International Periodical for the Languages, Literature and History of Turkish or Turkic Volume 12/17, p. 227-244
DOI Number: http://dx.doi.org/10.7827/TurkishStudies.11971 ISSN: 1308-2140, ANKARA-TURKEY
Article Info/Makale Bilgisi
Referees/Hakemler: Prof. Dr. Mehmet KÖÇER – Yrd. Doç. Dr.
Davut SARITAŞ
This article was checked by iThenticate.
THE QUESTIONING STRATEGIES AFFECTING TEACHERS’
IMPLEMENTATION LEVELS OF THE ARGUMENT-BASED INQUIRY
Nurcan KELEŞ* - Brian HAND
ABSTRACT
The purpose of the study was to explore and explain the questioning types affecting teachers’ implementation levels of the Argument-Based Inquiry to distinguish the patterns of elementary science classroom. The implementation of argument based teaching method was based on the Science Writing Heuristic Approach as it is an immersive argument based inquiry method. The grounded theory qualitative design was used in this study to show the patterns in questioning types of teachers from different implementation levels. The classroom levels were determined with the Reformed Based Teaching Observation Protocol (RTOP). According to results of RTOP, teachers’
implementation levels were assessed in three levels. Among these classes, three teachers’ classrooms were examined one each from the low, the medium, and the high level of the implantations. The results indicated that teachers used different amount of questioning types in each level of class. While the amount of descriptive questions was used in the most in the lower level classes, the amount of argumentative questions was placed in the most in high level class. The questions’ orientations also differed according to implementation levels. The study showed that using more comprehensive questions initiated the argumentation in the classroom and teachers should also use multiple type of questions to enable other students to ask each other questions to start and continue the argumentation in the classes.
STRUCTURED ABSTRACT
The National Educations Standards (NRC, 1996) strongly encourage teachers to use inquiry in their classrooms. The dilemma when teaching with inquiry is the inadequate amount of student participation and interaction (Osborne 2010). Given the current emphasis on inquiry
in science education, it is critical for science teachers to have students develop argumentation skills with their ideas during the inquiry process (Ford 2008). Having students formulate argumentation is the way to promote students’ interaction and so students develop reasoning and critical thinking skills with argumentation (Katchevich, Hofstein, &
Mamlok-Naaman, 2013). The Science Writing Heuristic Approach is the method to establish and promote argumentation through argument based inquiry with combining the writing.
Teachers play an important role in initiating and elaborating argument in the classroom. The results of the study indicate that the quality and the frequency of students’ voice are strongly related to the teacher’s questioning patterns. The key point here is that when teachers use SWH, their pedagogical orientation needs to be changed. During pedagogical development, teachers are required to use questions to maintain the discussion in their classrooms. However, not every teacher has the same level of change in their pedagogical orientation. This leads to different levels of implementation of the SWH approach in the classrooms. The difference manifests in the teacher’s questioning skills and type. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to explore and explain different level of teachers’ implementations of argument based inquiry in terms of questioning skills of teachers and students to distinguish the patterns of each level when teaching with SWH in the science classroom.
The Science Writing Heuristic (SWH) is a framework, which emphasizes the importance of language use in learning, and integrates argument into scientific inquiry. The Science Writing Heuristic (SWH) designs learning activities using written and oral argument in laboratory and classroom settings. The research shows that students are not capable of participating in scientific argumentation because they have inadequate knowledge about the goals and processes of scientific argumentation (Osborne, 2010). The SWH approach is the method that facilitates understanding of and participation in argumentation by using inquiry.
The grounded theory qualitative design was used in this study. The aim is the study to show different patterns of the classroom; thus, the transcripts of videos and classroom were examined to determine the codes. Codes are the method in the grounded theory because in the grounded theory, the aim is to see new patterns and so new coded were used which comes from the data and existing codes are not used. Data includded the teachers video tracripts. Three videos were chosen depending on teachers’ implementation levels. Each of the videos was transcribed and used for analysis. The Reformed Teacher Observation Protocol (RTOP) was used to evauate the teachers’ implementation levels.
Three teachers, one from each level of low, medium, and low, were chosen according to implementation level of RTOP from 38 teachers.
Results showed that at the low level class, the type of questioning varied. Teachers started with descriptive questions and asked also comprehensive questions. The numbers of questions were low and posed by and answered by teachers. Students just did the activities, followed the teachers’ instructions, and confirmed what she asked. Medium level showed that the teacher used different types of questions including
orderly descriptive, argumentative, and comprehensive questions.
