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ORCHESTRATING PRODUCTIVE DISCUSSION: A STUDY OF DIALOGIC
DISCOURSE AND PARTICIPATION IN SCIENCE CLASSROOMS

By

Lindsey Mohan

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology, and Special Education

2008

ABSTRACT

ORCHESTRATING PRODUCTIVE DISCUSSION: A STUDY OF DIALOGIC
DISCOURSE AND PARTICIPATION IN SCIENCE CLASSROOMS

By
Lindsey Mohan

Although we expect students to engage in the discourses of science, there is
relatively little research that documents how teachers accomplish this in their classrooms.
The goal of this study was to develop a theory of how dialogic discourse helped this goal
be realized in two classrooms. Classroom discussions of two exemplary science teachers
(approximately ten hours for each teacher), along with video recall sessions and teacher
interviews were analyzed using open-coding method to identify dialogic discourse
indicators, such as authentic teacher questions, Open invitations, student questions and
new ideas, expressing value for student contributions, positioning through agreement of
disagreement, assigning authorship, and evaluating accounts (either collectively or
individually). The space afforded in these discussions allowed for student participation
with science practices, which were guided by classroom socioscientific norms, such as
norms for collective validation of observations and explanations. Discussions, especially
those characterized by dialogism, enabled student participation with science practices and
discourse. Implications of what these discussions afford students in terms of participation
within a social community, and how illustrations of rich discussions and exemplary
teaching can be used in pre-service and in-service professional development are

discussed. Limitations and directions for future research are also considered.

Copyright by
LINDSEY MOHAN
2008

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This dissertation is a culmination of six years as a doctoral student and teacher,
during which time I had the opportunity to collaborate with remarkable people. First, I
would like to acknowledge three faculty members and mentors that have given me
guidance and support during my studies—Dr. Mary L. Lundeberg, Dr. Charles W.
Anderson (“Andy”), and the late Dr. Michael Pressley. All provided invaluable help at
times when I needed it most. Dr. Lundeberg taught me to balance my work with the
things that mattered most: my family, friends, and my love of the outdoors. Dr. Anderson
was an amazing sounding board when I struggled to pull all the pieces together. The late
Dr. Pressley was responsible for bringing me into the field of educational research, gave
me immeasurable support during my undergraduate and graduate studies, and taught me
to be the researcher I am today.

Thank you, too, to the other members of my dissertation committee, including Dr.
Angela Calabrese Barton and Dr. Mary M. Juzwik. Each provided excellent feedback and
insight into my work. I would also like to acknowledge the support I received from Dr.
Jack Smith, especially during my early studies in graduate school. He helped me muddle
through difficult questions and was thoughtful about my work. I would also like to thank
Dr. Jere Brophy who stepped in to give me feedback on my research when l was
struggling to overcome the loss of an important mentor in my life.

My experience in graduate school would not have been the same without my
friends and colleagues. I would first like to thank Alison Billman for always being

supportive and interested in my work (and a great stats buddy, and pottery partner tool).

Thanks to Donna Forrest-Pressley for letting me crash at her place on my visits to
Michigan. Thanks to Lisa Raphael Bogaert and Sara Dolezal Kersey for allowing me to
be part of their work on motivation in classrooms. Thanks also to Katie Hilden and
Lauren F ingeret, my amazing office buddies, who I miss dearly now that I am gone. And
thanks to other friends I made who always provided interesting conversations about my
work, and endless diversions away from it (especially Erin Wibbens, Blakely Tsurusaki,
Howard Glasser, Annie Moses).

1 would also like to thank the remarkable teachers I was able to observe and talk
with during this study—their teaching is truly an inspiration and I was lucky to be invited
into their classrooms. Thanks to Pat Christensen and Wendell Hocking, as well as the
numerous exemplary teachers I collaborated with over the years.

I owe my family thanks—my parents, Tim and Karen Mohan, who pretended to
know what in the world I was talking about! Thanks to my brother Nathan, and his wife
Jan, who provided opportunities for me to regain my sanity. Thanks especially to my
sister, Audrey, who was the one who truly understood (and sympathized!) with my life in
academics. Also I would like to thank my stepdaughter, Aubrey, for providing endless
entertainment and diversion while I completed my dissertation.

Certainly, none of this would be possible without the support of my husband,
John Hawkins. He listened when I needed him (even when he was thousands of miles
away), he read my work, rubbed my shoulders after hours of writing at my desk, and
volunteered to be my personal ‘geek squad’ when I was learning how to use and manage

video data. He supported me in too many ways to count, but most importantly he

encouraged me to go forward when I doubted myself, and helped me to enjoy the most
important things in life. Thank you, Johnny.

This material is based on work supported in part by the National Science
Foundation, under special project number ESI - 0353406 as part of the Teacher
Professional Continuum program. Any opinion, finding, conclusions or recommendation
expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect views

of the supporting institutions.

vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of tables .................................................................................................................. ix
List of figures .................................................................................................................. x
Introduction .................................................................................................................... 1
Purpose of the Study ................................................................................................... 4
Scientific Literacy as an Educational Goal ................................................................... 6
Defining Literacy .................................................................................................... 6
Scientific Literacy as Participating with Practices .................................................... 8

The Central Role of Discourse in Classrooms ............................................................ 15
Research Questions ................................................................................................... 22
Methods ........................................................................................................................ 25
Design ....................................................................................................................... 25
Participants ............................................................................................................... 26
Researcher ................................................................................................................. 30
Data Sources ............................................................................................................. 30
Data Analysis ............................................................................................................ 3]
Criteria for Evaluation and Validation ....................................................................... 39
Findings and Discussion ................................................................................................ 42
Introduction to Findings ............................................................................................ 42
Part 1: Dialogic Indicators and Norms for Discussion .................................................... 43
Diversity of Accounts ................................................................................................ 43
Multiple Accounts were Elicited ............................................................................ 43
Student Accounts were Valued. ............................................................................. 47
Linking Accounts ...................................................................................................... 54
Accounts were Authored. ...................................................................................... 55
Accounts were Positioned ...................................................................................... 5 7
Talking about Talk .................................................................................................... 65
Challenges to Participating in Dialogic Discourse ..................................................... 67
Balancing Teacher and Student Voices. ................................................................. 67
Balancing Structure and Spontaneity. .................................................................... 76
Interplay Between Writing and Talking. ................................................................ 77
Part2: Classroom Socioscientific Norms ........................................................................ 80
Dialogism and Emergence of Norms ......................................................................... 80
Validation of Observations ........................................................................................ 8]
Validation of Explanations ........................................................................................ 91
Meta-level Discussion about Models and Consensus ............................................... 102
Summary and Discussion of Emerging Theory ............................................................ I 1]

vii

Conclusions and Implications ...................................................................................... l 15

Limitations and Directions for Future Research ....................................................... l 18

Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 122
Appendix A: Coding Book .......................................................................................... 134
Appendix B: Ms. Hocking’s interview ........................................................................ 139
Appendix C: Ms. Christensen’s interview ................................................................... 143
Appendix D: Terms ..................................................................................................... 147
References .................................................................................................................. l 50

viii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Participant Demographics ........................................................... 123

Table 2 Relationship between. Dialogic Indicators and Discussion Norm .............. 124

ix

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4

Figure 5

LIST OF FIGURES

Experience, Patterns, and Explanations (EPE) model ........................... 129

Inaccurate or incomplete observations of light beams traveling through a
curved jar .............................................................................. 130

Accurate observation of two beams of light traveling through a curved
jar and what is observed when one beam is covered.............................13l

Diagram of water collecting on the inside of the plastic-covered water
dish ..................................................................................... 132

Relationship between dialogism and socioscientific norms and practice..... 133

ORCHESTRATING PRODUCTIVE DISCUSSION: A STUDY OF DIALOGIC
DI SCOURSE AND PARTICIPATION IN SCIENCE CLASSROOMS

How do students come to appropriately and publicly communicate with
forms of talk or text that are part of being a competent hypothesizer,
evidence provider, maker of distinction, checker of facts? (0 ’Connors &

Michaels, 1996, p. 64)

INTRODUCTION

In recent decades, science educators have been engaged in extended discussion
about effective teaching of science. The products of science education reform efforts in
the 1990’s were standards and standards-based curricula, which were used to make
science teaching in American schools more coherent and consistent. The National
Research Council (NRC) and the Association for Advancement in Science (AAAS)
supported scientific literacy as the contemporary goal for science education. In
elaborating their vision of scientific literacy, NRC (1996) stated, “everyone needs to be
able to engage intelligently in public discourse and debate about important issues that
involve science and technology” (p. 1). Indeed, this need is greater than ever, as nations
can no longer afford to have citizens unable to participate in national and global affairs.

Many global problems we face require actions based on information that science
can provide (e.g., global warming, habitat destruction and deforestation, shrinking of
tropical rainforest and artic ecosystems, the spread of the AIDS virus, etc.). Yet, even in
educated and democratic societies, such as the United States, a majority of citizens
remain unable to use science as a resource to engage in public discussions or to inform
their everyday actions. Science education in the United States has been criticized for

producing citizens who are poorly prepared to use science in their lives (Eisenhart,

F inkel, & Marion, 1996). Citizens—both students and adults— rarely invoke science as a
resource for reasoning and communicating, which begs the question: Why are they
unable to do so given that many receive at least ten or more years of scientific study in
schools?

One possible reason is that the culture of science in schools is one that supports
the transmission of already known scientific “knowledge” from teachers to students,
emphasizing recitation of facts in the course of independent, rather than collective, study.
As Sharma and Anderson (2007) discussed, a distorted image of science is substantiated
when “scientists’ science” is recontextualized for learning science in schools. The
messiness of the scientific enterprise is packaged as “scientific truths” for students to
memorize. This is not to say that science teachers knowingly intend for students to learn
science through memorization, rather the typical culture of science in schools does not
encourage teachers and students to move beyond those modes of participation.

As Sharma and Anderson (2007) and others (e.g., Doyle, 1983; Lave & Wenger,
1991) have argued, classrooms are characterized by the continual negotiation for grades
that occurs between teachers and students—what Lave and Wenger (1991) called
“learning to display knowledge for evaluation” and Doyle (1983) described as the
“performance for grade exchange”. Sharma and Anderson further explained that “instead
of having students learn science through inquiry—a pedagogical practice that is relatively
much more ambiguous and risky for students, students learn science by reproducing
simple canonical knowledge and practices in exchange for grades and compliance.
Complexity and meaningfulness is bartered away for ease and efficiency.” (p. 10).

Instead of inquiry, which is supported by science standards, students learn science

through a superficial display of information, or what has been termed procedural display
(e.g., Anderson, 2003; Bloome, Puro, & Theodorou, 1989; Heath, 1983; Lave & Wenger,
1991).

Furthermore, the discourse that dominates classroom interaction is
overwhelmingly authoritative—there is one story being told from the teacher/textbook to
students through monologic classroom activities such as lecture, taking notes, completing
question-answer worksheets, following lab procedures, and participating in the well
documented communication pattern of IRE (initiate, respond, evaluate) (Mehan, 1979).
Thus, novice learners do not learn to question knowledge represented in textbooks, the
Internet, or from teachers, because the scientific knowledge and discourse demands what
Bahktin (1981) called “our unconditional allegiance” (p. 342).

This is unfortunate given that the scientific knowledge and discourse presented to
students are often not inline with what students bring to school. Science teachers rarely
take advantage of the vast experiential base that students bring to their classroom. Indeed,
students have few opportunities to negotiate scientific knowledge and discourse with
what they already know about the world, creating a potential separation of what students
come to know in and out of schools (Resnick, 1987). As such, students may not
reconcile the stories they have developed about the world with scientific accounts they
encounter in school, and simply learn to do science in schools, without recognizing the
utility of science outside the classroom. As Bauersfeld (1993) explained:

Knowledge (in a narrow sense) will be for nothing once the user cannot

identify the adequateness of a situation for use. Knowledge, also, will not

be of much help, if the learner is unable to flexibly relate and transform

the necessary elements of knowing into his/her actual situation (p.4, as

cited by Yackel & Cobb, 1996)

It is reasonable to assume the outcomes of teaching and learning science “in a
narrow sense” will only exacerbate the difficulties students have with applying science to
their lives, and further compromise our ability to educate a citizenry able to understand
and deal with problems facing our society. Knowledge will serve no purpose when
treated as information to display in exchange for grades and performance.

While learning about what we already know in science has its own place in
schools, it does not produce students who can reason and communicate in ways that will
advance our scientific knowledge. It does not produce students who can engage
intelligently in scientific discourse because they have not recognized how to appropriate
scientific knowledge and discourse in usable ways. If the ultimate goal of science
education is to produce citizens capable of participating in discourse around evidence and
explanations, then a first step is to immerse students in classroom discourse likely to

achieve this goal.

Purpose of the Study

The view taken in this study is that scientific literacy means “the capacity to
understand and participate in evidence-based discussions” (e.g., Anderson et al., 2006).
That is, scientifically literate citizens are ones who can engage in the ongoing dialogue
about global issues involving scientific knowledge and discourse, using evidence to
develop and evaluate explanations. Likewise, scientifically literate individuals recognize
the scientific enterprise is inherently social, and one that values specific ways of thinking

and communicating. In most American classrooms, students do not engage in evidence-

based discussions, nor do they participate in collective validation of explanations using
evidence. While evidence is a critical rhetorical tool for practicing scientists, it has little
weight in the science classroom (Shanna & Anderson, 2007). Instead, classroom
“discussions” require little involvement on the part of students, and almost no attention to
evidence.

Classrooms can be characterized by a variety of ways members interact and we
know students participate in more or less productive ways, depending on the structure of
talk (e.g., Cazden, 2001; Lemke, 1990; Moje, 1995; Wells & Arauz, 2006). The research
community has paid a great deal of attention to the negative consequences of recitation,
and other monologic forms of instruction. Less is known, however, about how teachers
encourage student participation that moves beyond recitation, and how rich discussions of
evidence and explanation influence student participation with science content. This
dissertation study documents the exception to the rule: two exceptional teachers who
engage their students in collective validation of observations and explanations during rich
discussions. It is a study of how two teachers help “students come to appropriate and
publicly communicate with the forms of talk or text that are part of being a competent
hypothesizer, evidence provider, maker of distinctions, checker of facts” (0’ Connors &
Michaels, 1996, p.64). The purpose of this work is not only to provide examples of
discourse in science classrooms that is less authoritative, but also to show how dialogic
discourse provides opportunities for students to participate in thoughtful consideration of
evidence and explanations.

In this introductory chapter, I will discuss scientific literacy as an educational

goal, and the interpretation of this goal as competent participation with science practices

guided by socioscientific norms. I will then consider how making sense of discourse is

critical to teaching and learning in classrooms, especially in the case of science.

Scientific Literacy as an Educational Goal

Scientific literacy is not a new term used by science educators; the term has been
broadly conceived and often used since Hurd first introduced it in 1958 (DeBoer, 2000).
In order to make sense of scientific literacy, I will first consider how the deliberate use of

the term literacy has important implications as an educational goal.

Defining Literacy

What does literacy mean? What are the characteristics of a literate individual?
Bybee (1997) stated that, “although the definitions have varied, being literate has
consistently referred to mastering the processes needed to interpret culturally significant
information” (p. 70). Traditional definitions of literacy, such as that supported by the
United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), define
literacy as the ability to understand, interpret, and communicate with printed and written
materials. While some literacy researchers may include orality in their view of literacy,
many separate the two. For example, Moje (2000) and Norris and Phillips (2003) claimed
that because literacy is literally translated to mean mastery of printed text or letters, the
term does not usually include orality or other symbols systems (e.g., numeracy, graphical
literacy). Moje (2000) argued that conflating the term “literacy” with other acts, such as
speaking or listening breaks “the hold that print literacy has in social institutions”

(p.655).

Yes, print literacy is especially important to literacy, but unlike those who
emphasize print literacy, I adopt a view of literacy similar to that of Michael Halliday.
Halliday (1993) argued that from a linguistic point of view, treating print literacy as
separate from orality does not make sense conceptually. Because speaking and writing
are closely connected, and the act of writing involves both inner speech with oneself and
talking with others, a view of literacy that does not include orality ignores a powerful
relationship between language activities and the practices they support. For this reason I
considered literacy to involve the communication of a social language through different
literacy acts and genres, including reading, writing, and oral communication (and
multiple symbol systems connected to language) that represent a particular way of
thinking, valuing, or acting. This definition of literacy is similar to Discourse used by
Gee (1996), who stated, “Discourses are distinctive ways people talk, read, write, think,
believe, act, and interact with things and other people to get recognized (Gee, 2004a,
p.39)(see Appendix D for further discussion).

My use of the term literacy is influenced by and compatible with sociocultural
approaches to the study of literacy, especially those grounded in New Literacy Studies
(e.g., Street, 2001). Furthermore, others have argued that a view of literacy must pay
attention to oral communication in order to make sense of the literacy of a community.
In a series of papers published in Research in the Teaching of English in 2006, several
researchers (i.e., David Bloome, Anne Dyson, James Gee, Martin Nystrand, Vicki
Purcell-Gates, and Gordon Wells) responded to a paper by David Olson about the
relationship between writing and speech activities. The researchers generally agreed that

writing and speech have different forms and are used for different purposes; yet

separating the two activities (and therefore separating “literacy” and “orality”) is not a
useful distinction. Rather, focusing on the social practices of a community, and the
relationship between the genres of discourse (including written and spoken, and other
non-verbal texts) to those practices, provides powerful insights to what it means to be
literate in a social group or community. James Gee, for example, explained that it is
more useful to focus on social practices valued in a community, which include acts of
writing and speaking as modes of communication, and concluded that, “the study of
literacy, then, becomes the study of practices in which literacy is embedded, not just the

study of reading and writing” (p. 155).

Scientific Literacy as Participating with Practices

Literacy, as understood in terms of participation with spoken and written language
embedded in social practices has important implications for the way 1 conceptualized
scientific literacy as an educational goal. As explained earlier, I chose to define scientific
literacy using a definition by Anderson et al., (2006)—that scientific literacy means being
able to participate in evidence-based discussions. In unpacking this definition, scientific
literacy involves successfully participating with social practices that use evidence to
develop and evaluate explanations. This definition also highlights the necessary role of
discourse in participating with these practices.

In a recent report to the National Research Council, Duschl, Schweingruber, and
Shouse (2007) explained that their framework for scientific literacy “rests on a view of
science as both a body of knowledge and an evidence-based, model-building enterprise
that continually extends, refines, and revises knowledge” (p. ES- 1). Similar to the way I

have conceptualized scientific literacy, they argued that students should “participate

productively in science practices and discourse” (p. ES-2), that involve scientific
argumentation, explanation, and evaluation of evidence. While I agree with these goals, it
is important to consider what participation with practices and discourse potentially looks
like in science classrooms.

What comes to count in science classrooms is influenced in part by the knowledge
and discourse of practicing scientists, and what the broader community values with
respect to participation. While I am not making the claim that science classrooms should
replicate what happens in the science community, expectations for what students should
come to know and do are based on participation in the practitioner community.

An important goal in science is to develop scientific models that have the power
to explain and predict how things happen in the world. The more explanatory power a
model has, the more widely it is accepted and used by the community. The process of
developing these models involves thoughtful design and careful collection of data It
involves teasing out patterns in data, and ultimately developing model(s) to explain those
patterns. The process of making sense of the data, patterns, and models is not
straightforward, and typically involves multiple cycles of investigation/experimentation
and theory building over long periods of time (although sometimes important discoveries
are made serendipitously). Importantly, the process of making sense of data and models
requires ongoing dialogue between members of the science community through written
and oral presentation and critique of scientific work, thus the importance of being able to
participate with discourse that is valued by the community.

As members of the science community participate with science practices

described above and in collective validation of scientific work, they use standards and

criteria that have been accepted as guidelines for evaluating whether something is what it

is—whether the data, patterns, and models actually describe and explain what they are

intended to explain. These standards serve as a way for individuals in the community to

develop their own research programs, as well as ways for individuals and the community

to evaluate the work of others. The following are examples of standards and criteria:

Data and Observations— standards for evaluating data and observations involve
questions about whether or not the data/observations are accurate, precise, and
replicable.

Pattems- developing patterns involve making sure patterns fit the data, and that
they also fit models. For instance, standards used in statistical analysis (e.g.,
sample sizes, what counts as a large enough effect size, what is significant, what
to do with outliers, etc) are criteria for investigating patterns. Other ways to
investigate patterns include developing criteria for deciding when things are or are
not examples of patterns.

Models— models are validated based on the explanatory power of the model (in
terms of explaining patterns and data) and whether or not the model is testable,
coherent, and parsimonious.

When taken together, participating with practices (e.g., observing, experimenting,

pattem-finding, modeling, theorizing etc.) guided by accepted standards for validation

represent socioscientific norms, or patterns for regular or normative participation in the

scientific enterprise. Socioscientific norms serve as guidelines for conducting research

(which often involves relationships with the material world) and engaging in careful

evaluation of the work of others (which involves predominantly social relationships). To

10

some extent these norms are specialized to various domains within science (e.g.,
biological sciences might have slightly different practices and standards from other

sciences, so the norms for that community may be specific to their domain).

Scientists ' Science and School Science

Like scientists, students are expected to participate with practices in which they
collect and analyze data, develop patterns and models, and then apply those models (i.e.,
engage in what has been termed scientific inquiry). They are expected to conduct
investigations and participate in experimentation (Duschl et al., 2007; NRC, 1996),
participate in model building and theorizing (Duschl et al., 2007; Herrenkohl, Palinscar,
DeWater, & Kawasaki, 1999; Crawford, Kelly, & Brown, 2000), and develop logical
arguments (NRC, 1996; Osborne, Eduran, & Simon, 2004), all of which involve
thoughtful activities around observations, patterns, and models, and connections between
the three. The practices are both social activities and activities with the material world
that are deeply rooted in science, and involve learning how to use and appropriate tools
valued in science, such as scientific language and scientific principles.

As defined in this study, there are two important features about science practices
that should be briefly pointed out. First, practices involve participation with the material
world and also the social world. Secondly, participation with practices involves
individual activity, as well as collective validation and skeptical review (Duschl et al.,
2007; Herrenkohl & Guerra, 1998; NRC, 1996). Thus, standards for what counts as valid
become influential for how community members participate.

As explained by Anderson (2003), scientific study in schools is about making

sense of these experiences, patterns, and explanations (see Figure I). Anderson argued

ll

that students should participate with practices where they develop accounts that
coordinate observations/data with models. Furthermore, they should also learn how to
differentiate between observations, patterns, and models in their accounts (C.W.
Anderson, personal communication, February, 22, 2008). Thus products of participation
with practices are transformed accounts. Take, for example, the account “the glass is
getting wet because it is sweating”. This account does not differentiate between
observations “getting wet” with an informal model “sweating”. While sweating is not
necessarily scientific in the context of this example, it describes what happens to things
when they get warm. The glass, for example, may sweat because it is cooler than the air
around it—so the warm air causes it to sweat just like humans sweat on warm days.
Unfortunately, in this account it is unclear as to what “sweating” really means, and there
is no clear way to differentiate between what can be measured and what is inferred.
Scientific accounts, on the other hand, do a better job at differentiating between
observations, patterns, and models. For instance, take the account “Condensation, such as
water droplets collecting on a glass, happens when water vapor is cooled to its dewpoint.”
In this account, the observable (water droplets on glass) and measurable (dewpoint)
characteristics of the account are differentiated from the pattern (condensation). The
transformation of accounts, however, is not an easy task, especially when the culture of

schools science (and the authority of scientific discourse) often hinders students’ progress

toward this transformation.

Challenges to Participating in Scientists ’ Science

While students in science classrooms can potentially participate in “scientists’

science” that has been recontextualized for schools (Shanna & Anderson, 2007), there are

12

several important differences between the two communities that prevent students from
truly participating in what scientists do. A notable difference is that students are not
expected to develop scientific models, or identify new ways in which they are applied (at
least in authentic ways), which constitutes a great deal of activity of practicing scientists.
Instead students make sense of the explanatory power of models developed by scientists,
which are translated into “teachable” and “simplified” content.

A second notable difference is that while scientists draw from a broad base of
experiential data in their work, students are rarely required, or given opportunities to do
the same in the classroom (Sharma & Anderson, 2007). Instead, students typically
participate in scripted lab investigations intended to help them see the transparency of
models they are testing. Students may not even be required to share experiences they
believe are relevant to what they are studying. Shanna and Anderson explained that while
the ratio of experience to models is high for scientists, the opposite is true for students—
doing science in schools is about learning the scientific models that are the products of
centuries of scientific research; it is not about making sense of the vast array of
experiences students have in their lives. As such, students spend a great deal of time
memorizing definitions, laws, theories, and models without making connections to their
experiences.

