Representation and participation in school science (REDE)

The project aims at developing research based teaching methods and resources that strengthen the development of functional literacy skills among teacher training students. It also aims to contribute to high quality in students’ learning processes in school.

After the students attempted to draw and explain an experiment demonstrating the greenhouse effect, the class found that the textbook illustration had some shortcomings. This is the illustration after the teacher modified it by help of suggestions from the students. Photo: Erik Knain/ILS.

After attempting to draw and explain an experiment demonstrating the greenhouse effect, the class found that the textbook illustration had some shortcomings. This is the illustration after the teacher modified it by help of suggestions from the students. Photo: Erik Knain/ILS.

The project Representation and participation in school science (REDE) develops research based teaching methods focusing on the use of representations such as

written and verbal language
graphs
diagrams
images
simulations

These representations are important tools for knowledge development and communication in science.

Tools for learning and taking part in society

Representations are important for learning, for taking part in the processes and methods of science, and for understanding and taking part in society as a citizen. To master the use of representations is important, not only for a future career in science related areas, but also in everyday life such as when reading a weather forecast or judging media claims. It is therefore important for students to learn how to interpret and produce representations. It follows that it is important to teach teacher students about how to use science representations in their teaching.

Developing web based resources

The project will develop a web based resource that includes research based teaching methods and tools that focus on different forms of representations in lower and upper secondary education.

The innovation consists of four modules. The three first are:

Content knowledge
Socioscientific issues (SSI) and environmental challenges
Nature of science (NOS)

Each module will consist of design principles, specific lesson plans, video clips, learning resources, and guides for teachers for the module at hand.

Module 4 aims at supporting the development of teacher students’ representation practices, by supporting the teaching of modules 1-3.

Cooperating with schools

Researchers in the REDE project cooperate with teachers to develop teaching methods. Two upper secondary schools and one lower secondary school are part of the project. The researchers investigate how teachers, teacher students and students experience and use representations by analyzing pre- and posttests, video recordings of classroom interaction and interviews with students, teachers and teacher students. The theoretical frameworks that guide the analyses include interaction analysis, social semiotics, and thematic analysis. Findings and implications are discussed with the participating teachers.

Funding

REDE is supported by the FINNUT program, Research Council of Norway, 2016-2019, grant number 249872.

Knain, E., Fredlund, T., Furberg, A., Mathiassen, K., Remmen, K. B., & Ødegaard, M. (2017). Representing to learn in science education: Theoretical framework and analytical approaches. Acta Didactica Norge, 11(3), 11.

Ingulfsen, Line; Furberg, Anniken & Knain, Erik (2023). The role of teacher support in students’ engagement with representational construction. Cultural Studies of Science Education. ISSN 1871-1502. p. 1311–1341. doi: 10.1007/s11422-023-10193-0. Show summary
In this article, we study the role of teacher support in a collaborative learning setting that involves students’ constructions of visual representations in the environmental education context. Despite the consensus in the field of science education research that engagement with visual representations—such as diagrams, animations, and graphs—can support students’ conceptual understanding, studies reveal that learning from engagement with visual representations can be challenging for students. Adopting a sociocultural approach, this study contributes to extant research by analytically scrutinizing the role of teacher support in learning activities that revolve around students’ construction of visual representations. The empirical basis is a science project in which lower secondary school students drew and refined depictions of the effects of anthropogenic climate change. The analytical focus is on student–teacher interactions during group-based drawing activities in which students created representations of the carbon cycle and interacted with authorized representations. The analyses revealed how students found it challenging to compare, contrast, and integrate authorized representations and, additionally, to constructively use authorized representations in the process of designing their own representations. To support students in their efforts to construct scientific meaning, the teacher oriented the students’ attention towards the salient features of representations, supported students in making sense of ‘semiotic signs’, and enabled them to link scientific concepts with detailed depictions. In addition to the different forms of support provided by the teacher, the analyses of the student–teacher interactions also reveal the teacher’s use of specific ‘talk moves’ of elaboration and eliciting. The key implications include that teachers should select representations that are sufficiently different in terms of how concepts and phenomena are depicted, and that teachers should be prepared to support students in how to compare and contrast multiple representations. Further, strategies for supporting students’ exploration of their own ideas and suggestions are essential in the dynamics between students’ self-made representations and authorized representations.
Knain, Erik; Fredlund, Tobias & Furberg, Anniken Larsen (2021). Exploring Student Reasoning and Representation Construction in School Science Through the Lenses of Social Semiotics and Interaction Analysis. Research in Science Education. ISSN 0157-244X. 51(1), p. 93–111. doi: 10.1007/s11165-020-09975-1. Full text in Research Archive
Fredlund, Tobias; Remmen, Kari Beate & Knain, Erik (2021). The epistemological commitments of modes: opportunities and challenges for science learning. Visual Communication. ISSN 1470-3572. doi: 10.1177/14703572211038991. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Meaning making in science is supported by different modes, such as spoken and written language, images and gestures, all of which have different affordances. The epistemological commitments of modes are affordances that cannot be avoided. This article investigates how the epistemological commitments of modes affect possibilities for learning. Video data was collected from a learning activity where upper secondary students drew and explained an experiment representing the greenhouse effect. The analysis uses the variation theory of learning, which assumes that students learn when they notice new aspects of objects of learning by experiencing variation against an invariant background. Such variation can be created through the representations used. Findings show that, in the learning activity, variation was created in a range of modes. Some of the variation, particularly with regards to radiation, was due to the epistemological commitments of drawing. However, these aspects of radiation went unnoticed by the students, possibly because several aspects varied simultaneously. The teacher then helped the students to become aware of certain variation. Implications for the teaching and learning of science when taking the epistemological commitment of different modes into consideration include both challenges, such as when unintended variation is created, and opportunities, such as when spontaneously occurring variation can be taken up for discussion.
Knain, Erik & Ødegaard, Marianne (2019). Naturfagets rolle i bærekraftdidaktikk. In Kvamme, Ole Andreas & Sæther, Elin (Ed.), Bærekraftdidaktikk. Fagbokforlaget. ISSN 978-82-450-2427-2. p. 135–151.
Ingulfsen, Line; Furberg, Anniken Larsen & Strømme Aanesland, Torunn (2018). Students’ engagement with real-time graphs in CSCL settings: scrutinizing the role of teacher support. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning. ISSN 1556-1607. 13(4), p. 365–390. doi: 10.1007/s11412-018-9290-1. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
This paper reports on a study of teacher support in experimental computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) settings where students engage with graphs in real-time labs within the context of school science. Real-time labs are digital devices and software connected to student-controlled sensors or probes that can measure and visualize data graphically. The empirical setting was a science project about ocean acidification (OA) where lower secondary school students conducted measurements of the pH value of water with increased concentrations of CO2. The analytical focus is on student–teacher interaction during group-work activities where the students carried out, reviewed and reported on the real-time lab experiment. The analyses show that students needed additional support from the teacher in interpreting the real-time graphs and in making connections between the graphic representation, the practical undertakings of the experiment and the underlying scientific phenomena. Most importantly, the study demonstrates the complexity of teacher support in CSCL settings and how this type of support intersects with the support provided by digital resources, peer collaboration and applied instructional design.
Knain, Erik; Fredlund, Tobias; Furberg, Anniken Larsen; Mathiassen, Ketil; Remmen, Kari Beate & Ødegaard, Marianne (2017). Representing to learn in science education: Theoretical framework and analytical approaches. Acta Didactica Norge. ISSN 1504-9922. 11(3). doi: 10.5617/adno.4722. Full text in Research Archive

