FORMATIVE-HOME CULTURAL INFLUENCES OF SCIENTIFIC SENSE-MAKING: A CASE STUDY ON THE AFFORDANCES OF PEDAGOGICAL “BIO MECHANISTIC THOROUGHNESS” (“BMT”)

Abstract

Science education research continues to struggle with clarifying the formative-home culturally pedagogical merits of everyday, vs formal science vocabulary focused, classroom discourse (ex. Hammer, et al, 2005; Warren et al, 2001). More broadly, cross-contextual cultural pedagogical efficacy is a resonant aim for education scholar-practitioners in general, regardless of topic (ex. Chazan, 2000; Howard, et al, 2017). While a bio-mechanically thorough (BMT) methodological lens could offer robust theoretical insight into these questions, such an application has yet to become widely evident. In this dissertation, I apply a bio-experimental theoretically based case study approach (Yin, 1989) to interrogate the BMT-causal African-American cultural dynamics of two science sense-making transcripts.

The first transcript (2010) featured a first year cohort of teachers as they engaged in the same science sense-making discourse that we researcher-trainers aimed for them elicit in their classrooms. Findings indicate that, from a BMT-aligned perspective, the learning practices of the two African-American (formative-home) cultural participants (out of 5), indeed evinced signatures of their formative-home culture’s discursive-behavioral influence. The second transcript (2012) featured a first year cohort of teachers as they engaged in a facilitated science sense-making structure identical to that applied in 2010. Again, BMT-informed findings indicate that the learning practices of the three African-American participants (out of 6) showed signatures of said culture’s motivating impact. Further notably, relative to the first (2010) context, the 2012 cohort evinced markedly more on-topic discursive-learning per unit time.

This dissertation models the affordances of a BMT-aligned case study lens (Yin, 1989) for understanding the culturally causal dynamics of productive sense-making. Results suggest that the distinction between the two transcript outcomes rooted in a deeper sense of ‘starting familiarity' or 'communalism' amongst the focal cultural participants in the 2012 group, a factor shown to uniquely resonate among African-American learners (ex. Boykin, 1994; Seiler, 2001). These findings demonstrate how science sense-making educational contexts that cultivate 'everyday', thus including formative-home culturally rooted, discourse can facilitate learning. This model can inform the development of cross-contextually robust forums for sense-making based teacher-preparatory policy, regardless of topic.