A Design-based Study Of Argumentation In A Middle School Science Classroom In Shanghai

In science education,using argumentation to help students learn scientific knowledge and develop scientific literacy has become a consensus.In the past thirty years,relevant research has laid a solid research foundation for argumentation in science teaching.Meanwhile,many countries began to emphasize the importance of argumentation ability in science learning.Under this international background,this study attempts to explore argument-oriented teaching in a science classroom in China,and to understand the process and mechanism of interaction between teachers and students in argumentation.In this study,a combination of naturalistic observation and design research was adopted to collect data.The research focused on three research questions: How do teachers participate in the argumentation? How do students participate in the argumentation? What is the difference between designed teaching and non-designed teaching? To this end,this study collected data by video recording,classroom observation,and teacher interviewing,and used interaction analysis and discourse analysis to analyze the data.The results show that at the teacher level,teacher used the discourse strategies of revoicing and silencing to maintain the dominance of scientific discourse and prevent the emergence of advanced scientific discourse.At the same time,different viewpoints and possibilities appeared in the classroom.Through the process,the teacher achieved the class management and students’ participation of argumentation.At the student level,students participated in the argumentation mainly through risking with tentative behaviors and collusion and cooperation with teachers.In terms of discourse strategies,they participated in the argumentation through two kinds of discourse strategies: turn-taking,common discourse and underground life.The results of the comparison between designed and non-designed teaching show that compared with the designed teaching,the teachers’ construction in teaching,the students’ knowledge authority status,and the scientific practice level are higher than the non-designed teaching.this study revealed that the differences were mainly related to the design contexts.According to the results,this study suggested that teacher showed a lot of wisdom in organizing argumentation,students were more able to open the discourse boundary in argumentation,and the contexts in design teaching provided students with a broad and standardized argumentation space.This study suggests that teachers’ understandings of argumentation should be further deepened,and students’ discourse diversity should be accommodated.Also,teachers should be supported by argumentation curriculum design in the future.