Scientific Practices

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Scientific Practices the Scaffolding thereof in
the Primary Grade Classroom

• Kathleen Metz
• University of California Berkeley

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Aspects of the scientific practice .. that need
to be better represented in the primary grade
classroom

• Immersion in strategically selected domain(s)
• Centrality of big ideas
• Centrality of curiosity as the driving force of
  the enterprise
• Goal-structure of discovery, understanding,
  prediction control
• Key role of both empirical inquiry analysis of
  text/ previous work in construction of knowledge
• Essential social nature of scientific
  knowledge-building
• Challenge -- delight -- of structuring the
  ill-structured

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Problems with this Model of Childrens Purported
Capabilities Limitations

• Has led to curricular decomposition of the
  scientific inquiry process impoverished
  curricular goal structure.
• Out of sync with the developmental literature, in
  the sense that this research base indicates that
  children have much richer repertoire of
  intellectual resources than it assumes.
• Scientific cognition developmental lit., upon
  which this schema is purportedly based, has paid
  negligible attention to impact of supportive
  environment.
• School-age scientific cognition developmental
  lit. has paid negligible attention to the
  knowledge factor
• confound between weak knowledge weak
  reasoning capacities
• ----gt Vicious Cycle

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Vicious Cycle
School -age cognitive developmental lit tended to
ignore knowledge-factor in design of contexts for
assessing scientific reasoning
Children frequently handicapped by testing of
scientific reasoning in the context of a domain
where they have weak knowledge
Underestimation in the research lit of childrens
scientific reasoning capacities
Schools failure to optimally empower childrens
scientific knowledge reasoning
Curricular schemas for developmentally
appropriate science education that fail to take
full advantage of childrens capabilities
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Metz NSF Research Project

• What are the mutable and immutable cognitive
  developmental constraints on young childrens
  scientific inquiry?
• How can we design primary grade science education
  to empower childrens scientific inquiry
  understanding of science as a way of knowing?
• Funder IERI, NSF

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Modus Operandi

• Formulate educational design principles that I
  conjecture empower childrens reasoning
  understanding of science
• Write curricula (botany, animal behavior) to
  operationalize the design principles. support
  teachers in the enactment.
• Multiple generations of the educational design
  experiment in multiple classrooms, with data re
  enabling context (how is the curriculum enacted)
  student cognition
• Video record of classroom activity
• Data base of all student work generated in
  connection with the curriculum
• Student lab-based interviews
• Study enactment of curriculum X childrens
  learning, capitalizing on planned naturally
  occurring variations.

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Design Principles cum Aspirations

• Centrality of engagement in the authentic inquiry
• Maintain integrity of the goal-focused
  intellectual enterprise across curriculum.
• Teach science processes methods in the context
  of their purpose use
• Capitalize on the context of childrens
  scientific inquiry to reflect on science as a way
  of knowing.
• Interplay of inquiry knowledge within the
  curriculum
• 4 Develop relatively rich knowledge of the
  domain in which the inquiry is embedded, in
  conjunction w/ the big ideas of the discipline
• 5. Foster the synergy between developing
  knowledge of the domain and knowledge of inquiry.
• Scaffolding principles
• 6. Manipulate collaboration unit between class
  dyad, to iteratively bring tasks of greater
  cognitive demand within reach then to fade
  support as their emergent expertise enables them
  to assume more responsibility.
• 7. Build knowledge responsibility to the point
  where dyads have primary responsibility over
  their own investigation analysis thereof vis a
  vis others work at the conference.

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EXPANDING LINES OF ANALYSIS

• Student scientific reasoning outcomes
• Reasoning about uncertainty, theory/ evidence,
  hypothetical-deductive reasoning, research
  design, understanding of science as a way of
  knowing (Metz, Ball)
• Teacher scaffolding of conceptual understanding
  (Wong)
• Relation between teacher beliefs about science
  their curriculum enactment (Eslinger Metz)
• Relation between teacher beliefs about the power
  of children to reason scientifically their
  curriculum enactment (Ly Metz)
• Dynamics of teacher professional development
  meetings cum learning community (Little)
• Embedded Case Study Design To Make Connections
• 4 cases veteran second third grade teachers,
  same student population
• (Their beliefs X their curriculum enactment X
  their student outcomes ) change over two years
  time.
• (Ball, Eslinger,Little, Metz, Wong)
• Extreme case of youngest cohorts (first
  graders), of one of most expert teachers (Metz,
  Wong)

