Focusing on the interplay of context and language, this study examined a group of high school students and their mentors' use of language during a robotics competition. This informal setting allowed us to gain insights into the mediation and manifestation of power within the group. Using critical discourse analysis of competition transcripts and interviews we found that both students and mentors felt a sense of ownership and community leading to symmetry in power amongst them. The shift in power led to greater student ownership and agency and created a space for authentic and meaningful science learning. The context of the robotics competition mediated discourse practices that were different from students' classroom experiences in that they were descriptive, relational, explanatory, and had an authentic evaluative dimension. This engaged the participants to co-construct and critique each other's knowledge claims thereby engaging in scientific practices that approximated the practices of scientists. Our study presents an argument that language and context reflexively influenced one another and reduced the imbalance of power amongst the participants thereby adding a new dimension to what has already been established about the conditions under which authentic science learning is likely to occur.
While the science classroom primarily remains a site for knowledge acquisition through teacher directed experiences, other sites exist outside of the classroom that allow for student generation of scientific knowledge. These sites provide opportunities for linguistic and social interactions to play a powerful role in situating students' science learning experiences. Augmenting students' formal school science experiences with informal experiences outside of the classroom enables them to intersect their personal knowledge with canonical disciplinary knowledge. This allows for conditions of practice that are more relevant to the students. In this study we introduce the notion of acts of authentication to examine the nature of students' linguistic and social activities in an informal setting—a regional robotics competition. These acts of authentication are a) participating in talk (including everyday); b) participating in productive disciplinary engagement (by co‐constructing and critiquing knowledge); and c) being a member of a community of practice. We used Critical Discourse Analysis to examine students' and mentor's dialogic language to gain insights into the nature of their robotics experiences. Our findings indicate that the robotics experience offered rich opportunities for students to engage in acts of authentication. Our study offers conceptual insights into how the culture of the robotics activities both constructs and is constructed by the linguistic and social experiences of the students and their mentors. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 52: 268–295, 2015
Background Increasing evidence suggests that sustainable delivery of interprofessional education (IPE) has the potential to lead to interprofessional collaborative practice (IPCP), which in turn has the potential to lead to enhanced healthcare systems and improved patient-centered care health outcomes. To enhance IPE in Canada, the Accreditation of Interprofessional Health Education (AIPHE) project initiated collaborative efforts among accrediting organizations of six health professions to embed IPE language into their respective accreditation standards. To further understand the impact of the AIPHE project, this study evaluated the accountability of the IPE language currently embedded in Canadian health professions’ accreditation standards documents and examined whether such language spanned the five accreditation standards domains identified in the AIPHE project. Methods We conducted a comparative content analysis to identify and examine IPE language within the “accountable” statements in the current accreditation standards for 11 Canadian health professions that met our eligibility criteria. Results and discussion A total of 77 IPE-relevant accountable statements were identified across 13 accreditation standards documents for the 11 health professions. The chiropractic, pharmacy, and physiotherapy documents represented nearly 50% (38/77) of all accountable statements. The accountable statements for pharmacy, dentistry, dietetics, and nursing (registered) spanned across three-to-four accreditation standards domains. The remaining nine professions’ statements referred mostly to “Students” and “Educational program.” Furthermore, the majority of accreditation standards documents failed to provide a definition of IPE, and those that did, were inconsistent across health professions. Conclusions It was encouraging to see frequent reference to IPE within the accreditation standards of the health professions involved in this study. The qualitative findings, however, suggest that the emphasis of these accountable statements is mainly on the students and educational program, potentially compromising the sustainability and development, implementation, and evaluation of this frequently misunderstood pedagogical approach. The findings and exemplary IPE-relevant accountable statements identified in this paper should be of interest to all relevant stakeholders including those countries, where IPE accreditation is still emerging, as a means to accelerate and strengthen achieving desired educational and health outcomes.
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