No abstract

A major achievement in the sociology and philosophy of science over the past two decades has been the recognition that science is a form of culture with its own creeds, language, material practices, perceptions, theories, and beliefs. Learning science then amounts to participation (from more peripheral to central ways) in the particular practices of this culture. We argue here that there are some fundamental, heretofore neglected, ways in which newcomers come to perceive and talk about natural phenomena. Beginning with "muddled" talk and supported by deictic and iconic gestures, learners isolate salient objects and events which are, in increasing ways, represented in linguistic forms. More abstract forms of communication (writing, abstract symbols) are competently used only later in the emerging communicative patterns. As such, there lies tremendous potential in science activities that focus on observational and theoretical language in the presence of the relevant phenomena.

This article is concerned with understanding situations in which speakers talk in the presence of scientific inscriptions (lectures in science classes, public presentations). Drawing on extensive video materials accumulated in middle and high school science classrooms and university lectures, we develop a framework for the resources speakers make available to their audience for understanding what the talk is about. We distinguish three situations according to the nature of reference to the phenomenon talked about: (i) talk is about phenomenon but mediated by reference to a two-dimensional (2-D) inscription; (ii) talk is about phenomenon but mediated by reference to a three-dimensional (3-D) inscription; and (iii) talk is directly about phenomenon. Associated with these three situations are different body orientations, distances from inscriptions, and types of gestures. When speakers laminate talk characteristic of two different types of situations, the orientation “up” can become “down” and “down” can become “up,” potentially leading to confusing statements.

Both preservice and seasoned teachers experience a considerable gap between theory and prescriptions for teaching and their day-today practice. We conceptualize this gap in terms of the difference between descriptions of practice and practice itself. Descriptions cannot include the tacit understanding against which specific acts of teaching become meaningful; thus, they are inherently out of synchrony with practice. We illustrate how Bourdieu's notion of habitus (a set of dispositions) accounts for appropriate actions in situations where there is no "time out" for deliberation and how coteaching can support preservice teachers' development of this habitus.

In recent years, reflection-in-action has been a major concept for taking account of the craft and practical aspects of teaching. Yet in the everyday teaching praxis, reflection is largely absent. In this paper, we argue that this absence is due to the fact that reflection requires objects of thought that have to be constructed. Both the construction and manipulation of these objects requires "time out" from acting in real time. Taking time out is frequently impossible in the praxis of teaching, unless we want to miss the "teachable moments." We propose Spielraum, room to maneuver, as a concept that describes the reality of teaching much better than reflection-in-action, especially when there is no time out for reflection. We use two extended classroom episodes to exemplify situations that are better described by the notion of Spielraum than by reflection-in-action.