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The Long-term goal Connecting the Dots

• Teacher beliefs re
• a) factors that affect the power of childrens
  scientific reasoning
• b) science as a way of knowing
• c) Goals in the teaching of science

Feedback loop
Interpreted Curriculum
Enacted Curriculum
Student Learning
Intended Curriculum
Teacher Professional Development Monthly
Meetings
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Data sources uses thereof (examples)

• Video record of classroom ( research
  conference) used in analysis of
• Face of science in the classroom
• Transformation of cognitive load from
  intended to enacted curriculum
• Cohort comparison of student outcomes (what
  were children taught/ invented intensity of the
  scaffolding)
• Discourse in classroom ideas developed
  therein X scaffolding
• Video record of monthly teacher professional
  development meetings (over two years) used in
  the analysis of
• Scaffolding provided to teachers
• Teacher beliefs goals.
• Teacher change over time lens onto genesis of
  changes
• Teacher feedback re curriculum suggestions,
  needed changes
• Teacher professional learning community
• Teacher lessons evaluations
• Weaknesses in the curriculum that we need to
  address
• Teacher goal structure.
• Teacher attribution of the genesis of
  pedagogical problems the resolution thereof.

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Continued..

• Student written work
• Competence at engaging in the practice
• Student thinking e.g. attribution of inference
  observation relation thereof knowledge level
  of questions.
• (Huge caveat limits of primary grade childrens
  writing)Student thinking (caveat limits of
  primary grade childrens writing)
• Structured interviews of pairs reflecting on
  their investigations they designed conducted.
• Differentiation of theory / evidence
  application thereof
• Understanding of research design.
• Conceptualization of the goal structure of the
  enterprise
• Level of epistemic reasoning in critique of
  their study conceptualizations of improvements
  Do they think uncertainty enters in? If so, how?
  Their strategies to improve study.

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Example of analysis From the Case Study of 1st
grade teacher her students

• Top level
• First graders capacity to assume large
  responsibility for a study of their own (with a
  partner), following instructional scaffolding.
• Fine-grained, emphasis
• Epistemic reasoning reflected in reasoning about
  their research project.

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• First graders capacity to assume large
  responsibility for a study of their own (with a
  partner), following instructional scaffolding.
• Involving (with scaffolding)
• all of the science process skills

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Can they engage in this practice? Top-level
indicators caveats
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Do crickets become more aggressive as they get
older?
Procedure I will take 3 different stages of
crickets young crickets middle age crickets and
adult crickets. I will put the young male
crickets in a habitat. We will watch for
aggressive behavior. We will put 4 week old male
crickets the adult crickets the same. We will
repeat thes 3 or 4 times.
Analysis I found out that 4 week old crickets
did more biting than 6 week old crickets. The 5
week old crickets did the most biting. The 5
week old crickets did the most whipping of
antennae. The 5 week old crickets got on top of
each other more often. The 5 week old crickets
were the most aggressive. The six week old
crickets were next. The four week old crickets
were the least aggressive.
4 week old cricket aggression
5 week old
6 week old
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Animal Behavior (Yr 2) Low level dyad
Do crickets behave differently in the dark?
Drawing of who did the study
We think they will be more active in the dark
Variables we will not change
Procedure Take a cricket and put it in a habitat
and watch behavior in the light in the dark. I
will use time sampling of behavior
Variables we will change
Light
Time sampling of Behavior Data
Analysis There was more jumping in the dark.
There was no jumping in the light. There was
more standing still in the dark. They moved
their antennae more in the dark.
Conclusion We think that crickets behavior does
change in the dark. We think this is true
because we saw it.
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How do different colored lights affect the way
plants grow?
Analysis The plants grew bigger every day and
then suddenly the black and red light started
getting smaller. We think it was because of the
water level.
Hypothesis The plants in the black light would
all burned up. We thought the plants would all
be the same. We also thought the black light
wouldnt get to much light to the plants so it
wouldnt grow.
Conclusion The grow lights did the best and the
clear lights got all tangled and the red light
got less water and the black light did the worst
because the water got low because the heat was
making the water evaporate.
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Epistemic Reasoning within this Practice
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Driver et al. framework of epistemological
reasoning
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Driver et al. ages X epistemological reasoning

