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What counts as science? Expansive learning actions for teaching and learning science with bilingual children

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Abstract

Science education should help children acquire sophisticated understandings about science, how it is done, and how they can be scientists. Consequently, there is a need to explore how minoritized children’s linguistic and cultural resources can be employed in the science classroom. This study examined how perceptions of science teaching and learning in bilingual contexts shift from a single tradition to more expansive understandings. Following cultural historical activity theory (CHAT), mediators and turning points were explored to provide evidence for expansive learning. This analysis focused on data from 25 children and four teacher candidates participating in a Spanish bilingual after-school program. To answer the research questions, expansive and non-expansive actions (i.e., speech segments and multimedia products generated in the 10 after-school sessions) were analyzed mostly qualitatively, and supported with descriptive quantitative patterns. Through the analysis, specific mediators and contextual characteristics were identified as turning points for expansive learning. The in-depth analysis of the four after-school sessions including both discourse and multimedia data, revealed the existence of a turning point in one session during which there was a discussion using a video and a multimodal embodied experience with clay. This session included turn and talks, and closed with a whole-group debriefing. Additionally, the study found that the multimedia artifacts (actions around photographs and videos) were more conducive to expansiveness than those with discursive data only. The study concludes that culturally relevant artifacts, combined with instructional moves that accept bilingual children’s expansive ways of understanding science, stimulate expansive learning. This study provides ways to explore how bilingual children’s out-of-school knowledges can merge with science knowledge in schools, and helps illuminate the role of multiple activity systems in the teaching and learning process. Furthermore, the study highlights the importance of having pre-service teachers explore the potential of children’s out-of-school knowledges in spaces such as after-school programs where curricular and instructional restrictions are lessened, and that thus favor more expansive forms of teaching and learning.

Resumen

La educación científica debe ayudar a que las/os niñas/os entiendan la ciencia de forma sofisticada, aprendan a hacer ciencia, y comprendan cómo pueden ser científicas/os. Consecuentemente, es necesario explorar la forma en que los recursos lingüísticos y culturales de los niños minorizados pueden ser utilizados en la clase de ciencias. Este estudio ha examinado el cambio evolutivo de percepciones acerca de la enseñanza y el aprendizaje en contextos bilingües de una tradición más exclusiva y reducida a una más expansiva. Siguiendo la teoría socio-cultural histórica centrada en la actividad (CHAT), el presente estudio ha explorado los mediadores y puntos de inflexión, o cambios de dirección, para proveer evidencia de la expansión del aprendizaje. El análisis se hizo con datos obtenidos con 25 niños y cuatro candidatas de magisterio que participaron en una actividad extra-escolar (o programa de después de la escuela) que era bilingüe en español. Con la intención de responder a las preguntas de investigación, este estudio consistió en el análisis, mayoritariamente cualitativo, pero apoyado con análisis de patrones descriptivos de origen cuantitativo de acciones (ejm. segmentos discursivos y productos multimodales) expansivas y no-expansivas. El análisis permitió la identificación de mediadores específicos y características de contexto que motivaron cambios de dirección hacia formas más expansivas de aprendizaje. El análisis minucioso de las cuatro sesiones del programa extra-escolar que incluyeron tanto datos discursivos como de multimedia, reveló la existencia de un punto de inflexión decisivo durante una sesión donde hubo una discusión centrada en un vídeo y una experiencia multimodal y corporal con el uso de arcilla. Esta sesión incluyó la dinámica de volverse hacia un/a compañera/o para compartir y se cerró con una discusión de grupo. Adicionalmente, el estudio averigüó que los artefactos de multimedia (ejm. acciones centradas en fotografías y vídeos) facilitaron más la expansión, que aquellos que solo incluían discurso oral. El estudio concluyó que la expansión del aprendizaje es estimulada por el uso de artefactos que son relevantes culturalmente, combinados con decisiones en la enseñanza que aceptan las formas expansivas de entender ciencias de las/os niñas/os bilingües. El estudio provee formas de explorar cómo los conocimientos que las/os niñas/os adquieren fuera de la escuela pueden unirse con el conocimiento de la ciencia en las escuelas, y el papel que los diferentes sistemas de actividad adquieren como parte del proceso de aprendizaje y enseñanza. Así mismo, el estudio resalta la importancia de que las/os estudiantes de magisterio exploren el potencial del conocimiento que las/os niñas/os adquieren fuera de la escuela en espacios extra-escolares donde las restricciones curriculares y educativas se reducen, favoreciendo formas de enseñar y aprender de naturaleza más expansiva.

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Acknowledgements

Research reported in this publication was supported by the Pedagogy of Social Imagination in Language Learning and Teaching (PSILLT), United States Department of Education, Office of English Language Acquisition, National Professional Development Grant number T365Z120187 under the direction of Professor María E. Torres-Guzmán. The PSILLT project is National Professional Development Grant (CFDA# 84.365Z)-funded by the Office of English Acquisition, U.S. Department of Education, for 2012-2015. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the offices of USDE, OELA.

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  1. Bilingual/Bicultural Education, Teachers College, Columbia University, 525 West 120th Street (Box 122), Macy Suite 351, New York, NY, 10027, USA

    Patricia Martínez-Álvarez

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Correspondence to Patricia Martínez-Álvarez.

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Lead Editor: S. L. Ramos de Robles.

I would like to thank Laura Pantin, who worked with me as a graduate research assistant, for her contributions and insights on this work, and Anu Kajamaa for her contributions to previous drafts of this article.

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Martínez-Álvarez, P. What counts as science? Expansive learning actions for teaching and learning science with bilingual children. Cult Stud of Sci Educ 14, 799–837 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-019-09909-y

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