Knowing and Interacting: A Study of Culture, Practices, and Resources in a Grade 8 Open-Inquiry Science Classroom Guided by a Cognitive Apprenticeship Metaphor

Abstract

In this investigation, we analyzed the processes of knowing and interacting in an open-inquiry learning environment that was planned and implemented by teachers who used the metaphor of cognitive apprenticeship as a referent. Based on detailed analyses of students' conversations, we documented the construction of and changes in Grade 8 students' understandings as they engaged in inquiries for which they planned focus questions, designed data collection procedures, and interpreted the findings. Through their interactions, the students also arrived at private meanings that they did not report in their findings and that were often overlooked by teachers who used static end-of-unit tests to measure student learning. In conducting their inquiries, students successfully negotiated courses of actions and established group structures through which they organized their interactions. Formal and informal interactions between students and research groups facilitated the formation of networks that contributed to the quick diffusion of knowledge necessary in the construction of a community of knowers. Each of these analytic dimensions is amply documented by data from the observed classrooms. Classroom implications of the findings are discussed.