Learning from and responding to students' questions: The authoritative and dialogic tension

In this study we present an analysis of classroom interactions initiated by students' wonderment questions. Our interest in such events arises from their potential to stimulate active intellectual engagement in classrooms, which can impact upon the subsequent development of the classroom discourse. In investigating this issue we shall address the following research question: How do student questions impact upon the teaching explanatory structure and modify the form of the ongoing classroom discourse, in selected science lessons? From data collected in a Brazilian secondary school we have selected three classroom episodes, with large differences in both the context in which the student's question emerges and in the communicative approach developed in response to it. The analysis, based on the framework proposed by Mortimer and Scott [Mortimer and Scott (2003). Meaning making in secondary science classrooms. Maidenhead: Open University Press], shows that questions made by students are important in providing feedback from students to the teacher, enabling adjustments to the teaching explanatory structure. These adjustments sometimes occur smoothly, at other times with major changes to the features of the classroom discourse, and elsewhere with misunderstanding and disagreement. The data also suggest the need to consider students' intentions and their active participation in the negotiation of both the content and structure of classroom discourse. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 47:174–193, 2010

[1]  Eduardo Fleury Mortimer,et al.  Meaning Making in Secondary Science Classrooms , 2003 .

[2]  Ann L. Brown,et al.  Reciprocal Teaching of Comprehension-Fostering and Comprehension-Monitoring Activities , 1984 .

[3]  R. A. Engle,et al.  Guiding Principles for Fostering Productive Disciplinary Engagement: Explaining an Emergent Argument in a Community of Learners Classroom , 2002 .

[4]  M. Watts,et al.  Questions of Understanding: Categorising Pupils' Questions in Science. , 1997 .

[5]  V. Voloshinov.  Marxism and the philosophy of language , 1973 .

[6]  Christine Chin.  Teacher questioning in science classrooms: Approaches that stimulate productive thinking , 2006 .

[7]  W. Sandoval,et al.  Explanation-Driven Inquiry: Integrating Conceptual and Epistemic Scaffolds for Scientific Inquiry , 2004 .

[8]  P. Scott.  Teacher Talk and Meaning Making in Science Classrooms: a Vygotskian Analysis and Review , 1998 .

[9]  J. T. Dillon.  The remedial status of student questioning , 1988 .

[10]  Christine Chin,et al.  Student-generated questions: A meaningful aspect of learning in science , 2002 .

[11]  J. Osborne,et al.  Students' questions: a potential resource for teaching and learning science , 2008 .

[12]  David Hammer,et al.  Learning and Teaching Science as Inquiry: A Case Study of Elementary School Teachers' Investigations of Light. , 2005 .

[13]  Rebecca A. Krystyniak,et al.  Analysis of Verbal Interactions during an Extended, Open-Inquiry General Chemistry Laboratory Investigation. , 2007 .

[14]  Rachel Mamlok-Naaman,et al.  Developing students' ability to ask more and better questions resulting from inquiry-type chemistry laboratories , 2005 .

[15]  R. Wegerif.  Dialogic Education and Technology , 2007 .

[16]  E. Etkina.  Weekly Reports: A Two-Way Feedback Tool. , 2000 .

[17]  Sherry A. Southerland,et al.  Individual and Group Meaning-Making in an Urban Third Grade Classroom: Red Fog, Cold Cans, and Seeping Vapor. , 2005 .

[18]  Y. Dori,et al.  Question-posing capability as an alternative evaluation method: Analysis of an environmental case study , 1999 .

[19]  H. Mehan,et al.  Learning Lessons, Social Organization in the Classroom , 1979 .

[20]  E. Guba,et al.  Naturalistic inquiry: Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1985, 416 pp., $25.00 (Cloth) , 1985 .

[21]  J. Lemke.  Talking Science: Language, Learning, and Values , 1990 .

[22]  Jon Ogborn,et al.  Explaining Science in the Classroom , 1996 .

[23]  J. Wertsch.  Voices of the Mind: A Sociocultural Approach to Mediated Action , 1992 .

[24]  T. Kuhn,et al.  The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. , 1964 .

[25]  Eugenia Etkina,et al.  Encouraging and Analyzing Student Questions in a Large Physics Course: Meaningful Patterns for Instructors , 2003 .

[26]  C. Sutton,et al.  Words, Science and Learning , 1992 .

[27]  Annemarie Sullivan Palincsar,et al.  Canonical and Sociocultural Approaches to Research and Reform in Science Education: The Story of Juan and His Group , 1997, The Elementary School Journal.

[28]  R. Duschl,et al.  "Doing the Lesson" or "Doing Science": Argument in High School Genetics , 2000 .

[29]  M. Scardamalia,et al.  Text-Based and Knowledge Based Questioning by Children , 1992 .

[30]  John J. Gumperz,et al.  Contextualization and Understanding , 1989 .

[31]  R. Wegerif.  Dialogic Education and Technology: Expanding the Space of Learning , 2007 .

[32]  A. Graesser,et al.  Question Asking During Tutoring , 1994 .

[33]  L. Vygotsky.  Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes: Harvard University Press , 1978 .

[34]  D. Edwards.  Discourse and cognition , 1996 .

[35]  Helena Caldeira,et al.  An analysis of question asking on scientific texts explaining natural phenomena , 2000 .

[36]  Emily H. van Zee,et al.  Student and teacher questioning during conversations about science , 2001 .

[37]  Karen Gallas,et al.  Talking their way into science : hearing children's questions and theories, responding with curricula , 1995 .

[38]  T. Good,et al.  Student Passivity: A Study of Question Asking in K-12 Classrooms. , 1987 .

[39]  Sara Hennessy,et al.  Situated Expertise in Integrating Use of Multimedia Simulation into Secondary Science Teaching , 2006 .

[40]  Gili Marbach-Ad,et al.  Can undergraduate biology students learn to ask higher level questions , 2000 .

[41]  Shirley Simon,et al.  Enhancing the quality of argumentation in school science , 2004 .

[42]  S. Toulmin.  The uses of argument , 1960 .

[43]  Philip Scott,et al.  The tension between authoritative and dialogic discourse: A fundamental characteristic of meaning making interactions in high school science lessons , 2006 .