Actions and discourses for transformative understanding in a middle school science class

Abstract

So that we might understand better how the discursive practices of classroom participants lead to students' transformative understanding, we immersed ourselves in a Grade 8 science class for an extended period of observation. Our observation and interview data were interpreted from two overlapping perspectives, namely, an action orientation and a discourse orientation. We found that the teacher's actions encouraged univocal discourse between students and their reproductive understanding of scientific concepts. We argue that before a class can become more like a scientific discourse community, teachers need to promote dialogic discourse and transformative understanding. The contextual descriptions and interpretations presented might help teachers form images of classroom practices that will be conducive to students' transformative understandings of science.