Teachers used more questions to start argumentation, particularly at this level. Even though most of the questions were descriptive, these questions followed by comprehensive questions. At the high level, teachers used the same questioning types. However, the number of each questioning type was different from the other two levels. Students also asked questions and critiqued each other’s investigations. Thus, argumentation talk was observed between students. The teacher also used more questions than the previous two levels. The discussion went from student-oriented to student to student-oriented to teacher, and teacher-oriented to students. the classroom environment is the essential factor. Teachers should provide non-threatening environment to students. By doing this will ensure higher student participation in the classrooms. This study showed that the type of questions determines the environment of the classroom.
In conclusion, this study presented important findings on the factors and dilemmas while using question strategies, thus providing teachers and educators a pathway to overcome issues when using the SWH approach. Teaching with SWH is important because in the traditional approach, students participate in the activities cook book style, which does not enable them to comprehend science truly because their duty is only to follow the instructions’ steps without reasoning.
Keywords: Argumentation, Questioning, Question Tyes, Teacher Implementation.
ÖĞRETMENLERİN ARGÜMANTASYON TABANLI ARASTIRMA SORGULAMA YÖNTEMİNİ UYGULAMA SEVİYELERİNİ
ETKİLEYEN SORU SORMA STRATEJİLERİ
ÖZET
Bu çalışmanın amacı, öğretmenlerin Argümantasyon Tabanlı Araştırma Sorgulama Yöntemini uygulama seviyelerini etkileyen soru sorma çeşitlerini incelemek ve açıklamaktır. Argümantasyona dayalı araştırma sorgulama yöntemi olarak Argümantasyon Tabanlı Bilim Öğretimi (The Science Writing Heuristic Approach) kullanılmıştır.
Argümantasyon tabanlı öğretim yöntemi, sarmal bir argümantasyon yöntemidir. Bu yöntem içerisinde öğrenciler, yazılı ve sözlü tartışmalarını kendileri deneylerine göre oluştururlar. Sınıf seviyeleri reforma dayalı öğretim izleme protokolüyle (RTOP) belirlenmiştir. RTOP sonuçlarına göre sınıflar üç farklı seviyeye ayrılmıştır. Bu sınıflar arasından, üç öğretmenin sınıfı, düşük, orta ve yüksek seviye uygulamalarından birer tane olmak üzere incelenmiştir. Verilerin analizi gömülü teori yöntemi ile yapılmıştır. Gömülü teori yöntemi, farklı seviyelerdeki öğretmenlerin, soru sorma çeşitlerindeki özellikleri göstermek için kullanılmıştır. Bu yönteme göre seçilmiş üç seviyedeki sınıfların videoları yazıya dökülmüş ve bu yazılardan kodlar üretilmiştir. Bu kodlamalar, öğretmen ve öğrencilerin soru sormadaki çeşitleriyle ve soru sorma doğrultularıyla oluşturulmuştur. Sonuçlar göstermiştir ki öğretmenler, her bir seviyede
farklı miktarda soru sorma çeşitleri kullanmıştır. Tanımlayıcı türden soru çeşitleri düşük seviyedeki sınıfta kullanılırken, tartışmacı sorular yüksek seviyedeki sınıfta daha çok miktarda yer almıştır. Soruların doğrultusu da uygulama seviyelerine göre değişiklik göstermiştir. Bu çalışma göstermiştir ki daha kapsamlı sorular (soruları kavrayıcı niteliği olan ve öğrencilerin deneylerini açıklayıcı türden olan) argümantasyonun başlamasını sağlamıştır. Ayrıca, öğretmenler, öğrenciler arasında sınıf içinde tartışmayı başlatmak ve devam ettirmek için soru sormayı sağlayıcı farklı çeşitlerde sorular kullanmalıdır.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Argümantasyon, Soru Sorma, Soru Çeşidi, Öğretmen Uygulamaları.
INTRODUCTION
The National Educations Standards (NRC, 1996) strongly encourage teachers to use inquiry in their classrooms. The dilemma when teaching with inquiry is the inadequate amount of student participation and interaction (Osborne 2010). Given the current emphasis on inquiry in science education, it is critical for science teachers to have students develop argumentation skills with their ideas during the inquiry process (Ford 2008). Having students formulate argumentation is the way to promote students’ interaction and so students develop reasoning and critical thinking skills with argumentation (Katchevich, Hofstein, & Mamlok-Naaman, 2013). The Science Writing Heuristic Approach is the method to establish and promote argumentation through argument based inquiry with combining the writing (Villanueva & Hand, 2011). Therefore, one of the primarily goal of science education is to develop argumentation in classrooms (Katchevevich et al. 2013) because the application of argumentation to the inquiry method enhances students’ conceptual understanding of science because the traditional classroom environment does not provide such a method (Hand, Wallace, & Yang, 2004; Osborne, Erduran &Simon, 2004).
