Abstract
This paper reports on a study of students’ conceptual sensemaking with science diagrams within a computer-based learning environment aimed at supporting collaborative learning. Through the microanalysis of students’ interactions in a project about energy and heat transfer, we demonstrate how representations become productive social and cognitive resources in the students’ conceptual sensemaking. Taking a socio-cultural approach, the study aims to contribute on two levels. First, by providing insight into the interactional processes in which students encounter a particular type of representation: science diagrams. Second, the study aims to demonstrate that an important aspect of students’ encounters with science representations concerns making sense of how to respond to institutional norms and social practices embedded within the context of schooling. The findings demonstrate how the science diagrams become productive social and individual resources for the students by slowing down the students’ conceptual sensemaking processes and by opening up a space for the interpretation and negotiation of scientific concepts, as well as of the representations themselves. The study also shows the challenges involved when students move from oral to written accounts in their inquiries.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
For a more detailed description of the SCY-Lab and Science Created by You project, see de Jong et al. (2012).
References
Ainsworth, S. (1999). The functions of multiple representations. Computers in Education, 33, 131–152.
Ainsworth, S. (2006). DeFT: A conceptual framework for considering learning with multiple representations. Learning and Instruction, 16, 183–198.
Ares, N., Stroup, W. M., & Schademan, A. R. (2009). The power of mediating artifacts in group-level development of mathematical discourses. Cognition and Instruction, 27(1), 1–24.
Aronson, E., Blaney, N., Stephin, C., Sikes, J., & Snapp, M. (1978). The jigsaw classroom. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publishing Company.
Bodemer, D., Ploetzner, R., Feuerlein, I., & Spada, H. (2004). The active integration of information during learning with dynamic and interactive visualizations. Learning and Instruction, 14, 325–341.
Brown, A. L., Ash, D., Rutherford, M., Nakagawa, K., Gordon, A., & Campione, J. (1993). Distributed expertise in the classroom. In G. Salomon (Ed.), Distributed cognitions: Psychological and educational considerations (pp. 188–128). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Çakir, M. P. (2009). The organization of graphical, narrative, and symbolic interactions. In G. Stahl (Ed.), Studying virtual math teams. New York, NY: Springer.
Cole, M. (1996). Cultural psychology: A once and future discipline. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
de Jong, T. (2006). Scaffolds for computer simulation based scientific discovery learning. In J. Elen & R. E. Clark (Eds.), Dealing with complexity in learning environments (pp. 107–128). London: Elsevier Science Publishers.
de Jong, T., Weinberger, A., Girault, I., Kluge, A., Lazonder, A. W., Pedaste, M., et al. (2012). Using scenarios to design complex technology-enhanced learning environments. Educational Technology Research and Development, 60(5), 883–901.
De Leone, C., & Oberem, G. (2004). Toward understanding student conceptions of the photoelectric effect. In J. Marx, S. Franklin, & K. Cummings (Eds.), 2003 Physics education research conference proceedings. Melville, NY: AIP.
diSessa, A. A. (2004). Metarepresentation: Native competence and targets for instruction. Cognition and Instruction, 22(3), 293–331.
Dolonen, J., & Ludvigsen, S. (2012). Analyzing students’ interaction with a 3D geometry learning tool and their teacher. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction.. doi:10.1016/j.lcsi.2012.08.002.
Dwyer, N., & Suthers, D. (2006). Consistent practices in artifact-mediated collaboration. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 1(4), 481–511.
Engle, R. A., & Conant, F. R. (2002). Guiding principles for fostering productive disciplinary engagement: Explaining an emergent argument in a community of learners’ classroom. Cognition and Instruction, 20(4), 399–483.
Enyedy, N. (2005). Inventing mapping: Creating cultural forms to solve collective problems. Cognition and Instruction, 23(4), 427–466.
Furberg, A. (2009). Sociocultural aspects of prompting students’ reflection in Web-based learning environments. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 25, 397–409.
Furberg, A., & Arnseth, H. C. (2009). Reconsidering conceptual change from a socio-cultural perspective: Analyzing students’ meaning making in genetics in collaborative learning activities. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 4, 157–191.