• Frequency
• Phenomenon- based reasoning Mode for 9 yr olds.
• Relation-based Mode for 12 16 yr olds
• Model- based Increased with age, but still
  minority of students even at 16
• Interpretation Application
• This sequence could be useful to consider when
  planning curriculum materials for different age
  levels
• Why so little model-based reasoning?
  interpreted either in terms of personal
  cognitive development of the students, in terms
  of portrayal of science in school science lessons
  or some interaction of the two.
• Issue
• Whats immutable versus mutable developmental
  constraint?

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Childrens highest level of epistemological
reasoning

• Level O
• School-general, weak strategies
• Do it better, think harder, make it harder, add
  something, improve how it the poster looks.
• No response or response limited to echo of
  partner
• Level I (Phenomenon-based)
• Try it see what happens
• Tinker with the situation to try to obtain more
  extreme result
• Improve ones looking
• Level II (Relation-based)

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Relation-based strategies (Level II)

• Get more data on grounds that current data base
  is inadequate to justify confidence in
  relation-framed empirical generalization.
• Run experiment again with a different kind of
  organism under same range of environment
  conditions to see if outcome will be improved.
• Run experiment with other multiple types of
  organisms to investigate whether relation-framed
  outcome will be the same or different.
• Run experiment under larger variation of
  experimental conditions for better test of
  relation or generality of trend.
• Redesign study to eliminate extraneous variable.
• Experimentally manipulate another variable
  identified as potentially influential, within
  same study or separate investigation.

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How some 1st graders transcended Driver et al.
epistemic caveats to relation-based reasoning

• Epistemic Caveats
• Explanation between features of phenomena which
  are observable/ taken as existing. Such
  relations can take the form of a) correlation
  between variables or b) linear causal sequence.
• In correlational reasoning, students tend to
  consider only one factor as possibly influencing
  the situation --- the one they see as the
  cause Other possible influential factors are
  overlooked. No place for conjecture or
  imagination
• Manifestations
• Correlation does not imply causation. More than
  one factor considered as influencing the
  situation.
• Unpacking of a variable Not taken as existing
  in the world. Multiple possible representations

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Examples

• In study of jump distance in relation to cricket
  age Nymphs seeing adults might change their
  behavior --gt Solution as separate them.
• In study of jump distance in relation to gender
  How much they eat also influential factor --gt
  Measure how much each cricket eats before testing
  for jump distance.
• In study of does the color of water affect
  plant growth? identify number of drops of the
  dye as influential --gt Manipulate in a new study.
• In study of how do different colored lights
  affect the way plants grow?, identify how much
  heat given off by the different colored lights as
  another influential variable ---gt put a paper
  bag over the light raise the light use colors
  of light that dont give out heat.
• In study of does noise affect the behavior of
  crickets question, although noise correlated
  with change in behavior, conjecture that key
  causal factor may be calmness.

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Does noise affect the behavior of crickets?
Analysis we think that noise does affect the
behavior of crickets. When it was quiet was
almost always standing still. When it was noisy
it was climbing, walking, jumping and whipping.
The graph shows that when it was quiet the
cricket was standing still 47 times. When it was
noisy it was standing still only 2 tims.
Procedure Were going to put some crickets in a
habitat. We wil witch crickit in a quiet place.
We will ues time sampling of behavior. Then we
will put a tape recorder with a noisy animal tape
by the habtitat. We will do this 6 times.
Conclusion We found out that when it was noisy
the cricket was more active. Next time we should
put standing still on our check off sheet. We
should also have put something in for them to
drink. Wed like to do an investigation to see
if nymphs are more active than aduls.
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At the poster research conference
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The biggest challenges in the Scaffolding of
Scientific PracticesAmong Primary Grade Children

• Teacher knowledge
• About science as a way of knowing
• About the plasticity of childrens scientific
  reasoning their capacities under more optimal
  instructional conditions
• Teacher discomfort with disagreements
• Writing curriculum that adequately scaffolds the
  teachers to scaffold the discourse, within
  terrain where they have weak knowledge of the
  content epistemic enterprise.
• Value placed on the teaching of science to
  primary grade children, cf within the state of
  California