The Problem of Study
Martin and Hand’s (2009) study shows that teachers play an important role in initiating and elaborating argument in the classroom. The results of the study indicate that the quality and the frequency of students’ voice are strongly related to the teacher’s questioning patterns. The key point here is that when teachers use SWH, their pedagogical orientation needs to be changed. During pedagogical development, teachers are required to use questions to maintain the discussion in their classrooms. However, not every teacher has the same level of change in their pedagogical orientation.
This leads to different levels of implementation of the SWH approach in the classrooms. The difference manifests in the teacher’s questioning skills and type. In the previous studies, the questioning skills of teachers were examined in different ways especially based on Bloom’s Taxonomy (Martin &Hand, 2009). However, each teacher has their own unique way of teaching and so their pedagogical orientations differ when they teach with argument based inquiry and so each of them uses different questioning and dialogical strategies that effects their implementation of inquiry process (Keys &Bryan, 2000). Thus, it is necessary to examine the questioning patterns of teachers with the questions’ dialogical orientation to improve teaching with argument based inquiry (Driver et. al, 2000).
Questioning strategies are the main components of argumentation because argumentation starts with questions (Choi et. al., 2014). In most classes, teachers are the initiator of argument by asking questions. The problem with teaching argument based inquiry is to initiate questions that enable students to think about their work critically rather than asking students to define the terms and
explain formulas (Bell, 2004). Science writing heuristic is the method that guides teachers to use questioning strategies for initiating argumentation (Villanueva & Hand, 2011).
Purpose of the Study
This study is founded on the SWH which is an immersive argument based inquiry in which students participate in inquiry activities; write and negotiate their claims, evidence, and inquiry processes with their peers; and have discussions as a whole class (Choi et al. 2015). Here, the aim is to address the lack of students’ talking and promote teaching and learning. However, not every teacher provides the same level of instruction because SWH has been implemented only for a decade and thus, not all teachers have the background knowledge to use it (Nam et. al., 2011). The preliminary results of this study showed that most teachers had medium level of implementation.
Therefore, the purpose of the study is to explore and explain different level of teachers’
implementations of argument based inquiry in terms of questioning skills of teachers and students to distinguish the patterns of each level when teaching with SWH in the science classroom. The study was conducted using these research questions:
What are the patterns in questioning of teachers from different implementation levels?
Theoretical Framework
Hand and Keys (1999) established the Science Writing Heuristic (SWH) is a framework, which emphasizes the importance of language use in learning, and integrates argument into scientific inquiry. The Science Writing Heuristic (SWH) designs learning activities using written and oral argument in laboratory and classroom settings. The research shows that students are not capable of participating in scientific argumentation because they have inadequate knowledge about the goals and processes of scientific argumentation (Osborne, 2010). The SWH approach is the method that facilitates understanding of and participation in argumentation by using inquiry. Understanding the process and the nature of the argument is significant for learning science because arguments have many aspects that support students’ effective science learning (Martin & Hand, 2009). Thus, engaging in argumentation has many positive outcomes for students because they have gained experience with canonical science, science literacy, and the nature of science (Choi et. al., 2015).
In the traditional classroom, teachers lecture on the scientific facts and students have to memorize those facts (Bell, 2004). Conversely, the nature of scientific development has been established through paradigms and paradigm shifts, which have been accomplished through social negotiation rather than discovery of facts (Choi et. al, 2010). Hence, the Science Writing Heuristic (SWH) method ensures that students understand the nature of science accurately. The new formation of learning also requires teacher-student and student-to-student interactions where learning is a kind of inquiry in which students negotiate big ideas and claims, and make judgments based on evidence (Posner, 1982). For the contemporary learning experience of students, teachers should encourage students’ interaction and oral participation for effective learning and teaching (Windschitl, 2002).
The SWH approach stresses that scientific argumentation means the collaborative nature of scientific activity in which learners are involved in a constant cycle of negotiating and clarifying their ideas with their peers and teachers. Accordingly, students develop scientific reasoning and meaning. Therefore, the SWH approach is designed to promote classroom discussions whereby students’ personal explanations and observations are tested against the perceptions and contributions of the broader group (Martin & Hand, 2009).
In the SWH classroom, teachers should encourage students to participate in classroom discussion. Teachers’ roles are important here because they primarily facilitate classroom discussion through guiding student participation. In order to do this, teachers should use questioning skills
effectively. Therefore, in the SWH classrooms, teachers should be more active instructors because they often initiate discussion with questioning and have to monitor students’ interaction and discussion, and interfere by asking proper questions (Yoon, Bennett, Mendez & Hand, 2010). These questions give students directions students for participating in the inquiry process by explaining and negotiating their ideas using claims and evidence. While one group presents their work, teachers use some questions to have them explain their work properly. While doing this, teachers also ask questions to the rest of the class to begin whole class discussion. The expectation from students is to critique and justify their work. Thus, when students engage in the inquiry process, they experience critical thinking, dialogical interactions, collaborative work, and active investigations (Yoon et. al, 2010; Katchevich et al., 2013). By participating in these learning experiences, students can elaborate on canonical scientific thinking, comprehend the relationship between claims and evidence, and eventually understand the nature of science. In contrast to traditional classrooms where teachers do not have students engage in argumentation, SWH creates an environment where teachers provide instructions to students for argumentation that enable them to talk about science (Choi et. al., 2015).