View all works in Cristin

Knain, Erik (2019). Utforskende arbeidsmåter og representasjoner.
Knain, Erik (2019). Representasjoner og bærekraft.
Knain, Erik (2019). REDEtil - nettressurs om bruk av visuelle uttrykk i naturfag for lærere og lærerutdannere.
Ingulfsen, Line; Furberg, Anniken Larsen & Knain, Erik (2019). Sensemaking at the intersection of authorized and student-generated representations. Nordic Research Symposium on Dialogical Perspectives in Science Education .
Knain, Erik & Furberg, Anniken Larsen (2018). Læring gjennom visuelle kunnskapsrepresentasjoner i naturfag.
Lunde, Mai Lill Suhr; Mathiassen, Ketil; Fredlund, Tobias & Knain, Erik (2018). Student teachers’ perspective of representations in science teaching and learning.
Lunde, Mai Lill Suhr; Mathiassen, Ketil; Fredlund, Tobias & Knain, Erik (2018). Representations and Students Teachers’ Experiences from Teacher Practice .
Knain, Erik; Remmen, Kari Beate & Fredlund, Tobias (2018). Representations in students’ argumentation on SSI.
Strømme Aanesland, Torunn; Furberg, Anniken Larsen; Knain, Erik & Ingulfsen, Line (2018). Students' engagement with representations in Science.
Strømme Aanesland, Torunn; Furberg, Anniken Larsen; Knain, Erik & Ingulfsen, Line (2018). Engaging with representations in school science .
Fredlund, Tobias & Knain, Erik (2018). Analysing school science group work in terms of multimodal text development and its interplay with context of situation.
Fredlund, Tobias; Knain, Erik & Furberg, Anniken Larsen (2018). Using representations to learn about the greenhouse effect.
Knain, Erik (2017). Dybdelæring med representasjoner i naturfagene.
Knain, Erik (2017). Dybdelæring i naturfag.
Knain, Erik; Fredlund, Tobias & Furberg, Anniken Larsen (2017). Making the invisible visible across modes and representations.
Ingulfsen, Line & Furberg, Anniken Larsen (2017). Supporting students' conceptual sense-making with multimodal representations in science learning.
Knain, Erik; Remmen, Kari Beate & Fredlund, Tobias (2017). The role of representations in students' argumentation on SSI.
Fredlund, Tobias; Knain, Erik & Remmen, Kari Beate (2017). Two central aspects of sign-making for the learning of science: differentiation and integration .
Fredlund, Tobias; Knain, Erik & Furberg, Anniken Larsen (2017). The transition from naturalistic to theoretical representations of the greenhouse effect .
Fredlund, Tobias; Knain, Erik & Furberg, Anniken Larsen (2017). Teaching science using underdetermined representations: Illustration and implications .
Furberg, Anniken Larsen (2017). Teaching in technology rich settings - Scrutinizing teacher-student interaction in dialogic classroom settings.
Furberg, Anniken Larsen (2016). REDE – Representasjon og deltakelse i naturfag.
Ødegaard, Marianne & Furberg, Anniken Larsen (2016). Representations and Participation in Science Education.
Knain, Erik (2016). Hvordan kan SFL bidra til innsikt i kompetansebegrepet i naturfag.
Knain, Erik (2016). Visuelle uttrykk i naturfag: veien til god læring.