of the experiment. But as a teacher committed to
following the IQWST curriculum guide, in a way, the curriculum was a resource that

actually hindered her own ability to respond to and support students’ reasoning.

“Because, that was another thing that would sometimes happen, is I would read
the lesson, and then have it ready for the next day, and re read it in the morning
and make my notes, but I never really looked at the goals, ok? I just kind of went
along with the way it was written, and if I had a question I might, I would look at
the background or maybe ask you.”

She did not look at the final product intended by IQWST which was for the students to

use evidence and construct understanding of the light model. Also, when she had a

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question she looked to the curriculum material rather than drawing on her own resources
to adapt a new solution. So, my explanation for Ms. Cee’s enacted teacher role is that she
is committed to inquiry practice, but her personal knowledge resource of inquiry practice
is limited and she values following the curriculum material as the way to lead her
students through the process of science.
Social and Socioscientific Commitments and Resources

Social Norm Commitments. One day at the beginning of lesson 6 the following

interaction occurred.

Student: Are you a tour guide?
Ms. Cee: And to the left we have the overhead. No, I'm not a tour guide. Yes,
Yes I am. I’m a tour guide that is going to lead you through the exciting things of
science.
This interaction illustrates in some ways the tension between Ms. Cee’s commitment to
learning as a process where students come up with their own ideas, and her need to be in
control, which she describes as being a good director. She states here that she values

directing students to a particular answer, in this case the “v” shape pattern.

“So, I think it's really important if you’re going to, like through the discussions, to
know how to be a good director to where you want them to go. Um, as far as
inquiry, I think they were kind of thinking a little bit along those lines, but it was
still kind of, it’s more on the end of your directed part of the inquiry.”

In this quote Ms. Cee expresses her belief that the learning process needs to be directed
by the teacher. Ms. Cee attempts to both direct the conversation, and encourages students
to share their ideas, which is consistent in her participation structures because the
students in comparison to Mr. Dee and Ms. Kay have more rights to initiate turns and

new topics.

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Social Norm Resources. Ms. Kay has identified her own limited ability to design
something for her own students. And in fact later she herself picked up on in the video

clip where she was reading from the teacher guide

“Did that seem to flow? Do you remember? Did that seem to flow right in terms
of the way it was on the overhead. I think it’s really difficult. Or I think that by
watching, if your just specifically looking at this, is the fact that I haven’t done it
before, and I think you see a lot in all of these clips, of just, even though I might
have, read it, prepared it, it’s just different because now I know that I’m in front
of the camera and have to get it just right, and I get confused and, I'm trying to
think of what I'm going to do. Like, I didn’t like the part where 1 was just reading
it out of there. To me, reading it out of there tells me, the teacher doesn’t even
have it, you know, she’s just reading it out of there to. So I'm thinking maybe just
practice it a little bit.”

In effect this links back to her limited content resource, she has identified that ‘just
reading it’ tells her the teacher does not have a deep personal understanding, and to
compensate for that lack of teacher understanding participation is not distributed amongst
the teacher and student but from the teacher guide to the students. She uses the teacher
guide as her own personal resource because as Ms. Cee stated she gets lost in the content
when discussing it and attempting to make sense of the students’ reasoning. So, she uses

the teacher guide because it is her anchor in the storm of student ideas.

The use of the teacher guide is also consistent with her resources for establishing her
role as the social authority in the classroom. In contrast to Mr. Dee and Ms. Kay, Ms.
Cee has not established a similar high degree of personal social authority so when she

makes a claim, the claim is grounded in the IQWST material.

Socioscientific Norm Commitments. I already quoted Ms. Cee here for her
commitment to inquiry, but I think this quote is important again because it illustrates one
reason why she seems to use the move on participation structure with unresolved

questions or answers, “Them to learn how to do it. Them to be able to come up with their

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own ideas.” This is in a way similar to IQWST where students should produce their own
ideas, and Ms. Cee adopts the sharing of student ideas. However, IQWST also intends
for the classroom community to use scientific practices for validating data to decide upon
one idea that best fits the evidence. In the next quote Ms. Cee described that she values
students coming up with and sharing their ideas when I showed her the clip about the
student talking about his homework and she suggested that he try the experiment again to

test his mom’s idea.

