Students' Roles in Group-Work with Visual Data: A Site of Science Learning

Abstract

Learning science includes learning to argue with inscriptions: images used to symbolize information persuasively. This study examined sixth-graders learning to invest inscriptions with representational status, in a geographic information system (GIS)-based science investigation. Learning to reason with inscriptions was studied in emergent participation patterns in groups, operationalized as roles. Cross-case analyses compared developmental trajectories for two roles in each group: competitive challenger and quiet bystander. Role development mediated learning to reason with inscriptions, including (1) co-assembling "representational states" of data and (2) managing dialectical tensions of argumentation. Role was operationalized as a site of learning, intersecting individual and collective processes, rather than a mechanism of one impacting another. Distributed conceptions of practice support this approach for understanding how students learn to do science.

Managing Uncertainty During Collaborative Problem Solving in Elementary School Teams: The Role of Peer Influence in Robotics Engineering Activity

“…Engineering design and science inquiry have similar sources, as they occur in ill-structured domains in which uncertainty is inherent (Sullivan, 2008). Learning to deal with uncertainty is part of learning to participate in engineering and science practices (Dunbar & Fugelsang, 2005;Latour & Woolgar, 1986), make sense of inscriptions (Gray & Tall, 1994;Radinsky, 2008), and engage in scientific discourse (Hall, 1999;Hyland, 1996).…”

“…However, these authors did not investigate the relationship between students' subjective experiences of uncertainty and their uncertainty expressions. Radinsky (2008) demonstrated how sixth graders fruitfully introduced uncertainty into discussions in which reasoning about scientific inscriptions was paramount to their collaborative task, creating opportunities for learning by mitigating their peers' tendency toward "absolutist, de-problematized characterizations" (p. 174) of the visual data with which the group was working. Uncertainty constrained some learners' participation when they avoided expressing uncertainty because of fears that it might undermine their social position and conversational roles in their group, whereas for others, discursive practices of managing uncertainty provided options for participation and opportunities to develop their conversational roles.…”

“…In a seminal observational study of middle and high school students working across disciplines, they cited the genesis of uncertainty in two primary sources: risk associated with the possibility of evaluative failure and ambiguity stemming from lack of clearly prespecified correct performance. Researchers have subsequently identified uncertainty in learning tasks elicited from unfamiliarity (Doyle & Carter, 1984;Radinsky, 2008), novelty (Herbst, 2003), and complexity (Blumenfeld, Mergendoller, & Swarthout, 1987). Uncertainty is likely a particularly common experience in learning, as individuals grapple to construct new disciplinary understandings and struggle to participate in new social practices (Jordan, 2010).…”

In Pursuit of Consensus: Disagreement and legitimization during small-group argumentation

“…Hogan and Corey hypothesize that this response to consensus-building grew out of the classroom culture that rewarded individual achievement. Radinsky (2008) has similarly documented middle school students actively posturing in order to establish positions of authority over their peers. In addition, Barron (2000) found that a focus on demonstrating an individual's own mathematical competence during small group interactions disrupted students' engagement with one another's ideas.…”

Investigating Middle School Students’ Perceptions of Communication Challenges in Collaborative Engineering Design Learning (Fundamentals)

“…Drawing from previous research on peer-to-peer interactions during collaborative work (See, for example, 8,9,21,22,23 ), we identified two social issues (negotiating roles and responsibilities, evaluating progress) and two task issues (understanding the task specifications, generating design ideas) that present communication challenges for individuals engaged in collaborative design activity: negotiating roles and responsibilities; evaluating task progress and group interaction; understanding the task; and generating new ideas or solutions. These communication challenges became the basis for reflective survey questions, observers' notes, and class debriefings.…”