Classroom Practice

Facilitating Student Argumentation Around Socioscientific Issues Through Productive Discourse and Negotiation Toward Consensus

Controversial topics that arise in science classrooms, especially those of social relevance (e.g., the climate crisis), provide opportunities to help students learn about and discuss contradictory ideas they may encounter in their everyday experiences. Such topics may also be challenging to teach, but scaffolding may facilitate effective instruction. We describe one type of instructional scaffolding, the Model-Evidence Link (MEL) activity, that supports students’ reasoning when evaluating connections between lines of evidence and competing explanations about phenomena.

Author/Presenter

Donna Governor

Carla McAuliffe

Lorraine Ramirez Villarin

Timothy G. Klavon

Julianne E. van Meerten

Drea Rachel

Sanlyn Buxner

Janelle M. Bailey

Doug Lombardi

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2025
Short Description

Controversial topics that arise in science classrooms, especially those of social relevance (e.g., the climate crisis), provide opportunities to help students learn about and discuss contradictory ideas they may encounter in their everyday experiences. Such topics may also be challenging to teach, but scaffolding may facilitate effective instruction. We describe one type of instructional scaffolding, the Model-Evidence Link (MEL) activity, that supports students’ reasoning when evaluating connections between lines of evidence and competing explanations about phenomena.

Facilitating Student Argumentation Around Socioscientific Issues Through Productive Discourse and Negotiation Toward Consensus

Controversial topics that arise in science classrooms, especially those of social relevance (e.g., the climate crisis), provide opportunities to help students learn about and discuss contradictory ideas they may encounter in their everyday experiences. Such topics may also be challenging to teach, but scaffolding may facilitate effective instruction. We describe one type of instructional scaffolding, the Model-Evidence Link (MEL) activity, that supports students’ reasoning when evaluating connections between lines of evidence and competing explanations about phenomena.

Author/Presenter

Donna Governor

Carla McAuliffe

Lorraine Ramirez Villarin

Timothy G. Klavon

Julianne E. van Meerten

Drea Rachel

Sanlyn Buxner

Janelle M. Bailey

Doug Lombardi

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2025
Short Description

Controversial topics that arise in science classrooms, especially those of social relevance (e.g., the climate crisis), provide opportunities to help students learn about and discuss contradictory ideas they may encounter in their everyday experiences. Such topics may also be challenging to teach, but scaffolding may facilitate effective instruction. We describe one type of instructional scaffolding, the Model-Evidence Link (MEL) activity, that supports students’ reasoning when evaluating connections between lines of evidence and competing explanations about phenomena.

Facilitating Student Argumentation Around Socioscientific Issues Through Productive Discourse and Negotiation Toward Consensus

Controversial topics that arise in science classrooms, especially those of social relevance (e.g., the climate crisis), provide opportunities to help students learn about and discuss contradictory ideas they may encounter in their everyday experiences. Such topics may also be challenging to teach, but scaffolding may facilitate effective instruction. We describe one type of instructional scaffolding, the Model-Evidence Link (MEL) activity, that supports students’ reasoning when evaluating connections between lines of evidence and competing explanations about phenomena.

Author/Presenter

Donna Governor

Carla McAuliffe

Lorraine Ramirez Villarin

Timothy G. Klavon

Julianne E. van Meerten

Drea Rachel

Sanlyn Buxner

Janelle M. Bailey

Doug Lombardi

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2025
Short Description

Controversial topics that arise in science classrooms, especially those of social relevance (e.g., the climate crisis), provide opportunities to help students learn about and discuss contradictory ideas they may encounter in their everyday experiences. Such topics may also be challenging to teach, but scaffolding may facilitate effective instruction. We describe one type of instructional scaffolding, the Model-Evidence Link (MEL) activity, that supports students’ reasoning when evaluating connections between lines of evidence and competing explanations about phenomena.

Facilitating Student Argumentation Around Socioscientific Issues Through Productive Discourse and Negotiation Toward Consensus

Controversial topics that arise in science classrooms, especially those of social relevance (e.g., the climate crisis), provide opportunities to help students learn about and discuss contradictory ideas they may encounter in their everyday experiences. Such topics may also be challenging to teach, but scaffolding may facilitate effective instruction. We describe one type of instructional scaffolding, the Model-Evidence Link (MEL) activity, that supports students’ reasoning when evaluating connections between lines of evidence and competing explanations about phenomena.

Author/Presenter

Donna Governor

Carla McAuliffe

Lorraine Ramirez Villarin

Timothy G. Klavon

Julianne E. van Meerten

Drea Rachel

Sanlyn Buxner

Janelle M. Bailey

Doug Lombardi

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2025
Short Description

Controversial topics that arise in science classrooms, especially those of social relevance (e.g., the climate crisis), provide opportunities to help students learn about and discuss contradictory ideas they may encounter in their everyday experiences. Such topics may also be challenging to teach, but scaffolding may facilitate effective instruction. We describe one type of instructional scaffolding, the Model-Evidence Link (MEL) activity, that supports students’ reasoning when evaluating connections between lines of evidence and competing explanations about phenomena.

Facilitating Student Argumentation Around Socioscientific Issues Through Productive Discourse and Negotiation Toward Consensus

Controversial topics that arise in science classrooms, especially those of social relevance (e.g., the climate crisis), provide opportunities to help students learn about and discuss contradictory ideas they may encounter in their everyday experiences. Such topics may also be challenging to teach, but scaffolding may facilitate effective instruction. We describe one type of instructional scaffolding, the Model-Evidence Link (MEL) activity, that supports students’ reasoning when evaluating connections between lines of evidence and competing explanations about phenomena.

