Scientific Practices & the Scaffolding thereof in the Primary Grade Classroom

Kathleen Metz

University of California Berkeley

Aspects of the scientific practice .. that need to be better represented in the primary grade classroom

1. Immersion in strategically selected domain(s)

2. Centrality of big ideas

3. Centrality of curiosity as the driving force of the enterprise

4. Goal-structure of discovery, understanding, prediction & control

5. Key role of both empirical inquiry & analysis of text/ previous work in construction of knowledge

6. Essential social nature of scientific knowledge-building

7. Challenge -- & delight -- of structuring the ill-structured

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Problems with this Model of Children’s Purported Capabilities & Limitations

Has led to curricular decomposition of the scientific inquiry process & impoverished curricular goal structure.

Out of sync with the developmental literature, in the sense that this research base indicates that children have much richer repertoire of intellectual resources than it assumes.

Scientific cognition developmental lit., upon which this schema is purportedly based, has paid negligible attention to impact of supportive environment.

School-age scientific cognition developmental lit. has paid negligible attention to the knowledge factor confound between weak knowledge & weak reasoning capacities

----> Vicious Cycle

Vicious Cycle

School -age cognitive developmental lit tended to ignore knowledge-factor in design of contexts for

assessing scientific reasoning

Children frequently handicapped by testing of scientific reasoning in the context of a domain where they have weak knowledge

Underestimation in the research lit of children’s scientific reasoning

capacities

Curricular schemas for “developmentally appropriate” science education that fail to take full

advantage of children’s capabilities

School’s failure to optimally empower children’s scientific knowledge &

reasoning

Metz NSF Research Project

• What are the mutable and immutable cognitive developmental constraints on young children’s scientific inquiry?

• How can we design primary grade science education to

empower children’s scientific inquiry & understanding of science as a way of knowing?

Funder: IERI, NSF

Modus Operandi

• Formulate educational design principles that I conjecture empower children’s reasoning & understanding of science

• Write curricula (botany, animal behavior) to operationalize the design principles. & support teachers in the enactment.

• Multiple generations of the educational design experiment in multiple classrooms, with data re enabling context (how is the curriculum enacted) & student cognition– Video record of classroom activity– Data base of all student work generated in connection with the curriculum– Student lab-based interviews

• Study enactment of curriculum X children’s learning, capitalizing on planned & naturally occurring variations.

Design Principles cum Aspirations

Centrality of engagement in the authentic inquiry1. Maintain integrity of the goal-focused intellectual enterprise across curriculum.2. Teach science processes & methods in the context of their purpose & use3. Capitalize on the context of children’s scientific inquiry to reflect on science as a

way of knowing.

Interplay of inquiry & knowledge within the curriculum4 Develop relatively rich knowledge of the domain in which the inquiry is embedded,

in conjunction w/ the big ideas of the discipline5. Foster the synergy between developing knowledge of the domain and knowledge

of inquiry.

Scaffolding principles6. Manipulate collaboration unit between class & dyad, to iteratively bring tasks of greater cognitive demand within reach & then to fade support as their emergent expertise enables them to assume more responsibility.

7. Build knowledge & responsibility to the point where dyads have primary responsibility over their own investigation & analysis thereof vis a vis others work at the conference.

EXPANDING LINES OF ANALYSIS• Student scientific reasoning outcomes:

– Reasoning about uncertainty, theory/ evidence, hypothetical-deductive reasoning, research design, understanding of science as a way of knowing (Metz, Ball)

• Teacher scaffolding of conceptual understanding (Wong)

• Relation between teacher beliefs about science & their curriculum enactment (Eslinger & Metz)

• Relation between teacher beliefs about the power of children to reason scientifically & their curriculum enactment (Ly & Metz)

• Dynamics of teacher professional development meetings cum learning community (Little)

Embedded Case Study Design To Make Connections• 4 cases: veteran second & third grade teachers, same student population

– (Their beliefs X their curriculum enactment X their student outcomes ) change over two years time.– (Ball, Eslinger,Little, Metz, Wong)

• Extreme case: of youngest cohorts (first graders), of one of most expert teachers (Metz, Wong)

