Productive disciplinary engagement as a recursive process: Initial engagement in a scientific investigation as a resource for deeper engagement in the scientific discipline

Abstract

Engle and Conant (2002) show how productive disciplinary engagement (PDE) for students can be attained through learning environments structured to support problematizing subject matter, give students authority to address content problems, hold students accountable to others and disciplinary norms, and provide students with resources. This paper considers how one classroom's involvement in a scientific investigation embodied and extended the PDE framework. In this U.S. based classroom, 5th grade non-native and English language learning students engaged in scientific inquiry and contributed their findings to a greater scientific community. This paper proposes that these students experienced PDE at both initial and deeper levels, where students’ initial PDE in scientific activities served as a resource for PDE at a more discipline-specific level.