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Orchestrating talk for science meaning making in a problem-based learning classroom mediated by computer-supported collaborative learning
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Type
Thesis
Author
Yeo, Jennifer Ai Choo
Supervisor
Tan, Seng Chee
Abstract
Reforms in science education in Singapore have ignited an interest among teachers in a local high school to adopt Problem-based Learning (PBL) as its pedagogical base. Taking a social semiotics perspective, I view science to be a meaning-making practice, in which a system of culturally-accepted semiotic resources is constructed as a means to communicate about objects and processes in the physical world. One essential component of science learning is, therefore, to appropriate this system of semiotic tools for participating in the science community’s practices. Context, experience and interaction are considered to be necessary in supporting the process of meaning making.
PBL approach, with its focus on practice and interaction, is perceived to have the necessary conditions to support science meaning making. However, complexities are expected due to disparities between the flexible PBL environment and structured formal high school learning environment. Besides, there has been a lack of PBL studies in the high school context and in the medical learning environment to show its effectiveness for learning disciplinary content knowledge. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to look at how science meaning making can be fostered through PBL in high school science classrooms. The objectives are to refine the process of PBL to bring about science meaning making in high school classrooms and to understand how effective science meaning making takes place in a PBL environment. The overarching research question that this study seeks is how PBL should be enacted in a high school classroom to bring about science meaning making among students.
Taking a design research methodology, the study took place in T Academy (pseudonym) involving three groups of Grade 9 students over three iterative cycles of design, implementation and evaluation. Qualitative data, in particular video and online discussion data, were collected and analyzed to find out how PBL was enacted in the high school classroom and how students’ scientific conceptions progress during the PBL process. An analysis framework that combined cultural-historical activity theory and systemic functional linguistics provided the tools for analyzing the classroom activity system and the meaning making process enacted in the three research cycles. Findings from one preceding research cycle were used to inform the intervention of the next cycle.
Three key findings are generated from the study. First, the findings show that PBL situated in a knowledge creation paradigm supports science meaning making more effectively than in an acquisition or a participation paradigm. Second, the important role of mediating artifacts, in particular authoritative sources, problem context and collaboration, in supporting science meaning making is highlighted. Third, the findings show that science meaning making is a dialectical process of connecting the concrete and the abstract rather than unidirectional shift from one to another. Therefore, a PBL framework based on knowledge creation paradigm, which engenders a co-dependence between problem solving and knowledge building, is proposed for supporting the process of science meaning making.
PBL approach, with its focus on practice and interaction, is perceived to have the necessary conditions to support science meaning making. However, complexities are expected due to disparities between the flexible PBL environment and structured formal high school learning environment. Besides, there has been a lack of PBL studies in the high school context and in the medical learning environment to show its effectiveness for learning disciplinary content knowledge. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to look at how science meaning making can be fostered through PBL in high school science classrooms. The objectives are to refine the process of PBL to bring about science meaning making in high school classrooms and to understand how effective science meaning making takes place in a PBL environment. The overarching research question that this study seeks is how PBL should be enacted in a high school classroom to bring about science meaning making among students.
Taking a design research methodology, the study took place in T Academy (pseudonym) involving three groups of Grade 9 students over three iterative cycles of design, implementation and evaluation. Qualitative data, in particular video and online discussion data, were collected and analyzed to find out how PBL was enacted in the high school classroom and how students’ scientific conceptions progress during the PBL process. An analysis framework that combined cultural-historical activity theory and systemic functional linguistics provided the tools for analyzing the classroom activity system and the meaning making process enacted in the three research cycles. Findings from one preceding research cycle were used to inform the intervention of the next cycle.
Three key findings are generated from the study. First, the findings show that PBL situated in a knowledge creation paradigm supports science meaning making more effectively than in an acquisition or a participation paradigm. Second, the important role of mediating artifacts, in particular authoritative sources, problem context and collaboration, in supporting science meaning making is highlighted. Third, the findings show that science meaning making is a dialectical process of connecting the concrete and the abstract rather than unidirectional shift from one to another. Therefore, a PBL framework based on knowledge creation paradigm, which engenders a co-dependence between problem solving and knowledge building, is proposed for supporting the process of science meaning making.
Date Issued
2009
Call Number
Q183.4.S55 Yeo
Date Submitted
2009