Teacher Professional Development

Monthly Meetings

Interpreted Curriculum

Enacted Curriculum

Intended Curriculum

Teacher beliefs re:a) factors that affect the

power of children’s scientific reasoning

b) science as a way of knowing

c) Goals in the teaching of science

Feedback loop

StudentLearning

The Long-term goal: Connecting the Dots

Data sources & uses thereof (examples)

Video record of classroom (& research conference); used in analysis of * Face of science in the classroom;

* Transformation of cognitive load from intended to enacted curriculum; * Cohort comparison of student outcomes (what were children taught/ invented; intensity of the

scaffolding)* Discourse in classroom & ideas developed therein X scaffolding

Video record of monthly teacher professional development meetings (over two years); used in the analysis of:

* Scaffolding provided to teachers* Teacher beliefs & goals.* Teacher change over time; lens onto genesis of changes* Teacher feedback re curriculum: suggestions, needed changes* Teacher professional learning community

Teacher lessons evaluations* Weaknesses in the curriculum that we need to address* Teacher goal structure.* Teacher attribution of the genesis of pedagogical problems & the resolution thereof.

Continued..

• Student written work* Competence at engaging in the practice

* Student thinking; e.g. attribution of inference & observation & relation thereof; knowledge level of questions.

(Huge caveat: limits of primary grade children’s writing)Student thinking (caveat: limits of primary grade children’s writing)

• Structured interviews of pairs reflecting on their investigations they designed & conducted.

* Differentiation of theory / evidence & application thereof* Understanding of research design.* Conceptualization of the goal structure of the enterprise

* Level of “epistemic reasoning” in critique of their study & conceptualizations of improvements: Do they think uncertainty enters in? If so, how? Their strategies to improve study.

Example of analysis: From the Case Study of 1st grade teacher & her students

Top level:

First graders’ capacity to assume large responsibility for a study of their own (with a partner), following instructional scaffolding.

Fine-grained, emphasis:

Epistemic reasoning reflected in reasoning about their research project.

First graders’ capacity to assume large responsibility for a study of their own (with a partner), following instructional scaffolding.

Involving (with scaffolding)

all of the science process skills

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Can they engage in this practice?: Top-level indicators & caveats

Data source Outcomes Caveats re data source

1. Production of research posters about their study

All dyads + 1 single child produced poster

• Scaffolding in class: prior to & during research poster production

•Scaffolding more intense for some children than others (but all 1st graders offered adult ready to transcribe)

• Input of different children is unknown.

2. Responses to structured interview questions:

a) Tell me about your study.

b) What was your question?

c) How did you do it?

d) What did you find out?

With exception of one dyad (botany cohort), dyads could answer all questions

•Relatively low-level questions, closely tied to reporting on research poster

(to which they could refer during the interview)

Do crickets become more aggressive as they get older?

4 week old cricket aggression

Analysis: I found out that 4 week old crickets did more biting than 6 week old crickets. The 5 week old crickets did the most biting. The 5 week old crickets did the most whipping of antennae. The 5 week old crickets got on top of each other more often. The 5 week old crickets were the most aggressive. The six week old crickets were next. The four week old crickets were the least aggressive.

5 week old…6 week old…

Procedure: I will take 3 different stages of crickets young crickets middle age crickets and adult crickets. I will put the young male crickets in a habitat. We will watch for aggressive behavior. We will put 4 week old male crickets the adult crickets the same. We will repeat thes 3 or 4 times.

Animal Behavior (Yr 2): Low level dyad

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Do crickets behave differently

in the dark?

Drawing of who did the study

Variables we will not change

Variables we will change

Light

[Time sampling of Behavior] Data

We think they will be more active in the dark

ProcedureTake a cricket and put it in a habitat and watch behavior in the light in the dark. I will use time sampling of behavior

AnalysisThere was more jumping in the dark. There was nojumping in the light. There was more standing still in the dark. They moved their antennae more in the dark.

ConclusionWe think that crickets behavior does changein the dark. We think this is true because we saw it.

How do different colored lights affect the way plants grow?

Analysis: The plants grew bigger every day and then suddenly the black and red light started getting smaller. We think it was because of the water level.