Methods
Research Design
The grounded theory qualitative design was used in this study. The aim is the study to show different patterns of the classroom; thus, the transcripts of videos and classroom were examined to determine the codes. Codes are the method in the grounded theory because in the grounded theory, the aim is to see new patterns and so new coded were used which comes from the data and existing codes are not used (Corbin, & Strauss 2008). In this study, the aim is to show new patterns of implementation of the argument based inquiry. Thus, the grounded theory was foundation of this study. The grounded qualitative design was necessary to determine the questioning strategies in each level of teachers’ implementation of SWH and identified the questioning skills of both teacher and students.
Data Collection
The data was collected from elementary schools in a Midwestern state. These schools were chosen because they agreed to participate in this project. The videos have been collected over three years. Researchers’ videotaped each classroom during the semester and more than 70 videos were collected during these three years. Among 70 videos, three videos were chosen depending on teachers’ implementation levels. Each of the videos was transcribed and used for analysis.
Instrument
The Reformed Teacher Observation Protocol (RTOP) was used to evauate the teachers’
implementation levels. The Evaluation Facilitation Group of the Arizona Collaborative for Excellence in the Preparation of Teachers developed RTOP (Sawada et al. 2000) to measure
“reformed” teaching through observation and to analyze characteristics of a classroom on a quantitative scale regarding efforts to reform. The RTOP was chosen to analyze teachers’
implementation of SWH because the RTOP measures inquiry-based classrooms accurately; this has been shown to be consistent with the reform efforts associated with the creation of inquiry-based classrooms as the previous studies show. The previous studies assessed reliability for the RTOP as r2=0.954. (See appendix B for the RTOP).
Data analysis
The data was analyzed in two steps: first videotape analysis and second transcript analysis.
Videotape Analysis
The data was quantified first by scoring each video because the qualitative criterion is quantifiable based on a rubric. Each video was scored using the RTOP to evaluate the argumentation structure of teachers and students. There are 14 questions in the RTOP. RTOP mainly measures the following categories: student voice, teacher role, student argument, and teacher questioning. For each question, the scores range from 0 to 4. The overall scores represent the degree of implementation of each teacher as low, medium, and high.
Participants
The participants were chosen by purposive sampling strategies from 38 teachers. All teachers were experienced elementary teachers. The criteria for choosing participants were the implementation levels from the results of the RTOP scores. Three teachers, one from each level of low, medium, and low, were chosen according to implementation level of RTOP from 38 teachers.
The reason for choosing three is to show questioning strategies in different level of the classes and also to triangulate data because only choosing one of two level of class might not be credible and not provide enough information to address the research question (Patton, 2001).
The teachers firstly participated in professional development in order to teach with the SWH approach. The chosen participants in this study had one year of experience in teaching with argument based inquiry. During workshops, teachers gained discussion skill and some pedagogical skills which helped them to improve their communication skills with students.
Data analysis
The RTOP data analysis results will be the base of this analysis. But the criteria in the RTOP were not examined in the analysis because they showed implementation level of the teachers. In order to investigate the questioning skills of teachers and students, each transcript of the videos was coded to set up the categories of questions. In order to do this, two way of coding system used: first, the questions were examined using constant comparative method (Corbin, & Strauss 2008) and second thematic codes (Miles & Huberman, 1994) to determine the patterns affecting teachers’ using argument based inquiry. Codes were emerged as descriptive codes (Miles & Huberman, 1994). In order to code the data, the excels sheets of the transcripts were used.
Coding started with open coding in each transcript. Then, the common themes were determined and categories emerged from those themes. When data firstly were firstly coded many coded were emerged in each level. However, to apply all codes to all data and according to the purpose of the study, the codes were refined and reduced. Codes were emerged depending on teachers’ and students’ questioning strategies. The data was coded with one researcher. To present the reliability, another researcher coded some of the data. During the interrater reliability process, another researcher showed her coding scores and at first the interrater reliability is about 85 percent.