“So we didn’t really actually see where he did try it then. I think it would have
been important then at that time to maybe, to figure out a way to try it. I think the
best thing would have been to stop and say, ‘Ok, well you’ve got materials here,
go try it.’ That was the perfect time for him to be able to get that straight in his
mind. Because until he did, he wasn't going to, you know he'd always be thinking
about that, I think. But, so that was kind of a missed opportunity I guess. To let
him go and explore that. . .Actually that would have helped him get the lesson
done I think a little bit better. And then maybe have him share with the group, or
he could share with the whole class, say well you know I had this question about
the reading last night, and so I just did it here and this is I what I found out.”
When I first saw the interaction between Ms. Cee and the student about the homework I
thought this was a resource issue because Ms. Cee was not personally capable of
reasoning with that student’s response. Instead after this comment I now think that when
she asked the student if he had tried it but did not coach the student in ways to test the
idea, Ms. Cee was simply acting out the socioscientific norm she valued, that science
inquiry and science practice is a process of discovering and sharing individual ideas.

However, I also think if she did have a better personal understanding of the content she

would have also provided suggestions on how to test the student’s idea.

In the next quote it is interesting to note that Ms. Cee expresses discontent with her

own valued way of acting to support students in becoming mini scientists who come up

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with ideas and her actual use of the IQWST teacher guide as the tool to make sure the

lesson ends right.

“But, so I think that’s basically why, because I wanted to make sure that they did
get the correct concept. And I think that in my mind, I thought I was sure, but I
was kind of self doubting there to make sure that I didn’t mess it up, because
earlier things I kind of had, that I was just going to read it from there, then I
would know that that was.”

As she says she had a commitment to getting it right, so at this point there is a difference
it seems in what she values for thinking and acting in the classroom. She has said many
times she values students coming up with their own ideas, but when it comes to her own
personal thinking, she does not consider her own reasoning important, but instead she
sees getting the curriculum material completed correctly as the valued way of acting. So
her personal habit of mind of following the teacher guide to get it right leads to her
reading to the class from the teacher guide. These tensions in her own commitments to
two different socioscientific norms of everyone sharing ideas versus the one right idea
from the teacher guide are consistent with her limited understanding of nature of
scientific inquiry and the social resources to distribute participation so student not only

share their ideas, but actually debate them.

Socioscientific Norm Resources. Now IQWST and Ms. Cee both identify the need
for the teacher to in some ways direct the students in how to construct understanding, and
one essential resource for that is to be able to respond to students’ reasoning. I asked Ms.
Cee how she could have responded after a student stated there were four theories about

light scattering.

“Well you could actually do a demonstration of it to see which one of them were

correct. Or have each one explain, see because we just had them go up there and

draw what their end result was, they didn't explain why they got that, or why they
think the light did that. Why they thought that it went in that zig zag direction.

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Why they thought it went up, or over. They didn’t tell us why they got that. They
just drew it on the board.”

So with that shows her limited personal resource understanding of the purpose for the
experiments in IQWST. The students had already conducted the experiment, but Ms. Cee
did not realize that the experiments provided data to analyze. Unlike Ms. Kay who tried
very hard to analyze the data, and Mr. Dee who quickly produced analogies to explain the
data, Ms. Cee directed students toward the words scattering and “v” shape with the tour

guide participation structure.

In the following quote Ms. Cee recognizes the tension between her own commitments

and her practice for directing students to the answer for deciding upon the correct theory.

“I mean then I thought, ‘Oh good we've got it.’ Because scattering and I told
them. But now, if I were to look at this, I'd say ‘gee I really wonder, do they
really? Or did they just, ok this is what you told me.”’

Looking back on the video clip, Ms. Cee recognized that in her classroom there was not a
scientific norm of reasoning with evidence, instead the norm was to direct the students to
the answer, and the students would use the terms Ms. Cee directed them to and accept

that but not really come up their own ideas.

One reason for her moving on is her limited personal understanding of the science,
one of the questions I asked her when she saw this clip of the four theories was where did
the numbers go and why didn’t she use the data that had been collected, “Why don't I go
back, because I guess I’m not a strong data person.” She talked about how previous

materials had not required her to support student reasoning,

“See because like, the math and science kits, you didn’t really have to have the
prep for those. You just, I mean they had the assignment, you come in, you did it.
There wasn’t the discussion questions in it. There wasn’t the going back and
making sense, they just put their answers in the journal, and then you corrected
their answers in the journal.”

