Towards a Democratic Society: Debating and Argumentation in Math and Science Education
Argumentation has been identified with the language people should use while reasoning. Argumentation is a collective cognitive development process which involves using evidence to support or refute a particular claim, coordinating the claims with evidence to make an argument, forming a judgment of scientific knowledge claims, and identifying reliable and consensual scientific knowledge (Chen & She, 2012).
The terms argument and argumentation reflect the two senses in which the term argument is used, as both product and process. An individual constructs an argument to support a claim. The dialogic process in which two or more people engage in debate of opposing claims can be referred to as argumentation or argumentative discourse to distinguish it from argument as product (Kuhn & Udell, 2003). Research findings showed that classroom argumentation improved students’ rational informal reasoning and conceptual understanding (Venville & Dawson, 2010). As well, the progressive adoption of argumentative practices in education seems to increase students’ motivation and beliefs towards their democratic citizenship roles in their society (Mirza & Clerment, 2009).
It was evident that insufficient teaching and learning of argumentation in science and math education lead to inability of students and even graduates to provide evidence and justification to some of their claims to natural and real world (Durant, Evans & Thomas, 1989).
Considering Mathematics education, it is essential to consider the nature of the interactions that occur in the mathematics classroom (Yackel,2000). Research found that explicit attention to classroom social and sociomathematical norms and to classroom discourse can result in advancing children’s development of mathematical argumentation (Cobb, Wood, Yackel, & McNeal, 1992). As children learn to explain and justify their thinking to others, they develop intellectual autonomy, and in the process, mathematical power.
For a long time, argumentation has been regarded as one of the key components of contemporary science education (AAAS, 1993; National Research Council (NRC), 1996). In recent years, Toulmin’s definition of argument has been widely applied as a methodological tool in characterization of teaching and learning process in the science classroom as well as pedagogical and learning tool (Osborne, Eduran, Simon, 2004)
The twentieth-century British philosopher Stephen Toulmin noticed that good, realistic arguments typically will consist of six parts (Toulmin, 1969). He used these terms to describe the items. 1) Data: The facts or evidence used to prove the argument. 2) Claim: The statement being argued (a thesis). 3) Warrants: The general, hypothetical (and often implicit) logical statements that serve as bridges between the claim and the data. 4) Qualifiers: Statements that limit the strength of the argument or statements that propose the conditions under which the argument is true. 5) Rebuttals: Counter-arguments or statements indicating circumstances when the general argument does not hold true. 6) Backing: Statements that serve to support the warrants (i.e., arguments that don’t necessarily prove the main point being argued, but which do prove the warrants are true.) In the Mind The Gap Project, Toulmin’s frame has been used to support teachers in introducing argumentation in the classroom (Jimenez- Aleixandre et al, 2009).
Through using all the steps of the argumentation process, students will be using their researching , critical thinking and communication skills. Through debating, teachers must reinforce the concept of open-mindedness, since, even in scientific facts there exist two opposite versions with respect to different frames of references (Karameh & Chatila, 2014). This practice would boost students’ acceptance to different points of views fortifying the democratic environment and decreasing risks of conflicts among each others.
Debating and argumentation teaching strategies are one of the most prerequisite teaching learning strategies in our Lebanese Context. By effective implementation, these strategies would prepare a democratic citizen who accepts logical scientific claims, and respects others’ points of views.
