Scientific Thinking & Discourse

• Teachers show students how to ask and answer higher level questions; they also model higher order thinking by modeling their thinking out loud.

• The questions themselves ask students to “speculate, predict, synthesize, and make judgments, rather than merely recalling facts”

Valuing Students…

Students’ knowledge and experience influence all four strands of science understanding.

Science learning and discourse connect classroom talk, informal personal experiences, everyday terms, and concrete experiences

Students learn science by actively engaging in the practices of science.

Do not equate the action of activities with the understanding of concepts.

- Boch, 2000

On Building Science Literacy

• Current curricular practices do not place sufficient emphasis on cognitive tools and communication abilities of students in order to maintain their science literacy

• Any promotion of science literacy should empower people to be literate in the discourses of science

- Yore and Treagust 2006

Conclusions and Next Steps

• What next steps can you take in encouraging your students to engage in scientific discourse?

• How can you use questioning as a strategy to help your students in science?