Author/Presenter

Donna Governor

Carla McAuliffe

Lorraine Ramirez Villarin

Timothy G. Klavon

Julianne E. van Meerten

Drea Rachel

Sanlyn Buxner

Janelle M. Bailey

Doug Lombardi

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2025
Short Description

Controversial topics that arise in science classrooms, especially those of social relevance (e.g., the climate crisis), provide opportunities to help students learn about and discuss contradictory ideas they may encounter in their everyday experiences. Such topics may also be challenging to teach, but scaffolding may facilitate effective instruction. We describe one type of instructional scaffolding, the Model-Evidence Link (MEL) activity, that supports students’ reasoning when evaluating connections between lines of evidence and competing explanations about phenomena.

Transforming Teachers’ Roles and Agencies in the Era of Generative AI: Perceptions, Acceptance, Knowledge, and Practices

This paper explores the transformative impact of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) on teachers’ roles and agencies in education, presenting a comprehensive framework that addresses teachers’ perceptions, knowledge, acceptance, and practices of GenAI. As GenAI technologies, such as ChatGPT, become increasingly integrated into educational settings, both in-service and future teachers are required to adapt to evolving classroom dynamics, where AI plays a significant role in content creation, personalized learning, and student engagement.

Author/Presenter

Xiaoming Zhai

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2024
Short Description

This paper explores the transformative impact of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) on teachers’ roles and agencies in education, presenting a comprehensive framework that addresses teachers’ perceptions, knowledge, acceptance, and practices of GenAI.

Toward Ontological Alignment: Coordinating Student Ideas with the Representational System of a Computational Modeling Unit for Science Learning

Computational modeling tools present unique opportunities and challenges for student learning. Each tool has a representational system that impacts the kinds of explorations students engage in. Inquiry aligned with a tool’s representational system can support more productive engagement toward target learning goals. However, little research has examined how teachers can make visible the ways students’ ideas about a phenomenon can be expressed and explored within a tool’s representational system.

Author/Presenter

Aditi Wagh

Leah F. Rosenbaum

Tamar Fuhrmann

Adelmo Eloy

Paulo Blikstein

Michelle Wilkerson

Year
2024
Short Description

Computational modeling tools present unique opportunities and challenges for student learning. Each tool has a representational system that impacts the kinds of explorations students engage in. Inquiry aligned with a tool’s representational system can support more productive engagement toward target learning goals. However, little research has examined how teachers can make visible the ways students’ ideas about a phenomenon can be expressed and explored within a tool’s representational system. In this paper, we elaborate on the construct of ontological alignment—that is, identifying and leveraging points of resonance between students’ existing ideas and the representational system of a tool.

Toward a Framework of Culturally Relevant Science and Mathematics Pedagogy: A Pedagogical and Analytical Tool for Teacher Education

In this article, we present a framework of culturally relevant science and mathematics pedagogy (CRSMP), which is grounded in the tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy. It delineates practices ranging from the most accessible and easy-to-implement, to the most challenging and often contentious ways to teach mathematics and science. We provide examples of CRSMP that re-position marginalized learners in relation to science and mathematics.

Author/Presenter

Paula A. Magee

Craig Willey

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2024
Short Description

In this article, we present a framework of culturally relevant science and mathematics pedagogy (CRSMP), which is grounded in the tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy. It delineates practices ranging from the most accessible and easy-to-implement, to the most challenging and often contentious ways to teach mathematics and science.

Preservice Teachers’ Early Lesson Planning for Justice-Oriented Elementary Science

Building on the literature, we designed a practical framework to support attention to equity and justice in science teacher education coursework. This framework presents four approaches for including justice moves in elementary science lessons, from increasing opportunity and access in science, to increasing identity and representation in science, to expanding what counts as science, to seeing science as a part of justice movements.

Author/Presenter

Elizabeth A. Davis

Jessica Bautista

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2024
Short Description

Building on the literature, we designed a practical framework to support attention to equity and justice in science teacher education coursework. This framework presents four approaches for including justice moves in elementary science lessons, from increasing opportunity and access in science, to increasing identity and representation in science, to expanding what counts as science, to seeing science as a part of justice movements. We analyzed the lesson plans of 16 preservice elementary teachers who were using the practical justice framework in their very first lesson planning experience.

Exploring Teachers’ Eye-Tracking Data and Professional Noticing When Viewing a 360 Video of Elementary Mathematics

Research incorporating either eye-tracking technology or immersive technology (virtual reality and 360 video) into studying teachers’ professional noticing is recent. Yet, such technologies allow a better understanding of the embodied nature of professional noticing. Thus, the goal of the current study is to examine how teachers’ eye-gaze in immersive representations of practice correspond to their attending to children’s mathematics.

Author/Presenter

Karl W. Kosko

Richard E. Ferdig

Chris Lenart

Jennifer Heisler

Qiang Guan

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2024
Short Description

Research incorporating either eye-tracking technology or immersive technology (virtual reality and 360 video) into studying teachers’ professional noticing is recent. Yet, such technologies allow a better understanding of the embodied nature of professional noticing. Thus, the goal of the current study is to examine how teachers’ eye-gaze in immersive representations of practice correspond to their attending to children’s mathematics.