Erin Marie Furtak

Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Studies of Inquiry-Based Science Teaching A Meta-Analysis

Although previous meta-analyses have indicated a connection between inquiry-based teaching and improved student learning, the type of instruction characterized as inquiry based has varied greatly, and few have focused on the extent to which activities are led by the teacher or student. This meta-analysis introduces a framework for inquiry-based teaching that distinguishes between cognitive features of the activity and degree of guidance given to students. This framework is used to code 37 experimental and quasi-experimental studies published between 1996 and 2006, a decade during which inquiry was the main focus of science education reform. The overall mean effect size is .50. Studies that contrasted epistemic activities or the combination of procedural, epistemic, and social activities had the highest mean effect sizes. Furthermore, studies involving teacher-led activities had mean effect sizes about .40 larger than those with student-led conditions. The importance of establishing the validity of the treatment construct in meta-analyses is also discussed.

Effects of Autonomy-Supportive Teaching on Student Learning and Motivation

Although autonomy-supportive teaching has been linked with increased student performance, this contention has not yet been explored in an experimental study. This article presents a small, pre/post control group experimental study evaluating the effect of procedural and cognitive autonomy-supportive teaching on student learning and motivation during a 7th-grade reform-based science lesson on motion. In a 2 × 2 factorial design, the 4 treatment conditions featured high and low levels of procedural and cognitive autonomy support. As hypothesized, there was no effect of procedural autonomy support. However, to the authors’ surprise—and in contrast with their hypotheses—students in the low cognitive autonomy-supportive conditions learned significantly more, perceived significantly more choice, and rated instruction as more positive than did students in the high cognitive autonomy-supportive conditions. Results are framed in the context of achieving reform in science teaching.

Learning Progressions To Support Ambitious Teaching Practices

One challenge faced by teachers, especially novice teachers, is navigating the messy and confusing landscape of science teaching reforms. In reform-based classrooms, students may be moving around and talking as they share ideas. Part of developing expertise as a teacher is learning which aspects of the classroom environment can be ignored and which ones can be pursued to fruitful ends. Teachers must learn to separate the signal from the noise, so to speak, during the act of teaching. Goodwin (1994) identified this ability as professional vision; namely, the ability to survey a complex landscape, identify important elements in that landscape, and connect those elements to a larger framework of understanding that is shared by a profession. The field of science education is only beginning to develop effective supports for helping teachers develop professional vision (McDonald, 2008).

Science Classroom Discussion as Scientific Argumentation: A Study of Conceptually Rich (and Poor) Student Talk

One way to frame science classroom discussion is to engage students in scientific argumentation, an important discourse format within science aimed at coordinating empirical evidence and scientific theory. Framing discussion as scientific argumentation gives clear priority to contributions that are sustained by evidence. We question whether this priority is conducive to conceptually rich student talk (talk in which students elaborate key concepts and causal mechanisms). Coding transcripts of six middle school classrooms engaged in whole-class scientific argumentation, we identified whether student conversations about a physical science concept incorporated arguments that were supported by evidence and whether the same conversations amounted to conceptually rich talk. Rich talk and evidence-supported arguments rarely occurred together in the same conversation. In a detailed analysis of selected conversations, we argue that the priority given to evidence within scientific argumentation incurs constraints on discussion goals and reasoning that tend to inhibit conceptually rich talk.

Cues Matter: Learning Assistants Influence Introductory Biology Student Interactions during Clicker-Question Discussions.

Recordings of introductory biology student discussions of clicker questions demonstrate that students use reasoning and questioning in their discussions and that their use of these discussion characteristics is heavily influenced by the cues they hear from learning assistants during discussions.

Lessons Learned from the Process of Curriculum Developers' and Assessment Developers' Collaboration on the Development of Embedded Formative Assessments

Our project to embed formative student assessments in the Foundational Approaches in Science Teaching curriculum required a close collaboration between curriculum developers at the Curriculum Research & Development Group (CRDG) and assessment developers at the Stanford Educational Assessment Laboratory (SEAL). This was a new endeavor for each organization, and throughout the project, many lessons were learned about embedding assessments and about the collaboration process. In this article, we discuss what we learned about the strengths and weaknesses of the collaboration up to the beginning of the randomized experiment. What we found comported with the literature on research collaborations. For example, past collaborations between CRDG and SEAL facilitated moving the project forward and sustained the collaboration. That said, the physical distance between the groups gave rise to some misunderstandings and led to a commitment to meet face-to-face on a regular basis; we found that conferencing software did not suffice. Moreover, in our zeal to implement formative assessments, the voices of teachers and teacher trainers got muffled until a pilot study confirmed their advice.

Science Teachers’ Representations of Classroom Practice in the Process of Formative Assessment Design

Formative assessment has been recognized as an essential element of effective classroom practice; as a result, teachers are increasingly required to create formative assessments for their classrooms. This study examines data drawn from a long-term, site-based professional development program that supported a department of biology teachers in the iterative design and enactment of common formative assessment tools. We analyze teacher conversations to understand how teachers collaborated to design formative assessments. Results indicate that when teachers attended to problems of practice related to teaching evolution, increased transparency in their talk helped build consensus about the design of formative assessment tools. These results highlight the importance of encouraging transparency in teacher dialog when they are engaged in collaborative design of formative assessments.

Exploring the influence of plant and animal item contexts on student response patterns to natural selection multiple choice items

BackgroundResearch has shown that students have a variety of ideas about natural selection that may be context dependent. Prior analyses of student responses to open-ended evolution items have demonstrated that students apply more core ideas about natural selection when asked about animals, but respond with the same number of naive ideas for plant and animal items. Other research has shown that changing an item to ask about trait loss or gain shifted the types of naive ideas applied by students in their responses. In this paper, we take up both of these findings to determine if differences exist in the types of ideas students apply to similar items with either a plant or an animal in the item stem.ResultsIn order to understand if students applied different ideas to plants or animals in distractor-driven multiple-choice questions, we analyzed high school biology students’ responses to matched-item pairs. Dichotomous scoring revealed that students chose the correct response more often for the animal items as compared to the plant items. Chi squared analyses revealed significant differences in the distribution of student responses to matched items. For example, more students chose responses that defined animal fitness as related to their strength and plants’ fitness related to its longevity.ConclusionsThese results suggest that varied context of plants or animals in item stems on diagnostic assessments can provide teachers with a more complete picture of their students’ ideas about natural selection prior to instruction. This is particularly important in assessments used prior to instruction; as teachers will gain greater insight into the variety of ways students think about natural selection across different types of plants and animals.

Backtalk: What’s wrong with imagining you’re a 5th grader?

Inviting teachers to “think like a 5th grader” is a misguided effort frequently employed by PD facilitators. Experiencing learning as an adult with the depth of understanding that teachers have about learning is a much smarter strategy. When teachers themselves struggle to learn and when they reflect upon those struggles, they will uncover new understandings about the best way to teach 5th graders. The authors advise using formative assessments when teachers want to know what students understand and where they struggle.