How do you eat an elephant? Scaffolding argumentation through guided inquiry among underrepresented
- Amy F. Salter
- Aug 16, 2016
- 1 min read
How do you eat an elephant? One small piece at a time. This age old saying rings true for students and teachers alike as they integrate argument-based inquiry experiences into their classroom learning models. Rather than digesting all of the suggested 8 steps of argument-drive inquiry (ADI), teachers and students should approach argumentation through scaffolding to support learners as they develop claims and practice justifying their claims with evidence. Given that argumentation is a higher order cognitive skill that is central to reasoning (Kuhn et al, 2013), it is necessary to acknowledge that it is a seemingly more challenging skill to develop. So let's be realistic. It may be to the benefit of the child if we take our time developing argumentation skills regardless of which inquiry based argumentation task we use.