Conclusion: The grow lights did the best and the clear lights got all tangled and the red light got less water and the black light did the worst because the water got low because the heat was making the water evaporate.

Hypothesis: The plants in the black light would all burned up. We thought the plants would all be the same. We also thought the black light wouldn’t get to much light to the plants so it wouldn’t grow.

Epistemic Reasoning within this Practice

Data source Power

Responses to structured interview questions:

a) Increasing confidence level

Is there a way you could be more sure? How would that help you be more sure?

b) Study improvements:

You did a good study! Can you think of a way that would make your study a better study? How could you change how you did your study to make it even better?

Why would that make your study better?

+ prompts to elaborate ..without hints

More demanding that initial questions.

Scaffolding in taking up these questions limited to encouragement to elaborate their responses.

Conceptualization of what makes a study weak & the specific transformations in the study that can increase the power of the inquiry constitutes a lens onto their epistemological reasoning

Driver et al. framework of epistemological reasoningForm of scientific enquiry Nature of explanation

Pheno-

menon-based

(I)

Focus on phenomenon

Enquiry as observation: ‘You look & see’; or ‘Try it & see what happens.’

Enquiry provides direct access to knowledge of the world as it is.

Explanation as description

Unproblematic portrayal of ‘how things are’

Relation-based

(II)

Correlating variables

Interventions in, or planned observations needed to find explanations. These involve: a) controlled intervention such as fair testing, b) identification of influential variables, & c) outcomes related to conditions

Empirical generalizations

Explanation between features of phenomena which are observable/ taken as existing. Such relations can take the form of a) correlation between variables or b) linear causal sequence.

In correlational reasoning, students tend to consider only one factor as possibly influencing the situation --- the one they see as the ‘cause’… Other possible influential factors are overlooked.

Limited scope for conjecture

Model-based

(III)

Evaluate theory

Relation between theoretical knowledge & natural phenomena is acknowledged as problematic

Modeling

Explanation involves discontinuity between observation & theoretical entities

Multiple possible models are entertained.

Driver et al. ages X epistemological reasoning Frequency• Phenomenon- based reasoning: Mode for 9 yr olds.• Relation-based: Mode for 12 & 16 yr olds• Model- based: Increased with age, but still minority of students even at 16

Interpretation & ApplicationThis sequence could be “useful to consider when planning curriculum materials for

different age levels”Why so little model-based reasoning?: “interpreted either in terms of personal

cognitive development of the students, in terms of portrayal of science in school science lessons or some interaction of the two.”

Issue:What’s immutable versus mutable developmental constraint?

Children’s highest level of epistemological reasoningLevel O

– School-general, weak strategies: • Do it better, think harder, make it harder, add something, improve how it [the

poster] looks.

– No response or response limited to echo of partner

Level I (Phenomenon-based)– Try it & see what happens– Tinker with the situation to try to obtain more extreme result– Improve one’s looking

Level II (Relation-based)

21%

13%

37%

31%

42%

56%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

0 I II/II+

Animal Behavior (n=19)

Botany (n=16)

Relation-based strategies (Level II)

• Get more data on grounds that current data base is inadequate to justify confidence in relation-framed empirical generalization.

• Run experiment again with a different kind of organism under same range of environment conditions to see if outcome will be improved.

• Run experiment with other [multiple] types of organisms to investigate whether relation-framed outcome will be the same or different.

• Run experiment under larger variation of experimental conditions for better test of relation or generality of trend.

• Redesign study to eliminate extraneous variable.• Experimentally manipulate another variable identified as potentially

influential, within same study or separate investigation.

How some 1st graders transcended Driver et al. epistemic caveats to relation-based reasoning

Epistemic Caveats Explanation between features of phenomena which are

observable/ taken as existing. Such relations can take the form of a) correlation between variables or b) linear causal sequence.

In correlational reasoning, students tend to consider only one factor as possibly influencing the situation --- the one they see as the ‘cause’… Other possible influential factors are overlooked. No place for conjecture or imagination

Manifestations: Correlation does not imply causation. More than one factor

considered as influencing the situation.Unpacking of a variable: Not taken as “existing in the

world”. Multiple possible representations

Examples:

• In study of jump distance in relation to cricket age: Nymphs seeing adults “might change their behavior” --> Solution as “separate them”.

