| Inquiry-based education is supported by attention to conversation as it scaffolds learning in science centers and other free-choice learning settings such as zoos, aquaria, and botanical gardens. This study of collaborative communication patterns examines the processes of inquiry among visitors and volunteer docents at Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium in Sarasota, Florida. Volunteer docents collaborate with family members in their interpretation of the natural sciences and benthic ecosystem in a context-rich educational environment.; In this study, a systematic review of 124 episodes of naturally occurring, videorecorded conversations links visitors' narrative reasoning to sustained inquiry. The study combines portions of verbatim transcripts with interpretation in a meta-analysis of themes emerging from the data. A qualitative analysis of verbal data illustrates how interactants create a standpoint from which to view and participate in the natural world. Key episodes are analyzed in depth to direct attention to the ways visitors to Mote use narrative reasoning to develop a personal context that maintains their curiosity and sustains inquiry in living moments (Shotter, 1993). Learning conversations emerged dialogically as visitors and docents made meaning “reflexively and reciprocally in social interactional space and time” (Luckmann, 1992, p. 220). Findings from this micro-ethnographic study appear as chapters on Choreography, Vocal Play, and Research Time.; I conclude the dissertation by identifying three collaborative communication patterns and processes, including how inquiry is sustained in close proximity, intimately, as personal context develops, how the negotiation between self and other that accompanies inquiry is discernible as beats of time, and how inquiry occurs dialogically in collaborative conversations involving the use of voice, time, and choreography as social resources. In addition, I discuss the role the docent plays in fostering collaboration as well as the methodological contributions of this study to research on conversation and collaboration. |
