Science and Children—Fall 2023
(Volume 60, Issue 7)
By William Sandoval, Jon Kovach, Leticia Perez, Lynn Kim-John, and Jarod Kawasaki
We have been working for nearly two decades with teachers across all grade bands to promote productive argumentation. From this experience, and those of others interested in the same goals, we have extracted a simple strategy for promoting and supporting productive argumentation wherever it arises during students’ engagement in science and engineering practices (SEPs). Organizing and guiding arguments over a full range of science practices not only helps students learn important disciplinary concepts, but also to understand how science really works.