Discourse of Making Sense of Data: Implications for Elementary Teachers’ Science Education

Abstract

This study of classroom discourse and other data from a physical science course for in-service teachers show the areas of success and challenge of the participants in making claims supported by justifications. It also shows that the teachers learned to make scientific claims and were able to make some justifications. Nevertheless, many found the process difficult. Some of those who performed well in the course did not consider the pedagogy suitable for their own students. The implications of the findings for elementary teacher education are discussed.

Keywords:

• Discourse
• Argumentation
• Elementary teachers
• Physical science

Notes

1 It needs to be noted here that the genesis of scientific knowledge is also influenced by the broader society beyond the community of scientists but the discussion or analysis of that dimension is beyond the scope of this paper.

2 Granted, this is reminiscent of normal science (Kuhn 1962/1970) and students need to be introduced to the paradigm shift, if not from their own data then in some other ways, e.g., historical examples.

3 Percentages are rounded to the nearest integer.

4 In science, not only new theories are generated from inquiries, sometime existing theories change through either new interpretation of existing data or from new data (Duschl 1990). However, in this course, historical cases were discussed by the instructor in the context of heat, weather and climate, and other topics covered in the course.