Analyses highlighting the epistemic dimension of students' participation in science have dominated science education literature for the past several years. While most of this literature has focused on how students learn together, the relational nature of these knowledge-building interactions has been under-examined. In response, this paper…

Background: A number of studies have contemplated aspects of cooperative learning that might emerge from a unit of sport education [Dyson, B., L. L. Griffin, and P. Hastie. 2004. "Sport Education, Tactical Games, and Cooperative Learning: Theoretical and Pedagogical Considerations." "Quest" 56 (2): 226-240; Dyson, B. P., N. R.…

Teaching and learning chemistry or science, in general, could be described as building upon learners' existing conceptions. In order to support individual conceptual development, teachers should create opportunities for students to become aware of their thoughts. As this is very demanding in chemistry classroom practice with twenty-five or more…

The present paper argues for a shift in teacher knowledge and beliefs about the role of group work in the teaching and learning of emergent bilingual students. Using case study data from an eighth grade classroom, the authors analyze the role of collaboration in the interaction with grade-level text of emergent bilingual students. The analysis…

Structured argumentation support environments have been built and used in scientific discourse in the literature. However, to the best our knowledge, there is no research work in the literature examining whether student's knowledge has grown during learning activities with asynchronous argumentation. In this work, an intelligent computer-supported…

We examine how extended engagement in argumentation with peers leads to enhanced metalevel understanding of argumentive discourse. Following such engagement, young adolescents demonstrated enhanced understanding of counterargument and use of evidence as objectives of skilled argumentation, relative to a nonparticipating comparison group. Among the…

The purpose of this study was to understand how an 8th grade science class used a structured problem-based learning (PBL) strategy to study volcanoes and to discuss some of the issues that science teachers might encounter when designing and implementing the PBL strategy. This study took place at Collins Middle School, which is located in a…