Journal Articles Doris Ash

In progress

Ash, D. Lombana, L., Mai, T. & Owen, A. (under review) A research-based professional development scaffolding curriculum for museum educators: The REFLECTS Model. submitted to Curator.

Ash, D. (in revision). After the Jigsaw is over: Developing Dialogic Argumentation Strategies about Socio-ecological Dilemmas in a Socially Complex Classroom. Cultural Studies in Science Edcuation.

Ash, D. (in revision). Making sense of living things: The need for both essentialism and activity theory. Journal of the Learning Sciences.

Ash, D. Lombana, J. & Mai, T. (in preparation).  Museum Educators as change agents: Re-examining the theory and practice of scaffolding in informal learning settings by focusing on shared responsibility. To be submitted to Science Education.

Published
Ash, D. (2007). Thematic continuities: Talking and thinking about adaptation in a socially complex urban classroom. Journal for Research in Science Teaching

This paper is a treatise on the origins and function of complex biological thematic content (thematic continuities) in the urban FCL classroom. I address thematic content origins within cognitive development, development over time in the classroom, and I discuss how thematic continuities are foundational for understanding adaptation. I also discuss the tensions surrounding everyday, hybrid, and scientific understandings, and outline how thematic continuities set the stage for understanding adaptation.

Ash, D. (2004). Reflective scientific sense-making dialogue in two languages: The science in the dialogue and the dialogue in the science. Science Education 88: 855-884.

In this paper I focus on the transition from everyday to scientific ways of reasoning, and on the intertwined roles of meaning-making dialogue and science content as they contribute to scientific literacy. I refer to views of science, and how scientific understanding is advanced dialogically.

Ash, D. (2004). How families use questions at dioramas: Ideas for exhibit design. Curator 47(1), 84-100.

         This paper explores the role of questioning in scientific meaning-making as families talk, look and gesture in front of realistic and artful dioramas at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. The focus is on the ways questioning can either enable movement towards scientific understanding or hinder such progress. The socio-cultural framework of this research emphasizes Vygotsky's interpretation of the zone of proximal development (zpd).           

Ash, D. (2003). Dialogic inquiry of family groups in a science museum. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 40(2), 138 - 162.

This research illustrates the efficacy of a new approach for collecting and analyzing family conversational data at museums and other informal settings. This article offers a detailed examination of a small data set (three families) that informs a larger body of work that focuses on conversation as methodology. The dialogic content of this work centers on biological themes, specifically adaptation.

Ash D. (2003). Dialogic inquiry and biological themes and principles: Implications for exhibit design. Journal of Museum Education 28(1), 8-13.

This research illustrates the efficacy of a new approach for collecting and analyzing family conversational data at museums and other informal settings. This article offers a detailed examination of a small data set (three families) that informs a larger body of work that focuses on conversation as methodology. The dialogic content of this work centers on biological themes, specifically adaptation.

Ash, D., Crain, R., Brandt, C., Loomis, M., Wheaton, M., Bennett, C. (in press). Talk, Tools, and Tensions in Informal Science: Tool for Observing Biological Talk Over Time. International Journal for Science Education.

The goal of this study is to explore new tools for analyzing scientific sense-making in out-of-school settings. Although such measures are now common in science classroom research, dialogically based methodological approaches are relatively new to informal learning research. Such out-of-classroom settings have more recently become a breeding ground for new design approaches for tracking scientific talk and ideas within complex data-sets. The research reported here seeks to understand the language people do use to make sense of the life sciences.

Ash, D., Loomis, M., & Hohenstein, J. (2005). "What does it eat?": Questions as resources for bilingual families making sense of science in a Marine Discovery Center. Sinectica 26, 51-64.

Ash, D., & Levitt, K. (2003). Working within the zone of proximal development: formative assessment as professional development, Journal of Science Teacher Education 14(1), 23-48.

Paris, S. G., & Ash, D. (2002). Reciprocal theory building inside and outside museums. Curator. 43: (3) 199-210.

Ash, D. (2007). Using video data to capture discontinuous science meaning making in non-school settings. In Video Research in the Learning Sciences. Peter Lang Press.

This chapter is part of a major new text on the use of digital media in the learning sciences. My chapter covers how to collect and analyze complex digital data in a newly emerging field in informal learning settings. Many foremost researchers in the field (Barron, Callanan, Derry, Goldman, Pea, Rogoff, W.M. Roth) are included as authors. This chapter is the culmination of my hard-won experience in museums and aquariums since receiving the PhD, specifically outlining the importance of a theoretical framework for designing research methodologies.

Published Chapters

• Ash, D., & Wells, G. (2006). Dialogic inquiry in classroom and museum: Actions, tools and talk. In Z. Bekerman, N.C.
• Burbules & D.S. Keller (Eds), Learning in places: The informal education reader. New York: Peter Lang Publishers.
• Ash, D. (2002). Negotiation of biological thematic conversations about biology. In G. Leinhardt, K. Crowley, & K. Knutson (Eds.), Learning conversations in museums. (pp. 357-400), Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Ash, D. (2000). The Process Skills of Inquiry. Foundations. Vol. 2, Inquiry: Thoughts, Views, and Strategies for the K-5 Classroom. (pp. 51-62). Washington, D. C.: National Science Foundation.
• Ash, D. (2000). Setting the Stage for Inquiry. Foundations. Vol. 2, Inquiry: Thoughts, Views, and Strategies for the K-5 Classroom. (pp. 63-70). Washington, D. C.: National Science Foundation.
• Ash, D. (1998). Learning to listen to Robert. In J. Shulman, R. Lotan, & J. A. Whitcomb (Eds.), Groupwork in Diverse Classrooms: A Casebook for Educators, New York: Teachers College Press.
• Ash, D., & Klein, C. (1999). Inquiry in the informal learning environment. In J. Minstrell, & E. Van Zee (Eds.), Teaching and Learning in an Inquiry-based Classroom (pp. 216-240). Washington, DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science.
• Ash, D., & Kluger-Bell. B. (2000). Identifying inquiry in the K-5 classroom. Foundations. Vol. 2, Inquiry: Thoughts, Views, and Strategies for the K-5 Classroom. (pp. 79-86). Washington, DC: National Science Foundation.
• Ash, D. & Wells, G. (2006). Dialogic inquiry in classroom and museum: Actions, tools and talk (In. Z. Beckerman, N. C. Burbules, & D. Silberman (Eds.), In Learning in Places The Informal Learning Reader. (pp. 35-54). NY, NY: Peter Lang Press.
• Ash, D., Tellez, K., & Crain, R. (in press). The importance of objects in learning and talking science in and out of the classroom: The special case of English Language Learners. In K. Gomez & K. R. Bruna, Talking Science, Writing Science. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc.
• Brown, A. L., Campione, J., Metz, K. & Ash, D., (1997). The Development of science learning abilities in children. In A. Burgen, & K. Harnquist (Eds.), Growing up with Science: Developing Early Understanding of Science. (pp. 6-41). London: Jessica Kingsley Publisher and Academia Europaea.
• Brown, A. L., Ash, D., Rutherford, M., Nakagawa, K., Gordon A., & Campione, J.C. (1993). Distributed expertise in the classroom. In G. Salomon (Ed.), Distributed cognitions: Psychological and educational considerations (pp. 188-228). New York: Cambridge University Press.