Sunday, March 1, 2015

Rethinking Dichotomies in Modes of Thinking

Jeanne Chowning

Warren, B., Ogonowski, M., & Pothier, S. (2003). “Everyday” and “Scientific”: Rethinking dichotomies in modes of thinking in science learning. In A. Nemirovsky, A. S. Rosebery, J. Solomon, & B. Warren (Eds.), Everyday matters in mathematics and science education (pp. 119–152). Mahwah, N.J.: Erlbaum.

OVERVIEW/BACKGROUND
In this article, Warren, Ognowski, and Pothier aim to reexamine the traditional dichotomies of ‘everyday’ and ‘scientific’ thinking as they relate to science learning. Binaries, they note, are common across domains in Western thinking and are often conceptualized in terms such as: “abstract versus concrete; complex versus simple; analytic versus intuitive; decontextualized vs. contextualized; advanced versus primitive; domesticated versus savage; theoretical versus practical; examined versus unexamined” (p. 119).  The authors note that the first term of each pair is traditionally more highly valued.  Warren et al. point out these dichotomies also play out in science education research, between those who believe that scientific worlds are discontinuous with ordinary and those who believe that the relationship between scientific and everyday experience is continuous.  They note that, “The main point of contention is whether students’ ways of conceptualizing, representing, and evaluating their lived experience should be viewed and treated as errors that impeded learning or as generative resources in learning new ideas and traditions of inquiry” (p. 121).
A discontinuous view, for example is found in research on student misconceptions, which aims to investigate/correct errors in student thinking and to bring them in line with scientific concepts.  In this perspective, students from groups traditionally underrepresented in science are perceived to be at a disadvantage because their everyday experience differs the most from “Western science.” In contrast, those who adhere to the continuous view (such as the authors), believe that students’ experiences are constantly used as a reference and a resource -  and that teachers should be concerned with “uncovering children’s’ competence” (p. 122).

STUDY
The researchers analyzed a classroom inquiry into Newtonian ideas by first- and second-graders.  The classroom teacher, after two months of investigation of motion, introduced students to a simplified version of Newton’s Second Law as “an object of inquiry” for students to “think with, probe, interrogate” rather than a law to be applied formulaically (p. 123).  They focused on the talk of three children, who reference their everyday experiences with motion as they build their understanding.  For example, one student, Elton, linked his experience with running down hills to the phenomenon of a car going down a ramp.

THEORETICAL FRAMING
The authors draw on Bakhtin’s (1981) view of “interanimation,” which arises from the “fundamentally heteroglossic nature of language” (p. 140).  The word reflects the creative and generative coming together of different perspectives that are not ordinarily in contact with each other (such as baby carriages, which the students knew rolled down hills, and Newton’s laws). Linguistically, the word conveys “mutuality” and “between-ness” as well as “bringing to life” or “filling with life” (p. 141).  Students who create new language objects to focus their analysis (such as Letisha, who referenced a “turned car”) bring together their own experiences with cars and motion with the abstract ideas of Newtonian physics. (p. 141).  Warren et al. describe how “interanimation “denotes a process whereby a person comes to regard one way of conceptualizing, representing and evaluating the world through the eyes of another, each characterized by its own objects meanings, and values. As such, it resists the strong temptation to dichotomize modes of thinking or being” (p. 142).

IMPORTANT POINT
Letisha (a student from an under-represented background) exhibited talk and ideas that, viewed through the lens of traditional dichotomous thinking, looked “outside of the boundaries of the task.” The authors and the teacher had to actively work at recognizing the value of this student’s “expansive thinking” (p. 143).  “...Rather than assuming that the problem resides in Letisha – in something about the way she thought or spoke, in some deficit in her background of life experience, or in the incompatibility of her ways of knowing with those valued in sciences – we assumed that the problem resided in our norms of interpretation, in our assumptions and expectations regarding what counted as a meaningful response to the teacher’s questions; in other words, in our own trained inability to see and hear the intellectual substance of Letisha’s talk” (p. 144).  Afterwards, the teacher shifted her way of engaging with Letisha, framing her as more intellectually competent and asking more expansive questions of her.  The authors note that how we view students and their experiences has great import for how they are able to engage and participate in science.

QUESTIONS
1) Do you agree with the authors’ analysis of the “misconceptions” approach to science research and learning? Is it misguided, or can it be a helpful way to think about supporting science students?  What if a student is traveling down a path that is based on his or her own experience, but that contradicts the science concept being focused on?
2) How can learning in classrooms be best organized to help to facilitate the connections between ‘everyday’ and ‘scientific’ thinking?  What are the characteristics of those learning environments?  Which NGSS practices can be mobilized to emphasize those connections?  How would those classrooms look for first graders, middle school students, high school students, or college students?
 3) What are the broader equity implications of positioning students as capable and of valuing ‘expansive thinking’?
 4) Can you think of an example of where you creatively wove together your own experiences and connected them to broader theoretical concepts (where you participated in “interanimation”) in your own learning? Was the interanimation valued in that context?  How did it advance or hinder your understanding?

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