Exploring the role of physics representations: an illustrative example from students sharing knowledge about refraction.European journal of physics, 33(3): 657-666 http://dx

This theoretical article problematizes the access to disciplinary knowledge that different physics representations have the possibility to provide; that is, their disciplinary affordances. It is argued that historically such access has become increasingly constrained for students as physics representations have been rationalized over time. Thus, the case is made that such rationalized representations, while powerful for communication from a disciplinary point of view, manifest as learning challenges for students. The proposal is illustrated using a vignette from a student discussion in the physics laboratory about circuit connections for an experimental investigation of the charging and discharging of a capacitor. It is concluded that in order for students to come to appreciate the disciplinary affordances of representations, more attention needs to be paid to their "unpacking." Building on this conclusion, two questions are proposed that teachers can ask themselves in order to begin to unpack the representations that they use in their teaching. The paper ends by proposing directions for future research in this area.

In this theoretical article we propose three factors that can enhance the possibilities for learning physics from representations, namely: (1) the identification of disciplinary-relevant aspects for a particular disciplinary task, such as solving a physics problem or explaining a phenomenon, (2) the selection of appropriate representations that showcase these disciplinary-relevant aspects, and (3) the creation of variation within the selected representations to help students notice these disciplinary-relevant aspects and the ways in which they are related to each other. An illustration of how these three factors can guide teachers in their efforts to promote physics learning is presented.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a social semiotic approach to analysing objects of learning in terms of their critical aspects. Design/methodology/approach – The design for this paper focuses on how the semiotic resources – including language, equations, and diagrams – that are commonly used in physics teaching realise the critical aspects of a common physics object of learning. A social semiotic approach to the analysis of a canonical text extract from optics is presented to illustrate how critical aspects can be identified. Findings – Implications for university teaching and learning of physics stemming from this social semiotic approach are suggested. Originality/value – Hitherto under-explored similarities between the Variation Theory of Learning, which underpins learning studies, and a social semiotic approach to meaning-making are identified. These similarities are used to propose a new, potentially very powerful approach to identifying critical aspects of objects of learning.

The meaning-making practices of science are multimodal and include representational forms such as spoken and written language, diagrams, graphs, equations, and images. Science learning proceeds through an ever-increasing grasp of such resources. This study aims at providing insight into how a combination of Interaction Analysis (IA) and social semiotic analysis can provide a deeper understanding of students’ engagement and learning with science representations. Social semiotics offers an analytical lens and categories for interpreting nuances of meaning in the visual domain. IA places a strong methodological emphasis on grounding analysis in unfolding interactions among peers, teachers, and artefacts. Investigating a teaching design where students iteratively produce multimodal drawings of the greenhouse effect, we used a multimodal analysis of the students’ drawings and an IA of transcribed video recordings of students’ interactions with each other and their teacher. The analyses show a progression towards more scientific student drawings over the course of a lesson. This progression was made possible by sustained attention to critical details in the drawings, and the drawings and interactions were instrumental in developing a more sophisticated understanding of the mechanisms behind the greenhouse effect. IA provides important analytical insights into students’ interest in the situation, which is at the heart of social semiotics. Social semiotics offers insight into the nuances of students’ interpretations of the world and how they relate to the practices of disciplinary science.