Coteaching, peer tutoring and curriculum writing: lasting effects of involving students in talking about science

A Systematic Review of Science Discourse in K–12 Urban Classrooms in the United States: Accounting for Individual, Collective, and Contextual Factors

“…Studies focused on student characteristics as they relate to science discourse included in the examination of individual factors including students’ language backgrounds (Lan & de Oliveira, 2019; Mohan & Slater, 2006), argumentation ability and motivation (Bathgate et al, 2015), personal identity (Bayne, 2009; Thompson, 2014), and/or sense of agency (Bayne, 2012, 2013; Clarke et al, 2016). There was also one study that examined the relationship between teacher-level factors (beliefs) and science discourse (Pimentel & McNeill, 2013).…”

“…Student agency, or the power and volition to act in a field (Ko & Krist, 2019; Miller et al, 2018), emerged as an individual factor that influenced whether and how students engaged in science discourse. For example, findings from mixed-methods case studies conducted by Bayne (2012, 2013) showed that high school students’ sense of agency in their biochemistry classroom resulted in students organizing cogenerative classroom dialogues (i.e., focused discussions among multiple stakeholders, such as student, teacher, and researcher, who hold relevant local knowledge and experience around learning) focused on questioning the prevailing narrative of urban youth and engaging multiple stakeholders in science talk in an emancipatory manner. Black student researchers also demonstrated a nuanced understanding of how the same term can hold different meanings in science discourse.…”

“…Our findings couched within the complex systems framework identifies several points of intersection among elements at individual, collective, and contextual levels, and between stable and changing patterns that can be examined to address these gaps in the literature—for example, at the microlevel, individual student characteristics, including agency, local and disciplinary knowledge, language fluency, and motivation interacts with macrolevel elements such as recognition for student leadership positions (e.g., Bayne, 2013), solicitation of ideas in whole-class discussions (e.g., Clarke et al, 2016), and classroom norms and expectations for discourse (e.g., Berland & Reiser, 2011). As another example, the access to participation in science discourse interacts with macrolevel elements such as the presence or absence of hybrid or collective third spaces (e.g., Tan & Calabrese Barton, 2010), teachers’ ability to bridge students’ FoK with science content (e.g., Brown & Spang, 2008), and the acknowledgment of students’ intersectional identities (e.g., Thompson, 2014).…”

“…Others provided a more critical look that problematized aspects of the classroom and broader enterprise of science teaching and learning (e.g., cultural mismatch between academic and home languages, e.g., Calabrese Barton & Tan, 2010; Varelas et al, 2008). The small number of studies guided by cognitive frameworks (21%) included theories and concepts of learning and motivation (e.g., assimilation frameworks, beliefs, e.g., Bayne, 2013; Clarke et al, 2016), but as discussed next, also drew from sociocultural perspectives to understand how these individual factors and processes manifest in classroom environments.…”

“…For example, McNeill and Pimentel (2009) qualitatively coded transcripts of classroom discourse to identify patterns in dialogic interactions between students and teacher that were presented with supporting excerpts, but also provided quantitative trends (percentages) of utterances that represented teacher versus student talk. Similarly, other studies provided rich qualitative descriptions of the nature of science discourse in classrooms and schools (e.g., student agency, negotiation of roles in small-group talk, bridging of everyday and scientific language in whole-class discussions) and used quantitative data to provide additional descriptive evidence for the emergent qualitative themes (e.g., Bayne, 2013; Varelas & Pappas, 2006).…”