• In study of jump distance in relation to gender: “How much they eat” also influential factor --> Measure how much each cricket eats before testing for jump distance.

• In study of “does the color of water affect plant growth?”: identify number of drops of the dye as influential --> Manipulate in a new study.

• In study of “how do different colored lights affect the way plants grow?”, identify how much heat given off by the different colored lights as another influential variable ---> put a paper bag over the light; raise the light; use colors of light that don’t give out heat.

• In study of “does noise affect the behavior of crickets” question, although noise correlated with change in behavior, conjecture that key causal factor may be calmness.

21%

13%

37%

31%

11%

31% 32%

25%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

0 I II II+

Animal Behavior(n=19)Botany (n=16)

Does noise affect the behavior of crickets?

Procedure: We’re going to put some crickets in a habitat. We wil witch crickit in a quiet place. We will ues time sampling of behavior. Then we will put a tape recorder with a noisy animal tape by the habtitat. We will do this 6 times.

Analysis: we think that noise does affect the behavior of crickets. When it was quiet was almost always standing still. When it was noisy it was climbing, walking, jumping and whipping. The graph shows that when it was quiet the cricket was standing still 47 times. When it was noisy it was standing still only 2 tims.

Conclusion: We found out that when it was noisy the cricket was more active. Next time we should put standing still on our check off sheet. We should also have put something in for them to drink. We’d like to do an investigation to see if nymphs are more active than aduls.

At the poster research conference

The biggest challenges in the Scaffolding of Scientific PracticesAmong Primary Grade Children

• Teacher knowledge– About science as a way of knowing– About the plasticity of children’s scientific reasoning & their capacities under more

optimal instructional conditions

• Teacher discomfort with disagreements

• Writing curriculum that adequately scaffolds the teachers to scaffold the discourse, within terrain where they have weak knowledge of the content & epistemic enterprise.

• Value placed on the teaching of science to primary grade children, cf; within the state of California

Menu

Careful observation

Time sampling of behavior

Time sampling of location

We put Thelma in a corral and watched her. We made a list of behaviors. We discussed difference between inference -- observation….

We categorized rat’s behavior, and drew pictures as clues. With a partner we used a check-off sheet and a timer, we marked behavior of rat we observed at end of minute…10 times. We turned check off sheet into a bar graph.

We made a map of the corral. We had sticky-dots numbered 1 through 10. Using a timer we marked where Thelma was at the end of each minute.

Do male crickets jump higher than female crickets?

Procedure: We will take 20 male crickets one at a time in a big box. When they jump, we will put a stiki dot on the wall of the box to show how high they jumped. We will cut a piece of blue yarn the height of thir jumps. We will take 20 female crickets and put them in a big box. When they jump we will put a sticky dot on the wall of the box to show how high they jumped. We will cut a piece of red yarn the height of their jumps.

Analysis: When we look at the median, the jumps in the middle, the female jump are longer. A few are almost 2 cm higher. When we look at the lowest female jump and compared it to the females jump was a little higher about 1 cm. When we look at the highest jumps, the male jumped about 2 cm higher.Conclusion: We found out that male and female crickets jump about the same height.

Does the color of water affect the plant growth?

Hypothesis: Brassica Rapa would grow an inch tiny in colored water. Thought dye would affect plants. Thought they would change colors. In plain water they would grow more tall. Analysis: The dirt

changed color soaked into soil and got into the roots. Brassica rapa in plain water grew tiny, grew first. Plants grew just above the dirt above an inch tall.Conclusion: Dye really affects the way plants grow plain water kinda grows taller

Question:We wanted to

know do crickets chirp more when the kids arn't

around or are around? We thought the

crickets would chirp more when the kids wer't

around.

Conclusions:The crickets cherp more when the kids were around. Matthew thinks maybe its because the heating pad under it and because of the noise. Lauren thinks that the heat pad wasn't heated up high enough for the crickets or maybe because the crickets have good ears and have Matthew and I moving around.

