Re/Production of science process skills and a scientific ethos in an early childhood classroom

Abstract

Many educators and researchers are convinced that age limits what students can learn and achieve in science. Elementary school curricula focus on isolated process skills under the faulty assumption that young students are not capable of combining the process skills and content knowledge necessary for reasoning scientifically. In the present study, I demonstrate that many process skills are produced in conversations between second grade students and between these students and their teachers, including: questioning, hypothesis formation, experimental design, identifying relevant evidence, critical analysis of hypotheses and predictions, hypothesis reconstruction, and variable identification. Through conversation analysis I show that most classroom community members adopted the role of skeptic at some time, but there was a strong tendency to defer to authoritative sources when resolving debates. This latter observation led to further investigation of when and how authoritative sources were consulted and used, and when and how a skeptical stance was taken. I show that, as students used science process skills and interacted with each other and teacher-mediators, community practices, values, and mores were shaped and an ethos of science began to emerge. It is my contention that this ethos often emerges unconsciously as part of the community's dynamic set of rules and schema. Teachers who are attuned to the tension between open-mindedness and skepticism, and how they and their students cope with this dialectic, however, can actively shape the scientific ethos of their classroom community.

Engaging young children in collective curriculum design

“…Some researchers criticize this assertion and show us that children do have creative potential from their early age on (e.g., Kirch 2007). In our theorizing, we do not begin with such presuppositions but allow the problem whether very young children can participate in Collective curriculum design 537 complex tasks to be an empirical question.…”

“…The trajectory of this enacted curriculum therefore is that of a gardenpath laid in walking. For this reason, the enacted curriculum has a strong transformative potential (Kirch 2007), because it focuses as much on the production of ideas and structures as it focuses on reproducing culture. Using the concepts of agency|passivity and resources|schemas we describe the movement that occur within, and are produced by, a group consisting of young children and their teacher.…”

Emphasizing collaborative practices in learning to teach: coteaching and cogenerative dialogue in a field‐based methods course

“…Education courses held on college campuses and removed from schools can create the illusion that all children of a given age will react in similar ways to activities, or that age can limit students' abilities. Young children are quite capable of reasoning scientifically (Kirch, 2007) and first-hand experiences in navigating conversations and engaging in investigations with children can provide opportunities to experience young children as they participate in science and reveal the diversity of children's development.…”

Coteaching and Disturbances: Building a Better System for Learning to Teach Science

“…In their study of coteaching, van Eijck and used CHAT to theorize the relationship between science and traditional ecological knowledge. Kirch (2007) in her study of the role of uncertainty in elementary students learning science used CHAT to theorize language and dialogue as mediating tools for learning. Roth and Tobin (2002) used activity theory to explain the role of contradictions in making teaching and learning of science virtually impossible in an urban high school.…”