After discussing the data, the interrater reliability reached to the 100 percent. Questioning is a key factor in argument based inquiry and who initiated the questioning is also important. The reason is that in teacher centered classrooms, teachers only ask questions and thus students’ job is to answer the teachers’ questions. The purpose of questions in the traditional settings is to manage, control and evaluate students’ hands-on activities or their knowledge on scientific facts. However, in the SWH classroom the aim is to provide student centered classrooms. Therefore, codes represent students’
and teachers’ questioning types and according to this, categories and sub categories were determined and related excerpts from the transcripts were showed how codes of questions were placed in the conversations. The following table shows the codes emerged from this study.
Table of Codes
Categories Subcategories Example
Questions types:
From teachers to
Descriptive questions
Comprehensive questions Argumentative questions Classroom Management
What is questions?
What is your claim?
Why do you think so?
Do you guys agree/disagree Can you listen, please?
From students Descriptive questions
Comprehensive questions Argumentative questions
How did you find your evidence?
What is your evidence?
How did you do that?
Is that right, do you think it is ok?
Response types Teachers Students
Direct answer
Responding with another question
Giving the correct answer to students
Asking another question have students reconsidered their answers
Short answers, detailed answered.
Dialogical structure Student oriented to student Student oriented to teacher Teacher oriented to student
Student-student Student teacher Teacher- student
Results
In the study, RTOP results were used to determine the teachers’ implementation levels.
Therefore, the results of the RTOP will not be discussed in this section because the RTOP was used to determine only overall scores for each level of teachers. Even though RTOP shows both teachers’
and students’ voice information, the focus of this study is to show the questioning skills of teachers and students which affect the implementation levels of SWH. This information cannot be obtained using RTOP. Thus, in the result section, first the patterns and trends of each classroom were explained. These include questioning from teachers to students to students to teachers and students to students a particularly telling the type of the questions. Second, description of each classroom was presented as an overview information of the classroom instructions.
Low Level Implementation Class
At this level, the type of questioning varied. Teachers started with descriptive questions and asked also comprehensive questions. The numbers of questions were low and posed by and answered by teachers. Students just did the activities, followed the teachers’ instructions, and confirmed what she asked. Students did not explain their own thoughts and did not have the opportunity to answer the questions critically because the questions were aimed mostly to control their work and define the facts. This level still had the features of traditional classrooms. However, the teachers posed more questions which could not be seen in the traditional settings. Further sometimes the teacher posed the questions more than one student and their questions that initiated discussion on the topic. Students did not pose questions to other students, and rarely negotiate and share their ideas. The answers from
the students were also short and mostly like ‘yes or no’ type. Thus, the question orientation was mostly teachers to students.
Mrs. Sue is the low level 3rd grade elementary teacher. In the classroom, students did a float and sink experiment using many objects of multiple sizes, shapes, and colors. Students were required to find out which objects would float and which ones would sink, and had to determine the differences between the floating and sinking objects. The teacher prepared water tanks and told each group to do the experiment.
When first group was investigating floating and sinking objects, students expressed the objects floated. The teacher started to control students’ work with a descriptive question “what is the float means?” But the students did not answer the Mrs. Sue’ question. Ms. Sue later went to each group to check their work.
Boy off-
screen I'm going go first!
Rihanna It floats! Ms. Sue it floats!
Teacher Um, I think your over here Sam.
Rihanna Mrs. Sue it Floats!
Teacher It floats?
Colton Mine floats!
Girl in
purple Mine floats.
Teacher That one's floating isn't it Rihanna Ours is floating!
Teacher What does that word mean?
In the second group Mrs. Sue asked a descriptive question again. Then, she told students to compile floating and sinking objects in different places.
Here is the excerpt:
Teacher What did those do Rihanna?
Rihanna Float
Teacher
Show me. Did they float? Did they float, or did they go to the bottom and sink?
Rihanna Float
Teacher Put those over there, those are the things that sink.
Mrs. Sue asked only two comprehensive question. She wanted students to explain why some objects were floating. Then the teacher went to one of the groups and asked them why the objects were floating. One of the students answered, but his answer was not sufficient because he did not talk about density. The teacher then wanted him to compare the weight of the object with another but even she did not talk about density.
When students were doing their experiment, teacher asked them to be quiet and when teacher ask questions students did not answer the questions. Therefore, some classroom management issues were observed here. Students were not listening to their teacher’s questions, so she did not get a response. In the previous group the classroom management issue happened as teacher asked to the group the process question, the students were talking each other and did not take attention to the teachers’ question.
Teacher Put those over there, those are the things that sink. What do these do?
Colton Stop it! We've gatta make teams, don't mix them up!
Teacher These things that sink in one spot and the things that don't sink.
Following of the conversation went through in the video, teacher told her instruction that students needed to put them in different spots and then visited to the other group.
The distinguishing pattern in the low level is that the teachers ask questions and answers them as well without pointing at a specific student or waiting for the answer from other students.
