Representational Practices by the Numbers: How kindergarten and first‐grade students create, evaluate, and modify their science representations

Abstract

A productive approach to studying the role of representations in supporting students' learning of science content is to examine their actions from a practice perspective. The current study examines kindergarten and first-grade students' representational practices across a consistent context-the creation of storyboards-both before and after a curricular intervention in order to highlight those aspects of their practices that changed regardless of a superficially similar task. Analysis of the students' storyboards reveals considerable improvement in the number of included features after the intervention. Analysis of the students' practices as they changed over time is also presented by examining the students' discourse, with a focus on their discussions of the science content and the representations themselves. We demonstrate an increase in accuracy and relevance of the features being discussed, as well as an increase in requesting and providing assessments of students' representations, particularly between students and their peers.

Slowmation: Preservice elementary teachers representing science knowledge through creating multimodal digital animations

“…Literature suggests that it is relatively common in schools and universities to have learners use various modes to make representations of their science knowledge (e.g., Danish & Phelps, 2010; Mammino, 2008; Prain, Tytler, & Peterson, 2009). In the process of making a representation, learners can translate meaning from one mode to another (Ainsworth, 2008; Van Meter & Garner, 2005).…”

Applying an Activity Theory Lens to Designing Instruction for Learning About the Structure, Behavior, and Function of a Honeybee System

“…However, the students were asked to describe their drawings during the second part of the interview, which was designed to elicit students' ideas about the representation (storyboard) that they had created. The analysis of the portion of the interviews related to students' representations is discussed further in Danish and Phelps (2010). However, in some cases, access to Downloaded by [Queensland University of Technology] at 02:03 20 October 2014 FIGURE 2 A storyboard depicting "How bees get food."…”

The impact of classroom context upon 1st and 2nd grade students’ critical criteria for science representations

“…For example, students have been shown to critique representations based on content accuracy as well as the fit between the representation and a specific task (Danish and Enyedy 2007;Danish and Phelps 2010;Enyedy 2005). Furthermore, Lehrer and Schauble (2005) note that helping students develop their MRC around selecting and evaluating representations is an important aspect of helping students to understand the role of scientific models, and includes helping students to recognize that not all models represent a phenomena accurately and effectively.…”