Internet Environments for Science Education

6Promoting Students’ Argument Construction and Collaborative Debate in the Science Classroom

Philip BellUniversity of Washington

The focus of this chapter is to detail how students were supported in argumentation and debate as they explored information from the Web and what was learned in the process. Students were provided with various forms of educational infrastructure to support their argumentation and debate. To the degree possible, connections are made between the design that was enacted in the classroom and the outcomes observed. In this way, readers will be able to understand what in the learning environment contributed, in complex ways, to the observed student learning and interaction.

Argumentation and collaborative debate are central ...