Do crickets chirp more when kids are around?By Lauren, Matthew, and Jeremiah

“Kids”

“No kids”

In balloon: “I hrde 1”

Will Charlie and Suzy be more active with other crickets or alone?

By Jennifer and KatherineQuestion

Will Charlie and Suzy be more active with five

other crickets or alone?Katherine

I thought that they would be more active alone because there would be more room.Jennifer

So they won't be inbarest.

ConclusionWe were

thinking they would be more active alone becalse they

had more room. And our guess was correkt. They were more active alone whithout 5

other crickets.

Method1) I'll put 2 crickets in one cage and watch them.

2) I'll sample Charlie's and Suzie's movements with a one minute timer. At the end of each minute we put a sticker on a map. We had ten minutes

each.3) Then we'll take the other map put Charly and Suzie and five other

crickets in the same terrarium. We'll put dots on Charlie's and Suzie's bakes. We sampled them as we did before for ten minutes.

Invested Interests in this Agenda

For the field of Cognitive Development• What are the invariants & plasticity in the

development of children’s scientific cognition?

• How does the developmental trajectory change under different forms of “enabling conditions”?

• How stage-like is the development children’s scientific cognition? How useful is the construct of stages in predicting & accounting for the development?

For the field of Children’s science instruction

• How can we design instruction that effectively empowers children’s scientific cognition?

• How can we strategically characterize the “design space” of promising learning environments for the purpose of empowering children’s scientific cognition?

• How can we strategically sequence & structure the K-12 science curriculum?

LINES OF ANALYSIS• Student scientific reasoning outcomes:

– Reasoning about uncertainty, theory/ evidence, hypothetical-deductive reasoning, research design (Metz, Ball)

• Teacher scaffolding of conceptual understanding (Wong)

• Relation between teacher beliefs about science & their curriculum enactment (Eslinger & Metz)

• Relation between teacher beliefs about the power of children to reason scientifically & their curriculum enactment (Ly & Metz)

• Dynamics of teacher professional development meetings cum learning community (Little)

Embedded Case Study Design To Make Connections• 4 cases: veteran second & third grade teachers, same student population

– (Their beliefs X their curriculum enactment X their student outcomes ) change over two years time.

• Extreme case

Driver et al. framework of epistemological reasoningForm of scientific enquiry Nature of explanation

Pheno-menon-based(I)

Focus on phenomenonEnquiry as observation: ‘You look & see’; or ‘Try it & see what happens.’Enquiry provides direct access to knowledge of the world as it is.

Explanation as descriptionUnproblematic portrayal of ‘how things are’

Relation-based

(II)

Correlating variablesInterventions in, or planned observations needed to find explanations. These involve: a) controlled intervention such as fair testing, b) identification of influential variables, c) outcomes related to conditions

Empirical generalizationsExplanation between features of phenomena which are observable/ taken as existing. Such relations can take the form of a) correlation between variables or b) linear causal sequence.In correlational reasoning, students tend to consider only one factor as possibly influencing the situation --- the one they see as the ‘cause’… Other possible influential factors are overlooked. / COPY THEORY LIKE, NO SENSE OF MULTIPLE REPRESENTATIONS. No place for conjecture or imagination.

Model-based

(III)

Evaluate theory Relation between theoretical knowledge & natural phenomena is acknowledged as problematic

ModelingExplanation involves discontinuity between observation & theoretical entitiesMultiple possible models are entertained.

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II: Replicate to increase confidence in empirical generalization.

II: Run experiment with other types of organisms to investigate whether outcome will be the same or different.

Children’s highest level of epistemological reasoningLevel O

– School-general, weak strategies: • Do it better, think harder, make it harder, add something, improve how it [the

poster] looks.

– No response or response limited to echo of partner

Level I (Phenomenon-based)– Try it & see what happens– Tinker with the situation to try to obtain more extreme result– Improve one’s looking

Level II (Relation-based)

21%

13%

37%

31%

42%

56%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

0 I II/II+

Animal Behavior (n=19)

Botany (n=16)

Pushing the bounds of relation-based reasoning, as defined by Driver et al.

DRIVER“In cases of correlational reasoning [as opposed to chain of cause & effect

relations], students tend to consider only one factor as possibly influencing the situation --- the one they see as the ‘cause’… As a consequence, other possible influential factors are overlooked.”

