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From “context” to “active contextualization”: Fostering learner agency in contextualizing learning through science news reporting

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Abstract

Learning context has been an important focus of research and pedagogy-related discussions in education. However, despite increasing efforts to contextualize content and pedagogical processes, context has been often conceptualized as a static input variable framed by teachers, textbooks and instructional designers, as opposed to the learners themselves. In this paper, we draw from our design-based research on STEM literacy and focus on the notion of active contextualization of students' learning. We reframe context as a continuous and interactive learning activity that is facilitated by learner agency in authentic learning environments. We focus on the iterative process of “contextualizing learning” and present cases where secondary school students engaged in active contextualization during their participation in authentic science news reporting. The study provides a new perspective for designing learning environments and delineates elements of active contextualization.

Introduction

An important trend in education in recent years is the increasing recognition, by researchers and educators, of the need to move beyond teaching of concepts and facts to incorporate authentic practices and everyday life of students in learning and instruction (Bennett, Lubben, & Hogarth, 2007; Kuhn, 2010; Silseth, 2018). In the case of science literacy, for example, Duschl (2008) suggested using the “cultural imperative”—the integrated fabric of the society and the community that learners live in. Integrating the culture and context of the students with their learning brings to the fore the “social and epistemic dimensions that are embedded in the growth, evaluation, representation, and communication of STEM knowledge and practices” (Duschl, 2008, p. 268).

Among the challenges of science education in secondary schools is fostering students' appreciation of the value of science in their lives and involving them in the approaches and methods that scientists use when making scientific claims or solving problems (e.g., DeBoer, 2000; Hurd, 1998). The omission of students' everyday life from science teaching and learning has often resulted in undue emphasis on isolated facts, lack of relevance and transfer of knowledge, and content overload for the learners (Gilbert, 2006). In order to address this challenge, researchers suggest a context-oriented approach to teaching and learning (Bronkhorst & Akkerman, 2016; Gilje & Erstad, 2017; Hand & Prain, 2006). However, despite continuous efforts to consider context in designing learning and instruction, a) there is no consensus on what context constitutes and how it can be framed in various learning environments, and b) oftentimes in classrooms, teachers frame the learning context with limited agency for learners.

By way of addressing the above-mentioned challenges, Erstad and colleagues (e.g., Gilje & Erstad, 2017; Silseth, 2018; Silseth & Erstad, 2018; Wiig, Silseth, & Erstad, 2018) have considered a sociocultural perspective to the design of learning environments and examined how teachers attend to and incorporate everyday life and out of school practices of students in their teaching. The researchers referred to this effort as “contextualizing instruction”, which is defined as “using students' everyday knowledge as cultural and cognitive resources to guide their learning and support their motivation and conceptual understanding as they encounter academic topics, issues, and concepts” (Silseth, 2018, p. 293). Contextualizing instruction builds on the notion of connecting everyday ideas and experience of learners to scientific and academic practices that traditionally take place in schools. In their study of the resources that teachers orient to when contextualizing instruction, Silseth and Erstad (2018) reported that secondary school teachers use resources such as characteristics of local community, everyday practices and personal issues of students and travel experiences. While it is a step forward, contextualizing instruction is what teachers do in their instructional planning and enactment. To a certain extent, it depends on teachers' knowledge and understanding of learners' everyday life practices, which is not always easy when there are many students in a classroom.

In this paper, we extend the idea of contextualization one step further and examine how students actively and continuously contextualize their learning. This extension is from contextualizing instruction to contextualizing learning and the study focuses on the nature and extent of students' active contextualization during their engagement in a science literacy project. Students often bring unique experience and background to a learning environment that is likely to influence their appropriation of new knowledge. Bronkhorst and Akkerman (2016) identified three reasons for learner agency and active contextualization: the unique and specific background of individual learners, the personal and interest-based appropriation of learning experiences, and the changing and less predictable nature of what is to be learned for students to fit into (professional) communities. We contend that contextualizing learning should entail much more than dealing with the nature and relevance of content in the classroom or a teacher providing good examples to facilitate the potential future transfer of learning for students. It rather should involve learners' active engagement in authentic practices of building on their everyday life, understanding and using scientific reasoning to explain phenomenon around them, and making connections to issues of personal and societal concern that go well beyond the immediate school environment.

Accordingly, we engaged secondary school students in creating and reporting authentic infographic-based science news and, in the process, examined how students contextualize the different phases of their engagement as it relates to both their learning and their everyday life. More specifically, we answer the research question, “In what ways does design of a learning environment centered on learner agency and authentic science news reporting foster active contextualization of learning experience?” In the process of answering the research question, this paper reframes the notion of context as an interactive process and student-oriented learning activity. It also identifies elements of learning environments that facilitate active contextualization. By focusing on active contextualization and student agency, the study provides a new and unique perspective for learning scientists who try to understand the role and influence of learning context.

Section snippets

Context and learning: a brief review

Contextualization of content and pedagogical approaches has been a focal issue in education for the last three decades (Beach, 1999; Gilbert, 2006; Hofstein, Eilks, & Bybee, 2011; Silseth, 2018; Silseth & Erstad, 2018). Both practical and theoretical considerations have contributed to this emphasis on contextualization. Educational researchers and practitioners correctly observed, as a “problem of practice”, the lack of connection between students' knowledge of science and their ability to

Learning as active contextualization

The conceptual framework for active contextualization builds on the continuous, inter-contextual and authentic nature of learning (Edwards, 2009; Polman, 2012) and rejects the idea that learning happens in a given classroom or context and then is transferred to another context or real-life situation for application. Edwards (2009) argued that learning is a result of “practices of contextualization rather than simply emerging within a context” (p. 3). A logical question then is, “what does a

Research context and participants

Collaborative Infographics for Science Literacy (CISL) was a design-based project funded by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) with the purpose of fostering secondary school students' STEM literacy through collaboratively creating science news infographics. Infographics (short for information graphics) are visual representations of data and ideas mainly used in public media for general audiences rather than for a scientific community (Gebre & Polman, 2016; Polman & Gebre, 2015).

Description of cases

We first present brief descriptions of four infographics or student projects stating what each infographic was about. Then, we explicate how the student authors engaged in and addressed the process of active contextualization when producing these infographics. The four infographics are entitled “Cauliflower ear”, “Shark attacks in the US”, “The science behind hair relaxers” and “When do you pay for smoking?”.

  • “Cauliflower Ear”: Researching a wrestler's personal experience (“Cauliflower ear” for

Discussion

Designing learning environments that are “consequential” to learners and their appropriation of knowledge requires a) using their everyday life issues as important resource and problem space for their learning and b) moving away from a static view of context as a variable and considering students' active contextualization of their learning and engagement. In other words, rather than context being something set up by teachers and one that students are expected to transfer or apply

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by the the US National Science Foundation (NSF), [grant number IIS-1217052 and IIS-1441561].

Declaration of competing interest

There is no conflict of interest in this study.

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