Creating a Taken-As-Shared Understanding for Scientific Explanation: Classroom Norm Perspective

Abstract

The study aimed to investigate whether classroom norm perspective influence the students' capability of elucidating a natural phenomena and beliefs about scientific explanation. In particular, our objective was to explore the process by which the norm for scientific explanation was established and discover how the students' explanation and their beliefs about scientific explanation altered in this process. A case study approach was adopted and a total of 51 students participated in the study. The data has included videotapes of classroom periods for an entire school semester, individual interviews with the students conducted at the beginning and at the end of the semester, and students' written responses collected in the middle and at the end of the semester in the year of 2012. In creating a sociocultural norm for scientific explanation, the teacher, in the class, was seen declaring his own expectation, negotiating the meaning by making comments on and legitimizing students' accounts, and calling the students' attention towards the important parts of an acceptable explanation. The results indicated that towards the end of the semester, the students' explanation and their beliefs about scientific explanation have considerably improved.

Prospective Secondary Teachers’ Emergent Knowledge and Beliefs: Inquiry-Oriented Differential Equations Contributing to Teacher Preparation

“…The instructor is a high-status actor and has outsize influence over the development of social norms, but they cannot "set" these norms -they must be negotiated through repeated interaction. The dynamic coevolution of beliefs and norms was originally developed in elementary school mathematics courses, and has been seen in undergraduate mathematics and science classes (Dixon et al, 2009;Johnson, 2000;Saglam et al, 2014;Yackel & Rasmussen, 2003;Yackel et al, 2000). In this manuscript, we focus on the PSTs' espoused beliefs about the students' roles, the instructor's role, and the nature of mathematical learning as they reflect on their experiences in this course and imagine their future teaching.…”

Chemistry Teachers’ Level of Scientific Explanation about Change of State and their Beliefs about Scientific Explanation

“…Therefore, it is considered that the explanations of teachers are important in order that the subjects of science lessons are comprehensible and permanent. Hence, especially in science lessons, teachers must explain the subjects related to daily life with causal reasons (Saglam, Karaaslan & Ayas, 2014), and students must be allowed to make explanations. In order to ensure this, it can be stated that teachers first must know what a scientific explanation is and how to make a good scientific explanation.…”

“…No study was found in the literature that determines the teachers' beliefs about scientific explanations. In a study by Saglam, Karaaslan & Ayas (2014), primary school teacher candidates' beliefs about scientific explanations were determined. Thus, it is possible to say that the study is unique as it has determined high school teachers' beliefs.…”

“…Unfortunately, it is impossible to give an exact answer to this question. Although some consider the scientific explanation as explaining the phenomena through several various methods (Grunberg & Grunberg, 2011), and some as information structured by scientists (Köseoğlu, Tümay & Budak, 2008), it appears that there is not only one definition in the literature regarding scientific explanation (Braaten & Windschitl, 2011;Saglam, Karaaslan & Ayas (2014). For example, according to Hempel (1965), a natural phenomenon must be explained based on specific laws.…”

“…Therefore, teachers expect students to build a causal relationship while explaining any event or phenomenon (Yadigaroglu & Demircioglu, 2012). But on the other hand, it is observed that students mostly make short definitions and cannot explain why they are asked to explain an event related to daily life (Demirbaş & Pektaş, 2009;Saglam, Karaaslan & Ayas, 2014).…”