Furberg, A. L., & Ludvigsen, S. (2008). Students’ meaning making of socioscientific issues in computer mediated settings: Exploring learning through interaction trajectories. International Journal of Science Education, 30(13), 1775–1799.
Giddens, A. (1979). Central problems in social theory. Action, structure and contradiction in social analysis. London: Macmillan Education LTD.
Glaser, R., & Chi, M. (1988). Overview. In M. Chi, R. Glaser, & M. Farr (Eds.), The nature of expertise (pp. xv–xxviii). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Goodwin, C. (1997). The blackness of black. Color categories as situated practice. In L. B. Resnick, R. Säljö, C. Pontecorvo, & B. Burge (Eds.), Discourse, tools, and reasoning. Essays on situated cognition (pp. 111–140). New York, NY: Springer.
Greeno, J. G., & Hall, R. P. (1997). Practicing representation: Learning with and about representational forms. Phi Delta Kappan, 78(5), 361–367.
Jordan, B., & Henderson, K. (1995). Interaction analysis: Foundations and practice. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 4(1), 39–103.
Karlsson, G. (2010). Animation and grammar in science education: Learners’ construal of animated educational software. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 5(2), 167–189.
Kluge, A., & Bakken, S. M. (2010). Simulation as science discovery: Ways of interactive meaning-making. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning, 5(3), 245–273.
Kozma, R. (2003). The material features of multiple representations and their cognitive and social affordances for science understanding. Learning and Instruction, 13, 205–226.
Krange, I., & Ludvigsen, S. (2008). What does it mean? Students’ procedural and conceptual problem solving in a CSCL environment designed within the field of science education. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 3, 25–51.
Larkin, J. H., & Simon, H. A. (1987). Why a diagram is (sometimes) worth ten thousand words. Cognitive Science, 11(1), 65–99.
Lave, J. (1988). Cognition in practice. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Lehrer, R., & Schauble, L. (2009). Images of learning, images of progress. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 46(6), 731–735.
Lemke, J. L. (1990). Talking science. Language, learning, and values. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Linell, P. (1998). Approaching dialogue: Talk, interaction and contexts in dialogical perspectives. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Linn, M. C., Davis, E. A., & Bell, P. (2004). Inquiry and technology. In M. C. Linn, E. A. Davis, & P. Bell (Eds.), Internet environments for science education (pp. 3–28). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Linn, M. C., & Eylon, B. S. (2011). Science learning and instruction. Taking advantage of technology to promote knowledge integration. New York: Routledge.
Ludvigsen, S., & Mørch, A. (2010). Computer-supported collaborative learning: Basic concepts, multiple perspectives, and emerging trends. In P. Peterson, E. Baker, & B. MacGaw (Eds.), International encyclopedia of education (pp. 290–296). Oxford, UK: Elsevier.
Ludvigsen, S. R., Rasmussen, I., Krange, I., Moen, A., & Middleton, D. (2011). Temporalities of learning in intersecting trajectories of participation. In S. R. Ludvigsen, A. Lund, I. Rasmussen, & R. Säljö (Eds.), Learning across sites: New tools, infrastructures and practices. London: Routledge.
Mäkitalo, Å. (2003). Accounting practices as situated knowing: Dilemmas and dynamics in institutional categorization. Discourse Studies, 5(4), 495–516.
McKagan, S. B., Handley, W., Perkins, K. K., & Wieman, C. E. (2009). A research-based curriculum for teaching the photoelectric effect. American Journal of Physics, 77(1), 87–94.
Medina, R., Suthers, D. D., & Vatrapu, R. (2009). Representational practices in VMT. In G. Stahl (Ed.), Studying virtual math teams (pp. 185–205). New York, NY: Springer.
Mehan, H. (1991). The school’s work of sorting students. In D. Zimmerman & D. Boden (Eds.), Talk and social structure (pp. 71–90). Cambridge, MA: Polity Press.
