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1. Characterizing Engineering Outreach Ambassadors' Teaching Moves during Engineering Design Activities (Fundamental)

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--34275  

   Moison, Elizabeth ; Miel, Karen ; Portsmore, Merredith ; Paul, Kelli ; Maltese, Adam ; Kim, Jungsun ( January 2020 , American Society of Engineering Education)

   Engineering outreach programs have the potential to significantly influence precollege youth; university-led engineering programs reach approximately 600,000 K-12 students each year in the United States. Despite the prevalence of these outreach programs, little is known about the nature of the discursive interactions between outreach ambassadors and participating youths and the ways in which these interactions support youths’ progress in engineering. Understanding the ways in which outreach ambassadors support youth to learn engineering is critical to furthering the effectiveness of these programs and contributes to greater understanding about how to support engineering in K-12 settings. Often, these programs are facilitated by undergraduate and graduate engineering ambassadors who themselves are developing as engineers and educators. In the context of an engineering outreach program for elementary students, this study examines the teaching moves of outreach ambassadors, adds to the understanding of their teaching moves, and offers preliminary conjectures about the impact of these moves on students. This study asks: What kinds of discursive teaching moves do outreach ambassadors enact when interacting with elementary student design teams?  In the focal outreach program, pairs of university students facilitated engineering design challenges in elementary classrooms for one hour each week throughout the school year. We selectively sampled and analyzed four such sessionsmore »in four fourth- and fifth-grade classrooms. We used discourse analysis and a lens of ambitious teaching to classify the teaching moves employed during interactions between ambassadors and small groups of students who were engaged in engineering design challenges. We identified a range of moves, including ambitious, inclusive, and conservative teaching moves, across the four sessions. From class to class, we observed variation in distribution of each category of teaching move and we hypothesize that activity design and outreach ambassador orientations toward teaching influence this variation.   Particularly promising for engineering teaching and learning, we observed ambassadors making bids to elicit student ideas, pressing for evidence-based explanations, and revoicing students’ design ideas. These moves are characteristic of ambitious instruction and have the potential to support students to engage in reflective decision-making and to guide students toward productive, more expert engineering design practices. Our analysis suggests that engineering outreach ambassadors notice and respond to students’ ideas, engaging in ambitious teaching practices which can be expected to support elementary students in making progress in engineering design. This analysis of outreach ambassadors’ discursive interactions with elementary student design teams adds to the growing conversation of ambitious instruction in engineering.« less
2. Negotiations in scientific argumentation: An interpersonal analysis

   https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21713  

   Governor, D. ; Lombardi, D. ; Duffield, C. ( May 2021 , Journal of Research in Science Teaching)

   Argumentation enables students to engage in real world scientific practices by rationalizing claims grounded in supporting evidence. Student engagement in scientific argumentation activates the negotiation process by which students develop and defend evidence-based claims. Little is known, however, on the intricate process and potential patterns of negotiation between students during scientific argumentation. The present study seeks to fill this gap by exploring how a group of university science education students negotiated when evaluating the relationship between lines of evidence and alternative explanatory models of a phenomena (i.e., climate change). This research, theoretically grounded in social constructionism, used Halliday's model of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) within a discourse analysis framework. The authors analyzed transcripts of student conversations during a model-evidence link activity to gain insights into patterns of negotiation. An interpersonal analysis centering on mood and moves revealed students' ability to engage in the negotiation component of scientific argumentation to make assertions about relations between evidence and models. Effective collaboration resulting in group consensus of the relationship (categorized as supports, strongly supports, or contradicts) was facilitated by the use of interrogatives, modulation, and a balanced contribution between group members. Conversely, negotiation which did not reach consensus featured less contribution between groupmore »members. Conversely, negotiation which did not reach consensus featured less balanced discussion among group members, contained more interruptions, more conflict moves, and double polarity clauses.« less
3. “Fake It Until You Make It”: Participation and Positioning of a Bilingual Latina Student in Mathematics and Computing

   https://doi.org/10.1177/01614681221104106  

   Celedón-Pattichis, Sylvia ; Kussainova, Gulnara ; LópezLeiva, Carlos A. ; Pattichis, Marios S. ( May 2022 , Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education)

