Teachers’ Actions that Support Argumentation-based Teaching: Analysis of a chemistry teacher’s practice

There has been a consensus in science education about the contributions of the argumentative approach to involve students in scientific practices. However, there is a gap in the literature of the area, as there are very few studies that discuss the relation between the use of scientific practices –...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Stefannie de Sá Ibraim, Rosária Justi
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul 2018-08-01
Series:Investigações em Ensino de Ciências
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.if.ufrgs.br/cref/ojs/index.php/ienci/article/view/1153
Description
Summary:There has been a consensus in science education about the contributions of the argumentative approach to involve students in scientific practices. However, there is a gap in the literature of the area, as there are very few studies that discuss the relation between the use of scientific practices – like argumentation – in science teaching, the role of the teachers and their knowledge in that context. Therefore, in this paper, we discuss the following research question: which actions that support argumentation-based teaching are expressed by a chemistry teacher in regular teaching contexts? In order to investigate it, we analyse two regular chemistry classes from a framework that contains 18 actions that can support argumentation-based teaching. The results show that the teacher expressed 11 of such actions, and that there was/were: (i) a high frequency of actions both concerning with evidence and aiming at involving students in discussions; (ii) a low frequency of actions related to justifications, as well as to criticisms to students’ ideas; and (iii) relationships between the teaching actions and the teaching context. The conclusions of this study may foster further discussions about the teachers’ role in argumentative teaching contexts. It may also, guide future discussions on teachers’ actions that could contribute to the occurrence and development of argumentative practices in science classrooms, as well as to their characterisation.
ISSN:1518-8795