Journal+of+the+Learning+Sciences

 ===  ** //We Be Burnin'!// Agency, Identity, and Science Learning ** //Angela Calabrese Barton; Edna Tan// //Journal of the Learning Sciences//, 1532-7809, Volume 19, Issue 2, 2010, Pages 187 – 229      http://www.informaworld.com/ smpp/content~db=all~content= a921907383~frm=titlelink ===

Abstract
This article investigates the development of agency in science among low-income urban youth aged 10 to 14 as they participated in a voluntary year-round program on green energy technologies conducted at a local community club in a midwestern city. Focusing on how youth engaged a summer unit on understanding and modeling the relationship between energy use and the health of the urban environment, we use ethnographic data to discuss how the youth asserted themselves as community science experts in ways that took up and broke down the contradictory roles of being a producer and a critic of science/education. Our findings suggest that youth actively appropriate project activities and tools in order to challenge the types of roles and student voice traditionally available to students in the classroom.     ** Supporting Argumentation Through Students' Questions: Case Studies in Science Classrooms ** //Christine Chin; Jonathan Osborne// //Journal of the Learning Sciences//, 1532-7809, Volume 19, Issue 2, 2010, Pages 230 – 284   http://www.informaworld.com/ smpp/content~db=all~content= a921906573~frm=titlelink

  === Abstract === <span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; display: block; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 20px; margin-top: 5px; max-width: 50em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">This study explores how student-generated questions can support argumentation in science. Students were asked to discuss which of two graphs showing the change in temperature with time when ice is heated to steam was correct. Four classes of students, aged 12-14 years, from two countries, first wrote questions about the phenomenon. Then, working in groups with members who differed in their views, they discussed possible answers. To help them structure their arguments, students were given a sheet with prompts to guide their thinking and another sheet on which to represent their argument diagrammatically. One group of students from each class was audiotaped. Data from both students' written work and the taped oral discourse were then analyzed for types of questions asked, the content and function of their talk, and the quality of arguments elicited. To illustrate the dynamic interaction between students' questions and the evolution of their arguments, the discourse of one group is presented as a case study and comparative analyses made with the discourse from the other three groups. Emerging from our analysis is a tentative explanatory model of how different forms of interaction and, in particular, questioning are needed for productive argumentation to occur.