TY - JOUR
T1 - The teacher as partner
T2 - Exploring participant structures, symmetry, and identity work in scaffolding
AU - Tabak, Iris
AU - Baumgartner, Eric
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was funded in part by Spencer Dissertation Fellowships to Iris Tabak and Eric Baumgartner and by a Rashi Guastala Fellowship for the Advancement of Science Education and a Mandel Fellowship for Research in Education to Iris Tabak. The reported projects were funded by Grant 97 57 from the James S. McDonnell Foundation to Brian J. Reiser (BGuILE) and by Grant ESI–9353833 from the National Science Foundation to R. P. H. Chang (MWM). The opinions expressed here are ours and do not necessarily represent the views of these foundations or projects. We thank the participating students and teachers for welcoming us into their classrooms and for so generously sharing their thoughts and experiences. We thank Lindsay Cornelius, Jackie Gray, Leslie Herrenkohl, Janet Kolodner, and Joseph Polman for comments on earlier drafts. Thanks to Ayelet Dekel for her thoughts on Bakhtin. We also thank Zvi Bekerman for helpful discussions and Linda Patton for providing invaluable insights on teaching. The anonymous reviewers and the editors, Richard Lehrer and Annemarie Sullivan Palincsar, provided thoughtful comments for which we are grateful. For further information concerning the BGuILE and MWM projects, please consult their Web sites at http://www. letus.org/bguile/ and www.materialsworldmodules.org
PY - 2004/1/1
Y1 - 2004/1/1
N2 - In this article, we examine the role that different participant structures can play in supporting inquiry-based science learning. We frame mastering scientific inquiry as mastering the "what," "why," and "how" of the cultural tools that scientists employ. We present a participant structure we call the teacher as partner and show how it renders the what, why, and how visible while establishing symmetry between teachers and students. We draw on Wertsch's (1998) distinction between mastery, gaining proficiency with a cultural tool, and appropriation, making a tool one's own, to show that the partner participant structure contributes to both. Thus, we propose that the teacher as partner serve as a generative metaphor for inquiry teaching in responding to current calls to consider identity formation as well as subject-matter learning in formal schooling. We hope that it invites research on instructional moves that can demystify the process of science and help students identify themselves as ratified participants who can contend with scientific issues as citizens.
AB - In this article, we examine the role that different participant structures can play in supporting inquiry-based science learning. We frame mastering scientific inquiry as mastering the "what," "why," and "how" of the cultural tools that scientists employ. We present a participant structure we call the teacher as partner and show how it renders the what, why, and how visible while establishing symmetry between teachers and students. We draw on Wertsch's (1998) distinction between mastery, gaining proficiency with a cultural tool, and appropriation, making a tool one's own, to show that the partner participant structure contributes to both. Thus, we propose that the teacher as partner serve as a generative metaphor for inquiry teaching in responding to current calls to consider identity formation as well as subject-matter learning in formal schooling. We hope that it invites research on instructional moves that can demystify the process of science and help students identify themselves as ratified participants who can contend with scientific issues as citizens.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=10844286203&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1207/s1532690xci2204_2
DO - 10.1207/s1532690xci2204_2
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:10844286203
SN - 0737-0008
VL - 22
SP - 393
EP - 429
JO - Cognition and Instruction
JF - Cognition and Instruction
IS - 4
ER -