Spatiotemporal relationships in science lessons: Building learning opportunities over time

Abstract

AbstractIn this study, we investigated the construction of science learning opportunities focusing on space−time relationships. Guided by ethnography in education, we followed the everyday life of a classroom over their three first years at elementary school. Based on macroanalysis, we examined discursive interactions in temporally distant events and how participants built relationships between these events. Verbal tense, agents in narratives, and relations between texts/contexts guided microanalyses. Results indicate that teacher and students evoked space−time relationships that become an epistemic tool for this class. These relationships structured narratives which the actor in scientific inquiry was the class as a group. Moreover, space−time connections provided articulations between the conceptual, epistemic, and social domains of scientific knowledge in science lessons over time. We discuss methodological contributions of the study, in addition to implications for positioning students as epistemic agents in science learning.