Internet and social media platforms such as YouTube are an emblem of information on demand, but, their educative value, especially for conceptually rich domains, such as science, remains unclear. ...Many people perceive YouTube as a good resource for learning about science, yet viewing many of the available videos can be akin to learning through transmission models, which are considered inferior when they are the sole form of instruction. The goal of this study was to examine whether YouTube's embedded feature of posting (post-video) comments could mitigate these limitations, and offer a potential educative added-value by opening opportunities for discussion and deliberation, which have been associated with deeper learning. Focusing on Science as a target domain, we examined 1530 post-video public comments from a corpus of leading science channels. We coded the comments for argumentative and knowledge construction moves, and tested whether particular moves led to higher-level knowledge construction. Our findings reveal that this informal setting reflected comments that went beyond information sharing to argumentative negotiation, reaching a higher level of knowledge construction, and yielding a greater proportion of such comments that have been found in previous studies within formal settings. This study demonstrates that YouTube can offer an informal space for science deliberation and a forum for collaborative interactions that have a potential to support life-long learning. Implications for future research are discussed.
•Web 2.0 and Social media offer productive resources for ongoing science learning.•Shared content on YouTube can be discussed in post-video comments threads.•Post-video comments create an opportunity for argumentative deliberation.•Collaborative deliberation in post-video comments is stimulated by disagreements.•Incorporation of grounds as part of a comment mediates constructive interactions.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
The substantive and the political are part of most educational endeavors. Researchers tend to be cast as more powerful in interactions between research and practice. This structural historical ...hierarchy is at the backdrop of research-practice partnerships (RPP) and threatens to marginalize practitioners' perspectives. Drawing on Bakhtin and Goffman and responding to a set of papers that transcend these structural constraints, I propose productive tension between alterity and affinity as a framework for analyzing and designing equitable and generative RPP. In broaching different design goals, set in different contexts, and employing different strategies, the papers in this special issue each depict a productive RPP in which all participants were able to contribute and influence each other, as well as advance efficacious and just educational programs. Part of RPPs' contribution is having the values and practices of both research and practice intermingle and shape educational design and enactment. Therefore, what is needed is an interactional structure that invites participants to draw on their communities of affiliation while establishing a climate in which interactions operate on a level plane and each participant's perspective is invited and valued, but open to face-saving modifications. I suggest that such conditions arise from a productive tension in the dialectic between alterity-the distinction between research and practice-and affinity-the kinship and identification with shared goals between research and practice.
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BFBNIB, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
How children seek knowledge and evaluate claims may depend on their understanding of the source of knowledge. What shifts in their understandings about why scientists might disagree and how claims ...about the state of the world are justified? Until about the age of 41/2, knowledge is seen as self-evident. Children believe that knowledge of reality comes directly through our senses and what others tell us. They appeal to these external sources in order to know. The attainment of Theory of Mind (ToM) at this age is commonly seen as the significant shift in development in understanding disagreements in knowledge claims. Children attaining ToM understand that someone exposed to incorrect or incomplete information might have false beliefs. Disagreement, then, is still attributed to objective sources of knowledge. The current study examines the later developing Interpretive Theory of Mind (iToM) as the basis for children’s understanding of how people with access to the same information might disagree and what this means for how to provide justification for a knowledge claim. Fourteen 2nd graders with the most iToM responses to four tasks and 14 with the fewest iToM responses were selected from a larger sample of 91. In analyses of interviews about a story in which two experts make different claims about a scientific phenomenon, those in the high iToM group noted subjective perspective and processes as the source of disagreement and suggested the need for investigation as the means to knowing. In contrast, those in the low iToM group mostly could not explain the source of disagreement and held that knowledge is acquired from external sources. A comparison of the interviews regarding the science story 2 years later allows for a qualitative description of the development. Those in the low iToM group showed more general recognition of subjective and constructive processes in knowing whereas those in the high iToM group identified interpretive processes and the relativity of perspectives with implications for how observations were conducted and interpreted. Only those in the high iToM group referred to the importance of evidence as a basis for knowledge claims at either point in the study.
It would be easier to navigate our information world if we had a navigational system to guide us. Absent such a system, the authors of the five articles in this special issue propose different ways ...to help learners engage with scientific information, in light of the post-truth condition. I suggest that the contribution of these articles lies in their emphasis on encouraging deliberation-oriented practices, and in presenting a qualified view of science. I further argue that greater knowledge of this qualified science, as well as privileging science, may be necessary components. In order to have an impact on learners' lives, I encourage adopting a framework of mastery and appropriation, and giving greater attention to issues of appropriation.
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BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Is public engagement with science deliberative and evidence‐based? The public is often perceived as underprepared to use data and susceptible to partisan and emotional manipulation. Consequently, ...educational efforts focus on the ability to identify reliable information. We posit that effective engagement with science goes beyond this and hinges on data literacy. We leveraged the unique circumstances of COVID‐19, where diverse people inundated with pandemic‐related data representations in the media needed to make consequential decisions, to examine whether people use data and what factors affect such use. In a survey of a representative Israeli adult sample, participants reported their information habits and beliefs before and during COVID‐19. On being presented with graphs and datasets, they answered data literacy and COVID‐19‐related functional reasoning assessments (e.g., would you travel abroad?). Data literacy distinguished those who incorporated data from those who did not. Yet, participants incorporated moral, social, and economic considerations at all data literacy levels, suggesting that people may be deliberative even when they do not attend to quantified data. Moreover, participants' trust in science and data interpretation competence were key factors mediating the relationship between self‐efficacy in data interpretation skills and the incorporation of data in reasoning. The findings extend beyond COVID‐19 to a broader understanding of the factors influencing public engagement with quantitative representations. Rather than focusing solely on remediating data interpretation, we suggest that educative efforts work on multiple fronts and that cultivating trust in science is key to a broader, more deliberative engagement with science.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
This study aimed to map and characterize public engagement with science on YouTube. A two-part study was conducted. First, we collected and quantitatively analyzed trending videos on YouTube to ...evaluate the magnitude of public interaction with science content. Then, we assessed actual, rather than self-reports of, media interactions with science-related YouTube trending videos. We tested associations between behavioral engagement of viewing, liking, disliking or commenting, and emotional and cognitive engagement. Our findings affirm that science content attracts high public interest and that emotional and cognitive engagement with science on social media are distinct, but interrelated. We show that regardless of the valence of emotional engagement, emotion is linked to greater behavioral engagement of posting comments and to greater cognitive engagement of argumentative deliberation. Therefore, our findings suggest that social media interactions, which tend to evoke emotional responses, are a promising means of advancing person-to-person engagement with science.
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In this article, I examine distributed scaffolding, an emerging approach in the design of supports for rich learning environments intended to help students develop disciplinary ways of knowing, ...doing, and communicating. Distributed scaffolding incorporates multiple forms of support that are provided through different means to address the complex and diverse learning needs that arise in such settings. I synthesize research to date to articulate three patterns of distributed scaffolding and the pedagogical considerations that they target. I introduce synergy as a pattern that has not received much attention in the past. Synergy refers to the characteristic that different components of distributed scaffolding, such as software supports and teacher coaching, address the same learning need and interact with each other to produce a robust form of support. I illustrate this pattern through classroom examples and discuss the scaffolding functions that it can fulfill. I conclude with implications for the principled design of distributed scaffolding.
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BFBNIB, NMLJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
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