Mercer, N. (2004). Sociocultural discourse analysis: Analysing classroom talk as a social mode of thinking. Journal of Applied Linguistics, 1(2), 137–168.
Ochs, E., Jacoby, S., & Gonzales, P. (1994). Interpretive journeys: How physicists talk and travel through graphic space. Configurations, 2(1), 151–171.
Pathak, S., Kim, B., Jacobson, M., & Zhang, B. (2011). Learning the physics of electricity: A qualitative analysis of collaborative processes involved in productive failure. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 6(1), 57–73.
Quintana, C., Reiser, B. J., Davis, E. A., Krajcik, J., Fretz, E., Duncan, R. G., & Soloway, E. (2004). A scaffolding design framework for software to support science inquiry. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 13(3), 337–386.
Rasmussen, I., & Ludvigsen, S. (2010). Learning with computer tools and environments: A sociocultural perspective. In K. Littleton, C. Wood, & J. Kleine Staarman (Eds.), International handbook of psychology in education (pp. 399–435). Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Roschelle, J. (1996). Designing for cognitive communication: Epistemic fidelity or mediating collaborating inquiry. In D. L. Day & D. K. Kovacs (Eds.), Computers, communication & mental models (pp. 13–25). London: Taylor & Francis.
Roth, W. M., & McGinn, M. K. (1998). Inscriptions: Toward a theory of representing as social practice. Review of Educational Research, 68(1), 35–59.
Säljö, R. (2005). Lärande & kulturella redskap: Om lärprocesser och det kollektiva minnet [Learning and cultural tools: About learning processes and the collective memory]. Stockholm: Norstedts Akademiska Förlag.
Säljö, R. (2010). Digital tools and challenges to institutional traditions of learning: Technologies, social memory and the performative nature of learning. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 26, 53–64.
Schoultz, J., Säljö, R., & Wyndhamn, J. (2001). Heavenly talk: Discourse, artifacts, and children’s understanding of elementary astronomy. Human Development, 44, 103–118.
Schwarz, B., Schur, Y., Pensso, H., & Tayer, N. (2009). Perspective taking and synchronous argumentation for learning the day/night cycle. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 6(1), 113–138.
Scott, M., & Lyman, S. (1968). Accounts. American Sociological Review, 33(1), 46–62.
Seufert, T. (2003). Supporting coherence formation in learning from multiple representations. Learning and Instruction, 13, 227–237.
Silverman, D. (2005). Doing qualitative research (2nd ed.). London: Sage.
Stahl, G. (2006). Group cognition. Computer support for building collaborative knowledge. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Stahl, G. (2009). Studying virtual math teams. New York, NY: Springer.
Suthers, D. D., & Hundhausen, C. D. (2003). An experimental study of the effects of representational guidance on collaborative learning processes. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 12(2), 183–218.
van der Meij, J., & de Jong, T. (2006). Supporting students’ learning with multiple representations in a dynamic simulation-based learning environment. Learning and Instruction, 16, 199–212.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher social processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1986). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky: Vol. 1. Problems of general psychology. New York, NY: Plenum.
Wertsch, J. V. (1991). Voices of the mind: A sociocultural approach to mediated action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wertsch, J. V. (1998). Mind as action. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
White, T., & Pea, R. (2011). The emergence of abstract representations in dyad problem solving. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 20(3), 489–547.
Acknowledgements
This work was financially supported by InterMedia, University of Oslo. We would like to thank our colleagues in the Change Research Group for their constructive feedback on earlier drafts, and Edith Isdal for reconstructing the solar panel diagrams. Thanks also to the anonymous reviewers for their constructive and valuable comments. The study was conducted in the context of Science Created by You (SCY), which is funded by the European Community under the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) theme of the 7th Framework Programme for R&D (Grant agreement 212814). This document does not represent the opinions of the European Community, and the European Community is not responsible for any use that might be made of its content.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Appendix 1
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Furberg, A., Kluge, A. & Ludvigsen, S. Student sensemaking with science diagrams in a computer-based setting. Computer Supported Learning 8, 41–64 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11412-013-9165-4
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11412-013-9165-4