The purpose of this study is to refine Japanese elementary science activity structures by using a CSCL approach to transform the classroom into a knowledgebuilding community. We report design studies on two science lessons in two consecutive years and describe the progressive refinement of the activity structures. Through comparisons of student activities on-and off-line, it was found that the implementation of a CSCL environment facilitated students' idea-centered activity. The task requirement for students to engage in collective and reciprocal activities reflecting on their own ideas was also effective if it required students to use their conceptual understanding for producing something concrete.
Our purpose is to identify the Japanese six grade (aged 11-12 years) elementary school students' understanding of the criteria for quality of rebuttals before they learn on argumentation. The criteria for high-quality rebuttals include explicitly pointing out the errors in other people's statements (pointing out) and explaining reasons as to why the statements are incorrect (reasons). We conducted the evaluation task to identify students' understanding of the criteria for quality of rebuttals. The results revealed that many students recognized rebuttals include reasons as high-quality rebuttals, but did not recognize rebuttals include pointing out as high-quality rebuttals.
Socio-scientific decision-making necessitates reasoning from multiple perspectives and the use of trade-offs. This study examines how students decide on socio-scientific issues when they engage in an instructional intervention to enhance their socio-scientific decision-making towards consensus building that, in this study, emphasises generating solutions to resolve issues. We developed a socio-scientific issue-based unit for non-science undergraduate students focusing on an intervention that enhances their socio-scientific decision-making around issues regarding a genetically modified organism. Our intervention focused on consensus building wherein students identified multiple conflicts among various stakeholders' opinions and proposed solutions to resolve them. In particular, students considered the trade-offs of science and technology. This paper presents the results from two intervention studies in which 12 and 49 non-science undergraduate students participated. To confirm that the participants of each study achieved the goal of the curriculum unit, we analysed the solutions students collaboratively constructed at the end of the unit (Analysis 1). We then used a preand post-intervention approach to assess students' independent decision-making (Analysis 2). During the curriculum unit, we assigned students an essay-writing task twice and investigated the quality of their decisions. A comparison of the pre-and post-tests revealed a general shift towards higher-level responses after the intervention. Students' arguments on socio-scientific issues changed from justificatory arguments to proposals for solutions. These findings demonstrated that the instruction promoted students' socio-scientific decision-making towards consensus building. Finally, we discuss the implications for socio-scientific issue instruction and the evaluation of students' decision-making as well as provide suggestions for future work.
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