Lee, Yew-Jin

This dissertation builds upon and extends theorizing in cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT), which is a recent addition to the sociocultural analysis of learning, identity, and history. Drawing largely on longitudinal fieldwork conducted in a salmon hatchery in British Columbia, specifically, and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, more generally, the present studies affirm the possibility of learning in mundane work environments as well as discovering what it means to learn and be an expert in the workplace. In addition, the results show how institutions that aspire to be learning organizations have to provide access to participation to all its members. The findings reported here also sensitize workplace researchers to issues of identity inherent during the process of interviewing besides articulating a new, non-dualistic conception of organizational identity and organizational identification. The necessity of examining the cultural-historical dimensions of work activity situates the activity of salmon enhancement in context in a final study. All these different but related investigations of work indicate that unless a strongly dialectical stance is maintained throughout activitytheoretic analysis, cultural-historical theories will not advance. This important methodological and theoretical principle has manifested itself in the following dialectical tensions underlying this dissertation: subject|object, individual|collective, and agency|structure.

Research on argumentation has increased our understanding of knowledge construction, group learning, and scaffolding structures in CSCL although analyses of argumentation pose many difficulties. This could be due to the many theoretical positions that can be taken when approaching discourse data. In this paper, we use three popular analytic methods (interactional, content-specific, and linguistic) to compare the same fragment of scientific argumentation by Grade 4 children in Singapore. We show the complementary emphases and strengths of each disciplinary position as well as their weaknesses. The results imply that analytic methods arising from different disciplinary positions can potentially broaden our overall understanding of using argumentation in CSCL.

This paper provides a situative account of a teacher becoming a technology-using educator. The specific process of becoming was described on a micro-genetic level to show how the process of becoming is relationally constituted with an experienced other. The significance of this study is that it provides an empirical account on the increasingly important issue of identity and learning.

We wanted to determine the Fidelity of Implementation(FOI) of an innovative school-based science curriculum—SciencePlus—in Chester Secondary in Singapore (all pseudonyms). Although program or outcome evaluations have dominated attention, our research confirms the importance of implementation evaluation through FOI in order for a discipline to advance. Among other things, FOI criteria (dosage, quality of delivery, adherence, participant responsiveness) can both characterize and narrow the separation between program intent and actual implementation. Hence, we examined the curricular adaptations and contingencies that mediated the SciencePlus curriculum.

One of the goals of inquiry-based teaching and learning of science is for students to learn the processes of inquiry and to apply these processes in new situations to construct new knowledge for themselves. Very often, students who are exposed to inquiry activities encounter conceptual conflicts that do not align with their pre-conceived ideas. How these conflicts are resolved provide different types of learning experiences for the learners. Interaction talk during hands-on science inquiry activities provides a good source of information on how students deal with conceptual conflicts and, in particular, how they apply inquiry skills to resolve these conflicts. The analysis of talk in interaction amongst a group of six grade five students in a Singapore school has surfaced at least three ways whereby students construct and shape their learning in an inquiry-based science activity through the ways they deal with conceptual conflicts: (a) domineering voices in a group can prematurely curtail alternative ideas and concepts in dealing with a conceptual conflict; (b) a peer expert in a group can scaffold learning for a student facing a conceptual conflict; and (c) learners draw on inquiry skills to resolve cognitive conflicts arising from anomalous results or behaviours during hands-on investigations.

Since the launch of the Thinking Schools, Learning Nation (1997) and Teach Less, Learn More (2004) initiatives, the CORE Research Programme has aimed to provide a systemic description and measurement of curriculum and reform initiatives. CORE 1 (2004-2007) focused on lesson observations and surveys in English, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies and Mother Tongue classrooms at the Primary 5 and Secondary 3 levels. The study however, was unable to examine specific classroom pedagogical and assessment practices centred on epistemic, cognitive, metacognitive, disciplinary and domain-specific intellectual work. CORE 2 (2009-2014) focused on pedagogical beliefs and practices, classroom practices and assessment practices (Hogan, Towndrow, Kwek, & Chan, 2013). Currently, CORE 3 is centrally focused on the questions: “How do teachers teach?”and“Why do they teach the way they do?” The project in focus is a baseline investigation of science pedagogy (2015-16).

Most educational theorists now promote activity in context and authentic activities to engender more meaningful forms of learning. Problem-based learning (PBL) is one of such pedagogy whereby students work in groups to solve "real world" problems. However, when these practices from the real world are introduced into classrooms, school teachers could encounter many challenges, such as curricula and individual constraints. In this ethnographie study, we describe what happened when a high school physics teacher adopted PBL in his classroom in an attempt to move toward inquiry-based instruction. Using cultural-historical activity theory, we compared his instruetional activities with a referent PBL model derived from literature, so as to surface the tensions and contradictions in the activity system as he introduced new practices into his classroom. We found that the challenges he faced arose from disparities between the motives driving everyday practices and schooling, which we attribute to differences between academics and the lived-realities of practitioners. We suggest that researchers work collaboratively with teachers towards an equilibrium point. This joint reflective practice could potentially enable authentic pedagogy such as PBL to be implemented meaningfully and realistically in an Asian society that has long placed a premium on academic achievement.

The purpose of this research project is to study the development of literacy in learning Science from a Vygotskian perspective. The concept of literacy in this research project is theorized by considering the real act of communicating Science. We studied the following research questions. First, what is the role of everyday language in learning scientific language? And how does collaborative communication develop in Science class in the course of developing scientific understanding? Second, how do scientific artefacts interface with (non-) verbal communication and conceptual understanding? Third, what are the forms of literacy that increase the possibility for people to learn Science and experience their Self differently?

A questionnaire survey was administered to 66 secondary 5 Normal level students in Singapore to sample students' ideas on the scientific concept of food in school biology. Between 30% to 60% of the respondents believed that food yielded energy but this concept was context dependent and not widespread. Primary responses predominated as students felt that the biological functions of food were for sustenance, satiation, growth and general well-being. They seemed to hold a simplistic view that anything that was consumable (edible) was considered to be a food. More than 75% of the sample accepted the idea that food can be in liquid state. Students' understanding of the biological concept of food was anthropocentric and not applied across living organisms in heterotrophs (animals) or autotrophs (plants) as a whole. The components of a balanced diet were understood but many students confused the concepts of nutrients and water, believing the latter to be a food.