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And so since she had never been required to use data and reasoning with previous
curriculum materials when she used the IQWST materials, she was not prepared to

engage students in discussing and reasoning with their data.

“There wasn’t the discussion piece, and I think that was key. Because even I
struggled with it to, but just kids being able to discuss it, and to think I didn’t
obviously think about using data. For them to think about the fact that that's a
good way for them to prove their point, and for that to become natural, would
have been, I mean it didn’t happen, but now I look back on it, if I were to think of
a goal for teaching it next year. A goal that I would have would be that my kids
would be able to answer your question fairly fluently using their data that they
got. That would be a success for me. As I look back at it now, before success
was just trying to get through it.”

So for Ms. Cee there were a number of personal resources that were limited. One, the
norms for reasoning with evidence did not occur to Ms. Cee because she was a weak data
person. Also, her previous teaching experiences with science kits had not asked her to
have discussions with students and reason with data. Finally, there is Ms. Cee’s sense of

success, success comes with simply getting through the lesson.

In part the tensions in Ms. Cee’s commitments to socioscientific norms and the
participation structures used in her classroom are due to her own personal relationship
with the science content. In terms of her commitment to the learning process Ms. Kay
uses the teacher guide because the IQWST curriculum tells her and so she does what the

curriculum says,

And I think it says in there to tell students this, [laughs] You know, yeah ok, so
I’m forty five years old, Ok, it says tell students, well I’m going to make sure I tell
students that instead of you know rephrasing. It probably would have been better
to rephrase it in my own words.

So in terms of the socioscientific norms of what counts as explanations in science, there
is a difference here in how Ms. Cee perceives her role from IQWST, Mr. Dee, and Ms.

Kay’s vision of the teacher role. Where IQWST, Mr. Dee, and Ms. Kay all expected the

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teacher to be an expert in one way or another, Ms. Cee states here that when the
curriculum says to “tell students” she hears that as a voice of authority and simply
proclaims the content of science because she is less sure of her own personal
understanding of the science and her need to be in control of the classroom.
Summary Ms. Cee

There are interesting tensions between Ms. Cee and IQWST in both the commitments
and resources for inquiry practice which leads to the mixture of Ms. Cee’s discovery
oriented inquiry practice and IQWST. Ms. Cee is committed to aiding students in
coming up with their own ideas, yet at the same time values the correct answer. Whereas
IQWST recognizes that students coming up with their own ideas is problematic and
difficult, and therefore the teacher plays an important role in scaffolding student
experiences and reasoning to construct the understanding of scientific models. IQWST
intended the curriculum materials to be a resource that teachers could use to scaffold
student reasoning and building arguments from evidence, but also recognized that the
teacher plays a crucial role in responding to student ideas. Ms. Cee however, has limited
personal resources and finds it difficult to enact her valued way of teaching and at the
same time reason with students’ ideas in order to direct them toward the canonical
science knowledge.

Discussion

From the sociocultural point of view it is important to understand how teachers make
sense of their local community of practice and the community of practice envisioned in
reform-based curriculum materials such as IQWST (Keys & Bryan, 2001). Within this

local context are important relationships between teachers, students, and the ideas of what

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it means to know and understand science (Remillard, 1999). In this chapter I attempted
to explain how the three teachers’ commitments and resources toward science as inquiry,
the learning process, and their resources to enact their commitments produced unique

communities of authentic science classroom practice.

Mr. Dee is committed to a learning process that conflicts with the IQWST vision. As
a result, Mr. Dee is not tied to the IQWST tasks, but is willing to appropriate some tasks
that provide experiences with data, but equally ready willing and able to invent his own

tasks to explain science content.

Ms. Kay both appropriates the IQWST tasks and invents alternative practices to
complete the tasks. Similar to Ms. Cee she trusts the IQWST material to provide her with
resources to complete the process of science, but in the end sees the need to alter the

reasoning practices and so invents representations of data that prove the science content.