A third difference is that evidence is a necessary tool for scientists to convince
and persuade their colleagues that what they found is indeed valid. Sharma and Anderson
(2007) said, “empirical evidence comes across as the major and constant reference point
in the trajectory of scientific statements from tentative speculations to taken-for-granted

‘truths’ in science labs” (p.6). Evidence is treated substantially different in science

13

classrooms. Evidence is not used as a tool for persuasion, but rather a way to evaluate
whether students completed investigation in the “right” way and is used to determine
what students did wrong when they did not get the “correct” data or come to the “same”
conclusions.

Classrooms are also constrained by curricular standards and goals, so that much
of what students participate in is scripted at some level (e.g., a scripted lesson, adopted
district curriculum and standards, state and national standards). Teachers must preplan a
great deal of the experiences students have in the classroom (to varying degrees of
flexibility). At best, teachers can organize those experiences in ways that optimize
opportunities to participate with science practices that are characteristic of scientists’
science, but rarely can classroom activity reflect the nature of the scientific enterprise as
experienced by scientists themselves.

Even with the best attempts to support student participation with science
practices, the normative ways of participating in school science are not identical to the
norms that guide participation by scientists. They are norms that develop as teachers and
students interact with science that has been reformulated as content for the classroom.
The norms in classrooms are based largely on expectations and goals teachers have for
their students. When teachers are successful at supporting student participation with the
practices and science standards of scientists science described above, they can establish
classroom socioscientific norms as a way to guide participation. In some ways, the
classroom socioscientific norms are localized to the classroom community in which they

are embedded, but they also reflect the broader culture of science.

14

As described earlier, participation in science occurs through interaction with the
material world, and through social interaction. Scientific discourse is a critical medium
for participation, especially during social exchanges with fellow class members and the
teacher. The following section will consider the role classroom talk and discussion plays
in optimizing student participation with each other, and with content. I will explain why I
have chosen spoken discourse as the focus of this study, and how it relates to goals for

scientific literacy.

The Central Role of Discourse in Classrooms

Spoken language plays a unique role in the process of learning. Spoken language
unites the cognitive and social aspects of learning and provides people with ways of
coordinating thought and action. Spoken language is uniquely important in schools since
a great deal of classroom instruction and interaction occurs through the medium of talk
(Cazden, 2001) and potentially contributes to students’ conceptual understanding and
comprehension (Wells & Arauz, 2006).

In making the case for focusing on spoken discourse during science discussions, I
draw from work in sociocultural tradition, namely that of Lev Vygotsky (1978) and
Mikhail Bakhtin (1981, 1986). Mikhail Bakhtin was a contemporary of Lev Vygotsky,
and both scholars contributed a great deal to theoretical advances in the fields of
psychology, linguistics, philosophy, and education. They both recognized the central role
language plays in thinking, as a tool for developing shared knowledge in a community,
and for individual sense making.

Vygotsky argued that language was the “tool of tools”—it not only served as a

tool for mediating social activity, but also as a tool for individuals to internalize and

15

reflect upon social interactions (i.e., inner speech). Vygotsky explained that novice
learners acquired habits of minds, practices, and shared knowledge of a cultural group by
learning how to use the tools and signs of the group. Vygotsky believed the development
of language was paramount to the development of higher mental functioning, so he
emphasized speech development in the process of learning.

Bakhtin (1981) was also interested in the interplay between thought and language
within the context of literature. He introduced the idea of dialogism or dialogic discourse,
which described a type of discourse in which speakers and listeners co—constructed new
meanings together. He explained that utterances were responsive in the sense that they
responded to preceding utterances, and utterances were also anticipatory of future
utterances. He also explained that utterances were not only responsive in the immediate
context, but rather reflections of historical discourse and how words and utterances had
been used before. Dialogism emphasizes a linking of utterances. There is also a sense that
dialogic discourse is dynamic—that discourse evolves over time depending on how
utterances are linked.

Bakhtin also introduced the idea of heteroglossia (i.e., multiple voices), which
described the competing voices in a narrative or story, and one’s ability to take on and
transform the words of others. Bakhtin explained that heteroglossia brings about conflict
and tension created through multiple voices when individuals learn to appropriate
discourse. As Nystrand (1997) explained, “It is precisely this tension— this relationship
between self and other, this juxtaposition of relative perspectives and struggle among
competing voices— that for Bakhtin gives shape to all discourse and hence lies at the

heart of understanding as a dynamic, sociocognitive event” (p.8).

l6

Vygotsky’s notion of internalization is somewhat controversial if interpreted to be
a passive process of adopting with words of others (Cazden, 2001). Although Vygotsky
likely did not intend for internalization to be interpreted in such a way, the concept of
appropriation from Bakhtin’s work provides a less controversial alternative to describing
how novices, in this case students, come to appropriate academic social languages, and
also how adults, such as teachers, learn to appropriate the language of children. The
important point is that both internalization and appropriation represent processes of
adopting and reconciling discourses, and by learning how to use language in specific
contexts.

Language and the scientific discourse (which includes symbol systems related to
social language) are especially central to making progress toward goals of scientific
literacy. Engaging in evidence-based discussions is about more than “discussion” defined
in a narrow sense. It is about knowing how to interpret the way others appropriate
scientific discourse, as well as knowing how to do it yourself. It is also about engaging in
an ongoing dialogue around issues that use scientific discourse as the medium for
communication—potentially just through listening and interpreting information, but also
for using information to engage in informed decision-making. According to sociocultural
perspectives, such as those of Vygotsky and Bakhtin, language is a critical tool for
making this transformation happen.

Science classrooms are the obvious arenas for supporting students with engaging
in scientific discourse. It is unfortunate, however, that most classrooms do not encourage
student participation with discourse that is aligned with goals of scientific literacy. In

fact, there is considerable evidence that most classrooms still rely on recitation as a way

17

of having students participate in class (Cazden, 2001; Nystrand, 1997), which is also true
in science classrooms (Lemke, 1990; Wells & Arauz, 2006).

Bakhtin argued that all discourse is inherently dialogic, but that authoritative
discourse, such as monologic or transmission modes of communication, are used by
institutions and governments for control (Lotman, 1988, Wells & Arauz, 2006). In
contexts in which there are few experts, or knowers, and many novices, or learners,
authoritative discourse prevails. It is the type of discourse used for experts to share what
they know with novices, without recognizing novices as sources of knowledge in their
own right.

Schools implicitly impose authoritative discourse in order to control what is
taught to students, such as managing the pace and organization of curricula, and to
maintain the authority of the teacher in the classroom. When students are viewed as
empty vessels to be filled with knowledge, teachers (as experts) often resort to monologic
activities to provide students (as novices) the information they need. As such, a great deal
of time in these classrooms is spent in lecture or recitation activities, or in completing
textbook or worksheet activities (e. g., worksheets, chapter review questions, and
laboratory procedures). In these activities what comes to count as knowledge in the
classroom in based on “right” and “wrong” answers.

It is not difficult to see how this type of discourse may limit student participation
during classroom activities, and ultimately affect their learning of content. While
authoritative discourse is a common, and sometimes necessary, way to teach students

already known information, it also reduces opportunities for students to be active agents

18

in their own learning. Monologic classroom activities do not produce students who can
think and communicate in ways that will advance our scientific knowledge.

Dialogic discourse, on the other hand, is dynamic— evolving as the community,
and individuals in that community, engage with the content. Bakhtin contrasted
authoritative discourse with discourse that is internally persuasive. Internally persuasive
discourse is the transformation of authoritative discourse into one’s own voice or words.
In communities in which internally persuasive discourse prevails, there is a sense of
reciprocity between more knowledgeable and less knowledgeable members of the group,
and with this reciprocity is give-and-take between the discourses of experts and novices.

In their paper, Sharma and Anderson (2007) described how scientific discourse is
both authoritative and internally persuasive. It is authoritative because scientific
discourse has evolved as one with “a remarkable degree of standardization in the rhetoric
of science communication” (p. 2). When scientific work is written and communicated to
others, authors remove as much as possible the human activity involved in the research—
that is, authors use a neutral voice to communicate scientific facts, or truths. Yet, even
when presented in such an authoritative manner, scientific discourse is open to change,
which involves negotiation not only between scientists in the community, but also with
nature itself. Sharma and Anderson also explained that in the process of recontextualizing
scientific discourse and practice into school curriculum, the internally persuasive
elements of the discourse are removed. Unlike scientists who are continually engaged in a
dialogical relationship with each other and nature, students engage in the experiences
crafted through school curriculum, and are rarely asked to call upon their own

experiential base, or to question the authoritative discourse presented to them in schools.

19

While I described these two types of discourse as a dichotomy, Burbules and
Bruce (2001) pointed out that a more useful theoretical frame “will need to move beyond
the simple dichotomous monologue/dialogue distinction to, at the very least, a spectrum
along which various pedagogical communicative relations can be classified from the
relatively univocal and directive to the relatively reciprocal and open-ended” (p. 1107).
Classroom activities, such as lectures, recitations, dialogue, etc. can be characterized in
terms of their place on a continuum between monologic and dialogic forms of
communication.

Dialogism, as conceived by Bakhtin, is rarely observed in school science. This is
unfortunate given that students face numerous challenges when Ieaming to negotiate
everyday language and accounts with scientific language and accounts (Lemke, 1990)
and those who cannot adopt and appropriate the social language sanctioned by the
science community are potentially marginalized (Moje et al., 2004). The authoritative
discourse that dominates science classrooms prevents large numbers of individuals from
learning to appreciate and value science, and use it in their lives.

Researchers have argued that, “any promotion of scientific literacy should
empower people to be literate in the discourses of science” (Yore & Treagust, 2006, p.
293) and that researchers and educators must recognize that “students possess multiple
Iiteracies that they can bring to bear on various academic tasks” (Hand et al., 2003,
p.610). This involves reconciling vernacular and scientific discourses, and learning when
and how to appropriate discourse in context. As Gee (2004b) noted, “success in school is

primarily contingent on leamers’ willingness and ability to cope with the academic

20

language” (p. 14) and the extent to which students learn to appropriate scientific
discourse as opposed to their “lifeworld language”.

Other researchers have documented ways in which discourse is critical to
understanding science teaching and learning. Elizabeth Moje, for example, has
documented multiple discourses students negotiate while in school and how students
make compromises between discourses of home, community, and academic disciplines.
Moje et al., (2004) focused on how middle and secondary students negotiated the space
between everyday and academic discourses (i.e., what is called the “third space”) and
stated that, “what is critical to our position is the sense that these spaces can be
reconstructed to form a third, different or alternative, space of knowledge and
Discourses” (p. 41). The third space represent a new, hybrid discourse that is jointly
constructed in the community, with elements of scientific discourse, as well as students’
home discourse.

In his notable study, Lemke (1990) provided insights as to how students and
teachers appropriate scientific language. His premise was that the learning of science is
learning to “talk science” and that “talking science does not simply mean talking about
science. It means doing science through the medium of language” (p. ix). He explained
that teachers and students often talk past one another because they have not developed
shared meaning of words, or a systems in which members of the classrooms jointly
construct and use language in the classrooms.

Looking carefully at discourse, whether more monologic or dialogic, has
important implications for how students participate in science, and ultimately their

progress toward scientific literacy. Giving students opportunities to participate with

21

scientific discourse is likely one step toward negotiation of vernacular discourses with the
scientific discourse encountered in and outside of schools. Furthermore, when scientific
literacy is conceptualized as participating with practices (many of which are social) that
are intimately connected to language, then the type of discourse supported in classrooms
in critical for making sense of student outcomes. Outcomes for what students learn in
terms of participating in evidence-based discussions are hugely different when
considering different discourse patterns—that is, a discourse pattern that minimizes
student participation and only recognizes one discourse (scientific discourse) will likely
lead to markedly different outcomes for students compared to discourse that increases

student participation and supports students in negotiating discourses.

Research Questions

The teacher is critical to supporting students in acquiring the discourse of science.
As O’Connor and Michaels (1996) explained, “teachers are continually engaged in a
form of language socialization” (p.65). Engaging students in recitation of scientific facts
as a replacement for discussion is not an effective solution to the challenges students face
in acquiring scientific discourses. True dialogue, on the other hand, potentially provides
students with Opportunities to negotiate discourses and Ieam to appropriate scientific
discourse in contexts that move beyond recitation in the classroom.

Classroom discussions are activities that can potentially bring the dialogical
relationships students have with each other and nature to the foreground. Studies on
dialogism, particularly during discussions, are potentially promising if researchers can
identify what makes discussions dialogic, how teachers and students engage in this form

of talk, and the potential outcomes dialogism has for learning content. As Heath (2000)

22

pointed out, researchers interested in discourse in classrooms face the challenge of
linking the discourse to learning outcomes afforded to students (i.e., dialogue is not an
end in itself). They face the challenge of identifying how social dialogue is not only
transformed during social activity, but how it becomes transformed for individual use
(Gee & Green, 1998; Gee, Michaels, & O’Connors, 1992). Making sense of how teachers
and students continually position themselves not just in relation to each other, but also the
content, and how they develop normative ways of interacting in their communities is an
important first step toward understanding how discourse facilitates participation in
science.

While there are theoretical underpinnings of dialogism (i.e., Bahktin, 1981) and
observations of dialogic discourse in classrooms, (e.g., Cazden, 2001; Gallas, 1995;
Nystrand, 1997), more research on dialogism is needed, especially to make sense of what
this type of discourse affords for learning science. The following research question
guided the initial data generation and analysis process:

1. What distinguishes dialogic discourse from recitation in science discussions?
What are the markers in the discourse that indicate the class is participating in talk
that is more or less dialogic?

As the study progressed, two additional research questions were considered:

2. What comes to “count” during science discussions—that is, what does dialogic
discourse afford in terms of student participation with science practices, and how
does the discourse support the establishment of socioscientific norms?

3. In science, there is usually a best explanation or scientific model that has been

collectively agreed upon by the science community, so how do science teachers

23

use dialogic discourse, and the tension and conflict embodied in this type of talk,
to make progress toward the best explanation? How do students’ accounts

transform by participating in the discussions?

24

METHODS
Design

While theory and research on dialogism is useful in understanding how discourse
might be analyzed, and some characteristics of discourse that might be observed in
science discussions, it does not provide an a priori framework that is applicable to the
present study. Thus, I used methods of open and axial coding adapted from Strauss and
Corbin’s (1998) grounded theory methodology, to conduct both microanalysis using line-
by-line and episode level coding. I employed the method of constant comparison, in
which I systematically reviewed data and compared new data to the emerging theory,
revising the theory as more data was analyzed.

There are several important points to make concerning my choice in selecting
grounded theory methodology. Grounded theory, as conceived originally by Glaser and
Strauss (1967) and more recently by Strauss and Corbin (1998) does not assume that
researchers begin a study as “blank slates”, but rather, they have theoretical sensitivities
that may guide their data generation and analysis. I have described some of my
theoretical sensitivities in the introduction to this paper. Whenever possible, researchers
using grounded theory should recognize theoretical comparisons “as tools for looking at
something somewhat objectively rather than naming or classifying without a thorough
examination of the object at the property and dimensional levels” (Strauss & Corbin,
1998, p. 80). Thus, grounded theorists strive foremost to empirically ground the emerging
theory in their data, but they also attempt to recognize and connect the theory to current
research. Throughout the Findings and Discussion section, I have tried to make the

connections to other research whenever possible.

25

Participants

1 recruited participants using a nomination method searching for “exemplary”
science teachers who used ample discussions in their classrooms. I considered exemplary
teachers to be those with a track record and reputation for innovative teaching and high
student engagement during science class, as deemed by school principals, curriculum
specialists, and/or science education faculty. I received nominations for six exemplary
teachers between grades 4-8. Initially I observed each of these teachers to confirm that
they used ample discussion and had high participation from students during this time. I
chose four of the six teachers to participate in the study. The four teachers were selected
primarily because they were most similar in age range (grades 4-6) and time spent with
students (half to full day) compared to the two other teachers who taught grade-8 and
only spent an hour with their students each day. Although I continued to observe and
videotape the four teachers, I narrowed my analysis down to two teachers. I chose not to
analyze data from Ms. Adam’s classroom because she had a student teacher who helped
with the lessons, and because she was focusing on small group interactions during the
time I videotaped. This minimized the whole group discussions that occurred, which were
the focus of this study. I chose not to analyze Ms. Daniels’ classroom because she co-
taught with another teacher, making it difficult to tease apart her role in discussions from
her team teacher’s role.

The two teachers observed and analyzed in this study were nominated by multiple
sources for their reputation as exemplary teachers (see Table 1). Both teachers opted to
use their real names in this report, as opposed to pseudonyms, however student names

have been changed to protect their identity.

26

[Insert Table 1 Here]

Ms. Christensen taught in an urban elementary school serving students between
kindergarten and 5th grade. The school was located in a residential community of a mid-
sized Midwestem city. The school had land surrounding the main building where
students played during recess time. Many of the families the school served lived in
nearby apartments and homes. The school served roughly 270 students, with two
classrooms per grade level. The average teacher-student ratio was 1:16, lower than the
state average of 1:17 (www.publicschoolreview.com). Ms. Christensen grade—5 class,
however, included 30 students—l7 male students and 13 female students. Ms.
Christensen was Caucasian and she estimated the ethnicity of her students was 43%
African-American, 23% multi-racial, 10% Caucasian, 10% Hispanic, and 7% Asian, and
7% Indian. She did not know the socioeconomic status of her students, although she
described her students as coming from working and middle class families. Public records
indicated that during the year I collected data, 55-60% of the students in her school
qualified for free or reduced lunches (www.greatschools.net,
www.publicschoolreview.com). Furthermore, Ms. Christensen’s school was a Title 1
school, and received additional funding because of the financial situation of students and
their families.

Ms. Christensen had 17 years of teaching experience at the elementary level and
had received both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the local university. She
currently taught in an urban elementary school. Ms. Christensen was involved in a
professional development project at the local university that supported her in standards-

based, inquiry oriented professional development. As part of this project she was a

27

member ofa science study group that involved other teachers, curriculum specialists, and
university science educators.

Ms. Christensen spent the entire school day with her students, except for special
activities, such as art, music, and library activities. Ms. Christensen’s school district had
adopted science curriculum developed by Biological Science Curriculum Study (BSCS),
so much of her classroom activities were based on this curriculum. 1 observed Ms.
Christensen during a three-week period toward the end of the school year. We selected
this time of year because her student teacher would no longer be leading classroom
lessons, therefore my data could capture how Ms. Christensen, as opposed to her student
teacher, orchestrated discussions. 1 observed eleven consecutive science lessons. The unit
during this time was based on materials developed by BSCS, and focused on water
cycling, weather, and phase changes of water. Ms. Christensen used a great deal of whole
class discussions, coupled with some writing activities, small group and partner work,
and one day of investigations. The science lessons, which were mainly comprised of
whole group discussion, typically lasted about one hour and occurred at the end of the
school day.

Ms. Hocking taught in an elementary school serving only grades 5-6. The school
was located in one of the more affluent residential neighborhoods in the suburban city in
which it was located. The school served approximately 250 students with five classrooms
per grade level. The teacher-student ratio was the state average of 1:17
(www.publicschoo1review.com). Ms. Hocking’s class size was 22 students—13 males
and 8 female students. Ms. Hocking was Caucasian and she estimated that her class was

71% Caucasian, 14% African-American, 5% African, 5% Pakistani, and 5% Hispanic

28

(the school average was 56% Caucasian, 19% African-American, 15% Asian, 7%
Hispanic, and 3% unspecified). She explained that the socioeconomic status of her
students was diverse, from low income to upper middle class families. Public records
indicated that 28% of the students in Ms. Hocking’s school district were eligible for free
or reduced lunch (www.greatschools.net). Ms. Hocking did not spend the entire school
day with her students, but rather slightly more than a half-day with her homeroom class
and slightly less time with another teacher’s class. The class used in this study was her
homeroom group of students. She taught science and language arts to her students.

Ms. Hocking had 17 years of teaching experience with 7 years at elementary and
10 years at the middle school level. She received her bachelor’s degree in music from a
midwestern university and then completed a post-baccalaureate program in education.
She had taken one year of courses toward her PhD in education. Ms. Hocking was
involved in an ongoing teacher professional development project that used problem-based
learning as a model for studying dilemmas to strengthen teachers’ understanding of
content and practice. As part of this project Ms. Hocking met monthly with a study group
consisting of other teachers and local university science educators. The study group
reflected on practitioner-oriented books, and on teacher-selected problems they shared
with the study group.

I observed Ms. Hocking for a 3-month period between mid-February to mid-May
of the school year. I observed her classroom approximately once a week, and
occasionally visited on consecutive days. Like Ms. Christensen, Ms. Hocking science
lessons lasted approximately one hour and occurred at the end of the school day.

However, Ms. Hocking used more small group and hands-on activities during that time. I

29

observed her teaching three units—force and motion, light and color, and phase changes
of the moon. Eight of my eleven observations occurred during the lengthy light unit, so I

focused my analysis on these observations.

Researcher

In qualitative research, an important concern to consider is the role of the
researcher. l was involved with the participants throughout the data generation process,
and because I worked closely with teachers, I assumed the role of a participant observer
(Spradley, 1980). In this role, I interacted with teachers and students regularly during
classroom observations and with teachers before and after observations, during
interviews, and through phone calls and electronic mail. Because of my use of
videotaping, I was sometimes limited to staying behind the camera monitoring the video

and audio recording.

Data Sources

Addressing issues of reliability and validity in ethnographic research involves
triangulation across a variety of data sources, which serve as sources of corroboration for
each other. This study used multiple sources, including 1) observations and videotape of
classrooms instruction and transcription of entire videotaped lessons, 2) videotaped and
transcribed interviews with teachers, and 3) videotaped and transcribed video recall
sessions with teachers.

Videotaped observation of classroom instruction. I observed each teacher at least
13 times and videotaped at least 10 times during the study using one video camera with

multiple audio feeds. The video camera was placed to capture as much of the classroom

30

as possible, and also to be as unobtrusive as possible. During small group work, the
camera remained on the teacher as she circulated around the room, and audio was
captured from some small groups, as well as a microphone that the teacher carried with
her as she worked with groups.

Interview and video recalls. Teachers participated in an interview and video recall
session at the end of the study that lasted approximately two hours. The interviews were
semi-structured, ethnography interviews (Spradley, 1979), in which questions were
developed around the teacher’s purpose for discussions (and written) activities, including
the teacher’s focus on specific science practices during those activities. In addition, I
selected 8-10 video clips for video recall, with each clip lasting between 30 seconds to 3-
4 minutes. For each video clip, I developed 2-4 questions to guide discussion about the
clip and teachers were asked to talk at length about what they remembered of the activity
shown in the clip. I selected video clips to address a variety of questions that arose during
the observations. Questions were intended to obtain the teacher’s perspective about the
activity in the clip and to clarify questions I had developed over the course of the study

(see Appendices B and C for interview and video recall questions).

Data Analysis

Transcription and “chunking”. Videotapes and interviews were transcribed
completely and then inserted into excel. Using excel, I first reviewed all of the
observations and divided them in terms of episodes. Episodes were identified by major
shifts in topic, which sometimes coincided with shifts in classroom activities. Episodes
were further divided in terms of “segments” which was my way of breaking down the

topics or activities in a related episode.

31

Microanalysis. In coding the first transcript I used open coding, conducting a line-
by-line analysis of each utterance in the transcript. After this point I identified three broad
categories in which to code: dialogic indicators, social norm indicators, and science norm
and practice indicators. Although the subcategories of each were generated using open
coding, my identification of three categories was a first step toward axial coding. Each
utterance in a transcript received up to three codes corresponding to the three broad
categories:

0 Dialogic indicators- 1 developed categories to capture the characteristics of
discourse that signaled it was dialogic. I identified indicators at the level ofa
discourse move, but considered subsequent exchanges to see how the move,
or utterance, was realized in a sequence of talk. For example, open-ended
teacher questions (or authentic teacher questions) were dialogic indicators
coded at the level of an utterance, however, I considered the responses to the
question to verify whether it was truly open-ended.

0 Discussion norm indicators- 1 developed categories for norms only during
instances of discussions. The emerging categories did not include norms that
guided other classroom activities, such as seatwork, recitation, etc. The
categories and subcategories reflected patterns in the way the group made use
of the contributions, or accounts, shared during discussion. For example,
assigning authorship to accounts became a pattern in the way the class paid
attention to how they linked and positioned accounts and how accounts

evolved through the course of discussion.

