Studies of Sense-Making in Biology in Language Minority Classrooms....

这个项目将调查语言少数民族 学生采用新形式的科学意义 通过参与科学合作， 生物学探究（例如，动物行为学，植物学，生态学， 胚胎学）。 调查将以一个 科学理解形式描述 海地学生在5 - 8年级的发展和分析 这些新兴的形式是如何在社会上构建的， 教室设置。 在该项目的框架内， 理解包括：生物学中的概念知识， 科学意义的实践和认识论 关于科学的信仰 拟议的工作包括 开发研究仪器，以探测各种 学生科学理解维度，直接工作， 与双语教师合作， 将科学教学作为合作探究的能力， 儿童发展研究，以确定他们如何 科学的理解随着时间的推移而改变， 在课堂上进行研究，分析学生如何科学 理解是社会建构的。 通过对科学方法的实证研究， 理解是社会建构的，这项研究将 提供了理论依据和实践模式， 在科学教室里建立有意义的社区。 它将描述特定的意义制造实践， 促进科学认识的发展， 语言少数民族学生。 此外，通过其重点 在生物学方面，它将有助于建立一个新兴的知识基础， 生物学的概念变化。

This project nwill investigate how language minority students appropriate new forms of scientific sense-making through their participation in collaborative scientific inquiry in biology (e.g., ethology, botany, ecology, embryology). The investigation will be anchored in a description of the forms of scientic understanding that Haitian students in grades 5-8 develop and an anlysis of how these emerging forms are socially constructed in classroom settings. In the framework of this project, understanding encompasses: conceptual knowledge in biology, scientific sense-making practices, and epistemological beliefs about science. The proposed work encompasses development of research instruments to probe the various dimensions of students scientic understanding, direct work with bilingual classroom teachers to enhance their competence to teach science as collaborative inquiry, developmental research with children to determine how their scientific understanding changes overtime, and ethnographic research in classrooms to analyze how students scientific understanding is socially constructed. Through empirical study of the ways in which scientific understanding is socially constructed, this research will provide both a theoretical rationale and practical model for building sense-making communities in the science slassroom. It will characterize specific sense-making practices which engender the development of scientific understanding in language minority students. In addition, through its focus on biology, it will contribute to an emerging knowledge base on conceptual change in biology.//