Ms. Cee appropriates the IQWST curriculum tasks because she trusts the process of
science designed in the IQWST curriculum materials. And when the process breaks
down, she continues to move on both because she is committed to the idea that the
experiment is the process, and she doesn’t have the personal understanding to reason with

students’ ideas.

In the end all three teachers through their commitments to valued ways of scientific
thinking, the purpose of learning, and their personal resources to understand both the
IQWST tasks and students’ encounters with the tasks design three unique communities of

classroom science. In the final chapter I will discuss some implications of this study.

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Chapter 7
On the agenda of IQWST and other current science education reform efforts is an

attempt to achieve the types of fundamental reforms in science teaching and learning that
require changes in views of knowledge, and also changes in teacher and student
classroom roles. Throughout this long history of attempts to reform teaching practices,
studies have shown that what often occurs is a mixture of old and new practices (Cohen,
1988; Cuban, 1993). I set out in this study to describe and understand how three teachers
designed their own classroom communities of science practice with IQWST materials. I
presented an argument that all three teachers designed a curriculum that was in each case
a unique mixture of traditional and IQWST academic tasks and instructional practices.
First I will summarize my description and explanation of the three cases. Then, I will
discuss three implications for the design of inquiry-based curriculum materials.
Conclusion

The IQWST curriculum materials are designed with a number of curriculum design
principles that situate student learning in the context of the authentic scientific practices
of building arguments from evidence and model-based reasoning. There are intended to
be opportunities for the teacher and students to interact with both the people in the
classroom and the cognitive tools of science which include the key ideas and practices.
This process of learning the content of science and the practices of science is meant to be
scaffold by both the teacher and the IQWST materials. What I have found in this study is
that the teachers’ curriculum designs were unique mixtures of practice due to a complex
relationship between the teachers’ personal commitments to curriculum design and their

personal resources to enact that design.

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I have presented a model of Mr. Dee’s community of classroom practice in which he
enacts the teacher role of the nature guy role. In this role Mr. Dee situates science
content and practice in the context of explaining the relationship between students’
experiences and the scientific laws that explain those experiences. He does this by
establishing connections between students’ personal experiences and intuitively
appealing models to represent the scientific laws. He distributes the participation in the
classroom community by allowing students the opportunities to express their ideas if they
choose, and asking students to make predictions based on their understanding of science

laws, but does not require students to share their ideas for the explanation of those laws.

In Ms. Kay’s classroom she enacted the teacher role of the gatekeeper. As the
gatekeeper there was a fundamental difference between Ms. Kay’s commitment to
curriculum design and the IQWST principles. IQWST acknowledge that learning science
is a process of enculturation into a scientific community of practice with habits of mind
that are different from everyday life, whereas Ms. Kay sees inquiry as a method of
teaching to help students see the natural connections between science and their everyday
habits of mind. In addition Ms. Kay is committed to a body of black and white science
knowledge versus the IQWST commitment that knowledge is constructed by the

community of scientists.

What this leads to is a context where science activity is framed by the problem of
proving science. In Ms. Kay’s classroom students learn to participate in a community
that is not natural but different from the real world of scientists. In this community Ms.
Kay was responsible for the thinking and reasoning to make sense of the experiences in

such a way that would make sense to the students.

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In Ms. Cee’s classroom with her enacted role of the tour guide the learning of science
was situated in the context of completing the tasks for the purpose of individuals
expressing their own ideas. Ms. Cee has a commitment to inquiry that in some ways is
similar to IQWST because her stated goal is to teach students to be mini scientists and so
she values the curriculum goal of teaching her students the cultural ideas and practices
valued by scientists. However, she does not have a personal knowledge of the content
and practice of science, and as a result she relies on the IQWST curriculum materials to
resolve the inevitable knowledge claims that arise in the context of students’ attempts to
make sense of experiences. Therefore, when the IQWST materials fall short and she
wants to make sure that the lesson gets done right, she directs students to producing the
names for key ideas and reads answers from the teacher guide. 80 for Ms. Cee, the flaws
in the IQWST design are more evident because she is unable to draw on the personal
resources that Mr. Dee and Ms. Kay draw on to pull off their visions of communities of

science practice.

