Vaughan Prain

Introduction: Does Writing Promote Learning in Science?

Most of us have had the experience of thinking about concepts in new ways or discovering gaps in our knowledge through the act of writing. The idea that learners could generate new science knowledge through composing text was proposed in the early 1970s. Science writing involves the use of reasoning skills to organize information, describe scientific phenomena, create knowledge claims, and formulate an argument. Thus, writing has potential for fostering content learning. Yet, research evidence on the specific character of science knowledge learned through writing, and the mechanisms through which the learning takes place has remained somewhat elusive over the past three decades. Writing in 1984, Applebee asserted, “At one level, most authors begin with the assumption that writing about a topic helps us to understand that topic better. At another level, we know almost nothing about the nature of the understanding that develops ...” (p. 590). A decade later in 1994 (p.885), Holliday, Yore, and Alvermann noted, “Currently, conceptions of writing to learn appear to be embryonic and fragmented.”

Coming to Know More Through and From Writing

Over the past 20 years, claims about how and why student writing can serve learning have changed markedly. This has been partly due to new technologies displacing writing as a predominant resource for learning, prompting new sense-making practices and shifts in how these changes are theorized. Learners now routinely collaborate to generate, manipulate, analyze, and share images in many subject areas, where multimodal and multimedia resources are expected to motivate learners, enact new learning processes and outcomes, and display this cross-modal learning. These new practices have prompted revisions to how writing is understood and used as a tool for learning in an increasingly multimodal, highly digitized world. In reviewing this literature, we claim that there are strong evidence-based reasons for viewing writing as a central but not sole resource for learning. Our case draws on both past and current research on writing as an epistemological tool. In presenting this case, we draw primarily on our professional background in science education research, acknowledging its distinctive take on the use of writing for learning. However, we think our general case also holds for other disciplinary areas.

Encapsulating Teacher Expertise in Action.

Abstract Given current extensive expectations of how teachers should excel, any attempt to summarize teacher expertise in action in the second decade of this century may seem at best misguided. However, this has not stopped teacher educators offering diverse metaphoric encapsulations that aim both to distil and prescribe quality teacher practice. In this paper, we attempt to make sense of this diversity, and contribute to a richer dialog about this expertise. We draw on Anna Sfard’s influential metaphoric map of competing views of learning as a starting point. We claim that this metaphoric divide is evident in current divergent theories of desirable teaching practices and their metaphoric badging, although there is evidence in current curricular documents of attempts to acknowledge and engage with these accounts. In analyzing these metaphors and their warrants, in a context of intensified accountability, rapid changes to technological affordances, and divided views about how student agency should serve learning processes, we aim to tease out core issues. We draw on recent curricular and policy prescriptions about teacher expertise in the Australian context to illustrate our case. On the basis of our analysis, we propose a bridging metaphor to encapsulate the richness of applied teacher expertise.

A Research Program on Writing for Learning in Science, 1992–2002

This chapter reports on the development, implementation strategies, and broad findings of a long-tern research program (1992–2002). The program aimed to investigate the effects on learning outcomes and attitudes for students and teachers when students wrote in diversified forms to learn science. In the context of this program we defined science learning very widely to include scientific methods, concepts, and various forms of communication. However, the main focus has been on the understanding of science concepts and their application in different problem-solving contexts.

Representation Construction as a Core Science Disciplinary Literacy

There is growing interest in and understanding of the material basis of epistemic practices in science, and consequently of the role of multimodal representation construction in reasoning and learning in science classrooms. From this perspective learning in science crucially involves induction into the interplay between experimental exploration and construction and coordination of representations as a core element of scientific disciplinary literacy. In this chapter we argue that learning to explain and problem-solve effectively in science involves students actively generating and coordinating multiple, multimodal representations and material artifacts in exploring material phenomena, in a guided inquiry process. We describe the development of a ‘representation construction’ approach to inquiry in science classrooms that is grounded in pragmatist perspectives on learning and knowing, which engages students in active experimental exploration and generation and refinement of core representations underpinning science concepts. We provide evidence of the success of the approach in supporting quality learning and reasoning. We propose that the construction of representations such as drawings, animations, role-plays or mathematical/symbolic systems works to support learning and knowing through the affordances of different modes to productively constrain exploration and explanation of the material world. We conclude that induction into multimodal representation construction processes in response to grappling with real world problems is central to the development of scientific disciplinary literacy, and that this approach represents a significant innovation in its use of authentic inquiry to serve a serious conceptual learning agenda in science.

Breakthroughs, Classroom Implications, On-going, and Future Research

Taken as a whole, our studies provide data that support writing as one mode of science learning. Our research has gleaned some new understandings about how students view the mechanisms of writing to learn, and some of the types of tasks and conditions that promote learning science through writing. In this chapter, we will describe both what we consider to be breakthroughs from our work, as well as areas of research still untapped. We will also address classroom implications of the research.

Teachers’ Perceptions of Writing to Learn Strategies

Chapters 5, 6 and 7 have outlined the implementation of writing to learn strategies within science classrooms and some of the learning benefits gained by students. This chapter focuses on the role of teachers, who are an integral component of any classroom environment and have an obvious impact on the success of such strategies in terms of student learning. We have previously discussed that writing is a process of negotiating meaning in which there is both a personal and social component. As such there is a vital need for teachers to adopt pedagogical practices that enable students the opportunities to engage with these negotiations and to meaningfully challenge their own conceptual understandings of the topic. The implementation of writing to learn strategies as described within this hook requires teachers to understand that learning is not about demonstration of knowledge, but the active construction of a deep and rich understanding of the conceptual frameworks of a topic.