32

' Socioscientific norm and practice indicators- Because the emergence of
norms depended on the science practices engaged in at the time, I deveIOped
categories for science practices and socioscientific norms simultaneously. For
example, when students participated with the practice of making
observations, the teacher helped to establish norms for what counted as a
precise or replicable observation in the classroom (practices and norms will
be discussed in more detail in the results and discussion section and in
Appendix D).

Example of Microanalysis. In order to demonstrate how the microanalysis
occurred, 1 selected a brief transcript, in which I illustrate my coding of dialogic
indicators, social norms, and socioscientific norms and practices. Note that this transcript
will be discussed in more detail in the results section, and that I do not intend to explain
the indicators fully in this section. Rather my goal is to demonstrate how I conducted
line-by-line analysis on the texts.

Since I developed dialogic indicators using grounded theory, the following
example does not represent how the dialogic indicator codes developed or evolved over
the course of the study. Rather, the example transcript below is coded using dialogic
indicators represented by the final set of categories and subcategories from the analysis.
The key below shows how I identified interesting utterances and coded those utterances
in terms of dialogic indicators. Note that the key is only useful for the transcript below

and not intended as a key for the other transcripts throughout the results and discussion.

 

Key for Dialogic Indicators

 

33

 

Dialogic Indicators Font

 

Student Questions (taken up) Bold

New Student Ideas (taken up) Italicized

Uptake that Aligns/Opposes Underlined
Authentic teacher questions Typewriter font
Value and Respect Chalkboard Font

 

Ice in Antarctica
DEVON: How come there’s water in Antarctica that’s not frozen?
JACKSON: Question book.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Yeah, that’s a good one. That’s one I bet you could
get on the Internet. Tell us where that water would be that’s not frozen.
Is it out on the surface? Where is it? Somebody who knows something
about Antarctica, where is that water that’s not frozen? Thomas?
Manuel? Where is that water that’s not frozen?

MANUEL: In the ocean or under some other ice.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Go put that in the question book. Good question.
What do you think Clarice?

CLARICE: This is the sun, and this is the water- and - this is all melting
down here. And then the sun is shining on this part (points to drawing). And
it’s all the way over here. But it’s not — it’s still shining on this, but it’s not
shining as much as it in on this part.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: What do other people think about that? What
do other people think about that? Thomas, What do you think?

THOMAS: I think that the water is not frozen under because —— well, it is
probably not solid, but if you go farther down, it’s still very cold — very
freezing, but it’s not all the way frozen.

CLARICE: Maybe because —

34

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Do you have an idea of Why that would be? (to
Thomas)

CLARICE: I have an idea. Maybe because when it’s still shining on ice and
everything, all the small whatever comes to the top, but it can ’t go under
because it’s not— (doesn’t finish)

MS.CHRISTENSEN: You know, this is an interesting idea. Keep your hands
up. This is an interesting idea, because I think it’s the same thing that you
talked about when you talked about the mountains. That there’s an uneven
heating of the earth — of the surface of the earth. So that ’s a very interesting
thought, isn ’t it? What do you think, J a an?

JAVAN: I don’t know how to explain it. Well, kind of- I don’t know. It’s not
Me I do disagree with Clarice- but I also agree with Thomas. But I can’t
explain it. Can I come and show you up on the board?

I also coded the same transcript in terms of discussion norms that became
apparent during discussions marked by dialogic indicators. It is important to point out the
discussion norms and dialogic indicators were closely related, so during the axial coding
process these two types of indicators were mapped on to each other. Further discussion of
both will be combined in the first part of the results section. The key below shows how I

coded discussion norms at the level of utterances, and uses the final categories that

emerged from the grounded theory process.

 

Key for Discussion Norm Indicators

 

 

Discussion Norm Indicators Font
Elicited multiple accounts Bold
Valued student accounts Italicized
Positioned Accounts Underlined

 

35

Ice in Antarctica

DEVON: How come there ’s water in Antarctica that ’s not frozen?
JACKSON: Question book.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Yeah, that’s a good one. That’s one I bet you could
get on the Internet. Tell us where that water would be that ’s not frozen. Is it
out on the surface? Where is it? Somebody who knows something about
Antarctica, where is that water that ’s not fiozen? Thomas? Manuel? Where
is that water that’s not frozen?

MANUEL: In the ocean or under some other ice.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Go put that in the question book. Good question.
What do you think Clarice?

CLARICE: This is the sun, and this is the water- and - this is all melting
down here. And then the sun is shining on this part (points to drawing).
And it’s all the way over here. But it’s not — it’s still shining on this, but
it’s not shining as much as it in on this part.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: What do other people think about that? What do
other people think about that? Thomas, what do you think?

THOMAS: I think that the water is not frozen under because — well, it is
probably not solid, but if you go farther down, it’s still very cold - very
freezing, but it’s not all the way frozen.

CLARICE: Maybe because —

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Do you have an idea of why that would be? (to
Thomas)

CLARICE: I have an idea. Maybe because when it’s still shining on ice
and everything, all the small whatever comes to the top, but it can ’t go
under because it’s not- (doesn’t finish)

MS.CHRISTENSEN: You know, this is an interesting idea. Keep your hands
up. This is an interesting idea, because I think it ’s the same thing that you
talked about when you talked about the mountains. That there ’3 an uneven
heating of the earth — of the surface of the earth. So that’s a very interesting
thought, isn ’t it? What do you think, Javan?

36

JAVAN: I don’t know how to explain it. Well, kind of- I don’t know. It’s not
like I do disagree with Clarice- but I also agree with Thomas. But I can’t
explain it. Can I come and show you up on the board?

The transcript was also coded in terms of science practices and socioscientific
norms. In this example the class was participating with the practice of connecting their
observations and experiences with patterns and models. The class was trying to establish
what was necessary for things to be frozen (cold temperature), or what keeps things from
being frozen (sun), which gave rise to a socioscientific norm about what counts as
appropriate ways to connect observations, patterns, and models. The bold font represents
utterances that were particularly important for making sense of the socioscientific norms
and practices in the discussion.

Ice in Antarctica
DEVON: How come there’s water in Antarctica that’s not frozen?
JACKSON: Question book.
MS. CHRISTENSEN: Yeah, that’s a good one. That’s one I bet you could
get on the Internet. Tell us where that water would be that’s not frozen. Is it
out on the surface? Where is it? Somebody who knows something about
Antarctica, where is that water that’s not frozen? Thomas? Manuel? Where is
that water that’s not frozen?

MANUEL: In the ocean or under some other ice.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Go put that in the question book. Good question.
What do you think Clarice?

CLARICE: This is the sun, and this is the water- and — this is all melting
down here. And then the sun is shining on this part (points to drawing).
And it’s all the way over here. But it’s not — it’s still shining on this, but
it’s not shining as much as it in on this part.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: What do other pe0ple think about that? What do other
people think about that? Thomas, what do you think?

37

THOMAS: I think that the water is not frozen under because — well, it is
probably not solid, but if you go farther down, it’s still very cold - very
freezing, but it’s not all the way frozen.

CLARICE: Maybe because —

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Do you have an idea of why that would be? (to
Thomas)

CLARICE: l have an idea. Maybe because when it’s still shining on ice
and everything, all the small whatever comes to the top, but it can’t go
under because it’s not- (doesn’t finish)

MS.CHRISTENSEN: You know, this is an interesting idea. Keep your hands
up. This is an interesting idea, because I think it’s the same thing that you
talked about when you talked about the mountains. That there’s an
uneven heating of the earth - of the surface of the earth. So that’s a very
interesting thought, isn’t it? What do you think, Javan?

JAVAN: I don’t know how to explain it. Well, kind of- I don’t know. It’s not

like I do disagree with Clarice- but I also agree with Thomas. But I can’t
explain it. Can I come and show you up on the board?

“Big Picture” analysis. After I coded approximately 25 % of my data, I

recognized that line-by-line analysis was not capturing the “big picture”, so I started

writing episode summaries. The episode summaries were pieced together to form a

timeline for each teacher. They included narrative summaries of each of the three original

categories described above. They also included an additional feature of the talk—the

accounts that were shared and taken up by the group. In order to make sense of “the

what " being discussed, 1 used accounts of science objects—that is, how students, the

teacher (or textbook) pieced together observations, patterns, and models. I considered

accounts to be mainly about observations (e.g., the glass gets wet) or explanations (e.g.,

the glass sweats or water condenses on the glass) or combinations of the two (e.g., the

glass is getting wet because it is sweating). I used the term emerging accounts to describe

38

the narratives and stories that students have about their experiences that do not use
scientific knowledge and discourse. I use the term scientific accounts to refer to those that
adhere to scientific standards for the way observations, patterns, and models are used to
explain and predict. The term transitional accounts was used to describe those that reflect
bits and pieces or emerging and scientific accounts.

Theoretical saturation. For each teacher I reached theoretical saturation for
dialogic indicators and discussion norm indicators that occurred during classroom
discussions, meaning there were no new major insights emerging from the data. At this
point I made minor adjustments to the organization of the emerging categories and
subcategories for these indicators. The goal of this study was not to reach theoretical
saturation in terms of the categories of science practices, socioscientific norms, and
accounts, namely because I focused mostly on whole group discussions as opposed to
looking at practices across different community activities. Instead the goal was to make
sense of dialogic discussions, and then identify the relationship between discourse and
student participation with practices guided by norms. In Part 2 of the results section, I
selected examples of socioscientific norms to discuss these relationships, but the selected
examples do not reflect saturation of science practices and norms in these two

classrooms.

Criteria for Evaluation and Validation

Reliability and validity. Reliability and validity were achieved through the use of
five techniques: I) triangulation of multiple sources of data, 2) constant comparison
method and negative case analysis, 3) member checking, including teacher review of the

emerging results (Merriam, 1998), 4) inter-rater reliability, in which an independent

39

researcher coded 10% of the data for dialogic and discussion norm indicators using the
emerging coding book in Appendix A, and 5) comparison of emerging findings to the
existing research literature.

In using Strauss and Corbin’s (1998) method of constant comparison, my analysis
involved multiple cycles of generation and revision to emerging categories (i.e., open and
axial coding). As new categories emerged, they were continually compared to existing
categories and existing data. When the emerging findings for each teacher became more
complete, I focused on documenting examples that contradicted the emerging theory.
That is, I conducted a thorough negative case analysis.

The results were shared with both teachers describing the findings from their
classrooms. The teachers were encouraged to review the results and given opportunities
to elaborate if they felt the results were inadequate or misleading. Both teachers
responded positively to the emerging findings, and also provided additional information
about their use of classroom discussion. During the results and discussion, suggestions
that occurred during the member checking process will be considered.

An independent researcher not familiar with the literature on dialogism or familiar
with research on science teaching and learning coded 10% of the data (e.g., roughly 1
observation per teacher) using the coding book in Appendix A. The independent
researcher coded only dialogic indicators and discussion norms, as the analysis of science
practices and socioscientific norms involved more than the 10% of data being used for
reliability checking. The initial reliability was 82% agreement. Most of the disagreement
occurred around distinguishing between authentic teacher questions and questions that

attempted to elicit evaluation from students. The researchers discussed the differences

40

and minor revisions were made until both agreed 100% that the dialogic and discussion
norm indicators did in fact capture what occurred during discussions.

In the results sections, I have tried to make connections to the existing research
base whenever possible as a way of building a theory about dialogism in science
discussions that is not only grounded in these two classrooms, but also recognizes
relevant studies in the existing literature. Therefore, the following sections represent both

findings and discussion of those findings.

41

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

Introduction to Findings

The goal of this study was to develop a theory of how dialogic discourse supports
student participation in science. What emerged from the data were complex relationships
involving discourse, norms, practices, and accounts. Because of the complexity of the
results, I present my findings in two sections. In the first section 1 illustrate the emerging
theory about dialogic discourse during discussions, and the central role discourse plays in
creating space for student participation. 1 ground my claims about dialogic discourse with
classroom examples, and consider how my claims relate to current research in science
education. As I clarify the emerging theory, I make the case that attention to discourse is
critical if one wants to analyze what is afforded to classroom communities when this type
of talk is supported.

In the second section I explain how dialogic discourse created space for students
to participate with science practices, and how the teachers used discussions as a way of
establishing socioscientific norms. I will illustrate the emergence of practices and norms
using briefcase studies focusing on validation of observations and validation of
explanations using evidence. I also consider meta-level discussions about the use of
scientific and informal models and the need for consensus. I explain how the teachers
encouraged their students to move toward more sophisticated scientific accounts in terms
of discourse and practice, and how socioscientific norms influenced the process of

transforming those accounts.

42

PART I: DIALOGIC INDICATORS AND NORMS FOR DISCUSSION

Dialogic Indicators were markers for instances where discourse exhibited features
of true dialogue. In developing these indicators 1 used line-by-line analysis, but also
considered how dialogue played out over a sequence of talk. Dialogic indicators were
grouped by similarities in how they influenced the direction and type of talk supported.
With dialogic indicators grouped in such a way, the norms that helped sustain
participation during discussions were mapped onto the indicators (as shown in Table 2).

[Insert Table 2 here]

The discussion norms were patterns in the way the group made use of the
contributions shared during discussion, which represented the standards and expectations
for regular participation. In Table 2, Diversity in Accounts, Linking Accounts, and Meta-
Talk were broad categories that linked similar norms in terms of their purposes during

discussions.

Diversity of A ccounts

During discussions, there was often a diverse set of accounts under consideration
by the group. Eliciting multiple accounts from students not only provided more
opportunities for more students to participate during discussions (and to share their naive

accounts), but it also communicated value for what students had to say.

Multiple Accounts were Elicited.

Gaining access to the floor during discussions can be challenging for students in
classrooms using monologic discourse activities, especially given the limited opportunity

and time students participate in talking during these activities. In recitation, students gain

43

the floor when they already know the right answer (i.e., teacher calling on students with
hands raised). Access might also be granted to students not paying attention (i.e., by
calling on students Off-task), so even though these students are given Opportunities to
participate, they are not prepared to do so. Inevitably, recitation creates a place for “smart
kids” to display what they know for the teacher and further exacerbates the disparities in
student participation. Students that do not know the right answer are spectators during
recitation, and may be further disadvantaged because they have limited involvement in
what is occurring in the classroom. It is important to point out, however, that
participation during discussion is not only about those who are doing the talking, but
rather involves both actively speaking or listening during the discussion (Cazden, 2001 ).
Sometimes “quiet” students may be actively engaged in listening to what is talked about.
There are also times when the speaker’s participation is not fully realized if the speaker
cannot gain the attention of others in the discussion.

In the two classrooms in this study, discussions involved the consideration Of
more than one account. At times the teachers elicited ten or more contributions from
students. For example, during Ms. Christensen’s “science talks”, each student had an
opportunity to share their account with the group, and also an Opportunity to question or
comment on another student’s account. Likewise, in Ms. Hocking’s classroom students
used “talking chips” early in the year as a way to distribute the speaking responsibilities
throughout the classroom. In this way, gaining and holding the floor was made easier for
students who did not already know the “right” answer, or who were hesitant to speak out
during discussions. The teachers did not want “quiet” students or “confused” students to

be left out Of the conversation.

44

Authentic teacher questions and open invitations were not the only ways Ms.
Christensen and Ms. Hocking elicited multiple accounts from students, or the only way
students gained access to the floor. Rather these dialogic indicators (or markers in the
discourse), represented important ways the teacher communicated to students that the
floor was Open to anyone wanting to share their ideas, even if the ideas were speculative,
and that the teacher expected more than one student to contribute. Both discourse moves
were considered dialogic indicators because they elicited talk from students that was not
pre-scripted, and supported the emergence of multiple voices.

Authentic teacher questions, as previously discussed by Nystrand (1997) and
Gallas (1995) are those that do not have “right” or “wrong” answers. They are questions
that elicit a variety Of possible responses. For example, when the teacher asked the
question, “Does anybody have anything else to add?” she communicated that the floor
was still Open, especially to those students who wanted to “add” something new to the
discussion. As Ms. Hocking explained in her interview, “[The] nature of the questions
that I ask is how, without giving away, without short-circuiting their thinking process,
because I don’t want to short-circuit it, I want to encourage it and motivate it, and if I ask
close-ended questions, then that cuts Off the discussion in their heads and in the groups.”
Ms. Hocking was clearly conscious of her use Of Open and close-ended questions, and
how these questions influenced the participation Of her students.

Maintaining an Open invitation was equally important because it served as an
explicit reminder to students that the teacher expected high participation from everyone
during discussion. Explicit invitations to participate also helped to distribute the speaking

responsibilities (and access to the floor) to a larger number Of students, as Opposed to

45

engaging only those who always had something to say (Hadjioannou, 2007). Importantly,
as Ms. Hocking clarified in her member check, the Open invitations was not necessarily
and “anything goes” session—that is, students’ contribution needed to be focused, at least
to some extent, on the topic being discussed.

The following excerpt from a classroom discussion reveals several dialogic
indicators. The underlined text represents moves (and overall patterns) in the way Ms.
Christensen encouraged students to contribute diverse accounts to the conversation using

authentic questions and Open invitations:

Water on the Plastic

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Is there anything else that you want to say? Anything
different that you have to say than what’s already been said? Melody, you
need tO pay attention. You need to pay attention to the discussion. Anything
different? (Pause) Okay. How about investigation two? And that was the one
with the dishes of water? And we had some over in the sun, some under the
sink. _W_hat happened? Allen. what happened?

ALLEN: Well one- the plastic - without plastic over there [points to window]-
It was completely dry. And then the one that was in there [points under sink]
had a little water in it. And the one with the plastic over there [in window] had
water on the top Of the plastic. And the water in that one [under sink with
plastic] did too.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Okay. Does anyone h_a_ve_ anything to add to that?
Anything different than what Allen said? Julia?

JULIA: Like when he said that the one with the plastic on it, the water was on
top of the plastic- it was there because it tried to evaporate, but it just basically
was stopped inside.

MS.CHRISTENSEN: What do you think? Did you hear what she said, Alice?
ALICE: NO.

MS.CHRISTENSEN: Okay. Nice and loud.

46

JULIA: I said that the one that had the — the ones that had the plastic on it-
That the water was on the plastic is the water on the plastic because it tried to
evaporate, but plastic was in the way.

As Ms. Christensen’s class discussed Observations Of their investigations, she
encouraged them to contribute diverse ideas, not only by asking open-ended questions
(“What happened”), but also by explicitly calling for new or different ideas from
students, with Allen’s and Julia’s accounts representing substantially different types of
responses to the question. Allen’s account was about Observations he made during the

investigation, while Julia’s account was an attempt to explain those Observations using

the idea Of evaporation.

Student Accounts were Valued.

Ms. Christensen and Ms. Hocking communicated (explicitly and implicitly) that
they valued what students had to say, especially when students’ ideas were different from
other accounts on the floor. Valuing students’ accounts not only supports student
engagement in discussions (Mohan, Lundeberg, & Pressley, in revision), but it also
allows teachers to access students’ prior knowledge, or what Gallas (1995) referred to as
accessing the “windows into children’s thinking”. In their interviews, both teachers
acknowledge the importance of knowing about what students brought to the class. For
example, Ms. Christensen explained in her interview that “student wisdom” was an
important consideration for her orchestration Of discussions:

Kids don’t believe what you say most Of the time, but believe what they believe;
what they know, and what they know may or may not be what they teacher is
saying. If they’re not going to believe what I say and they really have much more
authority with each other, so I guess [I’m] kind Of helping them- helping the

conversation to go in the way that I want it to go, but coming from them because
again, they have a lot Of wisdom that they just need to put out on the table.

47

Science teachers face the challenge of honoring what students bring to their class,
while simultaneously steering students toward more sophisticated scientific accounts,
which oftentimes means the one best explanation or “right” answer. They also face the
challenge of not only figuring out the naive conceptions (or misconceptions) students
bring to the classroom, but also how to incorporate those conceptions into the discussion
alongside scientific accounts, and eventually when and how the class will reconcile the
two. This involves reconciling the teachers’ intentions and expectations with the life
experiences Of children in the classroom (Gallas, 1995).

Misconceptions can be problematic for teachers, but as Ms. Christensen alluded
to, students strongly believe their emerging accounts and it is difficult to convince them
Otherwise, especially if they do not recognize how substantially different those accounts
are from scientific accounts (e. g., evaporated water goes into clouds versus evaporated
water condenses to form clouds). At times, the scientific explanations needed to convince
students are beyond the scope Of the course (e.g., scientific models that explain patterns
such as condensation, evaporation, refraction may not be appropriate for upper
elementary students). Ms. Christensen explained in her interview that balance needed tO
occur between honoring students’ experiences and giving them a reason to move toward
more scientific accounts:

Kids learn by their experiences; by what they see in the world. There’s a lOt of
input, and for me to just be one piece Of input, if I were to give them just
information, I guess I think kids don’t have that kind of faith in what one person
says, or what an adult says. They have to have that conversation. It has to have
all those layers [writing, reading, talking with multiple voices at play], and it
has to be complex. And it has to have places where it challenges what they’re

saying- what they’re thinking- so that they can either say, ‘well I don’t think so’
or, ‘I do think so’.

48

Ms. Christensen believed scientific accounts (i.e., accounts from her or the
textbook) represented one voice in the conversation, with emerging accounts from
students representing the larger majority Of what was on the table. She thought, however,
that at some point the emerging accounts had to be questioned—there had to be “places
where it challenges what they’re saying.” Ms. Christensen clarified her position during
the interview using a specific instance when Kamal came up to her after class to ask what
she thought about the question they were discussing:

I happen to think it’s the sun that drives it [water cycle]; the heat energy. And
once the heat energy enters in, that puts it all in motion. But Kama] did ask me
what my ideas were. I may tell them at some point what I think. I wondered why
he wanted to know what 1 thought—if it’s the right answer because I don’t want
to give him the right answer. But I’m willing to give him my Opinion, as just one
Of the Opinions on the table.

For Ms. Christensen, the introduction Of scientific accounts from her or through
the textbook was not about giving students the “right” answer, but rather about when and
how scientific accounts were introduced to students. The challenge for her as a science
teacher was to figure out when scientific accounts should be treated “as just one Of the
Opinions on the table” and when they should be used to directly challenge emerging
accounts.

Both teachers used students’ emerging accounts (and vernacular language) as
starting points in discussions. Ms. Hocking explained in her interview that students’
ideas, even those that were “wrong” or naive, had their place in discussions:

I think that they need to hear people making sense of what they’re seeing. They
need to hear explanations, whether they’re right or wrong, initially because that
sort Of discussion—entertaining back and forth, entertaining ideas and

suggestions, and ideas and Opinions—I think that’s an important part of it—the
give and take. But I also think that during the discussion if we’re aiming toward

something, for instance, the transparent, translucent, opaque activity, I’m going to
be sort Of corralling them toward these final working definitions, so out Of the

49

discussion I’m hoping will arise an [scientific] explanation for the phenomena
that they were exploring.

Besides explicitly communicating value for student accounts, the teachers showed
value for what students had to say by taking up their questions and allowing their new
ideas to shift discussions. Similar to what Nystrand and his colleagues found, student
questions led to what they referred to as “dialogic spells”, or extended episodes of
dialogic discussion (Nystrand, Wu, Gamoran, Zeiser, & Long, 2003). For example,

consider the following discussion from Ms. Christensen’s class:

Ice in Antarctica
DEVON: How come there’s water in Antarctica that’s not frozen?
JACKSON: Question book.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Yeah, that’s a good one. That’s one I bet you could
get on the Internet. Tell us where that water would be that’s not frozen. Is it
out on the surface? Where is it? Somebody who knows something about
Antarctica, where is that water that’s not frozen? Thomas? Manuel? Where is
that water that’s not frozen?

MANUEL: In the ocean or under some other ice.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: GO put that in the question bOOk. Good question.
What do you think Clarice?

CLARICE: This is the sun, and this is the water- and — this is all melting
down here. And then the sun is shining on this part (points to drawing). And
it’s all the way over here. But it’s not — it’s still shining on this, but it’s not
shining as much as it in on this part.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: What do other people think about that? What dO other
people think about that? Thomas, what do you think?

THOMAS: I think that the water is not frozen under because — well, it is

probably not solid, but if you go farther down, it’s still very cold — very
freezing, but it’s not all the way frozen.