Implications
After completing this study I have three particular questions of interest that have

implications for the design of inquiry-based educative curriculum materials. One
question is what is, or should be the nature of school science activity? Two, what is the
role of professional development used to support the use of IQWST curriculum

materials? And, three what is the nature of “educative” curriculum material?

Nature of Authentic Science Community
IQWST has modeled the design principles after a vision of authentic, or paradigmatic,

practice of science embodied in science education reform documents. However, Mr.

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Dee’s use of coordination of intuitively appealing models and student experiences raises
an interesting question about the nature of the pedagogical structure for teaching and
learning science. In addition to invitations to do inquiry as scientists, Schwab (1962) also
proposed that narratives of inquiry were a potential method to teach science. More recent
scholars (Bruner, 1996; Wong, 1996) have made arguments that learning science is not
the same as learning to be a scientist, and that narratives as a mode of thinking are

equally valuable ways to organize knowledge.

Mr. Dee has a wealth of knowledge of personal experiences, stories, and
demonstrations that he can draw on to represent the content. So, when he interacts with a
curriculum like IQWST, he draws from it what he sees valuable and when he has to make
on the spot decisions he decides to use ways to represent the content rather than the social
practices of an inquiry community that constructs the content. This raises the question
for IQWST and other curriculum developers what is are appropriate practices of authentic

science for classrooms? What are the appropriate curriculum aims and intents?

In addition to the issue of what nature of practice, narrative or paradigmatic, is an
appropriate method to structure the content and practices of the curriculum, there is the
question of within the current school context what personal resources do teachers need to
distribute participation in authentic communities of science practice? In the classroom
teachers are enacting roles at the nexus of multiple communities with interests and
expectations for what happens in classrooms (Carlone, 2003). The type of roles that
IQWST asks teachers to enact places distinctive demands on teachers that opens up
uncertainty in the classroom, increases the difficulty of student work, and invites

interactions that enhance teachers’ dependence on the students (Cohen, 1988). While I

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do not doubt that Mr. Dee has the content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge,
and classroom management resources necessary to take on the distinctive demands that
IQWST places on teachers, I do wonder, what additional personal resources are needed to
take on the distinctive demands when teachers distribute more participation in the

practice of science amongst the students?

The nature of professional development.

Professional development is an important aspect of systemic efforts to reform science
education, and curriculum materials are one of a number of important aspects including
professional development, and more time for teachers to learn from peers (Bransford et
al., 2000). Important aspects of teacher learning that might improve the nature of
professional development include teacher’s prior beliefs and experiences, learning to
teach new standards is difficult and takes time, content knowledge is key to learning how
to teach subject matter, knowledge of children’s ideas and thinking is critical for teaching
for understanding, opportunities for analysis and reflection are central to learning to teach
(Darling-Hammond & Ball, 1998). My study has revealed a number of insights into the

three teachers’ knowledge and beliefs about science teaching and learning.

Ms. Kay has been a long time participant with IQWST and previous curriculum
development projects (LeTUS) with a professional development model that includes
activities ranging from a 2-week summer institute, weekend work sessions, and
classroom support from both university personnel and online support (Blumenfeld et al.,
2000; Fishman, Marx, Best, & Tal, 2003). For the pilot study she did not have
professional development for the light unit. However following the pilot enactment she

had six professional development workshops before the interview, many of which were

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focused specifically on the scientific practice of modeling. And yet, she had not until my
interview realized how the ray diagram model was revised in the light unit. Add to that
her comments about science knowledge being black and white, and her personal
experiences that you have to tell the students, I wonder what Ms. Kay has learned from
the professional development? She also did say that she values the professional
development and if it wasn’t for the IQWST and LeTUS projects she would have left

teaching.

And Ms. Cee participated in the same professional development opportunities prior to
the second enactment of the light unit which I also observed and talked with her many
times about her content and pedagogical knowledge and practices, yet in my interview
with her following the second enactment Ms. Cee was surprised to think that evidence
could be used to help students reason and compare their ideas, and she was surprised to
realize that her students had not actually learned the ideas she was reading from the

teacher guide.

But in person and watching their own practice Ms. Cee and Ms. Kay were quick to
see issues in their practice, the content itself, and their students’ understanding, so it leads
me to wonder if teacher learning is situated in the context of their own classroom practice
(Putnam & Borko, 2000), what is effective professional development? How can my

interviews be used as case-based learning experiences for teachers?