Teacher: What did we add in there? Some color, right?
After asking this question the teacher went to another group.
In the remainder of the video, the teacher used the same strategy: posing the question and answering it herself. Students only had to answer yes/no or remain silent.
Medium Level Implementation Class
In this level, the teacher used different types of questions including orderly descriptive, argumentative, and comprehensive questions. Teachers used more questions to start argumentation, particularly at this level. Even though most of the questions were descriptive, these questions followed by comprehensive questions such as why do think? The in order to start argumentation, the teacher asked argumentative questions to particular students whether or not they agreed or disagreed.
Teachers asked more questions and talked more with students than the teacher in the low- level class. Students also posed questions to their teachers, asking them how they were going to use materials and carry out the activities.
In Mrs. Barney’s classroom, the topic under discussion was sorting objects. The class was 5th grade and the task was to sort the magnets. Students were divided into groups and had to sort the
Teacher So why do you think some of them are floating?
Colton Because their, they’re not that heavy.
Teacher
Well how come you don't check to see if the heavy ones are heavy and that's why their doing that
Colton That one’s heavy, and this see here, it's not heavy to my hand because Information Colton is picking up items and feeling if they are heavy or not.
Teacher Is there something you can you use to check to see if it’s heavy?
Colton See this was, see when we drop these in, their kind of heavy.
Teacher They are, how about this, this one is doing, are these the same?
Colton Um no
magnets into permanent ones and non-permanent ones. Students carried out the activity through determining the magnets’ south and north poles.
The teacher started the class with a big question: “Why did you sort your objects the way you did?" Therefore, they started according to the SWH template (See appendix A). Teacher was more active in this level and listened to student questions, and used further questions to get them to think. In most cases, she did not give direct answer to the questions.
One of the students asked her how to use the materials to do the experiment in this way:
Ashley: Mrs. Barney, what are we supposed to do with this?
Mrs. Barney: I do not know. Where does it go? What do you think?
The script above shows that the questioning in this level oriented from students to teacher.
However, the teacher asked questions again instead of giving direct response. The other teacher’s questioning style also showed similar results. Mrs. Anderson asked many process questions when students were doing an activity on force and motion. However, the purpose of these questions was not to have students develop reasoning skills, but rather to control their activities.
The important point here is that the responses from teachers did not always provide information and guidance about how to use the materials. The descriptive questions were used to have students identify the materials for the activities and explain the concept. For instance, Mrs.
Barney posed this question when students were doing their activity in groups:
Mrs. Barney: But they are not permanent magnets because of what? They do not have a—
Group member: North and a south pole.
The dialog was followed by another descriptive question from the teacher.
Mrs. Barney: Is this a north or a south one?
Group member: No
Other group member: It’s got blue and red.
In the video, the teacher did not give any feedback to the group, but went on to another group to check their work. This demonstrated that medium level teachers’ implementation of SWH is used for controlling students’ work, whereas in argument based inquiry, teachers should ask more comprehensive questions and give feedback to students. Teachers’ use of this approach should aim to see if students have understood scientific concepts.
When Mrs. Barney went to another group, and asked them a comprehensive question of “how did they come up with the result?” After students answered her questions, she asked some descriptive questions and implied them to sue the scientific terms when they described. Thus, students demonstrated their knowledge of the process. Even though, teachers indicated the scientist facts, by doing this, students were able apply the scientific concepts to their experiment when describing their experiment. The following conversation displays the talk and questions between the teacher and students.
Mrs. Barney: Will stick, won't stick, and a permanent magnet- now how did you come up with that result?
Girl in black t-shirt Well-
Austin: Because we found out that there was a north and a south.
Mrs. Barney: And how do you know if there's a north and a south pole?
Austin: We tested the sides, and we looked for (inaudible)
Mrs. Barney: And they had to what? What are those words we used?
Austin Attract and repel.
Mrs. Barney: So they had to attract and repel, okay?
At this level, the teacher poses questions to address classroom management issues as the same as at the low level but classroom management issues did not happen as much as at the low- level classroom. Mrs. Barney wanted to control students’ talking and wanted a quieter classroom.
For example, Mrs. Barney posed questions related to classroom management multiple times.
Mrs. Barney: Can you sit quietly, please?
High Level Implementation Class
At the high level, teachers used the same questioning types. However, the number of each questioning type was different from the other two levels. Students also asked questions and critiqued each other’s investigations. Thus, argumentation talk was observed between students.
The topic in this 5th grade class was force and motion. Students were required to state their claim, design their work, and show the evidence to their claim. The difference was that each group had to make their claim and design their experiment according to their claims. Each group completed their work and presented to the class. Thus, they followed the SWH template (See appendix A). The teacher used more questions than the previous two levels. The discussion went from student-oriented to student to student-oriented to teacher, and teacher-oriented to students.