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Menu
We put Thelma in a corral and watched her. We
made a list of behaviors. We discussed
difference between inference -- observation.
Careful observation
We categorized rats behavior, and drew pictures
as clues. With a partner we used a check-off
sheet and a timer, we marked behavior of rat we
observed at end of minute10 times.
Time sampling of behavior
We turned check off sheet into a bar graph.
We made a map of the corral. We had sticky-dots
numbered 1 through 10. Using a timer we marked
where Thelma was at the end of each minute.
Time sampling of location
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Do male crickets jump higher than female crickets?
Procedure We will take 20 male crickets one at a
time in a big box. When they jump, we will put a
stiki dot on the wall of the box to show how high
they jumped. We will cut a piece of blue yarn
the height of thir jumps. We will take 20 female
crickets and put them in a big box. When they
jump we will put a sticky dot on the wall of the
box to show how high they jumped. We will cut a
piece of red yarn the height of their jumps.
Analysis When we look at the median, the jumps
in the middle, the female jump are longer. A few
are almost 2 cm higher. When we look at the
lowest female jump and compared it to the females
jump was a little higher about 1 cm. When we
look at the highest jumps, the male jumped about
2 cm higher.
Conclusion We found out that male and female
crickets jump about the same height.
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Does the color of water affect the plant growth?
Hypothesis Brassica Rapa would grow an inch tiny
in colored water. Thought dye would affect
plants. Thought they would change colors. In
plain water they would grow more tall.
Analysis The dirt changed color soaked into soil
and got into the roots. Brassica rapa in plain
water grew tiny, grew first. Plants grew just
above the dirt above an inch tall.
Conclusion Dye really affects the way plants
grow plain water kinda grows taller
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Do crickets chirp more when kids are around? By
Lauren, Matthew, and Jeremiah
Question We wanted to know do crickets chirp
more when the kids arn't around or are around?
We thought the crickets would chirp more when the
kids wer't around.
No kids
Kids
In balloon I hrde 1
Conclusions The crickets cherp more when the
kids were around. Matthew thinks maybe its
because the heating pad under it and because of
the noise. Lauren thinks that the heat pad
wasn't heated up high enough for the crickets or
maybe because the crickets have good ears and
have Matthew and I moving around.
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Will Charlie and Suzy be more active with other
crickets or alone? By Jennifer and Katherine
Question Will Charlie and Suzy be more active
with five other crickets or alone? Katherine I
thought that they would be more active alone
because there would be more room. Jennifer So
they won't be inbarest.
Conclusion We were thinking they would be more
active alone becalse they had more room. And our
guess was correkt. They were more active alone
whithout 5 other crickets.
Method 1) I'll put 2 crickets in one cage and
watch them. 2) I'll sample Charlie's and Suzie's
movements with a one minute timer. At the end
of each minute we put a sticker on a map. We had
ten minutes each. 3) Then we'll take the other
map put Charly and Suzie and five other crickets
in the same terrarium. We'll put dots on
Charlie's and Suzie's bakes. We sampled them as
we did before for ten minutes.
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Invested Interests in this Agenda

• For the field of Childrens science instruction
• How can we design instruction that effectively
  empowers childrens scientific cognition?
• How can we strategically characterize the design
  space of promising learning environments for the
  purpose of empowering childrens scientific
  cognition?
• How can we strategically sequence structure the
  K-12 science curriculum?

• For the field of Cognitive Development
• What are the invariants plasticity in the
  development of childrens scientific cognition?
• How does the developmental trajectory change
  under different forms of enabling conditions?
• How stage-like is the development childrens
  scientific cognition? How useful is the
  construct of stages in predicting accounting
  for the development?

