Collaboration scripts and heuristic worked examples have been described as powerful scaffolds to support skill acquisition in CSCL. While CSCL scripts particularly facilitate argumentative discourse within groups, heuristic worked examples provide heuristics and worked out pathways to solve domain-specific tasks. Yet, both scripts and heuristic…

This study investigated the effect of explicit nature of science (NOS) instruction and explicit argumentation instruction in socioscientific and scientific contexts, on students' NOS conceptions and their argumentation skills. Undergraduate students enrolled in two sections of a science content course were assigned into two groups: Socioscientific…

Scientific argumentation is a key practice in the construction, confirmation, and legalization of scientific knowledge. Although studies on scientific argumentation have been relatively plentiful, there are few quantitative studies on how students mentally perceive scientific argumentation, given that traditional quantitative tools such as Likert…

Despite the importance of scientific argumentation, it rarely occurs in science classrooms. Researchers have designed argumentation interventions to bridge this gap, but those efforts have limited impacts on transforming existing classroom practices. Argumentation is a linguistically social interaction. It is necessary to go beyond understanding…

The article raises questions about how argumentation is situated in science and religious education. Argumentation is about the justification of claims with reasons and evidence. It is a way of reasoning in both science and religious studies. A current 3-year research and development project entitled "Oxford Argumentation in Religion and…

Experimental evidence has shown the effect of peer-group argumentation on scientific concept development. However, questions regarding how and why it happens remain. The aim of this study is to contribute, with experimental evidence gathered in naturalistic settings (classrooms), to the understanding of the relationship between peer-group…

In the DISCUSS (Dialogic Inquiry for Socioscientific and Conceptual Understanding in School Science) research project, a Socioscientific Issues (SSI)-based curriculum is developed and implemented in sixth-grade science classrooms with predominantly English language learners (ELLs) in Houston, Texas. A four-week space unit is designed in…

While research on CLIL suggests positive impacts on lexical proficiency and on spoken language, the crucial question of the effect of CLIL on advanced learners, both in terms of subject-specific language (SSL) proficiency and content knowledge, has received less attention. We argue that the ability to negotiate a factual position appropriately is…

Group work has been a main activity recommended by mathematics education reform. We aim at describing the patterns of interaction between teachers and students during group work. We ask: How do teachers scaffold group work during a problem-based lesson? We use data from a problem-based lesson taught in six geometry class periods by two teachers…

This paper discusses the use of a presentation format known as "Pecha Kucha" (which means "chitchat" in Japanese). The objective of the Pecha Kucha assignment is to facilitate student communication of an argument, including stating and supporting a thesis. Throughout the semester, students become comfortable with the format via…

According to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), to be college and career ready students must be able to construct logical arguments using facts and reason. A feminist perspective provides an alternative point of view on the value of argumentation. The purpose of this study was to question the theories that frame the current CCSS 9-12 English…

In this paper I introduce the background situation that triggered the need for a particular project offered in a senior undergraduate course in health care ethics. Background information is provided to support the rationale of the project in the course. Then, the argument that opens the challenge to the students is outlined, followed by a…

Critical thinking is a valued educational outcome; however, little is known about whether psychology courses, especially ones such as research methods courses that might be expected to promote critical thinking skills, actually improve them. We compared the acquisition of critical thinking skills for analyzing psychological arguments in 3 groups…

This article explores the factors that may cause teachers to defer to the textbook as the ultimate authority on curriculum and pedagogy, drawing on Bakhtin's notion of authoritative and personally persuasive discourse. We found that although teachers deferred to the textbook as the "authority" of what should be taught, they did not fully implement…

The author examines the effectiveness of a curriculum aimed to raise awareness of prospective English teachers and writers while studying the psychological and sociological impact of language use. Action research tested whether students already knew how to argue and think critically when they came to a 200-level undergraduate course. Finding that…