Teachers and students used many types of questions. Descriptive, comprehensive and argumentative questions were dominant types in this level. However, teachers used descriptive questions when they asked students to state their claims and for basic process. Moreover, discussion occurred in each group by argumentative questions. When teacher visited each group, she pursued the discussion by asking the question not only to a particular student but also allowed other students to explain their ideas with comprehensive questions and arguementative questions. Therefore, students were able to negotiate their ideas.
For instance: In one of the high level classes, the teacher asked: “Second claim is what?”
After getting the answer, one of the students posed a comprehensive question: “Why didn’t you put that? Her question critiqued the other group’s claim.
Similarly, the teachers used the comprehensive questions to start the argumentation. These questioning styles gave students the opportunities to negotiate their ideas. The teacher did not simply direct her questions to a specific student, but asked the whole class, allowing everyone to participate in the discussion. After getting an answer from one, she looked at others and asked more questions, encouraging them to participate in the discussion. The discussion was held between the group which presented their work and the whole class. The teacher was also more active here because she did not simply watch the discussion, but also asked the class their ideas such as, “What do you guys think about this? She did not give the right answer and asked other questions their opinion to get their thoughts. The following excerpt shows the conversation of one group in the high-level classroom.
Teacher
Uh oh, it went higher. And you're saying less erasers, more washers
Tate No, no
Group More erasers, less washers
Entire class
More erasers, more washers and less erasers, less washer.
Teacher Let Tanner talk, what do you think Tanner?
Tanner More erasers, more washers
Teacher
So let's see now, let's change that into using science words in their claim. Instead of saying more erasers, what could you say now? Just a second let them think about it…The erasers were the what?
Tate The erasers were the mass teacher So say more mass needs…
Group More force
Teacher what do you guys think about that?
Class
together Yeah, umhm.
teacher
Nathan, what do you think they said more mass needs more…force. You agree?
Nathan Yes
The teachers in this level also commented on students’ work and guided them by using comprehensive questions. Thus, students had the opportunity to explain their work by using their own understanding and reasoning of why something happened in that way. The following script is an example of students and teacher questions in this level.
Teacher What do you think?
Tyler
I thought of a question, if the washers are force and the erasers are the mass then what's the cup?
courtney The cup is just where we hold the force Tyler So that's what you need the for?
Courtney Yeah.
Boy in
green I have a question, so how many times did you try it?
Blake The time didn't allow them to use more erasers.
Courtney
We just decided to use three erasers. It takes less time and we started with the extra amount of washers.
Teacher
My question to everybody is, could they make a better claim by using different words? (class agrees) What words might need to be in their claim?
Class Acceleration, force, mass.
Teacher
Thinking about that you know what you did, because I think it's great that you did it a different way but you're still able to think of a claim. I think it's cool that you sort of stepped outside the box and did it differently, I think that's great but let's think of how you could maybe say your claim using words like, acceleration, force and mass, Christopher and Courtney. Let's just think about it you said, as you put more washers in the cup so let's use terminology, as we put...
Discussion
This study explored the type of questioning strategies of teachers and students as it occurred in three classrooms because of differences in the implementation levels. Implementing argument based inquiry according to its components, provided by the SWH approach.
In the study questioning types were used to present the dialogical structure in each classroom.
The categories of the questions varied in each level of the classroom. Argument based inquiry and the questions were interrelated. The type and the number of each questions type showed the differences in each level. Especially the type of questions used by teachers determined the differences in each level. In Mrs. Sue’s classroom, mostly descriptive questions were used not allowing for any discussion between teachers and students. However, in Mrs. Barney’s class, process questions were observed. Students explained what they were doing and the teacher later asked a comprehension questions such as “How did they reach that conclusion?” Students explained but the teacher forced them to use scientific vocabulary. One of the critiques of using argument based inquiry is that the strategy does not exactly allow students to learn the content of the topic. However, this study shows that students could apply content knowledge to their work and they could discuss their evidence in scientific terms. In Mrs. Barney’s classroom, the dialog between teacher and the students illustrated this point.
Mrs. Barney: And they had to what? What's those words we used?
Austin Attract and repel.
The study also showed that using more comprehensive questions initiated the argumentation in the classroom. SWH helped teachers because each group of students could design their work using the SWH template. The high level of the implementation classroom showed this. The important difference here is the use of appropriate questions. Teachers used argumentative questions and even many descriptive questions in the high-level classroom. Moreover, the teacher did not only focus on one student from each group; rather she posed the same questions to other students in each group.
