Discussions and Argumentation in Science Teaching: Teaching Practices and Challenges

Scientific discussions in school classrooms are recent and scarce globally, with teaching characterized by unproductive patterns of interrogation-response-evaluation. Hence, knowing what can facilitate productive and argumentative discussions in science classrooms is critical. This study systematically reviews the literature and finds that such practices have dialogic/interactive purposes, assign roles, and specify participation structures, discourses, and teaching practices. The works re-viewed also identify challenges in the curriculum, teacher education, and teacher beliefs in facilitating scientific discussions. Implications address pre-service and in-service teacher education, suggesting the inclusion of scientific argumentation, reinforcing scientific knowledge, and working on teacher beliefs about argumentation.