Using Educative Assessments to Support Science Teaching for Middle School English-language Learners

Buxton, Cory A.; Allexsaht‐Snider, Martha; Suriel, Regina L.; Kayumova, Shakhnoza; Choi, Youn-Jeng; Bouton, Bobette; Baker, Melissa M.

doi:10.1007/s10972-012-9329-5

Cited by 28 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…This short vignette highlights some of the contextual features in which we developed the LISELL project to support science teachers in meeting the evolving science and language learning needs of a changing student body (Buxton, Kayumova, & Allexsaht‐Snider, ). The vignette also exemplifies the critical interactions we negotiated between teachers' desires for agency in their own professional learning, their sense of their positioning in relation to powerful school and social structures, and our own commitments as science education researchers focused on issues of social justice.…”

Section: Research Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teacher agency and professional learning: Rethinking fidelity of implementation as multiplicities of enactment

et al. 2015

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In this paper we use practice theory, with its focus on the interplay of structure and agency, to theorize about teacher engagement in professional learning and teacher enactment of pedagogical practices as an alternative to framing implementation research in terms of program adherence and fidelity of implementation. Practice theory allowed us to reconsider assumptions about characteristics of effective teacher professional learning, and to rethink our own notions of agency. Using data from our three-year middle school science teacher professional learning project, Language-rich Inquiry Science with English Language Learners (LISELL), we discuss how individual teachers negotiated power structures of schooling and exerted their agency in ways that were influenced by their project participation. Framing our work in terms of engagement and enactment, we theorize about how a structure-agency dialectic challenging assumptions about effective teacher professional learning can support new ways of thinking about implementation research in education. # Research ProblemVignette: Questioning a one-size-fits-all model of fidelity of implementation. The middle school science teachers were gathered in a university classroom participating in the Language-rich Inquiry Science with English Language Learners (LISELL) summer teacher institute. Some teachers were new to the project and some had been participating for multiple years. The discussion turned to obstacles that teachers felt were hindering their efforts to engage all their science students, especially emergent bilingual learners, and solutions that working in our project might offer to help overcome those obstacles.Tia: The expectations keep shifting. Every year it's something new that becomes our top priority-new standards one year, new teacher evaluation system the next, new tests the year after that.

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Section: Research Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teacher agency and professional learning: Rethinking fidelity of implementation as multiplicities of enactment

et al. 2015

Self Cite

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“…Also, by examining data through the lens of the equitable assessment framework, evidence was amassed showing that the principles are useful for both ELLs and NESs, suggesting that the framework would be useful for developing new assessment tasks. Further assessment resources that attend to the needs of ELLs can be found online or by contacting the authors referenced (Buxton et al, 2013;Siegel et al, 2005).…”

Section: Implications For Teachersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Equitable Written Assessments for English Language Learners: How Scaffolding Helps

Siegel

Menon

Sinha

et al. 2014

Journal of Science Teacher Education

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This study investigated the effects of the use of scaffolds in written classroom assessments through the voices of both native English speakers and English language learners from two middle schools. Students responded to assessment tasks in writing, by speaking aloud using think aloud protocols, and by reflecting in a post-assessment interview. The classroom assessment tasks were designed to engage students in scientific sense making and multifaceted language use, as recommended by the Next Generation Science Standards. Data analyses showed that both groups benefitted from the use of scaffolds. The findings revealed specific ways that modifications were supportive in helping students to comprehend, visualize and organize thinking, and elicit responses. This study offers a model for both sensitizing teachers and strengthening their strategies for scaffolding assessments equitably.

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“…Our findings are particularly important given that supporting ELLs in the discourse of science is expected but often challenging in English‐dominant mainstream science classrooms (Lee, Quinn, & Valdés, ). Such participation requires teachers to play a critical role as a facilitator using a range of strategies, but science teachers serving large numbers of ELLs may struggle with how to help them participate in classroom discussion (Bianchini & Brenner, ; Buxton et al, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The findings of these studies have shown that when tasks are carefully scaffolded, students can identify gaps in their understanding and refine their ideas to develop a more coherent understanding of scientific phenomena presented in visualizations. Research has also shown the benefit of scaffolding as a way to facilitate students' collaborative scientific discourse, such as communicating their ideas, reconciling conflicting views, and co‐constructing shared meaning with partners (Ash, ; Buxton et al, ; Chi et al, ; Ford, ; Reiser, ). Engaging in such discourse has been shown to be beneficial for ELLs because it can provide more contextualized, authentic environments wherein ELLs can have multiple opportunities to develop, use, and practice English language skills while understanding scientific phenomena (Allexsaht‐Snider et al, ; Amaral, Garrison, & Klentschy, ; Lee, Hart, Cuevas, & Enders, ; Stoddart, Pinal, Latzke, & Canaday, ).…”

Section: Conceptual Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Supporting linguistically diverse students' science learning with dynamic visualizations through discourse‐rich practices

Ryoo

Bedell

2018

J Res Sci Teach

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Carefully scaffolded dynamic visualizations have potential to promote science learning for all students, including English language learners (ELLs) who are often underserved in mainstream science classrooms, but little is known about how to design effective scaffolding to support such diverse students' learning with dynamic visualizations. This study investigated how two forms of scaffolding embedded in dynamic visualizations, expert guidance and generating guidance, can foster ELLs' and non-ELLs' understanding of unobservable scientific phenomena. While interacting with dynamic visualizations, students in the expert guidance condition were provided with scientifically accurate explanations to interpret visual representations, whereas students in the generating guidance condition were prompted to generate their own explanations using visual representations. The results show the significant advantage of generating guidance over expert guidance for both ELLs and non-ELLs, although students in the generating guidance condition did not receive feedback on their generated artifacts. Analyses of video data and log data from 40 pairs revealed that each form of scaffolding affected the quantity and quality of linguistically diverse students' conversations. The results show that generating guidance enabled students, particularly ELLs, to engage in discourse-rich practices to evaluate various sources of evidence from the visualization and compare the evidence to their alternative ideas to develop a coherent understanding of the target concepts. This study shows the unique benefits of generating guidance as an effective strategy to support linguistically diverse students' science learning with dynamic visualizations.

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Using Educative Assessments to Support Science Teaching for Middle School English-language Learners

Cited by 28 publications

References 13 publications

Teacher agency and professional learning: Rethinking fidelity of implementation as multiplicities of enactment

Teacher agency and professional learning: Rethinking fidelity of implementation as multiplicities of enactment

Equitable Written Assessments for English Language Learners: How Scaffolding Helps

Supporting linguistically diverse students' science learning with dynamic visualizations through discourse‐rich practices

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