Designing Argumentation Learning Environments

Abstract

How can we support pupils' engagement in argumentation? Should argumentation be explicitly taught or rather embedded in the learning tasks? Which design principles are related to the goal of promoting argumentation in the science classroom? Are they the same as design principles for constructivist learning environments? How can research explore these features of learning environments supporting argumentation?The above excerpt comes from a 4th-grade classroom (9-10-year-olds), during the process of jointly planning a field trip by teacher and pupils, including decisions about topics to be studied and methods to study them. The teacher uses an analogy between ecology and classroom studies that is the reverse of another analogy found in educational papers (see for instance Doyle, 1977) that propose viewing the classroom as a complex system of relationships and interactions similar to the relationships in ecosystems. Here the presence of the researcher, Ramón López, in the classroom is used to exemplify both the need for an approach to the pond as a whole and of doing it in the field. Implicit in the teacher analogy between the classroom and the pond is the goal of promoting pupils' reflection about their own learning processes and about the ways of constructing knowledge concerning the pond.The use of this analogy can be seen as connected to the third, fourth and fifth questions formulated in the first paragraph, the last concerning research about argumentation learning environments, a research tightly interwoven with the design principles aimed at promoting argumentation, the subject of the third and fourth questions. These design principles intend, among other goals, that pupils reflect about their own learning. The relationships among designing environments to promote argumentation and investigating them can be connected to the impact on some science educators, like myself, initiating S. Erduran and M. P. Jiménez-Aleixandre (eds.), Argumentation in Science Education.91

Students' questions and discursive interaction: Their impact on argumentation during collaborative group discussions in science

“…But what features of learning environments promote students' engagement in argumentation and what design principles may be used as guidelines? Research to‐date (e.g., Jiménez‐Aleixandre, 2008; Sandoval & Reiser, 2004) shows that learning environments which facilitate argumentation encourage the development of epistemic practices where students generate explanations, construct arguments and counter‐arguments, justify their claims with evidence, and evaluate knowledge claims. Teachers scaffold the development of students' epistemological understanding by providing criteria for the construction and evaluation of arguments.…”

Argumentation in science education as a systemic activity: An activity-theoretical perspective

“…This has been implicitly recognised in the literature (e.g., Jiménez-Aleixandre, 2008;Kelly, 2008) but the description of argumentation as a systemic activity and especially the often contradictory dynamics and interrelations that may exist between its separate components has not been adequately shown or examined until now. This paper contributes towards this effort by using appropriate theoretical, methodological and analytical tools from Cultural-Historical Activity Theory in order to study the teaching and learning practices through which argumentation is facilitated in science education in primary schools in Cyprus (see Figures 4.1, 4.2, 5 and 6).…”

“…As Jiménez-Aleixandre (2008) argues: "the collective dimension of activity systems are relevant both for the design of learning environments to support argumentation and for the research about them" (p.94) while Manz (2014) suggests that "researchers need to develop classroom activity systems in which students' argumentation can serve an integral role " (p.19). This seems to be in accordance with how scholars see other processes relevant to argumentation in science education, like the process of empirical inquiry, for which they argue that it "cannot exist in isolation from the theories that it seeks to test, the analysis and interpretation of the data, and the arguments required to resolve conflicting interpretations" (Osborne, 2014, p.579) and that a "focus on collective activity" (Kelly, 2008, p.105) is needed, as the production of arguments through scientific inquiry "cannot be properly understood without knowledge of the sociocultural practices framing the activity" (ibid., p.107).…”

“…Nevertheless, previous work that introduced the idea of argumentation as a collective whole (Jiménez-Aleixandre, 2008;Kelly, 2008;Manz, 2014), only addressed this idea either as an urge to researchers to use a wider lens for facilitating or examining argumentation in science education by having its collective, sociocultural dimension in mind or as an effort to consider ways of re-embedding argumentation as a tool and a meaningful scientific practice in science education, similar to those taking place within professional scientific activity systems; suggestions with which we are in complete accord.…”

Untitled

“…The students' arguments that were transcribed indicate an improvement in the students' understanding of current electricity. According to Jimenez-Aleixandre (2007), the argumentation approach to teaching science has gained momentum in recent years. Aydeniz and Ozdilek (2015) reported that argumentation had received such significant attention because it is believed that learning science through argumentation helps students to develop and improve their understanding of the nature of science.…”