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LINES OF ANALYSIS

• Student scientific reasoning outcomes
• Reasoning about uncertainty, theory/ evidence,
  hypothetical-deductive reasoning, research design
  (Metz, Ball)
• Teacher scaffolding of conceptual understanding
  (Wong)
• Relation between teacher beliefs about science
  their curriculum enactment (Eslinger Metz)
• Relation between teacher beliefs about the power
  of children to reason scientifically their
  curriculum enactment (Ly Metz)
• Dynamics of teacher professional development
  meetings cum learning community (Little)
• Embedded Case Study Design To Make Connections
• 4 cases veteran second third grade teachers,
  same student population
• (Their beliefs X their curriculum enactment X
  their student outcomes ) change over two years
  time.
• Extreme case

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Driver et al. framework of epistemological
reasoning
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II Replicate to increase confidence in
empirical generalization. II Run experiment
with other types of organisms to investigate
whether outcome will be the same or different.
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Childrens highest level of epistemological
reasoning

• Level O
• School-general, weak strategies
• Do it better, think harder, make it harder, add
  something, improve how it the poster looks.
• No response or response limited to echo of
  partner
• Level I (Phenomenon-based)
• Try it see what happens
• Tinker with the situation to try to obtain more
  extreme result
• Improve ones looking
• Level II (Relation-based)

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Pushing the bounds of relation-based reasoning,
as defined by Driver et al.

• DRIVER
• In cases of correlational reasoning as opposed
  to chain of cause effect relations, students
  tend to consider only one factor as possibly
  influencing the situation --- the one they see as
  the cause As a consequence, other possible
  influential factors are overlooked.
• One-to-one correspondence relation with the
  world Although alternative factors may be
  entertained in developing empirical
  generalizations, there is a tendency to assume
  that one of these will be true the explanation
  is in a correspondence relation with the material
  world.
• STRATEGIES PUSHING THE BOUNDS
• Child identifies an additional factor that
  might influence the situation
• Redesigns study to eliminate extraneous variable.
• OR
• Experimentally manipulate that identified as
  another potentially influential variable, within
  same study or separate investigation (Not clear 2
  X 2 design).
• Child takes variable as object of thought (not
  taken as existing) Conjectures alternative
  explanation based on one property of the variable

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Carey Smith (1993)
Knowledge unproblematic The sources of belief
are perception, testimony, one-step inference
Individuals with this epistemology believe there
is only one objective reality which is knowledge
is a straightforward way by making observations.
Ultimately, misinformation deceit are the
causes of having false belief.
Knowledge problematic Individuals develop their
beliefs through a process of critical inquiry.
Different people may draw different conclusions
from the same perceptual evidence because they
hold different theories that effect their
interpretation of evidence. Reality exists, but
our knowledge of it is elusive uncertain.
Two questions of urgent importance to educators
now arise. First, in what sense are these levels
developmental? Second (and distinctly), do
these levels provide barriers to grasping a
constructivist epistemology if such is made the
target of the science curriculum? i.e.,
are they immutable constraints? Carey Smith
conjecture Some aspects of knowledge
problematic are within reach of 12 year olds
under optimal instructional design.
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Knowledge unproblematic The sources of belief
are perception, testimony, one-step inference
Individuals with this epistemology believe there
is only one objective reality which is knowledge
is a straightforward way by making observations.
Ultimately, misinformation deceit are the
causes of having false belief.
Knowledge problematic Individuals develop their
beliefs through a process of critical inquiry.
Different people may draw different conclusions
from the same perceptual evidence because they
hold different theories that effect their
interpretation of evidence. Reality exists, but
our knowledge of it is elusive uncertain.

• Some aspects of knowledge unproblematic are
  mutable constraints for many 1st graders.
• In this context of thinking critically about
  their own studies
• Beyond reliance on observation to gain
  knowledge
• Sources of being wrong transcend simply
  misinformation deceit Empirical study as a
  tool for knowing that can be imperfect in many
  ways a source of false belief
• Reality as elusive uncertain

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Problems with this Model of Childrens Science Ed

• Has led to curricular decomposition of the
  scientific inquiry process impoverished
  curricular goal structure.
• Out of sync with the developmental literature, in
  the sense that this research base indicates that
  children have much richer repertoire of
  intellectual resources than it assumes.
• Scientific cognition developmental lit. has paid
  negligible attention to impact of supportive
  environment.
• School-age scientific cognition developmental
  lit. has paid negligible attention to the
  knowledge factor
• confound between weak knowledge weak
  reasoning capacities

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Design Principles cum aspirations
Rationale
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