New Perspectives in Science Education

A corpus of transcriptions of science and engineering lectures was built, and pedagogical functions in them were identified. Transcriptions of lectures related to basic science courses (Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Mathematics) were downloaded from MIT OpenCourseware (MIT OCW, http://ocw.mit. edu/index.htm) and those of more specialized engineering lectures (Information Science, Advanced Mathematics, and Robotics) from Stanford Engineering Everywhere (SEE, http://see.stanford.edu/). A total of 431 lecture transcriptions, as of November 2013, were compiled as OnCAL (Online Corpus of Academic Lectures, http://www.oncal.sci.waseda.ac.jp). Expressions that teachers use frequently for each pedagogical function were identified, so that users of OnCAL can see how the functions are actually realized in classroom spoken language.

The OnCAL interface was designed to allow users to easily search for words or expressions, and see how they are used in lectures. The interface also allows users to discover other functionalities in an intuitive way: users can easily restrict the searches to one specific field of study, or to the set of undergraduate courses, for example. Links to the videorecordings of the lectures, which are available in MIT OCW and SEE, are provided to allow users to check pronunciation, rhythm, gestures of the teacher, or how the spoken mode is combined with the use of the blackboard.

Important pedagogical functions were defined from an analysis of the corpus and from the literature. For example, “link to previous content” is a pedagogical function that appears in lectures when teachers explain new concepts using or citing content that was presented previously. This is one of the ways through which “pedagogical link-making” [1] is realized. Expressions like “as I mentioned before”, or “last time we saw that” are typical of this function, which links new ideas to previous ones and is important for promoting continuity in the teaching/learning process. Users of OnCAL who select this pedagogical function and press “Search” can see many examples actually uttered by teachers to realize the selected function in the classroom. Users can get insights from the examples displayed.

Because the role of language in science education is known to be important [2], and “clarity, classroom management, cognitive activation, and structuredness have an impact” on the quality of instruction [3], we believe that OnCAL can be explored for improving instruction practice and comprehension of lectures. Teachers and students of science and engineering, especially those who are non-native speakers of English (NNS) may obtain from OnCAL many insights about how to deliver or listen to lectures.

[1]   Scott, P., Mortimer, E., & Ametller, J. Pedagogical link-making: a fundamental aspect of teaching and learning scientific conceptual knowledge. Studies in Science Education, 47(1), 3–36 (2011).

[2]   Gee, J. P. Language in the science classroom: academic social languages as the heart of school-based literacy. In E. W. Saul (ed.), Crossing borders in literacy and science instruction. Arlington: National Science Teachers Association Press, pp. 13–32, 2004.

[3]   Neumann, K., Kauertz, A., & Fischer, H. E. Quality of instruction in science education. In B. J. Fraser, K. G. Tobin, & C. J. McRobbie (eds.), Second Handbook of Science Education. Heidelberg: Springer, pp. 247–258, 2012.