Sociocognitive roles in science group discourse

The purpose of this study was to examine students' roles during a long-term collaborative task that required them to master complex sets of cognitive, regulatory and social skills needed for building knowledge largely from their own and their peers' ideas and observations. Samples of discourse were collected from 24 8th grade students in eight groups within four classrooms throughout a 12-week unit on constructing and testing mental models of the nature of matter. Eight prominent sociocognitive roles that served socio-emotional, conceptual and metacognitive functions are described. The roles are related to individual students' perspectives on learning, and to the levels of reasoning each group achieved. The results can be used to raise students' and teachers' awareness of the personal resources, interactive processes and norms that can support or derail knowledge construction in collaborative groups.

[1]  C. Shakeshaft.  Boys Call Me Cow. , 1997 .

[2]  Gail Richmond,et al.  Making meaning in classrooms: Social processes in small‐group discourse and scientific knowledge building , 1996 .

[3]  B. Latour.  Science in Action , 1987 .

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

[5]  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.

[6]  Erno Lehtinen,et al.  Long-term development of learning activity: Motivational, cognitive, and social interaction , 1995 .

[7]  Verlin B. Hinsz,et al.  The emerging conceptualization of groups as information processors. , 1997, Psychological bulletin.

[8]  David W. Johnson,et al.  Cooperative Versus Competitive Efforts and Problem Solving , 1995 .

[9]  A. King.  Guiding Knowledge Construction in the Classroom: Effects of Teaching Children How to Question and How to Explain , 1994 .

[10]  Julie A. Bianchini,et al.  Where knowledge construction, equity, and context intersect: Student learning of science in small groups , 1997 .

[11]  G. J. Kelly,et al.  An ethnographic investigation of the discourse processes of school science , 1997 .

[12]  James G. Greeno.  Mathematical and Scientific Thinking in Classrooms and Other Situations , 1992 .

[13]  G. Hatano.  Commentary: Time to merge Vygotskian and constructivist conceptions of knowledge acquisition. , 1993 .

[14]  J. R. Larson,et al.  Groups as problem‐solving units: Toward a new meaning of social cognition , 1993 .

[15]  Annemarie S. Palincsar,et al.  Pursuing Scientific Literacy in the Middle Grades Through Collaborative Problem Solving , 1993, The Elementary School Journal.

[16]  N. Webb,et al.  Constructive Activity and Learning in Collaborative Small Groups. , 1995 .

[17]  P. Scott,et al.  Constructing Scientific Knowledge in the Classroom , 1994 .

[18]  M. Cranach,et al.  The group as a self-active system: outline of a theory of group action , 1986 .

[19]  G. Salomon,et al.  When teams do not function the way they ought to , 1989 .

[20]  Penelope L. Peterson,et al.  The Relationship of Student Ability and Small-Group Interaction to Student Achievement , 1982 .

[21]  Peter J. Fensham,et al.  The importance of reflection in improving science teaching and learning , 1991 .

[22]  Sharon J. Derry,et al.  Cognitive schema theory in the constructivist debate , 1996 .

[23]  J. Mintzes,et al.  Teaching Science for Understanding: A Human Constructivist View , 1998 .

[24]  Kenneth A. Strike,et al.  A revisionist theory of conceptual change , 1992 .

[25]  Kathleen Hogan,et al.  Relating Students' Personal Frameworks for Science Learning to Their Cognition in Collaborative Contexts. , 1999 .

[26]  W. Hartup,et al.  Friends as Coworkers: Research Review and Classroom Implications , 1997, The Elementary School Journal.

[27]  P. Cobb.  Where Is the Mind? Constructivist and Sociocultural Perspectives on Mathematical Development , 1994 .

[28]  Ann L. Brown,et al.  Communities of Learning and Thinking, or A Context by Any Other Name , 1990 .

[29]  G. Glasson,et al.  Reinterpreting the learning cycle from a social constructivist perspective: A qualitative study of teachers' beliefs and practices , 1993 .

[30]  Austin Henderson,et al.  Interaction Analysis: Foundations and Practice , 1995 .

[31]  E. Cohen.  Restructuring the Classroom: Conditions for Productive Small Groups , 1994 .

[32]  D. Clements,et al.  RESEARCH ON COOPERATIVE LEARNING: IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE , 1991 .

[33]  Wolff-Michael Roth,et al.  The Social Construction of Scientific Concepts or the Concept Map as Device and Tool Thinking in High Conscription for Social School Science , 1992 .

[34]  Emily H. van Zee,et al.  Reflective discourse: developing shared understandings in a physics classroom , 1997 .

[35]  Neil Mercer,et al.  Common Knowledge: The Development of Understanding in the Classroom , 1987 .

[36]  Ann S. Rosebery,et al.  Appropriating Scientific Discourse: Findings from Language Minority Classrooms. , 1992 .

[37]  C. W. Anderson,et al.  Changing middle school students' conceptions of matter and molecules , 1990 .

[38]  N. Webb,et al.  Promoting Helping Behavior in Cooperative Small Groups in Middle School Mathematics , 1994 .

[39]  Annemarie S. Palincsar,et al.  Group processes in the classroom. , 1996 .

[40]  D. Wegner.  Transactive Memory: A Contemporary Analysis of the Group Mind , 1987 .

[41]  R. Driver,et al.  Small-Group Discussion in Physics: Peer Interaction Modes in Pairs and Fours. , 1996 .

[42]  Carl Bereiter,et al.  Constructivism, Socioculturalism, and Popper's World 3 , 1994 .