50

CLARICE: Maybe because —

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Do you have an idea Of why that would be? (to
Thomas)

CLARICE: I have an idea. Maybe because when it’s still shining on ice and
everything, all the small whatever comes to the top, but it can’t go under
because it’s not- (doesn’t finish)

MS.CHRISTENSEN: You know, this is an interesting idea. Keep your hands
up. This is an interesting idea, because I think it’s the same thing that you
talked about when you talked about the mountains. That there’s an uneven
heating of the earth - of the surface of the earth. So that’s a very interesting
thought, isn’t it? What do you think, Javan?

JAVAN: I don’t know how to explain it. Well, kind Of- I don’t know. It’s not

like I do disagree with Clarice- but I also agree with Thomas. But I can’t
explain it. Can I come and show you up on the board?

Embedded in this transcript are numerous dialogic indicators, making it clear the
discussion following Devon’s question was similar to dialogic spells observed by
Nystrand et al., (2003). In fact, the discussion illustrates the complexity Of dialogue
around eliciting diverse accounts. It began with a student question (i.e., How comes
there’s water in Antarctica that’s not frozen), which was taken up by the teacher. By
taking up Devon’s question, Ms. Christensen communicated to everyone that she took
student questions seriously. She then asked an authentic and open-ended question to the
class (i.e., Where is the water that’s not frozen?) that modified the original question by
Devon. Ms. Christensen also indicated she valued students’ ideas when she asked,
“Somebody who knows something about Antarctica, where is that water that’s not
frozen?” By asking this question, Ms. Christensen recognized students had something to
say in response to both Devon’s and her questions. Both questions led to diverse
responses from Clarice, Manuel, Thomas, and Javan. In her interview Ms. Christensen

explained that student questions were uniquely important in her classroom:

51

I think when they’re asking questions and looking for trying to make sense of all
this stuff, that’s when they’re really, really learning. SO the whole point Of them
asking questions is really important to me. Now how do I get them to do that? I
think I give them lots of opportunities to do that and then I value when they do
ask questions. I value their questions. One of the ways that I show I actually value
it and that encourages kids to ask questions is [I] don’t let kids laugh at other kids’
questions, and I expect that everyone is going to be listening. I expect them to ask
those questions loudly enough so that other people can hear. I mean I think if
there are kids who talk in soft voices and other kids can’t hear them and I allow
that to happen what I’m saying is your question is not important enough for
everybody to hear. So I want to make sure that everybody hears the question; that
it’s valued in the community- in the classroom- and that then we try to answer
them. I think that tells them it’s important to ask questions; we’re not going to just
let it go by.

An important emerging finding in this study is that not only did students’

questions have weight in shifting the course of discussion, but new student ideas were

another way for students to stimulate dialogic discourse. At times, students recognized

connections or contributed something new to the discussion that led to rich dialogue

around their contribution. Ms. Hocking explained in the interview that new student ideas

were often sources of creativity and curiosity she capitalized on in her classroom:

I think its important for them to know that if you see the idea and you go off on a
tangent you’re going to discover the light bulb (laughs), or whatever else. SO, I
think that in part I want them to be creative and I want them to be curious. I think
that if you constantly restrained them, you know, have constraints placed on them
where they have to follow a script where they have to do it the same as
everybody else in the room—you’re going to nip something in the bud.

 

For example, in Ms. Hocking’s class students were making Observations of a

roller coaster apparatus (though not explicitly labeled “roller coaster”) and trying to

explain what was happening. In the example below, Ellen contributed a comparison

between roller coasters and the apparatus, which Andrew questioned, leading eventually

to rich discussion around forces (i.e., gravity) and roller coasters.

52

Old-fashioned Roller Coasters
MS. HOCKING: What’s happening here?
BEN: The ball- the marble rolls down the slope and as it does it gains speed, and
eventually it has enough speed to overcome gravity, so when it goes in this swirl
it comes back, then up. The energy left goes up here and it stOps.
ANDREW: Hopefully stops.
MS. HOCKING: Okay, could somebody else add to what Ben said?
ELLEN: I think when it goes down like a roller coaster, if you don’t have a steep
enough hill to go down, then you don’t have enough time to even go over like
the ball-
ANDREW: Why a roller coaster?

ELLEN: I mean like if it’s like an Old-fashioned one, something where you get
pulled up like a wire and go like that-

MS. HOCKING: Yeah, that’s an interesting question because roller coasters are
built differently now than they used to be. The old-fashioned wooden roller
coaster, what was the force that powered it?

Ms. Hocking took up Ellen’s new idea about roller coasters (and Andrew’s
question for Ellen) to move the group toward talking about gravity, and how gravity
related to what they Observed on the apparatus. Ellen’s account was not necessarily a
question asked of the group, but rather a way for her to explain what she observed using
her prior knowledge about roller coasters. Andrew, however, was confused about the
connection being made until Ellen clarified that she meant “Old-fashioned” roller

coasters. The clarification served as a way for Ms. Hocking to bring in the idea of forces,

and gravity more specifically.

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Discussions in these classrooms depended a great deal on the diversity in accounts
being shared, both as a way of accessing what students’ already knew, and as a way to
stimulate rich discussion around the differences in those accounts (which will be
discussed further in the following section). Importantly, however, was that the discourse
observed in the examples above can be likened to what Burbules (1993) labeled as
“conversation” because the discourse was both divergent and inclusive. Indeed, much of
the discourse and accounts that held the floor were from students. It was not the case,
however, that the class never came to agreement or attempted to converge toward one
best explanation. At times the teachers had to be satisfied with not receiving closure at
the end of a lesson (Cazden, 2001). Despite allowing for greater diversity in accounts,
Ms. Hocking and Ms. Christensen also felt strongly that scientific accounts needed to be
used to challenge emerging accounts, and their responsibility was to help students
develop more scientifically sophisticated accounts. In the following section I will discuss

how the teachers accomplished this task during discussions.

Linking Accounts

An important characteristic Of dialogic discourse is that utterances in dialogue are
linked and what emerges from the dialogue is joint construction of meaning (Bakhtin,
1981). While dialogue may include diverse accounts from different members
participating in the conversation, the goal of dialogue is to work toward a shared
understanding, and eventually one that is transformed for personal use. As this process of
co-construction occurs, there needs to be a way for utterances to be linked and positioned.

In these two classroom, the process of linking utterances (or accounts) was observed

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through group members referencing and giving authorship to accounts, and by

positioning their own accounts in relation to others on the floor.

Accounts were Authored.

The teacher or students assigned authorship of accounts by referencing the
original contributor, often by name. For example, in the following transcript Ms. Hocking
elicited multiple accounts from students, and as students shared their accounts, she

revoiced what was said for the group, naming or referencing the author:

Penny and Jar Filled with Water

MS. HOCKING: Okay. So if light’s bouncing Off the penny all the time, how
come you can’t see it? That’s the big question. He {Andrew} says because you’re
looking through water. Sanjit, do you want to add to that?

SANJIT: I think because if the water takes the form of the Object, so maybe it
goes through the water and goes in different ways.

MS. HOCKING: Okay. Goes through the water, goes through different ways.
Tyler, you want to add something to what Sanjit said.

TYLER: I think it’s transparent, so it’s, like, a convex near, so when it - the light
goes through and hits the penny, as it comes out it gets all spread out.

MS. HOCKING: Okay, he’s [Tyler] comparing it to the convex mirror. Convex or
concave, which one?

TYLER: Convex.

MS. HOCKING: Convex, okay, so curved with the outer curve. Okay, so he says
he thinks it’s got something to do with the shape of the jar. The shape of the jar
somehow does something to the way the light behaves. Well, light can only travel
in a straight path, right? But we know with mirrors that it can change direction,
right?

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What was interesting about this transcript was that Ms. Hocking not only
referenced the author of the account, but she also allowed for Tyler to verify that she had
correctly understood his explanation.

By linking authors with their accounts, it allowed for members to track the way
accounts changed through the course of discussion. Ms. Christensen described this as a
process in which students have to commit (to some degree) to the accounts they share
with the group—students needed to formulated an account they felt was reasonable and
made sense in the context of what was being discussed. When sharing accounts,
“authors” were expected to defend their accounts if necessary. As the teacher, Ms.
Christensen maintained a record in which she tracked student accounts during discussion,
and at times she pointed out to students when they changed their accounts to have
students explain why they changed their account. For example, in the following transcript
Ms. Christensen pointed out to the class that Maria and Alisa had changed their accounts

since the previous lesson:

What Drives the Water Cycle- Part 1

MS.CHRISTENSEN: Okay, now I want to go back to our original question. I
want to refocus our discussion and hold on to the ideas. I wrote them down so we
wouldn’t lose those ideas. But I want to refocus our discussion on what is it that
makes- or what is it that drives the weather? What is it that drives the weather?
And I want to review a little bit about the notes that I took. You know what, if
you want to take notes on our discussion, then get your pencils ready, get your
papers ready. But there were some things that I had noticed about the discussion.
And that is that we had several peOple who had said that it was the sun that
drives the weather. We had a couple of people who had previously said it was the
air that drives the weather, and then changed their ideas. And that was Maria and
Alisa.

BEN: Wasn’t it what drives the water cycle?

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MS. CHRISTENSEN: What drives the water cycle, I’m son'y. Yes, you’re right.

Thank you. What drives the water cycle? And Maria and Alisa had changed their

ideas because before you had said the air. You changed your ideas to the sun,

that it was the sun that drives the water cycle. So let’s go back and refocus.

Tisha, I see that you also had changed your ideas so that you believed it was the

sun. But some people had other ideas and I want to talk about those too.

Ms. Christensen focused on instances in which students changed their accounts as

a way of initiating discussion. By assigning authorship to students’ accounts she was able
to track (for herself and the group) how those accounts changed throughout the
discussion, which helped to make sense of how the accounts were linked to the people
who generated them, and linked to each other. It is important to point out that while the
accounts were authored, the accounts reflected the voices of Others, so authorship did not

imply only an individual process of construction, but was also a reflection of what the

group had discussed.

Accounts were Positioned

In classrooms using recitation and other monologic forms of discourse, conflict
and tension in discourses is problematic, especially when the class is working toward one
best explanation—in this case scientific accounts. So, in classrooms using recitation,
emerging accounts may only get recognized as being “wrong” or “non-scientific”.
Differently, in these two classrooms there was a diverse set of accounts under
consideration, and conflict and tension between those accounts was used to stimulate rich
discussion.

In Ms. Christensen’s and Ms. Hocking’s classrooms, emerging accounts were
used as a resource for bringing out tension and conflict that occurred between the

discourse and knowledge students brought to the classroom, and the discourse and

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knowledge expected of them as they learned in a science classroom. Dialogic indicators
that signaled instances where the class negotiated this tension and conflict included the
teacher or students responding to accounts by either agreeing or disagreeing, or creating
alignment or Opposition between two or more accounts. The indicators, such as taking up
ideas and agreeing or disagreeing, marked instances where the developing dialogue was
not only responsive to what had been said previously, but the dialogue also showed the
class was trying to organize the accounts. The following example is a continuation from
the “What Drives the water cycle” excerpt above, and shows how students took up

previous accounts and either aligned or opposed those accounts:

What Drives the Water Cycle- Part 2

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Kamal, when we talked on Wednesday, can you remind
us what it was that you said drives the water cycle?

KAMAL: The water.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: The water drives the water cycle and I know there were a
couple of people who agreed with you. DO you want to tell us your idea again,
tell us your reason for saying that?

KAMAL: Because lots Of people said the sun, but if the sun doesn’t have
anything to evaporate, then like water— nothing could evaporate, so what’s the
point. (Long pause).

MS. CHRISTENSEN: What do other people think about that? David?

DAVID: He [Kamal] said that the water drives the water cycle so he means like-
so if the water vapor- he said like if the water didn’t evaporate and the sun makes
the water evaporate and condense it to precipitation.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Can you tell us more about that? I’m not sure. So were
you agreeing with Kamal, or are you disagreeing?

DAVID: Disagree.

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MS. CHRISTENSEN: Disagree. And tell us again, why?
DAVID: Because that’s if you don’t have any water to evaporate- if you don’t
have water then you don’t have the water cycle, because the water, it’s hard to

explain.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: It is hard to explain. Think you can help [to Ben]? GO
ahead.

BEN: Well, I kind of agree with David and I don’t agree with Kamal, but the

water IS the water cycle. The sun- you need the sun to evaporate the water.

Without the sun you can get like it can start in the clouds and condense, and can

precipitate, but it can’t re-evaporate- it stops right there because there’s no sun.

SO that adds to part Of it. The water is pretty much just the water cycle.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: What do other people think? Allen?

ALLEN: I kind of agree, and kind Of disagree. Cause without the sun the water

would freeze, and get very cold, we couldn’t survive, I think. And, but if there

wasn’t water, nothing would be able to evaporate.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: SO what is your idea about what drives the water cycle?

ALLEN: Now I think water and sun.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: What do other people think? How about someone who

hasn’t talked yet?

In this example, as well as the extended discussion in which it was embedded,

Ms. Christensen helped the class work toward identifying heat energy (or the sun) as
driving the water to cycle. Although the class later questioned the usefulness of the
question, and the different interpretations students had about the question, it was still one
that sparked rich discussion and debate between students. Students generally fell into one
Of three groups: those that identified the sun or heat energy as driving the water cycle,

those that identified water as driving the cycle, and those who could not label only one

“driver”.

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The original discussion of this question occurred as a “science talk” in which
every student in class had the opportunity to share their response to the question, and then
question other student responses. The excerpt above occurred when the class revisited the
original discussion focusing on instances where students disagreed or changed their
accounts.

In the first line, Ms. Christensen gave authorship to Kamal by asking, “can you
remind us what it was that you said.” She singled out Kamal because his account was
substantially different from the accounts of other students and the scientific account the
class was working toward. She also gave Kamal some degree of authority by saying, “I
know there were a couple of people who agreed with you,” naming Kamal as the leader
or spokesperson for his position. Kamal’s response, “Because lots of people said the sun”
created an opposition between his claim that water drives the water cycle and other
students’ claim that the sun drives the water cycle. Both David and Ben tried to justify
why they disagreed with Kamal’s account, whereas Allen saw some usefulness and
validity on both sides of the debate.

Ms. Christensen encouraged the students to position their accounts, for instance,
asking, “Can you tell us more about that? I’m not sure. So were you agreeing with
Kamal, or are you disagreeing?” The students, however, positioned themselves without
explicit calls from the teacher. By positioning the accounts, the class worked towards
converging on a smaller number of accounts to consider and identifying the key
disagreement between the accounts.

Positioning encouraged students to come to consensus, both as a matter of

convention (e. g., how things are labeled, defined, or categorized), and consensus about

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models with the most explanatory power. For example, in Ms. Hocking’s class the
students categorized materials in terms of how they interacted with light. Ms. Hocking
explained to the class that they needed to come to consensus in their groups (and as a
whole class) about the categorizations, and eventually how they defined the groups using
scientific labels of transparent, translucent, and opaque:
Light Interacting with Matter
MS. HOCKING: A consensus is sort of like a general agreement among most
pe0ple. So we can generally all agree. Okay, I want to get a sense of where

peOple’s groups are deciding to put things. Nick, where did your group decide to
put them? What’s the thing that lets through the most light according to your

group?

MS. HOCKING: Anange them into three distinct groups based on what they have
in common. You can have as many as one, two, or three things in a group.

SANJIT: Oh, I know. Transparent, translucent, and Opaque.
CHRIS: How about this one lets most Of the light. This one lets some of the light,
and then none.

During this activity, the students first tested and grouped materials in terms of
how they interacted with light. Then they decided the characteristics that best described
each group. Some students, such as Sanjit, had already encountered the words “opaque”,
“translucent”, and “transparent”, whereas other students had not. In such activities, the
diversity of accounts was limited and coming to consensus about groups of materials was
a matter of convention so that they group developed a joint understanding of the words,
and the materials in which those words describe.

At other times coming to consensus involved making decisions about which

models had the most explanatory power. For instance, in Ms. Christensen’s class, the

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students did not agree about “what drives the water cycle” and a lengthy discussion
ensued about whether or not they were actually disagreeing about the model in the first

place, and the importance of coming to consensus:

Consensus about What Drives the Water Cycle

MS. CHRISTENSEN: So what I want to do today, and I don’t want to take much
time to do this, I want to wrap up that discussion and when I say wrap up what I
mean is I want to come to some kind of consensus, if we can, on what it is that
drives the water cycle. And I think the main— the main disagreement that I heard
was at the end of our last discussion, which was on Friday, was Kamal was
saying that water is the driving force and that water has to be there for the sun to
evaporate it and so he held tightly to his idea that it was the water. And there
were several people that were talking to him, Ben being one who was saying that
it was, and I think Maria was the other, who had actually changed their ideas and
now were arguing that the sun is the driving force or the thing that drives the
water cycle. So, how do we come to some kind of consensus? How do we come
to a bringing together of our ideas? What do you think Ben?

BEN: Maybe the two can like argue it and try to decide what it is.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Okay, and how do you think we should do that? How do
you-

BEN: We could argue about what we disagree— we could go up to the board and
explain it to everybody and then maybe we can figure out what the other person
is saying and compare and contrast and make them understand-

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Okay so you’re trying to convince each other by drawing
and using words? Sounds like a good plan. So who would like to start off?

MS. CHRISTENSEN: I don’t think I realized or appreciated just exactly how
deeply you would think about it and how difficult and complicated the question
was. But as I’ve listened to your questions, I’ve come to feel that maybe there
really isn’t an answer. The reason that I asked the question in the first place, was
because in your book when it came to what we were reading, “the role of the
sun”, it said on page 79. You want to open up your book. “The role of the sun”,
and we read through this. I’m waiting for you to get your book opened up to
page 79. “Evaporation and condensation in earth’s atmosphere depends on the
heat energy of the sun. The sun heats up the water on the surface of lakes,

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rivers, oceans and even puddles. Water evaporates from all these sources adding
water vapor to the air. When the sun heats earth unevenly, either from place to
place, or from day to night, warm air cools and the water vapor condenses back
to liquid water. This movement of water from the surface of the air, surface of
the earth to the air and back to the surface is called the water cycle. What do
you think drives the water cycle?” And I thought that paragraph made it pretty
clear to me just what drove the water cycle. Now after having the discussion
that we’ve had, I see that it’s much more complicated than that, and maybe the
question is not nearly as important as the discussion that you’ve had about it. Do
we need to come up with what drives the water cycle? Do you think we need to
come to a consensus on that?

Coming to consensus in this discussion was initially about developing some sort
of agreement or shared understanding of a scientific account of water cycling (and the
role of heat energy in water cycling processes). Ms. Christensen started the discussion
setting up different “sides” or positions that had been shared in response to the question.
But the discussion was also about where the disagreement was occurring: was it a matter
of interpreting the question differently, such as Kamal interpreting the question as “what
is the most important thing to the water cycle”, or were students truly disagreeing about a
model for water cycling, and the role heat energy plays in water cycling processes? A
third layer to the discussion was a meta-level question about the importance of coming to
consensus, and having enough evidence to participate in this process. By having this
discussion with students, Ms. Christensen not only supported the discussion norm of
positioning ideas, but she also emphasized her goal for discussions was to have students
come to agreement, and that she wanted students to have enough evidence to do that.

Other markers in the discourse that showed the class was trying to link and
position accounts were instances where individuals and the group evaluated accounts on

the floor. While calls for evaluation often occurred as open-ended teacher questions (e.g.,

What do you think about what Kamal said?), by calling for students to evaluate each

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other’s accounts, authority was given to students. At times, the evaluations occurred as
class votes (e.g., How many peOple agree? How many people disagree? How many aren’t
sure?) By allowing students to engage in the evaluation process, they were required to
make decisions about why they did or did not agree, and to explain their decisions using
evidence or some form of justification. For example, in the following three utterances
Ms. Hocking encouraged students during discussions not only to make a decision, but to
justify their choices with evidence:

Example I: So she says if I move the jar towards that end of the table, the cork

is going to move to the opposite end. Now why? What evidence do you have

there? What’s your reasoning? What do you think?

Example 2: You think the jar is first. Chris, do you know why? Can you defend
that decision? Why did you guys think that?

Example 3: Exactly the same. Okay, now I need some justification for why you
put them where you put them.

Ms. Hocking also wanted her students to be discerning and critical about when
they chose to agree or disagree. As she explained in her interview, she did not want her
students to disagree without reason to do so, or to align themselves with “smart” kids
without questioning the accounts from those students:

I need to nudge them toward what’s been tested and proven true by scientists, so
I don’t want them just going out on a limb and disagreeing because they don’t
see it. I want them to be able through experiences that l craft, in which they can
discover that yes indeed this is the case... I want them to become
discriminating, so that they don’t always assume that the smartest kid in the
group has it. Because oftentimes one person will come in center stage and say,
“well this is what I think” and everybody else will jump on board without
questioning it. So I want [them] to question.

While Ms. Christensen and Ms. Hocking recognized that students bring diverse

accounts to the classroom, they also had goals for identifying the inadequacy of emerging

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accounts, and use conflict between accounts to support the class in converging toward a
scientific account. In this way they not only engaged their students in divergent and

critical talk, such as the debate observed in Ms. Christensen’s classrooms, but they also
engaged students in convergent and critical talk characteristic of inquiry and consensus-

making (Burbules, 1993).

Talking about Talk

The ability to discuss does not come naturally for many students, especially given
that students have little practice doing so in schools. Ms. Christensen and Ms. Hocking
explicitly talked about talk with their students, focusing on the listening and speaking
responsibilities of group members. They emphasized that discussions, either as a whole
class, in small groups, or conversations with peers were an important part of learning.
While the listening and speaking responsibilities were not necessarily markers for
dialogic discourse themselves, they illustrated the expectations of normative participation
in during discussion.

Ms. Christensen reminded her class during discussions that she expected them to
actively listen and be thoughtful about what was said:

Expectations for Discussion

You know, I forgot to go over the procedures or the expectations for when we’re
talking in groups. So I’m going to go over them right now. Because I see that
some people have forgotten. When someone else is talking, you want to make
sure that you listen to them when they’re talking. You want to make sure that
you’re being a good listener. And if someone makes a comment, says something,
you’re going to talk about their ideas. You’re not going to talk about a person.
You’re not going to make a comment or say something about the person. You’re
going to talk about the ideas. We’re going to talk about lot of ideas. And you
need to accept other people’s ideas. Questioning them is fine, but you do need to

listen to them, and try to understand what it is that they’re saying. If don’t
understand what they’re saying, then you’re going to ask questions, to help you

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understand what they’re saying. Okay. SO now that we’ve gone over that, got
that refreshed in your mind, you need to make sure that you’re being a good
listener, ready to participate in the discussion. . .You need to listen. Ask yourself
questions. Ask the class questions, so that you can understand it. That’s how you
learn, by asking yourself questions, by asking other people questions, by getting
ideas, thinking “does that make sense to me?”

For Ms. Christensen listening was an active process, in which students were
expected to continually question themselves (e.g., Does that make sense to me?) and
develop questions for their peers. Ms. Christensen also expected students to talk loudly so
that everyone in the room could hear (e.g., “Talk so they can hear you. That’s your
responsibility”).

Ms. Hocking also expected high participation of students in terms of both
listening and speaking. She expressed concern in her interview that students did not have
enough practice articulating their ideas in schools, and that discussion, along with
writing, were important activities for helping students articulate and formalize their ideas:

They don’t know how to use the language to explain what they are seeing. In
part it’s because they don’t have a complete understanding of it. But also even if
they can show it to you, they can’t translate what they are seeing into words on
the page, but also they sometimes can’t explain it orally. So for me that’s one of
the toughest, toughest things in science—the communication piece for them. . .I
guess I want them to be able to be articulate in explaining not just science
phenomena, but articulate in explaining their positions, their ideas, their
Opinions, and part of that comes from being able to observe and being able to
explain and articulate what it is that you see and what you know.

Ms. Hocking expected students to also listen carefirlly and to question each
other’s accounts, as part of her goal for helping students become more discerning
and critical during discussion. She modeled for students during discussions how to
write explanations, how to read science texts carefully, and how to be

metacognitive during discussion by asking questions of oneself (e.g., “Okay, so as a

note to myself, I might say, ‘From side view it’s gone; penny not visible.’ I’m not

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writing too many verbs here. I’m keeping it pretty basic”). She also felt that
supporting students in articulating their ideas, both orally and in writing, was one of

her toughest challenges.