By doing this she elicited higher participation from all students. This situation was different in other levels where students did not ask their peers questions about their investigations which was seen in this level quite often. There were more questions and talk between student about the experiment than the other two levels. Furthermore, in the middle level, students’ questions remained mostly descriptive in the middle level.
Yool et al.’s (2010) study indicates that the classroom environment is the essential factor.
Teachers should provide non-threatening environment to students. By doing this will ensure higher
student participation in the classrooms. This study showed that the type of questions determines the environment of the classroom because with more active students, less management issues were observed. In the low level, the teacher used descriptive questions. She waited for a particular answer from the student. From the observation, students sometimes had difficulty answering those questions;
apparently, they did not feel comfortable when answering those questions. However, in the high level, teachers let students talk and share their ideas using their claims and evidence. At the high level class, as students talked about their own process and product, they could participate in the classroom more than the medium and low levels.
Implication
In conclusion, this study presented important findings on the factors and dilemmas while using question strategies, thus providing teachers and educators a pathway to overcome issues when using the SWH approach. Teaching with SWH is important because in the traditional approach, students participate in the activities cook book style, which does not enable them to comprehend science truly because their duty is only to follow the instructions’ steps without reasoning. At the same time, the teacher’s job is to give directions and observe students, whether or not they complete each step.
When teachers use questioning strategies effectively, they implement high level instruction.
This is an important finding for future studies because limiting the questions to one type does not does not allow argumentation between students even though they are conducting inquiry activities in the classrooms. Teachers should also use questions to enable other students to ask each other questions. As result of asking questions and sharing ideas through responses, students will have to critique and defend the work done. Therefore, students acquire a conceptual understanding of science.
Previous studies strongly encourage teachers to use the SWH approach in their science classrooms because the distinguished features of SWH foster student’s science learning with developing conceptual understanding of science, science literacy, and scientific reasoning and meaning (Villanueva, & Hand, 2011). The issue here is to train teachers to use this method properly (Martin &Hand, 2009).
Consequently, the implication of this study is that using more questioning types and directly posing questions to students helps the teacher to initiate and maintain discussions in the classroom.
Teachers begin to use this strategy at the between low and medium level. This strategy promotes student voice and negotiation of claims and evidence with other students.
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APPENDIXES Appendix A
The Two Templates for the Science Writing Heuristic Approach: The Teacher Template and the Student Template
A template for teacher-designed activities to
promote laboratory understanding. A template for students.
1. Exploration of pre-instruction understanding through individual or group concept mapping.
1. Beginning ideas—What are my questions?
2. Pre-laboratory activities, including informal writing, making observations, brainstorming, and posing questions.
2. Tests—What did I do?
3. Participation in laboratory activity. 3. Observations—What did I see?
4. Negotiation phase I—writing personal meanings for laboratory activity (e.g., writing journals).
4. Claims—What can I claim?
5. Negotiation phase II—sharing and comparing data interpretations in small groups (e.g., making group charts).
5. Evidence—How do I know? Why am I making these claims?
6. Negotiation phase III—comparing science ideas to textbooks or other printed resources (e.g., writing group notes in response to focus questions).
6. Reading—How do my ideas compare with other ideas?
7. Negotiation phase IV—individual reflection and writing (e.g., creating a presentation such as a poster or report for a larger audience).
7. Reflection—How have my ideas changed?
8. Exploration of postinstruction understanding through concept mapping.
Appendix B RTOP
name of length of the movie:
date of the
criteria
1
The instructional strategies and activities respected students’ prior knowledge and the preconceptions inherent therein
low 1-1 0--6
2
The focus and direction of the lesson was often determined by ideas originating with students
medium 1-2 7--13
3
Students were involved in the communication of their ideas to others using a variety of means and media
high 1-3 14--20
4
There was a high proportion of student talk and a significant amount of it occurred between and among students
low 2-1 21--26
5
Student questions and comments often determined the focus and direction of classroom discourse
medium 2-2 27--32
6
The teacher acted as a resource person, working to support and enhance student
investigations high 2-3 33--38
7 The metaphor “teacher as listener” was very characteristic of this classroom low 3-1 39--44
8
This lesson encouraged students to seek and value alternative modes of investigation
or of problem solving medium 3-2 45--50
9
Students were actively engaged in thought-provoking activity that often involved the critical assessment of procedures
high 3-3 51--56
10 Students were reflective about their learning
11 Intellectual rigor, constructive criticism, and the challenging of ideas were valued 12 Active participation of students was encouraged and valued
13
Students were encouraged to generate conjectures, alternative solution strategies, and ways of interpreting evidence
14 q.ing
The teacher’s questions triggered divergent modes of thinking
low
medium
high the RTOP score tamplate
number
the score(0-4)
students voiceteacher roleStudents' Argument