   Background/Context: After-school programs that focus on integrating computer programming and mathematics in authentic environments are seldomly accessible to students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, particularly bilingual Latina students in rural contexts. Providing a context that broadens Latina students’ participation in mathematics and computer programming requires educators to carefully examine how verbal and nonverbal language is used to interact and to position students as they learn new concepts in middle school. This is also an important stage for adolescents because they are likely to make decisions about their future careers in STEM. Having access to discourse and teaching practices that invite students to participate in mathematics and computer programming affords them opportunities to engage with these fields. Purpose/Focus of Study: This case study analyzes how small-group interactions mediated the positionings of Cindy, a bilingual Latina, as she learned binary numbers in an after-school program that integrated computer programming and mathematics (CPM). Setting: The Advancing Out-of-School Learning in Mathematics and Engineering (AOLME) program was held in a rural bilingual (Spanish and English) middle school in the Southwest. The after-school program was designed to provide experiences for primarily Latinx students to learn how to integrate mathematics with computer programming using Raspberry Pimore »and Python as a platform. Our case study explores how Cindy was positioned as she interacted with two undergraduate engineering students who served as facilitators while learning binary numbers with a group of three middle school students. Research Design: This single intrinsic case focused on exploring how small-group interactions among four students mediated Cindy’s positionings as she learned binary numbers through her participation in AOLME. Data sources included twelve 90-minute video sessions and Cindy’s journal and curriculum binder. Video logs were created, and transcripts were coded to describe verbal and nonverbal interactions among the facilitators and Cindy. Analysis of select episodes was conducted using systemic functional linguistics (SFL), specifically language modality, to identify how positioning took place. These episodes and positioning analysis describe how Cindy, with others, navigated the process of learning binary numbers under the stereotype that female students are not as good at mathematics as male students. Findings: From our analysis, three themes that emerged from the data portray Cindy’s experiences learning binary numbers. The major themes are: (1) Cindy’s struggle to reveal her understanding of binary numbers in a competitive context, (2) Cindy’s use of “fake it until you make it” to hide her cognitive dissonance, and (3) the use of Spanish and peers’ support to resolve Cindy’s understanding of binary numbers. The positioning patterns observed help us learn how, when Cindy’s bilingualism was viewed and promoted as an asset, this social context worked as a generative axis that addressed the challenges of learning binary numbers. The contrasting episodes highlight the facilitators’ productive teaching strategies and relations that nurtured Cindy’s social and intellectual participation in CPM. Conclusions/Recommendations: Cindy’s case demonstrates how the facilitator’s teaching, and participants’ interactions and discourse practices contributed to her qualitatively different positionings while she learned binary numbers, and how she persevered in this process. Analysis of communication acts supported our understanding of how Cindy’s positionings underpinned the discourse; how the facilitators’ and students’ discourse formed, shaped, or shifted Cindy’s positioning; and how discourse was larger than gender storylines that went beyond classroom interactions. Cindy’s case reveals the danger of placing students in “struggle” instead of a “productive struggle.” The findings illustrated that when Cindy was placed in struggle when confronting responding moves by the facilitator, her “safe” reaction was hiding and avoiding. In contrast, we also learned about the importance of empathetic, nurturing supporting responses that encourage students’ productive struggle to do better. We invite instructors to notice students’ hiding or avoiding and consider Cindy’s case. Furthermore, we recommend that teachers notice their choice of language because this is important in terms of positioning students. We also highlight Cindy’s agency as she chose to take up her friend’s suggestion to “fake it” rather than give up.« less
4. Look Who's Talking: Teaching and Discourse Practices across Discipline, Position, Experience, and Class Size in STEM College Classrooms

   https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biab077  

   Alkhouri, Jourjina Subih ; Donham, Cristine ; Pusey, Téa S ; Signorini, Adriana ; Stivers, Alexander H ; Kranzfelder, Petra ( August 2021 , BioScience)

   Abstract Students are more likely to learn in college science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) classrooms when instructors use teacher discourse moves (TDMs) that encourage student engagement and learning. However, although teaching practices are well studied, TDMs are not well understood in college STEM classrooms. In STEM courses at a minority-serving institution (MSI; n = 74), we used two classroom observation protocols to investigate teaching practices and TDMs across disciplines, instructor types, years of teaching experience, and class size. We found that instructors guide students in active learning activities, but they use authoritative discourse approaches. In addition, chemistry instructors presented more than biology instructors. Also, teaching faculty had relatively high dialogic, interactive discourse, and neither years of faculty teaching experience nor class size had an impact on teaching practices or TDMs. Our results have implications for targeted teaching professional development efforts across instructor and course characteristics to improve STEM education at MSIs.
5. Linking Teacher–Learner Discourse With Mathematical Reasoning of Students With Learning Disabilities: An Exploratory Study

   https://doi.org/10.1177/0731948719858707  

   Xin, Yan Ping ; Chiu, Ming Ming ; Tzur, Ron ; Ma, Xiaojun ; Park, Joo Young ; Yang, Xuan ( July 2019 , Learning Disability Quarterly)

   Informed by a constructivist-based, student-adaptive pedagogical approach, this study explores the benefits of teacher–learner discourse moves for the mathematics learning of students with learning disabilities (LD). During a constructivist teaching experiment for nurturing the multiplicative reasoning and problem solving of five third-grade students with school-identified LD, we analyzed the global trends and detailed dynamics of teacher–student interactions with statistical discourse analysis. We found that the teacher’s discourse moves to support each individual student’s problem solving helped engage them in mathematical reasoning, which improved their problem-solving performance. Thus, this study contributes to knowledge in the field of special education by (a) specifying ways in which discourse-oriented mathematics instruction can help each student with LD and (b) showcasing a novel statistical analysis of teacher–student discourse.