One promising avenue for helping teachers develop the content knowledge of science
needed in the context of IQWST is lesson study (Fernandez, 2005). Lesson study is a
practice where teachers learn about teaching by jointly developing and examining actual

classroom lessons. This practice easily could occur within the context of the IQWST

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professional development workshops. For example, in the summer workshops the
teachers might plan a particular benchmark lesson together, videotape that lesson, and
then share their video during a weekend work session. My experience with Ms. Cee and
Ms. Kay during the viewing session indicates the potential value of including lesson
study as one component of professional development, but as Fernandez notes while there
is growing interest in the potential of lesson study there is much to be investigated about
the opportunity to learn science content for teaching.
The Design of Educative Curriculum Materials

IQWST curriculum materials are designed to be educative so that they support
teachers in learning the content and practices of science necessary to enact the inquiry-
based reform ideals (Davis & Krajcik, 2005). Ms. Kay and Ms. Cee both talked about the
challenges and problems in their practice as they attempted to reason with students’ ideas
and how they looked to the teacher guide for help but it was not there. And a particular
issue of curriculum design that has often been discussed is finding the delicate balance
between too much or not enough information for teachers (Davis & Krajcik, 2005;

Remillard, 2005).

Remillard (1999) noted that often cm'riculum texts attempt to tell teachers what to do
and in effect talk through the teacher to the students. And sometimes the language in the
IQWST materials does say “tell students...” but both Ms. Kay and Ms. Cee noted that
this support does not work for them in different ways. Ms. Kay struggled to determine
how to lead students to the content ideas when the students were not replying with the
anticipated student responses in the IQWST teacher guide. And Ms. Cee, commented

that when the teacher guide said to tell the students something, she trusted the material

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and did not take the time to understand the ideas herself. So for Ms. Kay and Ms. Cee
who were definitely participating with and drawing on the curriculum materials for
support, which particular aspects of the IQWST educative curriculum material design
heuristics were or were not particularly useful? How effective are these design
heuristics?
Next Steps

In my work with inquiry-based curriculum materials design and enactment my
research has shown that in addition to the difference in the order of experiences, patterns,
and explanations, the practices of finding patterns is missing as well. When scientific
inquiry is used as an instructional tool, inquiry should include the practices of science
that include using mathematics to identify patterns in charts and graphs, and the textual
literacy strategies to find scientific explanations from text resources. As my research
continues I hope to identify and illustrate instructional strategies that coordinate the

knowledge and practice of science.

The difference between traditional and inquiry-based discourse can be identified
according to two aspects, the structure of the discourse and the embedded habits of mind
associated with a discourse. In traditional instructional discourse structure, the topic is
nominated by the teacher and the teacher’s purpose for asking questions is to evaluate
students’ knowledge of the topic. In inquiry-based classrooms teachers need to learn new
roles that change the structure of the discourse and distribute the participation as the
classroom becomes a community of practice where teacher and students participate more

equally.

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In addition to the structure of the discourse, the habits of mind that underlie the
discourse are also evident. Traditional discourse habits of mind are based on the
assumption that the student is passive and knowledge is simply transmitted from the
teacher to the student. Inquiry-based discourse habits of mind assume that students are
active constructors of knowledge, and that the role of the teacher is to model for students
the social and intellectual practices of the discipline. 1 hope to continue to study ways to
support both practicing and pre-service teachers in learning how to take on classroom

roles to support more authentic forms of practice.

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APPENDICES

APPENDIX A: Classroom Event Coding Scheme

 

Type of Event

Description of Event

 

Formulating and Asking Questions (FAQ)

Any time generating questions, hypothesis,
or identifying variables.

 

Data Gathering (DG)

Working with experiments setting up
materials, making and recording
measurements.

 

Formulating Patterns and Explanations
(FPE)

Reading and constructing tables and
graphs, identifying patterns, making claims
about patterns.

 

Connecting Patterns and Explanations (CE)

Constructing, using, evaluating, or revising
models.

 

 

 

Non IQWST Taking attendance, checking homework,
including additional experiences not in the
IQWST curriculum.