Challenges to Participating in Dialogic Discourse
During the interviews, both teachers brought up interesting issues about the
challenges they faced in orchestrating productive discussions. The challenges generally
revolved around balancing the voice of the teacher or textbook with the voice of students.
Challenges also emerged around issues of time and curricular goals, and when and how
to incorporate students’ unpredictable questions. A final issue emerged around how

teachers used and integrated writing and talking activities.

Balancing Teacher and Student Voices

In classrooms using monologic discourse activities the teacher and textbook
control the discourse—an authoritative discourse—and the teacher takes the role of
evaluator of what counts as scientific (or “right”) versus what does not count.

Both Ms. Christensen and Ms. Hocking viewed themselves as more than
evaluators. They believed their job was to monitor the pace and content of the discussion,
helping the class get back on track if needed, and helping certain students gain the floor
(i.e., facilitate the discussion). They also believed they needed to help students make
connections and position themselves within the discussion. As facilitators this involved
managing the “verbal traffic” of the discussions (Cazden, 2001). In her interview, Ms.
Christensen explained her perceived role in discussions:

I see myself as the facilitator and that is to move the conversation along. To make

sure we don’t get bogged down with stories. To make sure everybody has a
chance to get there ideas out... even though it may appear that we ramble around,

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I do have a pathway that I’m trying to get them down. I’ll use an analogy. I’ve got
the pathway. I’m letting them put the bricks down on the pathway, so they’re
building, but I have a direction that I want to go with the discussion and certain
things that I want to get out. And we don’t always get out what I want us to get
out, and sometimes we get sidetracked. Like the sleet discussion was a sidetrack,
and it was just way too interesting to abandon. When I hear something like that I
think its almost exciting because I think here’s a chance to kind of fix up, explore,
or take apart, and pick at something that I know someone in here has information
about. I know there’s someone in here who can either reason it out or has read
something about it. And so I guess I see my job at that point is to slow the
conversation down so that we can do that exploring of the idea and to give kids
who may have read something or seen something, or watched a video, or
something that has that piece of information, or can help someone else
understand. My job is to make sure that we slow it down, so they can do their job.

Facilitating discussion, as opposed to controlling discussion, was a challenging
task for the teachers, especially when they had a “pathway” and “goal” to make progress
toward. It involved carefully balancing their own voice with the voice of students, and
relinquishing the floor so that students talked to one another, rather than filtering their
ideas through the teacher. Gallas (1995) described this process as bringing the student
voice to the foreground, while silencing the teacher (at least to some degree). The
teachers, however, retained the responsibility of helping students to make sense of what

each other was saying. The following example illustrates how Ms. Christensen facilitated

discussion in her classrooms, directing students to talk with one another:

Comparing Investigations and Weather

MS. CHRISTENSEN: What does it have to do with clouds and the weather? Let’s
have volunteers who have not talked today. Kamal? We haven’t heard from you
today. What does this have to do with the weather and have to do with clouds?
What do you have? What did you write down?

KAMAL: Well weather — when it’s snowing outside, it’s always cold, and when
we did the experiment, it was cold in the glass?

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STUDENTS: What? What did he say?

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Okay. So the temperature —. If you have something to say,
raise your hand. ILmu have a question for Kamal. Alisa?

ALISA: I still don’t know how that has to do with weather.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: What does it have to do with weather? So your question to
Kamal is what does it have to do with weather? You’re not understanding it?
_Vfliat would you say to her. Kamal?

 

KAMAL: Like when it’s snowing, it’s always cold. And so is the glass when the
ice melts it.

Ms. Hocking also thought students needed Opportunities to talk to one another,
and her role was to facilitate that dialogue. Although she expressed concern that she was
too involved and controlling of the dialogue, she also stepped back from the conversation

to let students talk to each other:

Speed and Getting Around the Loop

MS. HOCKING: Colt, what’s your question? What do you want to ask? Maybe
people can answer it for you.

COLT: Well, you just answered it.

MS. HOCKING: Speak up so we can hear you.

COLT: You guys just answered it. I wanted to know what would happen if you
pushed it from the other side and if it would gain enough speed to go around this
loop.

BRIAN: No, if it did gain enough speed to go around the loop-

CHRIS: It would just go around the loop and fall right down.

BRIAN:: Then it would it would have to go up this slope, but it would not have
enough energy left over. It would barely get over there.

CHRIS: It doesn’t have enough speed because this isn’t steep enough.

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One of the issues that emerged with facilitating discussions was deciding when
hands did or did not need to be raised. By asking students to raise their hands, the teacher
was placed in a position of authority and control because she decided who would gain the
floor. At times, however, students also led discussions by calling on peers who had
questions for them. Deciding how students gain the floor, whether through hand raising,
talking chips, or other means was problematic when teachers wanted to be facilitators,
participants, or even spectators to the ensuing discussion. Ms. Christensen explained in
her interview that her ideal conversation would be one in which she was able to
participate, but not necessarily lead:

In my ideal conversation what I do is I hand the conversation over to them, so
that I can withdraw from it because I think they know what they know and don’t
know, and they have the intelligence in this class to help each other learn. I guess
I think they have all the intelligence they need; they have all the questions; they
can discuss with each other and that’s what I want them to do. I want them to
form that community and respect for each other, by listening and really hearing
what they’re saying. I want them to take control of that conversation, so that I’m
still back there listening and if we get off track I can get them back on track.
Those are the best conversations for me—when they’re talking to each other and
I’m a participant rather than the one who is directing it.

The description of Ms. Christensen’s ideal conversation demonstrates the
challenges teachers faced when trying to orchestrate discussion in which students had
much more control as compared to recitation. How do teachers honor students’ wisdom
and “hand the conversation over to them”, while simultaneously accomplishing the
curricular goals? It is important to point out that no matter how much stepping back the
teachers did during a conversation, a power asymmetry still remained (Edwards &
Mercer, 1987). The students naturally tended to filter their contributions through the

teachers, so that the pattern of dialogue continued to follow a teacher-student pattern as

opposed to student-student pattern. There were instances where the students lead and

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controlled discussions, and even called on peers to ask questions, but the student-student
dialogue did not occur without teacher prompting and teacher facilitation. The key to
balancing teacher and students’ voices was how much control the teacher had, and when
and how the scientific, or authoritative voice, entered the conversation. There was no
doubt that at some point the teachers would need to introduce a scientific account—or
take on the authoritative voice. As Bransford, Brown, and Cooking (2004) explained,
even in constructivist classrooms teachers tell students the “right” information or story at
some point. The when and how differentiates whether the classroom is constructivist or
didactic. As Ms. Christensen alluded to, students had the intelligence to be able to
compare accounts, especially comparing scientific and emerging accounts. Yet, they
needed the teacher to introduce more sophisticated accounts (to challenge their thinking)
and to help structure activities, especially discussions, in ways that helped them position
and critique those accounts. Therefore, while these discussions are more dialogic in
nature compared to recitation, they should be viewed as examples of teacher-led
dialogism.

Making progress toward adOpting scientific accounts and discourse was the
primary goal for these teachers. The process of making this happen required students to
have awareness of discourses (and differences between discourses and accounts) (Moje et
al., 2001) and to make compromises by accepting new discourse when one’s vernacular
discourse was limited (Gee, 2004b).

The teachers supported students in being metacognitively aware of language. One
way the teachers did this was by encouraging students to pay careful attention to the

meaning of words and how they were used in the classroom. Because science uses

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specialized language (Bazennan, 1988; Duschl et al., 2007; Palincsar, Anderson, &
David, 1993; Shanna & Anderson, 2007) and the scientific register is replete with words
that have very specific meanings (Lemke, 1990), understanding the meaning of words
and how they are pieced together is incredibly important to acquiring scientific discourse.
In other words, learning how to do science is not just memorizing a vocabulary list, but
knowing how to put those words together to build scientific accounts.

Dialogic discourse was critical for identifying instances when words were being
used appropriately and inappropriately. It provided opportunities for the class to develop
shared meanings about scientific words (e.g., “What do you mean by evaporation”), and
how words were pieced together to form accounts (“Water vapor goes up into clouds”
versus “Water vapor condenses to form clouds”). In the following transcript Ms.

Christensen’s class considered how molecules were related to water:

Molecules Make Up Water

MS. CHRISTENSEN: The question was - we talked about molecules and what
molecules have to do with the evaporation. But what do molecules have to do
with water vapor, condensation—all those things?

CARTER: Well, this is an idea. Maybe as the wategoes through the cycle.
maybe the molecule does. too. Like if the water evaporates. maybe the molecules

may evaporate.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Hmm. What do other people think about that? Lesley?

LESLEY: I think the molecules have to do with water and water has to do with
water vapor and condensation and all that.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Can you explain how?

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Because like molecules are in water and so that’s how they
connect. And then from the molecules in the water- molecules- oh dang-

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Molecules and water, they go together; and then water and condensation and all
that are like —I don’t know.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Okay. You want to add something, Allen?

ALLEN: I thought molecules made up water—

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Okay

ALLEN: That’s what made water.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Okay. So if I ask you to go to the board and draw a droplet
of water and what you would see under a very, very powerful microscope, would

you do that for us, Allen?

ALLEN: Yeah- Sure (student goes to board). You want me to draw a droplet?

Both Carter and Lesley had accounts that molecules are in water, while Allen
explained that molecules made up water. This example showed how slight nuances in
language indicated substantially different meanings (and different accounts). Careful
attention to language and words was important because it served as a way of identifying
key differences, which were then used coming to consensus. While Carter and Lesley had
encountered a scientific account about water molecules from their books, they had not
reconciled it with their emerging accounts. Allen, on the other hand, had adOpted the
scientific account of molecules.

A challenge for Ms. Christensen and Ms. Hocking was to decide when the slight
nuances in language were indications of substantially different accounts, and when they
were examples of students talking about the same account using slightly different words.
The teachers probed and asked questions about the meaning of words as one way to deal
with this challenge. For example, when talking about reflection, it became clear to Ms.

Hocking that students did not have a shared understanding of the word:

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What’s a Reflection?
HEATHER: Well, if it doesn’t reflect- wait, it does reflect.
MS. HOCKING: Does it reflect?
HEATHER: Yeah.
MS. HOCKING: How so? Show us what you mean.

HEATHER: Like see? There’s like a little reflection thingy. (demonstrates with
flashlight)

MS. HOCKING: What’s a reflection? I guess that’s maybe what we need to clear
up. What is a reflection?

CHRIS: A mirror image of something.
MS. HOCKING: A mirror image of something?

HEATHER Or it’s kind of like a reflection of like maybe it’s called light
reflection.

MS. HOCKING: Maybe it’s called light reflection. Well, maybe it is. This is really
interesting.

Heather and Chris had assigned different meanings to the word “reflection”,

which prevented them from agreeing or developing an explanation. The teachers and

students had to be attentive to how language was used so they could develop what Paul

Cobb and his colleagues have identified as a “taken-as-shared” meaning for accounts and

objects (e.g., Cobb, Stephan, McClain, & Gravemeijer, 2001; Yackel & Cobb, 1996).

Attention to language not only occurred in how students used words, but also how

words were used in texts read during class. While reading from texts, Ms. Christensen

told students to listen and write down words to talk about:

Okay, good. I want you to listen as I read the book about — listen for words, listen
for sentences that are going to help you understand those words that we started

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talking about yesterday. We started talking about evaporation, precipitation,
condensation, and there were other words that we had talked about. You know,
we’ll run across them in the reading. I want you to listen for those words and then
I want you to write those words down so that we can talk about it.
A potential challenge for students in making sense of scientific words is that
sometimes meaning of those words may be different from meaning in everyday uses of

the word. Devon, for example, had developed a meaning of the word evaporation that

was substantially different from how it was being used in science class:

Meaning of Evaporation
MS. CHRISTENSEN: What do you mean evaporating?

THOMAS: Cause like the water molecules or something goes- go into the- goes
up- I don’t know, it has something to do with heat. Heat makes it evaporate.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: What do you think? (to Devon)
DEVON: I thought it was when something disappeared or —
MS. CHRISTENSEN: Something? Or — What is the “something”?

DEVON: The water. It’s anything, I think. ‘Cause ashes, when they just disappear
in movies— They say that something evaporates.

MEGAN: Ashes?

DEVON: Ashes when people die. Um, in this movie — a man got shot, and then
his ashes came down. Then they just disappeared.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: So you think that’s evaporating? What do you think about
that? Derek, what do you think?
In many ways Ms. Christensen and Ms. Hocking helped students navigate the
“third space” in order for them to construct shared meanings about words and accounts.

While this presented a challenge for the teachers, exemplary teachers, such as Ms.

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Hocking and Ms. Christensen, had a sense of when it was important to point out
differences between how words and accounts were used. They also recognized when
differences in language were preventing individuals and the class from participating, and
tried to solve these problems by making students metacognitively aware of language and

how it was used in the classroom.

Balancing Structure and Spontaneity.

Teachers are required to cover increasingly large amounts of curriculum during
the school year, with standards-base reform helping structure what is taught to students.
Obviously teachers face the challenge of accomplishing all their curricular goals in the
limited time they have, which forces teachers to choose between strongly adhering to
their curricular plans or being flexible in pursuing questions generated by students. Ms.
Christensen and Ms. Hocking expressed concern about balancing the two, although both
felt strongly that having students ask questions (which the class pursued) was an
important piece of learning science. They struggled with decisions about how long they
could pursue student questions, and at what point to come back to their goals, and how to
tie students’ questions in with the content the class was already covering. In the Ice and
Antarctica transcript, for example, Ms. Christensen attempted to pull out parts of the
discussion most relevant to what the class had previously talked about (i.e., differential
heating of Earth). She explained in her interview that she was always making decisions
about when to pursue and not pursue student questions:

Yeah, and I guess I feel I’m making decisions all the time about is this something
that fits what we’re studying or is this something that we’re going, although it

might be an interesting conversation, its something that really they have curiosity
about. And I tr)I to incorporate their questions, incorporate their curiosity, but

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maybe it belongs in the question book, so that we can come back to it later, or so
that its preserved and doesn’t get lost.

Ms. Christensen used a “question book” as a way to record student questions,
especially those not discussed by the class. It was a record of questions that had been
asked by her students over several years, so students in the current year could read about
questions asked in previous years. During computer lab time, the class took the question
book with them so that they could look up answers using the Internet. They were also

allowed to read the question book during silent reading time.

Interplay Between Writing and Talking.

Although this study focused on instances of discussion, it became apparent that
both teachers believed the activities of talking and writing were intimately connected,
which further supported the view that studies of literacy should pay attention to printed
language, as well as oral use of that language (e.g., Gee, 2006; Halliday, 1993) Both
activities helped students to formulate and communicate their accounts in unique ways.
The challenge for Ms. Christensen and Ms. Hocking was deciding how and when to use
these activities, which Ms. Christensen referred to as the “layering process”. Ms.
Christensen explained in her interview that the acts of talking and writing serve different
purposes at different times:

It kind of pushes the enveIOpe, so that they have to commit to an idea. They have
to think it through and then commit to an idea of what they think is going to
happen... its the layering process, and I think the discussion kind of stirs up all
the ideas, and the writing gets them to think in their own head—to make sense of
it in their head—and then to commit. . .what I would expect to happen is they were
committing—getting it down on paper—so its like the language was being

formalized and then when we went to the discussion, they could take it to a higher
level or a different level.

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Like Ms. Christensen, Ms. Hocking also used speaking and writing for
different purposes in her classrooms. In her interview she shared beliefs about writing
and speaking that were similar to Ms. Christensen’s beliefs:

In part the written piece can be helping them formulate in their own minds an
explanation that makes sense to them, and it also does give them something to
talk about because if they spend time thinking and writing, they’re going to have
something to say. . .But in terms of generating conversation and discussion, I
really think that they have to sit and sift through the stuff in their brain, and they
have to make sense of it, and writing forces them to be able to communicate their
ideas in some way or another whether its accurate or not.

For both teachers writing served two primary purposes. First it allowed students
to “make sense of it in their heads” (Ms. Christensen) and “sit and sift through stuff” (Ms.
Hocking). “It” and “stuff” likely referred to a number of things around making sense of
naive and scientific accounts. In a way, the teachers believed writing gave students an
opportunity to take what they heard from other students, the teacher, and the text, and to
reconcile those accounts and discourse with their own personal experiences and
discourse.

The teachers also believed writing was a chance for students to “commit to an
idea” (Ms. Christensen) and “forces them to be able to communicate their ideas in some
way or another” (Ms. Hocking). By committing, students had to make decisions about
how to respond to a writing prompt, and select what they believed to be the most
appropriate response. Writing was also a way to “formalize” explanations or accounts—a
way for students to construct accounts using appropriate grammatical rules for sentences
and paragraphs, and to use scientific words properly in the context of an account. As

Halliday and Martin (1993) explained, “writing puts language in chains; freezes it, so that

is becomes a thing to be reflected on” (p. 118). This occurred in Ms. Christensen’s class,

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for instance, when students engaged in writing in response to a prompt, and then shared
discussed their writing during science talks.

As Ms. Christensen explained, she layered the speaking and writing activities
because participating in each type of activity was beneficial to the other. For example,
discussions helped to “stir up all the ideas”, and writing helped to take discussions to a
“higher level or a different level.” This finding corroborates other research, such as
Rivard and Straw (2000) who found that middle school students benefited most from

engaging in speaking and writing activities, as opposed to just one or the other.

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PART 2: CLASSROOM SOCIOSCIENTIFIC NORMS

Dialogism and Emergence of Norms

Dialogic discourse, as discussed in the first part of the results, was a type of talk
that builds from diversity in voices and the constant positioning and repositioning of
those voices. It allowed for students’ voice to have weight in the classrooms, and
provided opportunities for students to reconcile what they brought to science with new
accounts and discourse they encountered. By having a diverse set of accounts on the
floor, the class was able to take advantage (and honor) the vast experiential base of their
members and by linking and positioning accounts, the class was able to identify how
accounts were different, and determine ways to reconcile those accounts.

Yet, engaging students in dialogic discourse was not an end in itself. It would be
misleading to claim that simply talking, even if the talk was more dialogic, was the
primary goal the teachers had for their students. Rather, what did dialogic discourse
afford in terms of opportunities to participate with each other and content? What came to
“count” as knowledge and practices in these classrooms and how did the discourse help
achieve these goals?

During the study it became apparent that through the interactive discourse,
teachers were able to support students in participating with the science practices
described in the introduction of this paper. When participation with practices used
standards and criteria specific to those practices, normative ways for participating
emerged. I refer to these normative ways of participating as classroom socioscientific

norms. In the following results, I will illustrate how the interactive discourse allowed for

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the emergence of classroom socioscientific norms, focusing on the following norms as
key examples:

0 Validation of observations: What counted as precise, accurate, and replicable?
When students participated with the practice of making observations, what was
expected of sharing details of how observations were made, and the degree of
accuracy and precision in those observations?

' Validation of explanations: What counted as appropriate connections between
observations, patterns, and models? When students participated in the practice of
constructing and critiquing explanations, how were appropriate connections
between observations, patterns, and models determined, and how was evidence
used to support these connections?

After discussing these norms, I will consider meta-level discussions about the

application and explanatory power of models, and the need for coming to consensus.

Validation of Observations

During the time I observed Ms. Hocking’s class they were engaged in a unit about
light, focusing mostly on understanding reflection, refraction, and colors. In Ms.
Hocking’s class students participated with practices of making observations and
collecting data nearly every lesson. Sometimes these investigations were conducted as
whole class demonstrations, but mostly they occurred in small groups where observations
were later discussed by the whole class. One of Ms. Hocking’s goals for students during
this unit (and for the year) was to become more observant and analytical, which she

explained in her interview:

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One of the things that I’ve told them all year long—and this is true almost across
the board—is that if I do nothing else, I want to make them observant and
analytical about what they observe. And I think that science provides a lot of
opportunities for them to be able to do that because I think that they need to be
observant in lots and lots of arenas and to be able to think and analyze about
things they are seeing. . .I do manipulate a lot, but I think it’s a type of
manipulation that forces them to look at salient elements that otherwise they
might miss because if their observation skills aren’t honed—if they’re not
recognizing what really is having the effect or what really is important—they may
not be able to explain it. But if they’re observations are poor, then I think my
questioning—my facilitation—has to do with helping them focus their
observations.

Ms. Hocking devoted a great deal of discussion time to sharing observations, so
there were ample opportunities for the class to collectively validate whether the
observations were accurate and precise, and whether or not students explained
observations with enough detail to be replicated. Ms. Hocking was especially attentive to
standards of replicability and precision. As she explained in her interview, she felt her
questioning during discussion was key to establishing normative ways of making and
sharing observations.

In the following transcript Ms. Hocking questioned students to help them clarify

how they made their observations, so the focus was not on the Observations themselves,

but rather how they were collected:

The Penny and the Jar
MS. HOCKING: Do you have anything to add? You’ve got quite a bit written
down there, James. Do you have some other things you want to add to the
observations? What did you see? Oh, tell us about that one.

JAMES: Oh, well, when I, like, looked at it from a diagonal on the side, it looked
kind of bigger.

MS. HOCKING: So were you looking through the water or the jar and the water?

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JAMES: The jar and the water.

MS. HOCKING: The jar and the water. So when you looked at it sort of
diagonallygyou were able to make the penny apgtar larger than it is? Okay. Yeah,
Heather?

 

HEATHER: When you look directly at the water line, you can only see half of the
penny.

MS. HOCKING: Oh, Lou mean, when you looked right at the level of the water?
(demonstrates to class)

 

HEATHER: Yeah, if you looked kind of up, but looked at the water line, there
was only half of the penny showing.

MS. HOCKING: Oh, okay, yeah, yeah, you could only see part of the penny.
Yeah, that was - kind of looked oval. Yeah, I saw that. Yeah.

JANICE: Okay. I said that if I put the jar up to my eye and then I kind of went up
and looked at the penny, it would be smaller, it would look smaller, it appeared
smaller.

MS. HOCKING: Were you looking straight down through thejar? (demonstrates
to class)

 

JANICE: Yes...

MS. HOCKING: So you just lifted it away from the penny and as you got farther
and farther away from the penny, the penry seemed to do what?

JANICE: It appeared smaller than without the jar.
MS. HOCKING: Oh, okay, so you were able to change the size of it by moving

the position of the thing you were looking through, the glass and the water.

In this excerpt, Ms. Hocking was interested in what her students observed. There

were no “right” and “wrong” answers to the questions she asked, only sufficient or

insufficient details. The questions were not directed at explaining or evaluating

observations, but rather were focused on ‘procedures’ for obtaining those observations

(e.g., “So were you looking through the water or the jar and the water?”; “You mean,

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when you looked right at the level of the water?”). By using questions Ms. Hocking was
able to clarify details of how observations were made and establish an acceptable level of
detail that should be shared with the group, so the class not only understood the
observations, but also could replicate them. She also communicated that observations
needed to include ‘measurable’ information, such as angle or distance at which the
observation was obtained.

The exchange that occurred between Janice and Ms. Hocking demonstrates how
Janice’s account transformed as Ms. Hocking questioned her. When Janice shared her
observation of the penny and jar, her original account of the observation was ambiguous.
It did not provide the necessary details to describe what she actually did. Ms. Hocking
helped to clarify Janice’s procedures through questioning. Janice also revised her
original observation twice to make her language more accurate, from “it [penny] would
be smaller, it would look smaller, it appeared smaller. Later she followed up her account
with the comparison “appeared smaller than without the jar”. Janice modified her
language to share a more precise observation of what appeared to happen to the penny,
and she also made a comparison about the penny’s appearance that could be replicated
and measured. In this way, Janice’s account reflects one in transition—one in which
Janice attempted to take on the scientific discourse as she described her observation.

Precise observations, such as Janice’s, were important in Ms. Hocking’s
classroom, especially when the class did not agree with observations being shared. The
following transcript provides an example of an instance when the class did not agree with

an observation being shared (see Figures 2 and 3):

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Where does Light Bend?
MS. HOCKING: Draw a sketch in your book to indicate what you think is
happening and write a few statements about what you see happening. What did

you observe?

(Chris comes to the overhead to draw his observation for class, and then sits
down)

MS. HOCKING: Hmm. Did it do that? (asking the class)
SAM: Kind of.

MS. HOCKING: Did it? Is that what you observed?
ELLEN: Yeah.

KATIE: Yes.

SANJIT: Yep.

MS. HOCKING: Really? Whoa. I’m very curious about this because th_at’s not
what I saw.

TREVOR: No I said that it was inside. (disagreeing with Chris’ observation)
MS. HOCKING: flat’s not that I saw. Hang on let’s think about this.
According to what he |Chris| is saying it went through, it bent, it crossed, and
then it went back parallel.

