Reasoned argument in the primary classroom

Reasoned argument in the primary classroom

So if this degree of scientific reasoning is a key objective of science educa- tion, how might the foundations be prepared in the primary curriculum? Work with philosophy in the primary curriculum shows that even young children are capable of engaging with debate and reasoning (Lipman 1988). We know that Key Stage 2 children use the Internet regularly and have a worrying degree of confidence in what they find there (McFarlane and Roche 2003). We also know that children are very aware of politicised scientific issues such as conservation and climate change and that they can be left feeling disturbed and disempowered as a result (Chapter 2 in this volume). The context for work on authentic consideration of scien- tific issues is set and indeed there is a real need to support children’s engagement with issues that they find troubling.

To map how such issues might be tackled in the classroom it is useful to point to much relevant and important work in this area that is already ongoing. Of particular concern is how pupils might be brought to a critical awareness of (and engagement with) the nature and methods of science (Warwick and Stephenson 2002). Put another way, the challenge is to ‘design instructional sequences and learning environment conditions that help pupils become members of epistemic communities’ (Duschl 2000: 188). This is the primary concern of the ongoing EPSE project (see Chapter 1

ICT AND PRIMARY SCIENCE – WHERE ARE WE GOING ?

in this volume), whilst the ASE and King’s College Science Investigations in Schools project (AKSIS – Goldsworthy et al. 2000: 4) has ‘explored the effects of Sc1 in the National Curriculum on current practice and made recommendations for its future development’. AKSIS has had, as a central concern, the exemplification of different types of scientific enquiry and the production of materials to support pupil thinking in relation to the processes of scientific enquiry. A substantive part of this work has been predicated on the notion that if procedural understanding and a wider understanding of the nature of science are to be developed, a vital element of the process is necessarily the extent to which evidence is questioned. It could be argued that the interpretation of evidence is the activity around which all the understandings in science, and of science, pivot. With refer- ence to science education, Duschl (2000: 189) cites Driver et al. (1996) in stating that the evaluation of evidence is one of three strands of curric- ulum emphasis that ‘explicitly establish an epistemological basis for scientific knowledge claims’. Thus, research into the uses and interpre- tations of all forms of evidence is central to elucidating pupils’ develop- ing understandings of the personal relevance of science. Warwick and Siraj-Blatchford (in press) recognise that ‘the development of a science education that includes a focus upon the nature of science suggests the need for “pedagogic tools” that can be used to engage children with the procedural understandings that are central to a scientific approach to enquiry’. Amongst these tools they report that the use of secondary data for comparative analysis of secondary and investigative data can provide a basis for such engagement. However, they note that ‘such comparative analysis will only mirror the collaborative nature of the scientific enter- prise where children have guided opportunities to discuss their under- standing of the issues revealed by the comparisons . . . (and where) . . . the data is contextualised through connection with the knowledge claims made in science’.

But it seems that in some cases the curriculum is still a long way from even recognising the importance of teaching such critical engagement, whilst the uses of information technologies do not seem to be strongly allied to this purpose. In recent work with post-16 teachers it was surpris- ing to find frustration with students’ rather unthinking use of electronic sources, with claims that students tend to use cut and paste uncritically rather than engage with the sources. Yet even though these same teachers and students had been in the same schools for some six years, there was no recognition that this inability to make meaningful use of electronic sources might highlight a deficit in the study skills developed while in the school. Science teachers, it seems, are commonly ill-equipped to teach science in a way that prepares students for citizenship and decision- making (Levinson and Turner 2001; House of Commons 2002). Children, however, do want to know about contemporary science and to engage meaningfully with investigations (Osborne and Collins 2002).

ANGELA MCFARLANE

Given the level of use of the Internet even in Key Stage 2 we cannot wait until secondary school to begin to teach children how to make meaning- ful, critical use of information sources. By the age of 12 bad habits may already be well established. Rather, we need to develop good questioning skills from the earliest stages, and where better to begin with the develop- ment of these skills than in science? Science, after all, is all about asking questions and the best scientists ask the best questions. Yet all too often the questions we explore in science are not particularly good or inspiring, and they are certainly not the questions the children would ask. In many lessons we set up contexts that are full of pitfalls for anyone who diverges from the set path as the science around them is complex and hard if not impossible to demonstrate in the classroom. Whoever decided the physics of running cars down a ramp was easy?

However, by talking about systems we are examining and facing up to what we can and cannot deduce about them; we can learn as much, if not more, about both the system and the processes of scientific reasoning as we can through manipulating apparatus in search of an answer. In science, knowing what we cannot know is as important as knowing what we can know. Pretending that science has all the answers is perhaps the greatest disservice we can do, to pupils and to science. And all too easily this can

be the impression gained by young investigators, who have to leave an ‘experiment’ with an answer. In fact, all too often their observations are not adequate to get to an answer. For example, you may have seen that large sugar crystals take longer to dissolve than small ones, but can you be sure why this is just by observing them? One memorable training video showed a group left firmly convinced this is because the large crystals had an invisible coating on them. This conclusion had their teacher stumped and with no time to challenge this view as the class had to move on to another topic. Yet it is perhaps one of the commonest failings of the trainee experimental scientist, and social scientist, to extrapolate their conclusions beyond anything the data can support.