At the 2015 NARST: A Worldwide Organization for Improving Science Teaching and Learning Through Research Annual International Conference, a group of scholars held an extended pre-conference workshop to discuss key challenges and future directions faced by argumentation researchers around the world. This wide-ranging group of facilitators and participants represented varying perspectives and experiences with argumentation research. Learning artifacts from the workshop were collected and analyzed utilizing multiple qualitative coding techniques. Analysis of these artifacts revealed five major themes that emerged from the NARST workshop describing this group of scholars' views on current issues and potential directions for the field of argumentation research. These themes center on: (i) establishing a classroom culture that values argumentation; (ii) how differing theoretical frameworks challenge how researchers communicate findings; (iii) the challenge of assessing various aspects of scientific argumentation in a valid and reliable fashion; (iv) pedagogical challenges in supporting student discourse and social collaboration; and (v) challenges concerning the professional development of teachers. Each of these themes is described using direct quotes from the workshop artifacts, and implications for future research in argumentation are discussed. #

Recent education reform efforts have included an increasing push for school science to better mirror authentic scientific endeavor, including a focus on science practices. However, despite expectations that all students engage in these language‐rich practices, little prior research has focused on how such opportunities will be created for English‐learning students. This case study uses the conceptual framework of communities of practice to investigate the relationship between English‐learning students' argumentation and their middle school sheltered English immersion (SEI) science classroom community. Considering various aspects of this conceptual framework—including the role of legitimate peripheral participation, as well as the degree to which community members' goals and expectations around the practice of interest align—allowed us to identify classroom characteristics that both hindered and facilitated students' opportunities to engage in argumentation. First, the classroom community, and consequently the presence and quality of argumentative discourse, was influenced by student movement in and out of this classroom, as their English proficiencies improved. The constantly changing class roster made it difficult for newer members to watch, learn, and engage in argumentation with more knowledgeable peers. Furthermore, certain elements of the SEI approach, namely its deductive nature, conflicted with the type of instruction necessary to encourage language use for sensemaking. However, this instructional context also offered English‐learning students with affordances they may not find in other educational settings. Specifically, we found that when students worked in smaller group structures, such as pairs, and they utilized both their native and second language as a linguistic resource for engaging in science discourse, their engagement in argumentation was promoted. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 53: 527–553, 2016

Argumentation, a key epistemic practice in science, engages students in socially constructing knowledge claims using evidence. However, teachers need support in integrating argumentation into classroom instruction. We examined teachers’ enactments of an educative science curriculum and their curricular decision making for argumentation. Ten middle school teachers enacted lessons that focused on both the structure of an argument and argumentation as a dialogic process. For each teacher, we analyzed videotapes of two lessons and follow‐up interviews. Across the teachers, we observed a wide range in teachers’ enactments. In some instances, teachers’ instructional practices aligned with the underlying epistemic goals, while in other cases the structural aspects were oversimplified and discourse norms followed more traditional teacher‐led patterns. To support classroom instruction to move beyond pseudoargumentation, we found three main influences on teachers’ curricular decision making in classes with higher quality argumentation: (1) teachers’ understanding of argumentation as an epistemic practice (rather than surface level features), (2) teachers as critically reflective curriculum users, and (3) teachers problematizing their prior teaching experiences. As a field, we need to think critically about how to design teacher education experiences to discourage the relabeling of teaching with reform‐oriented terms, such as argumentation, and instead support instructional transformation.

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Despite the recent emphasis on science practices, little work has focused on teachers' knowledge of these key learning goals. The development of high quality assessments for teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of science practices, such as argumentation, is important to better assess the needs of teachers and to develop supportive teacher education experiences. In this paper, we present lessons learned from a development process to conceptualize, design, and pilot a measure of teachers' PCK of argumentation. We use the results from our pilot test with 103 middle school science teachers, cognitive interviews with 24 middle school science teachers, and feedback from 10 advisors to present these lessons learned. Specifically, this work resulted in the refinement of our conceptualization of PCK of argumentation in two areas: (1) Moving beyond pseudoargumentation of surface level features to target the quality of structural components and students' dialogic interactions as well as the use of instructional strategies that align with student needs and (2) Focusing on dialogic argumentation in terms of the quality of student interactions in which they build off of and critique each others' claims, rather than goals such as persuasion that are difficult to observe. In addition, the iterative design process suggested that PCK of argumentation assessments should use classroom contexts (such as vignettes, student writing, and video) to activate teachers' knowledge in use by connecting to their prior experiences; however, the student argumentation examples need to highlight one specific strength or challenge and provide sufficient detail around the example to focus the assessment item. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 53: 261–290, 2016.

The various types of interactions that students carry out when engaged in scientific argumentation function together to move forward developing ideas and support sensemaking. As such, incorporating argumentation in classroom instruction holds promise for supporting students in developing and acting with an epistemic agency, being positioned, and taking up, opportunities to inform their classroom community's knowledge construction work. To foster science classrooms in which students take on active roles, argue to learn, and engage in authentic meaning-making, the field needs better understandings of how students are supported in developing, and acting with, epistemic agency. We contend that focusing on critique-specifically, examining circumstances where students partake in this type of exchange with peers when engaged in argumentation-is a productive starting point. In this study, we characterized manifestations of epistemic agency as captured through instances of student critique during argumentation discussions in three middle school classrooms. Specifically, we used social network analysis to illuminate interactional patterns related to critique, and discourse analysis to highlight language moves individuals carried out when student critique was observed. Our findings point to there being multiple, sometimes conflating, approaches to addressing tensions inherent to helping students develop and act with epistemic agency. Our findings also suggest we can learn from critiquing practices that all students bring and employ in the classroom. This latter point is especially important when desiring to create and foster equitable learning environments, where all students' ways of knowing and doing science are appreciated, recognized, and used to support sensemaking.

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For students to meaningfully engage in science practices, substantive changes need to occur to deeply entrenched instructional approaches, particularly those related to classroom discourse. Because teachers are critical in establishing how students are permitted to interact in the classroom, it is imperative to examine their role in fostering learning environments in which students carry out science practices. This study explores how teachers describe, or frame, expectations for classroom discussions pertaining to the science practice of argumentation. Specifically, we use the theoretical lens of a participation framework to examine how teachers emphasize particular actions and goals for their students' argumentation. Multiple-case study methodology was used to explore the relationship between two middle school teachers' framing for argumentation, and their students' engagement in an argumentation discussion. Findings revealed that, through talk moves and physical actions, both teachers emphasized the importance of students driving the argumentation and interacting with peers, resulting in students engaging in various types of dialogic interactions. However, variation in the two teachers' language highlighted different purposes for students to do so. One teacher explained that through these interactions, students could learn from peers, which could result in each individual student revising their original argument. The other teacher articulated that by working with peers and sharing ideas, classroom members would develop a communal understanding. These distinct goals aligned with different patterns in students' argumentation discussion, particularly in relation to students building on each other's ideas, which occurred more frequently in the