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Science Teachers’ Challenging Questions for Encouraging Students to Think and Speak in Novel Ways

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Abstract

This study explores science teachers’ questions encouraging students to see and speak about natural phenomena in novel ways. In particular, the teachers’ challenging questions that may be instrumental in persuading students to see and talk about everyday events differently were qualitatively examined. The participants were 22 science teachers. Verbal data were analysed through classroom discourse analysis (coding and quantifying) regarding the type of challenging questions and the orientations of the challenging questions. Eight types of challenging questions occurred by different frequencies were detected: inviting students to make an emergent observation to contradict an uttered proposition, referring to everyday or routine cases to oppose a proposition, inviting students to test a proposition by referring to simple logic, playing devil’s advocate role, prompting students to be internally consistent in idea sharing or challenging by monitoring, referring to alternative points of views to make inconsistencies explicit and public, confirming the impossibility of the proposed idea or requesting for clarifying the possibility of the proposed idea, putting student-led reasoning forward to contradict a proposition. The teachers displayed challenging questions to identify the differences between the students’ and experts’ conceptual tools and ontological commitments. The teacher questions identifying possible differences between the students’ and experts’ thinking and talking regarding the epistemological commitments were not frequently observed. Several recommendations were offered for teacher noticing and teacher professional development.

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  1. Faculty of Education, Department of Elementary Education, Istanbul Aydin University, Beşyol Mah. İnönü Cad, No: 38 Sefaköy-Küçükçekmece, Istanbul, Turkey

    Yilmaz Soysal

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Soysal, Y. Science Teachers’ Challenging Questions for Encouraging Students to Think and Speak in Novel Ways. Sci & Educ (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-022-00411-6

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