TREVOR: No.

MS. HOCKING: Did they do that?

KELLY: No.

MS. HOCKING: This is a little trickier than it seems. Let’s tg again. We’ll
have another one. We’ll have another go at it. Okay. Who thinks they can figure
it out--let ’s use a diflerent color this time. Who thinks they can- Brian go ahead.
You really haven’t had a chance up there.

BRIAN: I don’t really know what happened when it was in the jar.

MS. HOCKING: Leave that part white then.

BRIAN: I saw the light goes through. Then I saw it go like that.

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MS. HOCKING: Okay. Mmm. That’s what I saw too. Wasn’t it going straight
once it left? Didn’t Must stay in a straight line? Because remember light does
travel in a straight line unless it encounters something else like a new medium to
travel through. So once it left thejar isn’t it just gong in a straight line?

 

STUDENTS: Yes. Yeah.

MS. HOCKING: Yeah. Okay. But Brian said he wasn’t sure what was
happening in the jar. Sam, do you know what happened in the jar?

SAM: Yes. (Sam walks to overhead projector and fills in Brian’s observation)
MS. HOCKING: Does anybody else think they know what happened in the jar?
Draw a picture for yourselfjust like we have done up here and if your lines aren’t
accurate go ahead and. . .(tums to Sam’s drawing) it crossed twice?

SANJIT: NOpe.

MS. HOCKING: Did it cross itselftwice?

DEREK: No. No.

MS. HOCKING: Here’s a good question for you. If it crossed itself twice, when
you blocked one slit--

SANJIT: It would be the same.

MS. HOCKING: What one would disappear?
SAM: Oh.

SANJIT: The same slit that was blocked.

MS. HOCKING: Ahhh. So Sam, how can we make it refract inside the glass
without- Derek and Chris think it has to bend a little bit in the jar.

The discussion continued with two more students drawing their observations on
the overhead and the class discussed and voted on which were most accurate. The class
was working toward agreeing on an accurate and precise observation of what happened to

light when it encountered a curved jar.

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Unlike the previous Penny and Jar transcript, Ms. Hocking’s questions in Where
Does Light Bend were mostly close-ended. This is likely because Ms. Hocking was
searching for an observation that was precise, and in this case, there was not much room
for diversity.

A salient feature in the Where Does Light Bend example was the tension that
occurred between observations and the way class members were positioned in the
discussion. Some students agreed with Chris’ observation, while others disagreed. Ms.
Hocking also weighed in by disagreeing with Chris (e.g., “that’s not what I saw.”) and
Sam (e.g., “did it cross itself twice?”) and agreeing with the partial observation shared by
Brian (e.g., “that’s what I saw too.”).

By allowing space for students to share their observations and make sense of the
differences, the class was able to participate in collectively validating which observations
were most precise. Importantly, when Ms. Hocking disagreed with Chris’ observation,
she did not give students the correct answer. Instead, she had students use different colors
markers as they drew their observations on the overhead, so the class was able to consider
the differences between those observations (see Figure 2 and 3). Although there was a
sense that there was one ‘right’ answer (or observation), by allowing for more and less
accurate observations to be compared, the students were able to see why precision of
observations matters.

In this excerpt the class did not reach a precise account of what happened to the
two light beams when they encountered the curved jar (although they did later in the
lesson), so the class focused on making sense of why the observations were inaccurate.

Sam, for example, “kind of” agreed with Chris’ original observation, and then implicitly

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agreed with Brian by volunteering to complete Brian’s observation on the overhead.
When the class disagreed with what Sam drew, it became clear that he had not connected
his observation of the two light beams with evidence collected about what happened
when one of those beams was covered (i.e., since the curved jar caused the two light
beams to cross once, when covering one beam, the reflection on the white paper
disappeared from the “opposite” side) (see Figure 3).

In this case, the evidence collected during the investigation did not support Sam’s
observation of the beams. Instead the evidence was used to dispute Sam’s observation.
Sanjit realized the beams could not have crossed twice given the evidence from the
investigation. This transcript is an example of how the class learned to coordinate the
evidence from their investigations to develop precise observations, and questioning
inaccurate accounts was critical to achieving this goal and forcing the students to think
critically about evidence.

During the time I observed Ms. Christensen’s class, they were learning about
processes that changed water from one state to another, and the water cycle as a whole.
The class began the unit by conducting three investigations: boiling water (investigation
1), comparing evaporation and condensation of water placed in a sunny and dark
condition with plastic covering and not covering the water dishes (investigation 2), and
condensation on the outside of a glass of ice water (investigation 3). As Ms. Christensen
explained in her interview, the investigations served as a “common experience” for
members of the class. The class returned to the investigations repeatedly when trying to

make sense of their Observations.

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Like Ms. Hocking, Ms. Christensen helped to establish norms for validating
observations. She explained in her interview that she wanted “them to describe what it is
that they see and be able to do that accurately.” The first example discussion came from a
discussion of students’ observations of condensation on the outside of a glass of ice

water.

Fog on a Cold Glass of Water

MS. CHRISTENSEN: The one with the glass and the water and the ice that was set
up over here? What did you notice?

JACOB: I noticed that there was something like fog coming down on the side.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Where was the fog? You said there is something like a fog?

 

JACOB: Yeah. A fog —

MS. CHRISTENSEN: And where was it?

JACOB: I think it was on the outside.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: On the outside of the glass. How many people noticed that
there was something like a fog on the outside of the glass? Now when you say a fog
what do you mean? A fog. Can you give us a better description of that? Corinne, did
you see it?

CORINNE: No.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: No? You didn’t see it? Who did see it? Who was able to see
i_t_? Camille? EV_h_at ditLvou see? Describe it.

CAMILLE: It was clouds. If it were the one where the water and fog, you know? It
was so cold.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: There was — fog, where?
CAMILLE: Inside of where all the water was.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: On the inside. They’re having trouble understanding. You
need to turn this way so that they can hear. Natalie, did you Observe that one?

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NATALIE: Well it was outside in the sun and the ice melted.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: The ice started to melt. But there were other things that were
happening. What else was happening? Lesley? What else was happening?

LESLEY: I saw the fogging through the ice. Some of the ice started to melt, and they
have a coating of— molecules. And then sooner or later, like a fog, doubled up and-

MS. CHRISTENSEN: The fog doubled up. Tell us what you mean by that.
LESLEY: Okay like in the beginning, it was like you could still see that there was a
regular fog. And then every time, like — the more time in the air, it fogged up more.

And it left it-

MS. CHRISTENSEN: When — that — you’re calling this — this moisture- fog. Where
was it? On the inside of the glass or the outside of the glass?

LESLEY: I think it was on the outside.
MS. CHRISTENSEN: On the outside. Did anyone touch it? Did anyone see? Clearly

_s;c_e_2 Jaclyn?

Even in this short excerpt, dialogic discourse indicators were present. Ms.

Christensen began with an authentic and open-ended question eliciting observations (i.e.,

“what did you notice?”). She took up Jacob’s observation and vernacular discourse of

“fog” on the glass, and encouraged the class to focus on describing the “fog” and where it

was located. Although, the meaning of “fog” was likely understood by many students,

Ms. Christensen recognized the meaning may not have been known or shared by all. She

asked Jacob to elaborate (“Now when you say fog, what do you mean?”). It appeared Ms.

Christensen used this strategy as a way to ensure the class had a shared meaning of the

66f0g99.

Ms. Christensen called for group evaluations (“How many people noticed that

there was something like a fog on the outside of the glass?”) to establish that most class

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members agreed with Jacob’s initial observation. She also called for subsequent
individual evaluations, such as when she asked Lesley where the fog was located. She
was not satisfied with relying solely on Jacob’s observation, and thus, elicited further
observations to corroborate what had been shared. Through this type of talk, Ms.
Christensen indicated to her students that observations can be validated when community
members agree on their accuracy, and also when multiple people have similar
observations. She also privileged observations from students who could “clearly see”
what happened (or had touched the glass).

In this example, even though students were participating with the practice of
making observations, their observations did not appear to follow rules for accuracy or
precision without cuing from the teacher. For instance, Jacob described “something like a
fog coming down the side”, in which Ms. Christensen reacted by asking, “where was it?”
Ms. Christensen’s reaction was intended to help establish the location of the fog—was it
on the inside or outside of the glass? She asked students repeatedly “where was it [the
fog]?” and “can you give us a better description?” As such, she communicated that when
making observations students needed to be thoughtful, considering how they explained

observations to their peers, and not just themselves.

Validation of Explanations

During the water cycle unit in Ms. Christensen’s class, they focused on learning
about the processes of evaporation and condensation. In developing accounts about how
water changed from state to state, students participated with practices of connecting

observations with patterns and models, which involved the construction and critique of

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explanations (Ford, 2008) and using evidence to decide what counted as appropriate
connections.

The next transcript, Condensation on Plastic, was taken from a discussion where
the class reconsidered the evaporation and condensation investigations after reading a
scientific account from their books. The book explained:

How does heat energy help evaporation and condensation? Liquid water is made
up of many molecules moving all around. When heat is removed from liquid
water, it can be cooled so far that the molecules stop moving around. They lock
together in a pattern, and the liquid becomes solid. The opposite is also true.
When heat is added to liquid water, the molecules of water begin to move around
faster and faster. Some reach the surface of the water, and escape into the air.
These molecules evaporate. As long as the air is warm enough to keep the
molecules moving, water will stay in the air as water vapor. But, if the air
touches a cooler surface, and cools down, the air cannot hold as much vapor. The
air releases the extra water in the form of drops on the cold surface. The water
vapor condenses.

The book introduced a simplified scientific model for explaining patterns of
condensation and evaporation. It introduced students to the idea that heat energy affects
evaporation and condensation, and that molecules speed up or slow down depending on
heat energy. The following transcript illustrates how the class participated with
connecting observations (e. g., water on plastic or outside of glass) with bits and pieces of
patterns and models (e.g., condensation happens when vapor changes to liquid on cool

surfaces; this involves molecules slowing down).

Condensation on Plastic

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Think back to the investigations. What is the investigation
that is an example of what happens in what they’re explaining in th_at last
paragraph? “As long as the air is warm enough to keep the molecules moving,
water will stay in the air as water vapor. But if the air touches a cooler surface and
cools down, the air cannot hold as much water vapor. The air releases the extra
water in the form of droplets on the cold surface. The water vapor condenses.”
Natalie, what’s an example of that?

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NATALIE: About like — we were talking about how come the water didn’t get out
of the one that had the plastic stuff on it, and probably not because the heat — the
investigation said that if it’s still heated then it’ll come out, but if its cool it won’t
come out.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Questions for her?
JAVAN: Can’t hear her.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Questions? And I think some of the questions, Natalie, are
louder. Say it louder. But who has a question for what she said? Maria?

MARIA: When you said that the stuff that had the stuff over it —

MS. CHRISTENSEN: You’re talking about the water over here [window] and the
water under here [cabinet] that had the plastic wrap over it?

MARIA: When you said that you think it didn’t come out because that it was
cooler, but it didn’t-

DAVID: It was warmer.

 

MARIA: Wellkwanner because there was something over it to block it coming
out.

 

MS. CHRISTENSEN: You know what? I’m thinking about that one, and I’m
remembering that the plastic wrap had water on the plastic. How do you think that
water got on the plastic? Anvfiideas about that? Because I’m thinking what Natalie
is saying is that there was some condensing. That it condensed in th_at container. Is
that wh_at you were saying, Natalie?

 

NATALIE: Uh—huh.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Because it went from a liquid state to a gas. How did that
happen? How did that happen? Because in this paragraph, it says that it has to
touch a cooler surface. What do you think that cooler surface was. Natalie?

NATALIE: The plastic.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: The plastic. So you thinlLthe plastic was cooler. What do
other people think about that? That it was condensing onto th_at plastic. because
the plastic was cooler? What do you thinkabout that? Tisha. what do you think

about that?

TISHA: I think the plastic was warmer.

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MS. CHRISTENSEN: You think the —
TISHA: Because the sun was shining on the plastic.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: So you think it would be hotter. How many people believe
that the plastic would be cooler? (over half of students raise hands). How many
people believe that that plastic would be warmer? (less than half of students raise
hands). Because Tisha says the sun is shining on it. Who would like to explain
their ideas about that? Akira?

AKIRA: I think it would be warmer. too. because since most of the like isn’t
going out to the side, because its (plastic) blocking it (water), and so all of the air
is in one crowded space in a little cup, and so it would be hotter.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: So you think it’s hotter? What do other people think?
Chanise. what do you think?

CHANISE: Well, I think it contained a lot of vapor. I think it was trying to
evaporate but it really couldn’t evaporate so it just had to get on the plastic.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: So you think it just couldn’t get out. That’s what you’re
thinking? Ben, what do you think?

BEN: I think it’s kind of like —I don’t know if it’s investigation two. Kind of like
investigation three.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: So you’re going to change investigation. Okay. go ahead
and tell us why you say that.

BEN: Because you said that once they condense, like all the water condenses, if it
gets too much then it starts to have water droplets. Like, condensing and then the
water or the sweat on the outside, those are water droplets that were running Off.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Okay. How many people are there that thought of the other
investigation? The investigation that Ben’s thinking about? The one with the glass
and -— okay (lots of hands). I think what we would have to do with th_at
investigation. Natalie. is take another look at it. Set it up again. and take a look at
it. and see wh_at we thought about it— even if we could touch th_at plastic. 1 think
that would be an interesting thing to do. So I think what we’ll do is set th_at back
In). and see if we can figure th_at out. But the one that I was thinking of is the same
one that Ben was thinking of. Because what happened was, we had ice cubes in
here. And what happened when we had ice cubes? What did it do? What did it do
to the water? Jacob?

 

JACOB: it makes it cold.

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MS. CHRISTENSEN: It cooled it off. So it made the temperature chilly. It made
the temperature chilly. Well then, if it did that, what did it do to the glass? To the
container? What happened to the container? Anybodmouch the glass that had ice
cubes in it?

STUDENTS: Uh-huh. Yea.

Ms. Christensen initiated the discussion asking the class to make connections
between what was described in the book, and their observations of the investigations
(e.g., “what’s an example of that?”). The main purpose of the discussion was to
collectively agree upon the appropriate example(s) or observation(s) of condensation, and
to explain why. At this point the class had developed criteria for what counted as
examples of condensation, based mostly on what they read in the book (i.e., condensation
happens when vapor changes to liquid on cooler surfaces).

Natalie first identified investigation two as an observation of condensation. In this
investigation students had four dishes filled with water. Two dishes were covered with
plastic, while two were left uncovered. The students placed a covered and uncovered dish
on a windowsill, while the other two dishes were placed in a dark cabinet. Natalie
remembered an observation that the dish in the windowsill covered with plastic had
collected water on the inside of the plastic (see Figure 4). Because of the observation of
water collecting, Natalie shared this investigation as an example of condensation.

Natalie’s claim that investigation two was an example of condensation was an
appropriate connection between observations, patterns, and models. When students
questioned Natalie’s account, Ms. Christensen first verified that the class understood her
correctly (i.e., “Because I’m thinking what Natalie is saying is that there was some
condensing. . .Is that what you’re saying Natalie?”), which helped the class identify the

main disagreement between accounts—that Natalie had identified “the plastic” as a

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cooler surface, which was not collectively agreed upon by the class. Maria, David, Tisha,
and Akira questioned whether the plastic was cooler because they had the intuitive sense
that plastic in sunlight would be warmer. Since the class had not tested the temperature of
the plastic in the original investigation, Ms. Christensen suggested the class redo the
investigation to test whether the plastic was cool or warm (i.e., “Set it up again, and take
a look at it, and see what we thought about it— even if we could touch that plastic”). This
solution was one way to gather evidence to support either side of the disagreement. By
making this suggestion, she communicated to the class that they did not have enough
evidence to determine whether the investigation was or was not an example of
condensation, so the connection made by Natalie was not agreed upon or recognized as
an example of condensation until more evidence was collected to support this claim.

Interestingly, Ben introduced investigation three as a possible observation of
condensation. Investigation three involved observing what happened as water collected
on the outside of glass of ice water. Ben’s account was not disputed because the teacher
and other students agreed the investigation met the criteria for what counted as an
observation of condensation—that it involved vapor changing to liquid on the cool
surface of the glass. The class did not need the same evidence (i.e., temperature
measurements as proof of the cooler surface) in order to agree that Ben made an
appropriate connection.

It is important to point out that the interactive discourse was an important medium
through which to participate in validating the explanations made by Natalie and Ben.
The students were able to agree and disagree with each other and position accounts

within the discussion. Ms. Christensen encouraged them to question one another in this

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process (i.e., “Questions for her?) At one point Ms. Christensen called for a class vote
about how many students agreed or disagreed that the plastic was warmer. This type of
discourse helped the class to identify areas of disagreement and focus their discussion on
those areas. In considering what Natalie and Ben shared with the group, we can start to
see how the students’ accounts of condensation are transitioning from “fog” mentioned in
Fog on a Cold Glass of Water, to incorporating scientific ideas about condensation.

As the class continued to modify their understanding of condensation, they were
asked to make sense of other observations and connect those observations to patterns and
models. In the following example, the class considered whether clouds were made of
air/vapor or liquid, which initiated another discussion of condensation. It also provides an
example of how student accounts transitioned from identifying clouds as objects, to

thinking of clouds in terms of forms of water:

Clouds and Condensation Part 1

MS. CHRISTENSEN and STUDENTS: “Water vapor is invisible.” We knew
that. “Liquid water is visible.” We knew that. “Which form Of water do you think
makes up clouds?”

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Raise your hand if you think you know—if you have an
idea about that. Remember, any time you give an answer, you always have to tell
why. Why do you think that? Derek, what do you think and why do you think it?

DEREK: I think the water vapor because if it was liquid water, then we would see
it. It couldn’t go back-

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Okay, what do other people think about that? What do you
think about what Derek said? What do you think about - what is it that we see
when we look at a cloud? Tisha?

TISHA: I think that it’s water vapor because like when he said like if it was like

liquid water, then we’d be able to see it. We’d evaporate it and when it doesn’t
evaporate it comes back. And that’s how it works.

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MS. CHRISTENSEN: What are they asking about in this question? What’s the
question about, Tisha? Read the question to us.

TISHA: Which form of water do you think makes up clouds?

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Okay. Because I hear you and Derek saying you would be
able to see it if it was liquid water. Can you see a cloud?

STUDENTS: Yes. Yea.
MS. CHRISTENSEN: Mmm. What do you think, Maria?

MARIA: I think it’s the molecules ‘caumesterdaywhen we talked about when it
gets cold the molecules slow down and they stick together.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: And what do they turn into?
STUDENTS: Water.

MARIA: It- like molecules sticks together. it forms a cloud and then it’s actually
water.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: So you’re saying that you disagree with Tisha and Derek is
that right? That you think it’s the liquid water? And the reason th_at you think this
is what? Say that again.

MARIA: Because of when it gets cold.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: So you’re thinking of the idea of condensing. And what
happens when water condenses? When it gets cold, it condenses and it goes to
liquid water. What do otherppeople think_? (Pause) Is the fact that your hand is not
up that you’re not sure? Is that- no, I know what you think, Maria. We heard it
Go ahead, Ben.

BEN: Is it- I think it’s kind of like — well if— I think isn’t like a cloud made of
water and air?

MS. CHRISTENSEN: What do other people think about that? So you’re thinking
that it’s both—that it’s—

BEN: It’s the water vapor and water.
MS. CHRISTENSEN: So you’re thinking that it’s both?

BEN: Because you can’t see water vapor, but a cloud is pretty much just air. And
then- but you can still see it, which means it has to be some water.

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MS. CHRISTENSEN: Mmmm.

ALLEN: I think that makes sense.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: It does make sense, doesn’t it? Go ahead, Alisa.

ALISA: The idea what Bobby said- it’s a good idea because the clouds they don’t
look like liquid water- they’re different but they just look like they’re made of air-

they don’t look like they’re made out of anything else-

MS. CHRISTENSEN: The way they look. And what does it look like they’re
made out of? Do they look like a lake?

STUDENTS: No.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: They look different than a lake, don’t they?

In this discussion the class tried to make sense of an unusual example of liquid
water. Clouds are remarkably different from other forms of liquid water, such as lakes
and puddles, which was pointed out when Ms. Christensen asked, “do they look like a
lake?” Application of the criteria for developing explanation that connected between
Observation, patterns, and models (e.g., water vapor is invisible, liquid water is visible,
vapor condenses to form liquid on cool surfaces), was not as straightforward for students
when talking about clouds.

Maria introduced the idea that clouds were liquid water because clouds were
formed through condensation (i.e., “When it gets cold the molecules slow down and they
stick together... molecules sticks together, it forms a cloud and then it’s actually water”).
She participated with the practice of connecting an observed phenomenon of clouds with
what she knew about scientific models. The class eventually took up Maria’s account

about condensation and clouds.

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Clouds and Condensation Part 2

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Well right now, what we’re doing is trying to figupe out
what it is that happens for it to condense. Jaylyn, what did you just say?

JAYLYN: It happens on a cold surface.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: On a cold surface. So we know that it has to cool down,
doesn’t it? For water to condense, it has to cool down. Now, what do we know
about the higher we go? What do we know? Natalie?

NATALIE: The thinner the air is.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: The thinner the air is—and what else? What else? Derek?
DEREK: The thinner it gets.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: The thinner the air is — yeah, we talked about the thin air.
Go ahead?

DEREK: The colder it gets.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: The colder it gets. Whoa—does that make sense?
STUDENTS: _Ypay

MS. CHRISTENSEN: This water vapor is going to go up — it’s going to — it’s all

around us; it’s going to be up, it’s going to be down, it’s going to be all around us.

And up there, it’s going to get colder. So what Ben said was it cools off and it
condenses - remind me, Ben, what it was I said.

 

BEN: Water vapor condenses — when water evaporates, the water vapor goes up
and then it condenses into clouds.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: And then it condenses into clouds. Does that make sense?
STUDENTS: Yes.

ALISA: Simon says he doesn’t get it.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: You don’t get it Simon? Can you ask a question that helps
us help you? Can you tell us what part of it — because it is a cycle. It’s very

complicated. What part is it that you have questions about?

SIMON: Well, how are they [clouds] made of water?

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MS. CHRISTENSEN: Thank you for bringing that up, Simon—for letting us
know. Asking questions is the way that you’re going to learn about it. So let’s do
this, Simon, you hold on to your question. And that might even be something that
you want to do research on. But hold on to your question and we’ll read through
this and we’ll write a summary and then see. Okay? See if it helps you. All right.
Everyone needs to be looking at their book.

In the first line of this example Ms. Christensen focused the discussion on
establishing an agreed upon criteria for determining instances of observations (“what
we’re doing is trying to figure out what it is that happens for it to condense”). In some
sense she wanted the rest of the group to participate as Maria had done in the previous
example—by connecting observations, patterns, and models using the account of
condensation happening when gas turned to liquid on cold surfaces. Clouds represented a
peculiar challenge because the class had to establish that temperatures are colder at high
altitudes and “particles” in the atmosphere are “cooler surfaces” (note that they do not
talk about these particles, or CCN’s, in this example).

Clouds did not fit neatly into students’ experiential base about liquid water, and
therefore many students thought clouds were water vapor, even though they conceded
that vapor was invisible. Maria seemed to readily adopt that clouds were liquid because
they were an example of condensation (i.e., her account was transitioning to include
scientific knowledge and discourse), while the remainder of the class needed additional
prompting to make this connection. Again, the challenge was establishing the “cooler
surface” required for clouds to form, as was the case with condensation on plastic. In the

end, several students, including Simon, remained confused because he was not able to

reconcile his observation of clouds with what he had learned about condensation.

101

The previous examples about water collecting on a glass, on plastic, and as clouds
were about the class developing a shared understanding of condensation, and shared way
to develop explanations that connected observations to patterns and models. Experience
and evidence became important factors in the connections and explanations developed.
Evidence also determined whether the class needed to gather more evidence in order to
proceed with collectively validation (e.g., testing temperature of plastic to verify whether
it was a cooler surface). The role of the teacher was to help students identify key
disagreements and help them decide if they had enough evidence to support connections

being made.

Meta-level Discussion about Models and Consensus

A substantial portion of the unit on water cycling in Ms. Christensen’s class was
devoted to the question of “What drives the water cycle?” Early in the unit the class read
a scientific model of water cycling from their books. At that time, Ms. Christensen and
the student focused on using the model to make sense of evaporation and condensation.
The model from the book was:

Evaporation and condensation in earth’s atmosphere depends on the heat energy
of the sun. The sun heats up the water on the surface of lakes, rivers, oceans and
even puddles. Water evaporates from all these sources adding water vapor to the
air. When the sun heats earth unevenly, either from place to place, or from day
to night, warm air cools and the water vapor condenses back to liquid water.
This movement of water from the surface of the air, surface of the earth to the
air and back to the surface is called the water cycle. What do you think drives
the water cycle?

