Instructional Strategy for Introducing Argument into Science Education: Focusing on IDEAS Project

Abstract

In this study, four perspectives and concrete instructional strategies are clarified through the analysis of IDEAS project. The perspectives and strategies are needed to introduce argument into science classrooms. The perspectives consist of "Understanding of importance of argument", "Understanding of learning environments", "Understanding of structure of learning tasks" and "Understanding of teaching skills". Furthermore, some strategies are analyzed from points of three instructional settings: 1) introducing argument, 2) developing argument and 3) evaluating argument. These strategies are as follows. 1) In the first setting, the strategies are "introducing contents of argument to students in easier teams", "instructing students in the requirement of argument explicitly" and "providing the appropriate tasks for promoting argument". 2) In the second setting, the strategies are "providing students resources for constructing argument" and "introducing roleplaying in the classroom". 3) In the third setting, the strategies are "evaluating the form of argument" and "evaluating the quality of argument".