One-to-one correspondence relation with the world: “Although alternative factors may be entertained in developing empirical generalizations, there is a tendency to assume that one of these will be true & the explanation is in a correspondence relation with the material world.”

STRATEGIES PUSHING THE BOUNDS Child identifies an additional factor that might influence the

situation Redesigns study to eliminate extraneous variable.

OR

Experimentally manipulate that identified as another potentially influential variable, within same study or separate investigation (Not clear 2 X 2 design).

Child takes variable as object of thought (not “taken as existing); Conjectures alternative explanation based on one property of the variable

Carey & Smith (1993)

Knowledge unproblematic: “The sources of belief are perception, testimony, & one-step inference… Individuals with this epistemology believe there is only one objective reality which is knowledge is a straightforward way by making observations…. Ultimately, misinformation & deceit are the causes of having false belief.”

Knowledge problematic: “Individuals develop their beliefs through a process of critical inquiry. Different people may draw different conclusions from the same perceptual evidence because they hold different theories that effect their interpretation of evidence. Reality exists, but our knowledge of it is elusive & uncertain.”

“Two questions of urgent importance to educators now arise. First, in what sense are these levels developmental? Second (and distinctly), do these levels provide barriers to grasping a constructivist epistemology if such is made the target of the science curriculum?” … i.e., are they immutable constraints?

Carey & Smith conjecture: Some aspects of “knowledge problematic” are within reach of 12 year olds under “optimal instructional design”.

Knowledge unproblematic: “The sources of belief are perception, testimony, & one-step inference… Individuals with this epistemology believe there is only one objective reality which is knowledge is a straightforward way by making observations…. Ultimately, misinformation & deceit are the causes of having false belief.”

Knowledge problematic: “Individuals develop their beliefs through a process of critical inquiry. Different people may draw different conclusions from the same perceptual evidence because they hold different theories that effect their interpretation of evidence. Reality exists, but our knowledge of it is elusive & uncertain.”

Some aspects of knowledge unproblematic are mutable constraints for many 1st graders.

In this context of thinking critically about their own studies:

• Beyond reliance on observation to gain knowledge

• Sources of being wrong transcend “simply misinformation & deceit”: Empirical study as a tool for knowing that can be imperfect in many ways & a source of false belief

• Reality as elusive & uncertain

Problems with this Model of Children’s Science Ed

Has led to curricular decomposition of the scientific inquiry process & impoverished curricular goal structure.

Out of sync with the developmental literature, in the sense that this research base indicates that children have much richer repertoire of intellectual resources than it assumes.

Scientific cognition developmental lit. has paid negligible attention to impact of supportive environment.

School-age scientific cognition developmental lit. has paid negligible attention to the knowledge factor confound between weak knowledge & weak reasoning capacities

Design Principles cum aspirations Rationale

Maintain integrity of the goal-focused intellectual enterprise across curriculum.

Key for robust goal-structure. Popper:

“Without interests, points of view, problems,” observation & classification become “absurd”.

Teach science processes & methods in the context of their purpose & use

Disciplinary tools cannot be understood (how & when to use; trade-offs) divorced from the practice

Capitalize on the context of children’s scientific inquiry to reflect on science as a way of knowing

_____________________________________

Develop relatively rich knowledge of the domain in which the inquiry is embedded, in conjunction w/ the big ideas of the discipline

A propitious context to understand the enterprise, the challenges therein, & possibility of advancement.

__________________________________

Bootstrapping relation between domain knowledge & scientific reasoning.

Foster the synergy between developing knowledge of the domain and knowledge of inquiry

Bootstrapping relation between domain knowledge & scientific reasoning.

Manipulate collaboration unit between class & dyad, to iteratively bring tasks of greater cognitive demand within reach & then to fade support as their emergent expertise enables them to assume more responsibility

Enables initial reduction of cognitive load & scaffolding toward independent inquiry

Build knowledge & responsibility to the point where dyads have primary responsibility over their own investigation & analysis thereof vis a vis others work at the conference

Strategic for student engagement & as vantage-point for beginning to understand the nature & challenges of the enterprise

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