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Scaffolding Students in Writing Evidence-Based Scientific Explanations

Joe Krajcik, University of Michigan (Click name for speaker's biography)
Friday, January 27, 2006
1:00-2:30pm LOCATION: BSB 2019

Developing evidence-based explanations is a critical aspect of science. Recent science reform documents and efforts advocate that students develop scientific inquiry practices, such as the construction and communication of scientific explanations. Although many science classrooms have students engage in hands-on activities where students experience phenomena, many classrooms fall short when it comes to students thinking critically about data and scientific principles to construct explanations. In this session, I will present a model to scaffold middle school science students in creating scientific evidence-based explanations. The explanation framework is made explicit to students and includes scaffolds in both the student and teacher materials to facilitate students' in their understanding and construction of scientific explanations. I will share findings from two studies. These studies focus on 7th grade students' scientific explanations during the enactment of a project-based chemistry unit where the construction of scientific explanations is a key learning goal. The first study explores how students make use of evidence in writing explanations. The second study examines different types of scaffolds to assist students in writing explanations.

Powerpoint Presentation (pdf format): krajcik_060127.pdf

Audio File:
ss_krajcik_060127.mp3 29 MB

Quicktime Movie
(Right Click/Control Click & Save to download):
90 Minutes (154 MB)