From Stories to Science: An Exploration Guide to Promote Epistemic Practices in Primary School

Abstract

AbstractInterdisciplinary approaches between science and literature can increase students’ interest and promote the development of essential skills. However, studies report that interdisciplinary approaches are still scarce and that teachers do not feel confident to implement those. To overcome this problem, we developed an exploration guide (EG) to support teachers in the planning and implementation of interdisciplinary practices that articulate scientific and literary education. We aim to know if this EG can impact teachers’ mediation (TM) and students’ epistemic practices (EP). We recorded three lessons planned and implemented by the teacher: one before being introduced to the EG and two using the EG. We organized the data through multimodal narratives (MN) and performed content analysis of these MN to identify TM and EP. A cluster analysis was performed to study the relationship between the TM and students’ EP. The results, show that the EG impacted TM, facilitating the development of students’ EP. The main contribute of this study is that EG was useful for the teacher to articulate science and literature. EG impacted her TM with new TM traits emerging in the classroom, increasing the frequency and diversity of students’ EP.KeywordsScientific educationMultimodal narrativesLiterary educationInterdisciplinarityTeachers’ mediationTeachers’ professional development