Other IQWST Non inquiry practices when the teacher

 

introduces scientific content knowledge.

 

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APPENDIX B: EPE Table Lesson 6

 

Observations or

Patterns (laws,

Explanations

 

experiences (examples, generalizations, (models, theories)
phenomena, data) graphs, tables,
categories)
1. 008 9. Can see image in 18. 008 Ray Model
2 eyes foo|ed some things of Vision

3. Images (in mirror, in
water, in TV screens, in
windows, in Sides of
Cars, in smooth l-pod, in
polished wood floor)

10. Can not see image
in some things

11. 008 Why can I see
myself in a mirror
but not paper?

a) Light source
b) Light spreads out

from source in
straight lines

c) Light bounces

4. No Image (in paper, 12. Math pattern off object
unpolished wood floor, (Activity 6.1 Bar (revised in
walls, cars, water, in Graph) peak lesson 6)

scratched l-pod)

detector reading at

d) Light enters eye

5. Data from mirror same P051110" "9ht (revised
experiment (Activity 6.1 source scattered or
Data Table) 13. Math Pattern reflected)

6. Data from Paper and Reflection "V" angle 19. Other
mirror experiment (Activity incrdence equals explanations

6.2 Data Table) angle reflection
7. transparency of paper and 14- Math Pattern
I pod (Activity 6.2 Bar
- Graph) from paper
8. Other experiences light detector
reading roughly

 

same at all positions

15. Pattern - Scattering
light bounces
randomly equal

16. Pattern some
surfaces rough
scatter light to eye
and smooth reflect
light to eye

17. Other patterns

 

 

Application: Model-based Reasoning — using models/theories to explain

expefiences

 

 

Inquiry: Finding and Explaining Patterns in Experience 22>

 

170

 

APPENDIX C: IQWST Inquiry Practices Coding Scheme
IQWST Learning Progression Inquiry Practices for 6"I Grade (F ortus et al., 2006)

Learning Progression for five scientific practices: design of investigations, data analysis
and interpretation, explanation and argumentation, modeling, and systems thinking.

Note: 1' Indicates Light Unit Primary Emphasis Modeling and Secondary Emphasis
DGOA

Formulating and Asking Questions (FAQ)
1. Generate questions
2. Hypothesis and formulate predictions
3. Identify Variables (independent and dependent)
4. Control variables
Data Gathering (DG)
5. Decide if need instruments“
6. Select appropriate instruments“
7. Use appropriate units“
8. Record data orderly manner“
9. Evaluate data“
Formulating Patterns and Explanations (FPE)
10. Read & construct tables“
11. Read & construct graphs”
12. Identify patterns"
13. Identify data ranges”
14. Compare two groups of data“
15. Simple claim requires one piece of evidence
16. Sufficient and appropriate evidence
1 7. Variation in data — reliability
18. Diflerentiate — Opinion, Empirical, inference, evidence
19. Multiple interpretation data
20. Reason include Scientific Principle
Connecting Patterns and Explanations (CE)
21. Construct models to explain or understand“
22. Use models to predict, explain, or test*
23. Evaluate models“
24. Revise models“

171

APPENDIX D: Viewing Session Interview Questions
How long have you been teaching?

Where have you taught?

What subject(s) have you taught?

What grade level(s) have you taught?
What are your college degree(s)?

What is/are your teaching certification(s)?
What are your goals for science teaching?

What should good science teachers know and be able to do?

I’m going to show you some video clips from lesson 6. My purpose here is try to
figure out how to write curriculum that is clear and compatible with teachers’ classroom
needs and perspectives. I’ve been comparing what happened in the three classrooms with
the IQWST curriculum, and I’ve been developing a story based on three research
questions that I am interested in. As you watch the video clips I’d like to you to think
about these three questions and tell your story as it relates to these three questions.

1) What does inquiry look like in this classroom? Describe what you think the inquiry
feature or practices were in this clip?

2) How did you balance your teacher roles as the authority responsible for managing a
classroom and the inquiry norms to help students find answers to questions in the data?
In other words how did you balance the norms for investigating science and with the
inquiry norm of encouraging students’ generating and resolving different science ideas?

3) What were your particular teaching strengths and weaknesses and beliefs about inquiry
- that influence your interactions with your students?

172

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