Yet, the question asked of students—what drives the water cycle—required

students to think critically about the model. The students responded in several ways to the

question. After two discussions devoted completely to the topic, the students were still

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divided into three main groups—those that believed the sun or heat energy was the
driving force, those that believed water was the driving force, and those that believed
several things were driving the water cycle. The students engaged in debating their ideas,
with “leaders” from each group coming to the front of the room, drawing their ideas on
the board, explaining their position to the class, and then taking questions from peers.

Even after participating in these rich discussions the students still disagreed. In
the following transcript Ms. Christensen and her students considered whether they needed
to come to consensus about “what drives the water cycle”:

Consensus about Water Cycling

MS. CHRISTENSEN: “Evaporation and condensation in earth’s atmosphere
depends on the heat energy of the sun. The sun heats up the water on the surface
of lakes, rivers, oceans and even puddles. Water evaporates from all these
sources adding water vapor to the air. When the sun heats earth unevenly, either
from place to place, or from day to night, warm air cools and the water vapor
condenses back to liquid water. This movement of water from the surface of the
air, surface of the earth to the air and back to the surface is called the water
cycle. What do you think drives the water cycle?” And I thought that paragraph
made it pretty clear to me just what drove the water cycle. Now after having the
discussion that we’ve had, I see that it’s much more complicated than that and
maybe the question is not nearly as important as the discussion that you’ve 1m
about it. Do we need to come up with what drives the water cycle? Do you think
we need to come to a consensus on that?

STUDENTS: Yeah. (some ‘no’s).

MS. CHRISTENSEN: I’m hearing yeses and nos. Why do you say yes? Who has
an idea? Why do you say yes we need to come to a consensus? Lesley?

LESLEY: Maybe that we need to know more about the water so we have a clearer
whatever about the water cycle.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: So you’re saying that we do need to, because what it may
mean is that we need to study the water cycle more. We need to get more
information on it? Okay. Ben?

BEN: I think we need to come to a consensus on Kamal’s question. Not maybe
completely what drives the water cycles, but what’s most important? Like, what is

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the whole thing about? What like really is the most important, not what drives the
water cycle, but what is the most important- most important part of the water
cycle? Is the sun the most imponant part? Does everything depend on that? Does
everything depend on the air? Does everything depend on the water?

MS. CHRISTENSEN: And how do you suggest we do that Ben?

BEN: Like, you just- we pretty much just answered that question right here in this

paragraph. It depends on the heat energy of the sun to get evaporation of the
puddles or lakes. And without that- that’s what everything depends on.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Kamal. does this paragraph satisfy you?
KAMAL: I give up- it’s just-

MS. CHRISTENSEN: No, but I don’t want you to give up. What I want you to do
is think about your ideas. Did reading this paragraph satisfy you or not?

KAMAL: Kind of.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Kind of? But I’m seeing you shake your head no. It didn’t,
did it?

KAMAL: Kind of.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Kind of. Okay. Kamal, kind of. (students laugh). What
does “kind of” mean?

KAMAL: Like, when you understand- kind of think- I kind of think both the sun
and water.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: I think we have a very good understanding of what the
water cycle is because of the way you’ve talked about it. The question is not do
you have a good understanding of it, although I agree with Lesley you can always
have more information that might give you a clearer understanding.

KAMAL: I think it’s kind of the sun and the water. The book- well I think that air
is kind of lower.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: So, you know what? I’m looking back at my notes. And
that’s a move for you because before you said water drives it. So now you’re
willing to say water plus the sun?

 

KAMAL: It’s like this is the water and the sun. this is the air (student
demonstrates levels of importance using his hands). cause the air is not that

1m portant.

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MS. CHRISTENSEN: So you’re thinking the air is not as important? Okay.
Natalie? What do you think?

Ms. Christensen engaged the class in discussing consensus by asking an open-
ended, authentic question. She was genuinely interested in how the students would feel if
they did not find closure on the topic. She gave authority to the students to decide what
the next step would be (e.g., study more; debate more; leave it alone). For instance, she
asked Ben, “How do you suggest we do that?” By engaging students in dialogue around
the question about consensus she communicated that she valued what they thought. She
also communicated that it was important for the class to step back and reevaluate their
goals and whether or not consensus would bring them closer to those goals (e.g., “I think
we have a very good understanding of what the water cycle is because of the way you’ve
talked about it. The question is not do you have a good understanding of it.”).

The exchange between Ms. Christensen and Kamal further demonstrated that true
dialogue was critical for getting students’ understanding of models on the table. Ms.
Christensen refused to allow Kamal’s “kind of” response to be sufficient. By
communicating that she valued what he thought (e.g., “No, but I don’t want you to give
up. What I want you to do is think about your ideas. Did reading this paragraph satisfy
you or not?”), she was eventually successful at getting him to talk about his account in
relation to the model from the book.

The discussion that occurred in this example, and throughout the entire
observation, was about explaining water cycling using different models. The passage
from the book, for example, was a model representing a scientific account of water

cycling that identified heat energy as critical to water cycling processes. Kamal’s original

105

account did not identify “the sun” or “heat energy”, so his model for water cycling did
not include a “driving force”. A third model that was used during this observation was an
analogy of a car to explain water cycling—that is, the class used a car to represent water
cycling and tried to identify “the driver” of the car and how that explained the “driver” of
the water cycle. Through discussing, debating, and evaluating these models, the class was
able to identify instances where the models were and were not helpful, thus participating
with practices that looked critically at the explanatory power of models.

In the example above, Kamal was challenged to reconcile his model (that did not
include heat energy) with what was explained in the book when Ms. Christensen asked
him, “Does this paragraph satisfy you?” Kamal struggled to answer partly because he
realized his model was insufficient, but also because he agreed with the model read in the
book (“I think it’s kind of the sun and the water. The book- well I think that air is kind of
lower”). Kamal showed he was trying to adjust and revise his ideas to reconcile them
with the book, but that he was not completely convinced about the importance of the sun
or heat energy. Kamal had not adOpted a model of water cycling that recognized the role
of heat energy is making molecules evaporate and condense, which indicated he
struggled to make connections between observations, patterns, and models. Ben, on the
other hand, made these connections. He focused his argument that sun/heat energy was
the driving force of water cycling because of its importance in getting water to evaporate.
For this reason, Ben more readily accepted the model from the book (i.e., “We pretty
much just answered that question right here in this paragraph. It depends on the heat
energy of the sun to get evaporation of the puddles or lakes. And without that- that’s what

everything depends on.”).

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Metaphors and analogies in science are unique types of models that try to bridge
naive accounts with scientific accounts by describing complex ideas in ways more
familiar to students (Gallas, 1995). Ms. Christensen and Ms. Hocking had to coordinate a
complicated set of models that were on the floor, including scientific models, metaphors,
analogies, and narratives. In some ways they allowed all to stay on the table for
consideration, but were trying to help students see the explanatory power of scientific
models, and the limitations of informal models. Thus, both teachers privileged the
scientific models. The privileging of scientific models was necessary for encouraging
students to take up those models in terms of accounts and discourse. It was also necessary
because informal models, such as metaphors and analogies, are helpful to a limited
degree. In the following transcript (which is composed of three excerpts from a larger
discussion), Ms. Christensen’s class considered the utility of a “car analogy” to explain

water cycling, and to identify a “driver” in the cycle:

What Drives a Car?

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Okay. Well, let me ask you this. Thank you Natalie. We
have Kamal’s idea of what we need. We have Natalie’s idea, all three. Here’s
what I would like to toss out to you. We have (teacher draws car on board),
what’s that?

STUDENTS: A car.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Who is driving the car? (lots of student chatter). Who
drives the car?

STUDENTS: You. People.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: A person. We all agree thpt it’shaymrson that drives the car.
right? So is this kind of like that? Kind of like Natalie’s ideas and kind of like
Kamal’s ideas? Are these three ideas kind of the same? And that’s when an
analogy is helpful to you. when that happens. Allen. what do you think?

107

ALLEN: Okay, I think everything on the movie that makes up weather, makes up
that water cycle, land, air and sun- the heat.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: So Kamal has got all three of those parts. Natalie’s got all
of those parts. How does this kind of work to go along with this or to explain that?
Does it?

ALLEN: Yeah.
MS. CHRISTENSEN: Is it helpful to you?

ALLEN: Yeah, because you need certain things to drive a car. Like you couldn’t
drive a car without a steering wheel and um-

MS. CHRISTENSEN: So you’re agreeing with what Natalie and Kamal have
drawn over here. How does that analogy of the car and who drives the car work
for you. Thomas? Can you work those two twigs together? And they fit together
at all?

THOMAS: Yeah. If there was no car, it’s like the water; if there was no car you
could not have a car at all, and if there was no water- (pause)

MS. CHRISTENSEN: So what would that be? (pause). Now let’s say we’ve all
agreed that it’s the driver who drives the car. So you’re saying the car is not the
driver, it’s not what drives the car. It’s being driven. So the car is not what’s
driving the car. It’s the driver. How does that fit in with Kamal’s ideas and
Natalie’s ideas? How do those fit together? Do they fit together? Whpt do you
think, do they fit together? Marisha. do you think they fit together? (PauseLI-Iow
many people think they do fit together? Raise your hand if you think they do fit
together. (Lots of hands). How do they fit together? (pausQ. Hard to put in to
words, isn’t it?

BEN: But I also think that the water is pretty much the car, because if you don’t
have a car, you can’t drive it. So without water, you don’t have a water cycle. The
sun- have you ever heard of like maybe- My mom used to tell my dad when my
sister was taking her driver’s test, when she was there the guy would say
“Backseat driving” when my dad was in the backseat, so I’m thinking maybe the
sun is driving it and then the wind is like backseat driving because it’s also part of
it.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Yeah, it kind of makes sense. Janice, I saw your hand go
up. What did you want to say?

108

JANICE: I was going to say people because you need to put your feet on the
pedal, or else the car is not going to go.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: So how does that relate to the water cycle? How doesyour
foot on the pedal relate to the water cycle?

JANICE: The engine gets the cars to go, and without the engine, the car’s not
going to go.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Okay, so we get the car now. I understand what you mean
about the car. How does that relate to the water cycle? What is the water cycle?
Like, the engine? What is the water cycle, the foot on the gas pedal? In the water
cycle. what is thgperson (teacher mimics quotations when she says person)? Like
this [quotes] means not really. but kind of. Or similar to?

 

JANICE: The sun.
MS. CHRISTENSEN: The sun? And why do you say that?
JANICE: Because the sun- the person-

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Diego, that’s really distracting. You need to make sure
you’re being a good listener.

[00:58:40] JONDASHAE: Never mind.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: Oh no, tell us.

JANICE: The person or the sun gives heat to the car. The person does.

MS. CHRISTENSEN: The person is like the heat giver. And so that’s why you

say the sun, because it’s the heat giver.

To some degree the car analogy was beneficial to students. It helped Ben develop

an account that made connections to his experiences outside of school (e.g., backseat

driving). It helped Janice identify that the sun was like the person pressing the pedal in a

car. While these students were able to use the analogy, there were many students that

could not agree on which parts of the car represented parts of the water cycle. An analogy

such as this helped focus some students on salient features that “fit together” between the

109

analogy and the developing scientific model for water cycling (e.g., the driver).
Unfortunately it also caused some students to focus on “mapping” parts of the car onto
water cycling. While the mapping likely helped on some level, it also caused students to
related the car and water cycle in ways that detened them from the primary focus of the
activity—to use the “driver” of the car to identify the “driver” of the water cycle.

Ms. Christensen and Ms. Hocking faced the challenge Of balancing the different
types of models and helping students realize when models were helpful and when they
were limiting. Ms. Christensen pointed out during her member checking that a challenge
for her was deciding how and when to use different models and then making sense of
how those models benefit students differently. At the age level in which these two
teachers taught, the task became even more daunting because oftentimes the explanatory
power of scientific models was beyond the scope of the course, and so identifying
limitations to informal models, such as narrative, metaphors, and analogies, was not
straightforward for their students. Ms. Christensen explained during her member check
that she realized she was just “one layer” in her students’ education. She understood
some students needed more time and more thoughtful discussions before they could make
sense of scientific models, and that she had to be satisfied if some students continued to
rely on narratives, analogies, and metaphors as opposed to scientific models. At best, she
hoped she was laying a foundation so that her students could make sense of scientific

models more easily in the future.

110

SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION OF EMERGING THEORY

Figure 5 summarizes the emerging theory, and howl found dialogic discourse to
support students’ participation in science. The dialogic discourse brought out diversity in
accounts, which allowed for teachers to capitalized on students’ experiences and to use
students’ vernacular language and emerging accounts as starting points for discussions.
By linking and positioning accounts, the class identified sources of tension and conflict,
which allowed for space to reconcile discourse and accounts that differed.

The interactive discourse made possible the establishment of norms for collective
validation of observations and explanations. The collective validation process involved
the class participating with practices and developing agreed upon criteria of what counted
as normative participation with those practices. The practice of making observations was
guided by standards for precision, accuracy, and reliability, so that normative ways of
participating depended on these standards. The practice of connecting observation,
patterns, and models was guided by norms for what were appropriate ways to explain
those connections. Evidence became a critical tool for participation in validating
observations and explanations. Evidence was used to verify the accuracy of observations
and it was used to determine whether the class had enough justification to support
explanations that made connections between observations, patterns, and models.

The teachers faced challenges when making decisions about how to handle the
tension that occurred between emerging and scientific accounts. They had to balance
their own voice and the authoritative discourse of science with vernacular discourse of
students. They had to teach their students to be metacognitively aware of language and

words. They had to make progress toward their own curricular goals (and mandated

lll

requirements) while simultaneously encouraging students to ask questions and contribute
new ideas. Furthermore, they acknowledged that talking alone was not sufficient, and that
writing was important to supporting students to articulate their ideas and acquire
scientific discourse. They also had to help students make sense of explanatory power of
models, and at times the teacher and students discussed the process of coming to
consensus and when this was necessary.

It became apparent during data collection and analysis that the type of talk
supported in these classrooms changed depending on the teacher’s goals for the lessons.
At times, the teacher wanted to elicit diverse accounts, while at other times, the teacher
encouraged the class to converge on a smaller set of accounts, or single account. Burbules
(1993) suggested that one way classroom discourse can be viewed is in terms of
divergence and convergence. This study corroborates the critical role of convergence and
divergence in classroom talk, and suggests that teachers’ pedagogical purposes influence
how discussions play out in terms of what happens to the accounts that are shared with
the group. Although not analyzed in this study, I suggest the purpose of discussion, and
whether discussion emphasizes convergence or divergence is strongly related to teachers’
instructional models and sequencing of classroom activities. For example, teachers
attempting to elicit prior knowledge early in a science unit, likely support divergent
classroom discussion. Teacher with little interest in prior knowledge or misconceptions of
students may utilize divergent discussions rarely. Furthermore, teachers interested in
coming to agreement on scientific explanations, especially toward the end of study within

a unit, will likely emphasize convergence rather than divergence.

The discussions used in the results section also showed a great deal of teacher
control, where students filtered their contributions through the teacher. While
superficially this may appear to be similar to recitation (i.e., the back-and-forth
exchanges between teacher and students), an important finding from this study was that
even in situations in which teachers remain greatly involved in the dialogue, the
discussion approached the dialogic end of the spectrum between monologue and dialogue
(Burbules & Bruce, 2001). The discussions could be labeled “teacher-controlled
dialogue” since teachers retained power over the direction, pace, and content of
discussions. Yet, even though the students filtered comments through the teachers, the
teachers tried to minimize their voice in the discussions (e.g., “What do you think?”;
“Anything else to add?”). Although not shared in the results, there were instances in
which students led the classroom discussions, first sharing their ideas, and then calling on
and answering questions from students. There were also instances where students talked
directly to one another during discussion without filtering their comments through the
teachers. The student-led discussions, however, occurred less often compared to those in
which the teacher played a major role. One of the challenges for the teachers, which Ms.
Christensen pointed out during her description of the “ideal conversation”, was getting
students to engage in back-and-forth discussion, where the conversation was handed over
to students. Too often, students are well practiced in talking to the teacher, rather than
their peers, during classroom discussions.

Interestingly, during member checks with the teachers, it was mentioned that the
teachers’ content knowledge sometimes influenced the amount of control they wanted

during discussions. Occasionally teachers felt the need for more control when their

113

content knowledge was lacking. There were also times the teachers allowed for
divergence, instead of convergence, when they were “stalling” until they understood the

content themselves, or could make sense of the students’ emerging accounts.

114

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

Teaching science content is unique in that much of learning could potentially
occur through interaction with the material world (e.g., experimentation, investigations
through hands-on activities) in addition to interaction in a social community. Both are
important, but the latter is especially critical for teaching students ways of thinking and
communicating that are valued in science. Classrooms focused primarily on hands-on
activities have been observed to leave little instructional time for discussion, although
students show and report higher levels of engagement when discussions are used
(Blumenfeld, Puro, & Mergendoller, 1992; Mohan et al., in revision). While the teachers
in Mohan et al. (in revision) study, incorporated hands-on activities in their instruction,
they used these judiciously. These teachers understood that hands-on investigations were
only as effective as the discussions that accompanied them.

Productive and rich discussions are important for student participation in science.
This study contributes to the existing literature on dialogism in classrooms by
documenting examples of how this type of discourse is encouraged by teachers during
discussions. It provides a framework for identifying talk that is more dialogic in terms of
discussion norms and discourse moves that indicate the students and teacher are engaged
in heteroglossic, linked, and dynamic talk (Bakhtin, 1981). The framework points to two
broad norms that guided the sharing of accounts during discussions—seeking diversity
and linking accounts. The framework corroborated previous findings about dialogism,
such as Nystrand’s work (1997) on authentic teacher questions, student questions, and

uptake, and added to this literature by expanding the framework to include moves that

115

elicited evaluation, issued open invitations, assigned authorship, and took up new ideas
from students.

More importantly, this study linked dialogic discourse to what was afforded in
terms of participation with content. When teaching science, teachers face the challenge of
balancing authoritative discourse of science, while capitalizing upon (and honoring) what
students bring to the class. This involves careful negotiation between discourses, and
helping students to take on scientific discourse and accounts that offer more explanatory
power, when their vernacular discourse is limited. Importantly, the process of negotiating
discourses involves collective validation of accounts, including validation of observations
and explanations.

Very few teachers naturally support students in participating with science
practices or encourage collective validation, particularly through the use of open forums,
such as discussions (Lemke, 1990; Wells & Arauz, 2006). In the last decade, a great deal
of effort has been made to design curricula to support teachers and students in using
practices, particularly ones related to theory-building and skeptical review (Crawford et
al., 2000; Herrenkohl et al., 1999; Henenkohl & Guerra, 1998; Hogan & Corey, 2001;
Rosebury, Warren, & Conant, 1992) and argumentation skills (Crawford et al., 2000;
Osborne et al., 2004; Warren et al., 1992). Unfortunately, students may be reluctant to
participate with such practices, especially ones involving collective, or group, activities,
since they have limited experience outside of individual tasks for individual evaluation
(Hogan & Corey, 2001) or because group tasks may violate or conflict with students’
sense of individual ownership (Calabrese Barton, 2007). Interventions designed to

support reforrn-based teaching can be even more problematic if the intervention occurs in

116

short time frame, which risks the chance of the teacher and/or students not buying into
the reformed-based methods.

On the other hand, documenting discussions in the classrooms of exemplary
teachers opened a window to what was made possible for science participation during
discussions without the intervention of specially designed curricula (although the teachers
did use high quality materials in their classroom). Exemplary teachers have a remarkable
grasp of what their students bring to the classroom and a repertoire of tools for engaging
students in serious and cognitively demanding tasks (e.g., Blumenfeld et al., 1992;
Mohan et al., in revision). Ms. Christensen and Ms. Hocking were able to support
students in being observant and analytical, and they encouraged their students to
collectively evaluate the observations and explanations that held the floor during
discussions—a daunting task for even the most skilled teachers. The complexity of this
type of instruction is intimidating, yet these two teachers recognized that such complexity
is necessary for students to make substantial progress toward more sophisticated
scientific understanding.

This study also adds to the existing literature of discourse in science by focusing
on the role of the teacher in supporting negotiation of discourses. Numerous studies of
discourse in science have focused on how students learn to negotiate discourse, with less
attention to the means in which the teacher supports this process (e.g., Calabrese Barton
et al., 2008; Moje, 2000; Moje et al., 2004). This study, on the other hand, attempted to
provide insight what the teacher was doing during discussions and how they supported

students in adopting scientific discourse and accounts.

117

Limitations and Directions for Future Research

While this study sheds light on what is possible during science discussions, there
are several important limitations to this work. These limitations involve ways to assess
the learning that occurred during discussions, the relationship between individual and
collective participation, the generalizeability of results, and teacher professional
development and experience.

Assessing Learning in Discussions

One of the main limitations of this research was that there was no assessment of
student learning as a result of participating in these discussions. Accountability,
assessment, and evidence-based pedagogical practice are hugely important in educational
research today. While the study provided evidence that discussions were beneficial for
student participation with practices and norms, there were no formal or consistent
assessments of what students learned about science content. There were no me and post-
assessments and only limited attention to student work beyond what occurred during
discussions. This is unfortunate because few conclusions can be made about how dialogic
discussions supported learning, which is key for getting both researchers and educators to
pay attention to the critical role discussions play in instruction. Other work (e.g.,
Nystrand, 1997) suggests that discussions are beneficial for learning English content, so
the same may be true in science. Future research needs to establish ways to measure
student learning of science content during discussions, and how discussions can be
analyzed both separately and in combination with other activities in the classroom.

Interestingly, Ms. Christensen pointed out during her member check, that

assessing student learning during discussion was especially difficult because she had not

118

found a successful way for making sense of the learning that occurred through actively
listening. She had a sense that many of her students were participating during
discussions, even when those chose not to speak, and suggested that assessing Ieaming
and participation during discussion consider not only the speakers, but what is involved
in actively listening, and how listening influences the transformation of accounts.
Individual and Collective Participation.

A second limitation, which is related to the first, is that this study did not focus on
consistently differentiating between the participation of individuals and that of the group.
Although dialogic discussions provided more opportunities for more students to
participation, I conducted no analysis that looked at the access of individual students and
how their participation evolved in relation to what occurred in the group. While I make
some claims about the transformation of individual student accounts during discussions,
further analyses need to be conducted to link transformation of those accounts to the
transformation of the collective knowledge of the group. One possibility for conducting
such analyses might involve a framework like Cobb & Yackel (1996) in which they
integrate social and psychological perspectives. In this framework they coordinate
individual beliefs about roles, content, and activity with communal norms and practices,
so that one could potentially analyze, for example, the classroom mathematical practices
in relationship to an individual’s mathematical conceptions and activity. The analyses
would involve collecting data regarding group dynamics, as well as assessments of
individuals (either written or interview). Although this study did not collect the necessary

data to complete this type of analysis, future studies on individual and collective

119

participation are potentially promising, especially for identifying how students may
benefit from discussions in different ways.
Generalizeabilty

This study documented the discussions in two science classrooms at the upper
elementary/middle school grades. While the small sample size allowed for rich
description, it limited the degree to which these results can be generalized, especially
when thinking about younger and older populations of students. As work on dialogic
discussions continues, researchers need to document discussions in classrooms at every
grade level, and in a variety of content areas. While attempts were made in this study to
connect the emerging findings to current research, the process of making these
connections was limited by the very fact that few empirical studies of dialogism exist in
the literature, especially in science. The emerging theory from this study will need to be
re-examined as other studies are conducted. More research on discussions in science
should be conducted before such a theory is readily generalizeability to a wider
population of classrooms in science.

Important to the issue of generalizeability is not only whether the emerging theory
applies to different classrooms and age groups, but also to teachers and their classroom
communities year-to-year. Both Ms. Christensen and Ms. Hocking commented during
their member checks that they wondered if my results would be different had I studied a
different year in their classrooms. The did not question the emerging categories described
in the results, but rather whether discussions might have included more or less diversity,
and more or less positioning, depending on the group of students in their classroom that

year. For example, Ms. Christensen explained that during the year I observed her class,

120

students more easily engaged in positioning their accounts, while the following year this
did not come as readily to the group. Rather than focusing on re-examination of the
emerging theory in other classrooms, and at other age levels, it may also be important to
re-examine the theory in the same classroom across several groups of students.

