Renegotiating the Classroom Environment
to Support Teaching for Scientific Literacy

Specific activities of teaching in the classroom	Interpretation of activities (initial context)	Interpretation of activities (intended context)
the teacher asks questions of the students	questions imply evaluation, monitoring, and efforts to control students	quesions seek clarification and elaboration of students' ideas
a single student engages in an extended disucssion with the teacher	suggests that the student must misunderstand or has the wrong idea	suggests that the student has something uniquely valuable to share
most of the class waits while the teacher spends a lot of time talking to another student	this kind of treatment is unfair to the rest of the students	this kind of situation is an opporunity for other students to listen and learn from someone other than the teacher
teacher conducts a classroom discussion with entire class
teacher assigns homework
teacher presents student with a non-directed laboratory exercise
teacher administers a test
teacher requires students to work cooperatively
teacher requires students to present findings from a research project to the entire clas
teacher presents subject matter in a context-rich historical manner
teacher uses inquiry practices rather than expository methods
teacher assigns a Problem-based Learning exercise
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