Vocational students’ meaning-making in school science – negotiating authenticity through multimodal mobile learning

Abstract

This article presents a qualitative study focusing school science in two vocational classes, upper secondary school, Norway. The fact that many vocational students find little meaning in school science forms the backdrop. The students were introduced to teaching combining an excursion to a district heating plant and classroom lessons, with the use of mobile phones for documentation. Thematic analysis is used to explore the students’ experiences by analysing their behaviour and utterances. A multimodal semiotic analysis is used to examine the students' digital stories. By offering the students teaching in a real life vocational facility, we found that the students engaged in the related school science subject matter. They do perceive the use of phones for documentation as personal authentic and relevant working method. The learning potential arising when the mobile learning bridged the two learning venues overshadowed the possible pitfalls of using smartphones.

Imagining with improvised representations in CSCL environments

“…Moreover, digital learning environments (Tang, Tan, & Yeo, 2011) and mobile learning (Nordby, Knain, & Jonsdottir, 2017) provide settings where the interplay of modalities can be studied in a pure form. In CSCL environments, these kinds of arrangements might occur within an entirely online environment containing multiple modes of interacting (e.g.…”

To naturfaglærere og deres undervisning i naturfag for yrkesfagelever <br/> Two science teachers and their teaching in school science for vocational students

“…Oppleggene inkluderte to ekskursjoner (til en institusjon som behandler overvektige og til ett fjernvarmeanlegg) og bruk av dataspillet Energispillet.no. Noen didaktiske tilnaerminger introdusert av forsker gikk igjen i undervisningsoppleggene; utforskende arbeidsmåter (Knain & Kolstø, 2011), autentisk laering (Nordby, Knain, & Jónsdóttir, 2017), og multimodal laering (Jewitt, Kress, Ogborn, & Tsatsarelis, 2001).…”

Promoting Environmental Education for Primary School-aged Students Using Digital Technologies

“…Moreover, simplification through metaphor or simile can be a virtue or a vice. One test of a digital learning approach is its proximity to environmental realities, that is, its authenticity (Nordby, Knain & Jonsdottir, 2017). This is an important foundation for the two dimensions that follow, learning and action.…”