Teacher Experience and Professional Development

As described briefly in the participant section, both teachers in this study had been
closely connected to the local university for years. They had been involved in numerous
professional development experiences, as was true the year this data was collected. One
question that was not answered in this study was how they learned to orchestrate good
discussions, and what occurred in their professional past that directed them toward using
rich discussions? Answering these questions is important not only to shed light on the
professional path and trajectory for developing teacher expertise, but it also has important
implications for the training of in-service and pre-service teachers. Other researchers
(Mohan, Lundeberg, & Reffitt, 2008; Pressley, 2003) have suggested that expert teachers
are not bom, but rather develop through years of targeted professional development. Ms.
Hocking and Ms. Christensen certainly had years of professional development that helped
them to become the reflective teachers they were during this study. Future studies should
look at expert teachers and how they have developed within the profession.

Furthermore, understanding the teaching of exemplary teachers has potential to
impact the training of other teachers. Capturing the productive discussions that occurred
in these classrooms could potentially lead to the development of case studies used with
in-service and pre-service teachers, who need a glimpse into an expert teacher’s

classrooms. For science teachers in particular, providing examples of how exemplary

121

teachers successfully handled the uncertainty that came with dialogic discussions (and
inquiry teaching in general), and how they successfully dealt with naive conceptions, may

give other teachers confidence to use similar practices in their own classrooms.

Conclusion

In traditional science classrooms, in which the authoritative discourse of science
dominates, scientific models, as well as emerging accounts that students bring to the
classroom, are not challenged. Student emerging accounts may become more elaborate,
adopting bits and pieces of scientific models. Students may be successful in reciting their
accounts in narrow contexts, but since they failed to reconcile their vernacular discourse
with scientific discourse, application of their accounts is limited, especially when applied
outside of the classroom. Students need Opportunities to participate in rich discussions
that support them in challenging both emerging and scientific accounts, not only as a way
of reconciling discourses, but also as a way of thinking critically about the explanatory
power afforded by scientific models that is not made possible with informal models. This
type of participation also engages students in the collective activities that are so central to

becoming legitimate members of the science community.

122

Table l

 

 

Participant demographics

Teacher Grade level Experience Setting

Christensen Grade 5 17 years Urban; 30 students
Hocking Grade 6 17 years Suburban; 21 students

 

123

Table 2

Relationship of Dialogic Indicators to Discussion Norms

 

Norms of

Discussions

Dialogic Indicators

Classroom example

 

Diversity of Accounts

 

Multiple A uthentic teacher

accounts are questions that elicit

elicted numerous, diverse

accounts

Open Invitation

Student Value and Respect
accounts are

valued

T: Anybody have any more
predictions about what you think is

going to be happening?

T: Anything else? Anything else to

add?

T: Okay, I’m seeing the same hands
over and over again. If you haven’t
volunteered, if you haven’t offered
anything to the discussion, you need to

get your hand up.

T: Yell it out. Yell it out. What you

have to say is valuable.

T: What do you mean by evaporation?

124

Table 2 continued

A uthentic student

question

New Student Idea

T: I’m having a problem when I hear
people laugh. When a question is
asked, if you laugh, it’s going to make
people feel like their ideas are not as
valid as other people’s ideas. . .this is
one of the procedures that we follow-
this is one of our guidelines. And that
is that you are commenting on the
ideas, talking about the ideas, asking
questions to help you understand. Not
laughing at people. Not laughing at

their ideas.

S: Since tears are like a salty liquid,
why do your eyes not sting when you
cry? But then when you go in the

ocean, it stings?

S: [introduces rollercoaster
comparison that is taken up]. I think
when it goes down like a roller

coaster/ if you don’t have a steep

I25

Table 2 continued

enough hill to go down/ then you
don’t have enough time to even go
over like the ball-

T: Yeah/ that’s interesting because
roller coasters are built differently
now than they used to be. The old-
fashioned wooden roller coaster/ what

was the force that powered it?

 

Linking Accounts

 

 

Accounts are

authored

A uthorship and

Referencing

T: But Jason brought up a very
important point about support/ about
support forces/ right? Would you say
that the support force on this side/ is
different from the support force on

that side?

S: Like when he said that the one with
the plastic on it, the water — was on
top of the plastic- it was there because
it tried to evaporate, but it just

basically was stopped inside.

126

Table 2 continued
Accounts are

positioned

Uptake that aligns

Uptake that creates

opposition

T: So that you’re saying - basically,
you’re saying the same thing that
Thomas said. They’re all up in the air.
The water molecules that were in the

cup now are up in the air- as water.

S: I agree with Allen. Because water
evaporates into the clouds. And then it
precipitates and then does it all over

again ‘til the water cycles.

T: So you’re saying that you disagree
with Gina and David, is that right?
That you think it’s the liquid water?
And the reason that you think this is

what? Say that again.

S: Because lots of people said the sun,
but if the sun doesn’t have anything to
evaporate, then like water- nothing

could evaporate, so what’s the point.

127

Table 2 continued

 

 

Questions that elicit T: What do you think about what
evaluations Sarah said?
Meta-talk
Responsibilities Speaking T: Talk so they can hear you. That’s
during Responsibilities your responsibility
discussions
Listening T: And remember, you want to make
Responsibilities sure that you are listening to everyone

and that you are asking questions if
you don’t understand what they’re
saying. Commenting on ideas, not on

people

 

128

   
  
   

Models
Theories

      
   
  

 
 

 

Learning Using knowledge:
r om , . Application
expenence: Patterns in data: Laws,

inquiry generalizations, graphs, tables

 

Observations, measurements, data
using attribute-value descriptions

 

Figure l. Experience—Pattems—Explanations (EPE) model (Anderson, 2003)

Chris’ Observation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(g)

 

Light box Baby Food White

 

 

 

Brian’s Observation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i

 

Light box Baby Food Jar White Paper

 

 

Sam’s Observation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Light box Baby Food Jar White Paper

 

 

 

Figure 2. Inaccurate or incomplete observations of light beams traveling
through a curved jar

130

Accurate Observation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

>

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Light box Baby Food Jar White Paper
Observation covering one beam of light
Light box Baby Food Jar White Paper

 

 

Figure 3. Accurate observation of two beams of light traveling through a curved

jar and what is observed when one beam is covered.

I31

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

v A 4
.0.
D V A
Water collecting
on plastic
‘V V V
Water in
bottom of

 

dish

Figure 4. Diagram of water collecting on the inside of the plastic-covered
water dish

132

 

 

Dialogic Discourse

 

 

 

 

Diversity of Accounts

0 Multiple accounts are elicited
o Authentic questions
0 Open Invitation

' Student accounts are valued
0 Value and respect
0 Student questions taken up
0 New student ideas taken up

 

 

 

Linking Accounts
' Accounts are authored

o Authorship/referencing
0 Accounts are positioned

o Uptake that aligns

o Uptake that opposes

0 Questions to evaluate

 

 

I

 

 

What it affords:

° Experiential base of students

0 Vernacular language and naive
accounts

What it affords:

' Connecting OPM’s using
evidence

0 Reconciling vernacular and
scientific discourses (and
naive and scientific accounts)

0 Shared accounts and meaning
of words

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Practices and Norms:
0 Validation of accounts
0 Validation of observations
0 Validation of explanations
o Explanatory power of models
0 Consensus

 

 

 

Figure 5. Relationship between dialogism and socioscientific norms and practice.

133

CODES

APPENDIX A: CODING BOOK

Explanation and
Definition

Classroom 1
Example

Classroom 2 Example

Multiple accounts are elicited (MI)- discourse moves in that called for more than one
idea to be shared and considered

ATQ

TE-OI

Authentic Teacher
Question- questions
asked by the
teacher that does
not have a rigid,
pro-specified
answer or
right/wrong answer
pertaining to
content.

Open Invitation-
Teacher encourages
all students to
participate with an
open invitation
(sometimes with
handraising,

sometimes without)

T: Anybody have any

T: This is your big

more predictions about question - big, big

what you think is
going to be
happening?

T: Okay, I’m seeing
the same hands over
and over again. If you
haven’t volunteered, if
you haven’t offered
anything to the
discussion, you need
to get your hand up.

question: why does the
image appear to be
behind the minor? And
is this true with plane
mirrors? Is your image
in the minor the same
as the image behind
these red things? Does
it work that way?

T: You don’t have to

raise your hand/ just
talk.

Student accounts are valued (WW)- indication that the teacher values student
knowledge and student ideas. Students know their ideas are consequential and that
they are expected to help others understand.

VM-RE

Value and Respect-
teacher expresses
value for students,
genuinely cares
about what they
have to say, and
encourages others
to be respectful.

T: Yell it out. Yell it
out. What you have to
say is valuable.

T: I want to refocus
our discussion and
hold on to the ideas. I
wrote them down so
we wouldn’t lose
those ideas.

134

T: Okay/ would you
guys listen to Derek. I
want Dereld I want you
to explain this to them.
Would you explain it to
them?

ASQ Authentic Student

Question-questions
asked by students
that pertains to the
content, and asked
out of curiosity,
confusion, interest,
etc.
NSI New Student Idea-
An idea or
comment expressed
by a student that
shifts the direction
of the discussion

T: I’m having a
problem when I hear
people laugh. When a
question is asked, if
you laugh, it’s going
to make people feel
like their ideas are not
as valid as other
people’s ideas.

S: Well I first have a
question. If- um— left
something out, why
don’t the waters from
the ocean evaporate?

Maria's connected
boiling water to
cooking experiences
which was taken up by
the group into a
lengthy discussion of
observation while
cooking.

S: Since tears are like
a salty liquid, why do
your eyes not sting
when you cry? But then
when you go in the
ocean, it stings?

S: Um/ I think when it
goes down like a roller
coaster/ if you don’t
have a steep enough
hill to go down/ then
you don’t have enough

time to even go over
like the ball-

Accounts are authored (A U)- linking accounts involves assigning authorship to the

accounts under consideration

 

TU-R or Assigning author or
SU-R referencing- when

the teacher or
student revoices an
idea, giving
authorship of an
idea to a member in
the group

S: Like when he said
that the one with the
plastic on it, the water
— was on tOp of the
plastic- it was there
because it tried to
evaporate, but it just
basically was stopped
inside.

135

T: But Derek brought
up a very important
point about support/
about support forces/
right? Would you say
that the support force
on this side/ is different
from the support force
on that side?

T: Let me ask you to
quote your answer,

Maria I want to give
everyone a chance to

think about this. Maria
said that she thought -—

see what you think.
She thinks that the

water level went down

because — because the
steam was coming up
out of the cup. And so
the water was coming
up out of the cup.
What do you think
about that?

T: Somebody said
something about
friction being necessary
to hold it/ in the loop.
Chris: That was Ellen.
Ellen: Because it’s like/
see you know how it
makes this noise/ this
helps to understand
because if it’s/ it’s like
staying on here and if/
it’s like too smooth/
even if you have this
little circle or
something/ then you’d
have/ like a skateboard
ramp.

Accounts are positioned (POS)- linking account involves positioning accounts by
either disagreeing or agreeing with accounts on the floor and by evaluating accounts.

TU-AL or
SU-AL

Uptake that aligns
ideas- when the
teacher or students
specifically align
two or more ideas
or two or more
people as a way of
building agreement
(may include
revoicing moves)

T: So that you’re
saying -— basically,
you’re saying the
same thing that Mario
said. They’re all up in
the air. The water

molecules that were in

the cup now are up in
the air- as water.

T: Okay. Because I
hear you and Corey
saying you would be
able to see it if it was
liquid water. Can you
see a cloud?

S: I agree with Allen.
Because water
evaporates into the
clouds. And then it
precipitates and then
does it all over again
‘til the water cycles.

136

T: SO there’s some sort
of energy transfer or
something going on?
Okay, now Tim, you
said the same thing.
You thought that light
energy that doesn’t go
all the way through
something might
change to/ might
change to heat energy.

T: What do you think is
going to happen? Think
about what happened
when Beth and Jason
and I were sort of
marching with our
meter stick? What
happened?

TU-O or
SU-O

GEQ

Uptake that
opposes- when the

teacher or students
specifically Opposes
two or more ideas
or two or more
people as a way of
pointing out
disagreement (may
include revoicing
moves)

Calls for Individual
or collective
evaluation-
question asked by
teacher that
requires students to
evaluate the
previous idea(s).

 

S: I think it’s the
molecules ‘cause
yesterday when we
talked about when it
gets cold- um the
molecules slow down
and they stick
together.

T: So you’re saying
that you disagree with
Trisha and Corey, is
that right? That you
think it’s the liquid
water? And the reason
that you think this is
what? Say that again.

S: Because lots of
people said the sun,
but if the sun doesn’t
have anything to
evaporate, then like
water- nothing could
evaporate, so what’s
the point.

T: What do you think
about what Alise said?

T: See if you agree
with what Thomas
says. See if you agree
with what other people
say. If you agree, say
you agree and give
your reasons. If you
don’t agree, say you
don’t agree; give your
reasons.

137

S: I think I agree with
Beth’s first reasoning
because I don’t think
you can use/ Newton's
second law/ because if
you use enough force/
then maybe it will
actually move the
opposite way.

T: This is really
interesting. He says
they’re clear. You say
they’re translucent,
why won’t these work?

S 1: No/ no. There’s
less gravitational
potential energy right
here.

82: I know but it’s
going to go down faster
so there’s more
potential energy/ that’s
going to make it go
down.

T: What do you think?
He says the force is
being transferred. Can
we transfer force?

What do you think?

Meta-talk- students are coach in how to speak clearly and loudly, and how to
participate as active listeners

SR

LR

Snake:
responsibilities-

indication that it is
important to talk
loud and clear for
everyone to hear
and as a way of
making sense of
your ideas.

 

Lime:
responsibilities-
indication that it is
important to listen
carefully to and
consider every idea

 

T: Talk so they can
hear you. That’s your
responsibility.

T: Okay. Say it nice
and loud. I want to
know what other
people think about
that.

T: And remember, you
want to make sure that
you are listening to
everyone and that you
are asking questions if
you don’t understand
what they’re saying.
Commenting on ideas,
not on people.

138

T: Can you say that
louder/ I can't hear you.

T: This is - you know,
they put a lot into this
first sentence. 1 want
you guys to listen to
this and see if you can
tease out the really
important parts.

APPENDIX B: MS. HOCKING’S INTERVIEW

PART I: Background Information
Information about students:
Total Students:

Number of Males/Females: M F

 

 

Ethnicity ofclass:

Economic status of students:

Information about teacher:

How many years have you taught in total?

 

At elementary level?

 

At middle school level?

 

At high school level?

 

Other?

 

 

Certifications?

 

 

What degree(s) do you hold? (both science and/or education)

Bachelors?

 

Masters?

 

Specialist?

 

Other?

 

Other background information:

139

PART 2: Specific Clips:

Guiding questions we might consider in each clip:

' What goals do you have for what you want students to learn about science in the clip?

° How do you see these goals as connecting to what students need to know about
science and the practices valued in the science community?

' How do you see discussion as playing a role in achieving your goals in this clip?

° How do you see discussion as playing a role in student learning of science in the
clip?

1. Testing & Exploring— teacher tells students to explore light/matter any way they like
You do a lot of open-ended explorations: Why do you use the approach of exploration
first? What are your goals for students when they participate in these explorations? How
do you see this as helping them use practices valued in science?

2. Control Variables

In this clip, the students and you talk about control variables after students have explored.
You scaffold their thinking about the control variables. What was your purpose for doing
this at this particular point in the lesson? What caused you to do this brief “mini-lesson”?

3. Coming to consensus

In this clip, students develop groups based on how light interactions with matter. What do
you see your role is when helping students to reach consensus? How do you see talking
about consensus as contributing to what students learn about science?

You also have students develop working definitions for words. How do you usually teach
vocabulary to students? What do you want students to do with their working definitions?

4. Science method & Directions for penny/jar-

In this clip you have students explain their ideas about the scientific method and then
explain what you expect of students during the next few lessons. Mostly you
communicate expectations of students. What were you listening for when asking about
scientific methods? What do you want students to learn about science when talking about
this?

5. PI] small group 1- curvature and reflection
In this clip you circulate to a small group working with their jar and penny. What do you
see your role as facilitator while you do this? What are you listening for?

6. P/J Kevin’s observation- shares with class

In this clip, you selected an observation from one student to share with the class. Why did
you select Kevin’s observation? How do you choose what observations to share and what
not to share?

140

7. Trial and Error

This was a lesson that did not go as planned. You talk explicitly to students about this.
What was your purpose for talking about the failed experiments? Do you think talking
about them influenced your students’ understanding of science?

8. Predicting light boxes & Evaluating predictions

In this clip, students first draw their predictions on the overhead. After investigating in
groups, the students them evaluate the predictions as a class. What was your goal for
students in these clips? How do you see predicting and evaluating predictions relating to
your goals for students?

9. Sketches of light box

In this clip you have students sketch what they observed with the light boxes. What
explanations and sketches were you expecting? When someone sketched the “wrong”
observation, what did you feel you needed to do? What did you want students to learn
from this?

PART 3: General views about goals of science discussions:

1. How do you get students to engage in discussions about science? What practices do
you use?

2. What practices do you encourage students to use in the discussions? How to you
support them in using those practices?

3. How do you see writing as supporting discussions?

4. How do you see hands-on activities and investigations as supporting discussions?

5. When students answer in a wrong or unexpected way, such as showing
misconceptions or steering the conversation in an unexpected direction, what do you
feel you need to do as the teacher?

141

. How do you think discussion and communication influence students’ Ieaming of
science? What evidence do you have?

. What other things do you think I should ask about your science teaching? What things
seem important to you?

. If I were to make a case study from the lessons I’ve taped, which lesson would you
want me to choose and why?

. Why is questioning important to you? What types of questions do you try to ask your
students? How do you help students to ask their own questions?

142

APPENDIX C: MS. CHRISTENSEN’S INTERVIEW

PART I: Background Information
Information about students:
Total Students:

Number of Males/Females: M F

 

 

Ethnicity ofclass:

Economic status of students:

Information about teacher:

How many years have you taught in total?

 

At elementary level?

 

At middle school level?

 

At high school level?

 

Other?

 

 

Certifications?

 

 

Where did you earn each degree that you hold? (both science and/or education)

Bachelors?

 

Masters?

 

Specialist?

 

Other?

 

Other background information:

143

PART 2: Specific practices from videos:
Specific Clips:

Guiding questions we might consider in each clip:

° What goals do you have for what you want students to learn about science in the clip?

0 How do you see these goals as connecting to what students need to know about
practices valued in science?

° How do you see discussion as playing a role in achieving your goals in this clip?

° How do you see discussion as playing a role in student learning of science in the
clip?

C lip 1: What makes weather?

This clip was from a lesson that occurred at the beginning of the unit. Students
brainstormed their ideas about “What makes the Weather?” Why did you do this activity
at this point in the unit? What was your goal for this activity? What were listening for
from your students?

Clip 2: Observations ofInvestigtion I

In this clip, students are observing investigation 1. What do you expect of students
Observations? How to you help students articulate/describe their observations? How do
you see hands-on activities as supporting discussions?

C lip 3: Explaining and Predicting (around minute 43: 151

In this clip, you ask students to write explanations for two questions in response to
investigation 1 and to make predictions for investigation 2. Why do you have students
make predictions? How do you see writing as supporting discussions (or vice versa)?

C [in 4: What are clouds made of?

In this clip, students discuss what makes up clouds. What are your expectations for the
types of explanations that students give? Why do you have students evaluate each other’s
explanations? How do you think discussion like this support student learning?

C [in 5 .' Adding to chart
In this clip, students add more ideas to the water cycle chart. What was your purpose for
this activity? What were you listening for from students?

C Lip 6: Listener responsibilities
In this clip you remind students of their responsibilities during a science talk. Can you
explain more about your expectations for “listener responsibilities” and “speaker

144

responsibilities”? How do you help students become good listeners/speakers throughout
the school year? Why is this so important to you? What do you think students learn
because of these expectations?

Clip 7: Begin science talk

In this clip, the class begins their science talk. Can you describe the typically science talk
in your class? What are your goals for the science talk? What do you hope students learn
during the talks? How do you see the ‘quick write’ as supporting the discussion? What is
your role during the science talk?

Clip 8: Adding comments to science talk

In this clip, you give students who passed an opportunity to add to the science talk. Can
you talk a little more about your purpose here and what you hope students will do during
this time?

C lip 10: Hail and melting

In this clip, Maria had asked the question about why hail doesn’t melt (since it falls in the
summertime). Ben asks for a clarification of “melt”. Students in your class ask lots of
questions- How do you help students learn to ask question? Why do you think this is
important? Why do you have students answer and evaluate their classmate’s
question/ideas?

Clip I I: Revisiting science talk

In this clip, you bring students back to the science talk and tell the class who changed
their mind. What is your purpose for doing this? What do you expect from your students
in this discussion?

Clip 12: Kamal and Ben

In this clip Kamal and Ben are questioning each other’s explanations. How do you see
this type of activity as important for what you want students to learn about science? How
do you help students come to some consensus?

PART 3: General views about goals of science discussions:

10. How do you get students to engage in discussions about science? What practices do
you use?

145

1 1. What practices do you encourage students to use in the discussions? How to you
support them in using those practices?

12. When students answer in a wrong or unexpected way, such as showing
misconceptions or steering the conversation in an unexpected direction, what do you
feel you need to do as the teacher?

13. How do you think discussion and communication influence students’ Ieaming of
science? What evidence do you have?

14. What other things do you think I should. ask about your science teaching? What things
seem important to you?

146

APPENDIX D: TERMS

Literacy: communication of a social language through different literacy acts and genres,
including reading, writing, and oral communication (and multiple symbol systems
connected to that language) that represent a particular way of thinking, valuing, or acting.

(Similar terms: Discourse (James Gee); Articulacy (Michael Halliday))

Discourse: Distinctive ways people talk, read, write, think, believe, act, and interact with

things and other people to get recognized (Gee, 1996)

Important Note: How are literacy and Discourse alike or different? Science Literacy and
(big D) Discourse (Gee, I 996) appear to be very similar depending on how one chooses
to define “literacy” or “Discourse Some scholars, such as Moje define “literacy” as
specifically the reading and writing of print and do not include orality or other symbolic
systems. However, my definition of “literacy” is somewhat closer to Gee ’s Discourse, yet
there is more emphasis on how natural language of a community is appropriated through
written and spoken discourse, rather than a “way of being” as Discourse typically
emphasizes. The terms “Discourse ” as used by Gee and the term “Literacy ” as I define
it are in no way incompatible and choosing one seems to depend more on the community
in which the research is conducted and the focus of the research. Since the science
education community has used Scientific literacy as a goal, I have chosen to use

Scientific literacy as opposed to Scientific Discourse.

I47

Scientific Literacy: The capacity to understand and participate in evidence-based
discussions that thoughtful consideration of evidence and explanation, as well as

participating in the collective process of validating and skeptical review.

Science practice: Social activities in which members interact with other people or the
material world using tools valued in science, such as scientific principles and specialized

language.

Monologic discourse: A type of discourse that is univocal in which discourse is used for
the transmission of knowledge or information from a “knower’ or ‘eXpert’ to ‘learner’ or
‘novice. In this way knowledge flows in one direction and the ‘knower’ does not
acknowledge that the learner has knowledge to contribute. Examples include recitation

and lecture (derived from Bakhtin, Nystrand, Wells, Lottman, etc)

Dialogic discourse/dialogic exchange: A type of discourse that is multi-vocal (or
heteroglossia), in which discourse is used for collaborative knowledge building between
multiple knowers who are simultaneously learners. In this type of discourse knowledge

comes from multiple sources (derived from Bakhtin, Nystrand, Wells, Lottman, etc)

Discourse move: A single utterance or contribution made by a participant that has a

specific purpose or function.

True Discussion: Type of discourse structure, involving free exchange of information

among 3 or more people (and lasting for more than 30 seconds- from Nystrand, 199 7)

148

Recitation: Describes a teacher-student interaction in which students recite previously
learned information in response to teacher questioning (Example: IRE). This does not
necessarily mean students are doing much oral participation, because the teacher’s voice
often dominates and teachers may actually do the answering as a way of elaborating on

students’ short answers.

Lecture: Describes a type of communication is which information is given, often by one

person, to an audience with minimal audience participation in response to the

information.

149

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