Transduction and Science Learning: Multimodality in the Physics Laboratory

In this paper we discuss the role of transduction in the teaching and learning of science. We video-filmed pairs of upper-secondary physics students working with a laboratory task designed to encourage transduction (Bezemer & Kress, 2008). The students were simply instructed to use a hand-held electronic measurement device (IOLab) to find the direction of the Earth’s magnetic field and mark its direction using a paper arrow. A full multimodal transcription of the student interaction was made. In our analysis of this transcription we identify three separate transductions of meaning. In particular, we observed that student transduction of meaning to the paper arrow allowed it to function as both a persistent placeholder for all the meaning making that had occurred up until that point and as a coordinating hub for further meaning making. Our findings lead us to recommend that teachers interrogate the set of resources necessary for appropriate disciplinary knowledge construction in the tasks they present to students. Here, teachers should think carefully about whether the introduction of a persistent placeholder would be useful and in that case what this placeholder could be. We also suggest that teachers should think about what persistent resource may function as a coordinating hub for the students. Finally, we suggest that teachers should be on the lookout for student transductions to new semiotic resources in their classrooms as a sign that learning is taking place. We claim that the constraining and complementary nature of transduction offers a good opportunity for teachers to check student understanding, since disciplinary meanings need to be coherent across semiotic systems (modes)

Conceptual Blending as an Interpretive Lens for Student Engagement with Technology : Exploring Celestial Motion on an Interactive Whiteboard

We present and analyze video data of upper secondary school students’ engagement with a computer-supported collaborative learning environment that enables them to explore astronomical phenomena (Keplerian motion). The students’ activities have an immersive and exploratory character, as students engage in open-ended inquiry and interact physically with the virtual environment displayed on an interactive whiteboard. The interplay of students’ playful exploration through physical engagement with the simulation environment, their attention to physics concepts and laws, and knowledge about the real planets orbiting the Sun presents an analytical challenge for the researcher and instructor encountering such complex learning environments. We argue that the framework of conceptual blending is particularly apt for dealing with the learning environment at hand, because it allows us to take into account the many diverse mental inputs that seem to shape the student activities described in the paper. We show how conceptual blending can be brought together with theoretical ideas concerned with embodied cognition and epistemology of physics, in order to provide researchers and instructors with a powerful lens for looking critically at immersive technology-supported learning environments

Performance of ChatGPT on the test of understanding graphs in kinematics

The well-known artificial intelligence-based chatbot ChatGPT-4 has become able to process image data as input in October 2023. We investigated its performance on the test of understanding graphs in kinematics to inform the physics education community of the current potential of using ChatGPT in the education process, particularly on tasks that involve graphical interpretation. We found that ChatGPT, on average, performed similarly to students taking a high-school level physics course, but with important differences in the distribution of the correctness of its responses, as well as in terms of the displayed “reasoning” and “visual” abilities. While ChatGPT was very successful at proposing productive strategies for solving the tasks on the test and expressed correct reasoning in most of its responses, it had difficulties correctly “seeing” graphs. We suggest that, based on its performance, caution and a critical approach are needed if one intends to use it in the role of a tutor, a model of a student, or a tool for assisting vision-impaired persons in the context of kinematics graphs

ChatGPT and the frustrated Socrates

We present a case study of a conversation between ourselves and an artificial intelligence-based chatbot ChatGPT. We asked the chatbot to respond to a basic physics question that will be familiar to most physics teachers: 'A teddy bear is thrown into the air. What is its acceleration in the highest point?' The chatbot's responses, while linguistically quite advanced, were unreliable in their correctness and often full of contradictions. We then attempted to engage in Socratic dialogue with the chatbot to resolve the errors and contradictions, but with little success. We found that ChatGPT is not yet good enough to be used as a cheating tool for physics students or as a physics tutor. However, we found it quite reliable in generating incorrect responses on which physics teachers could train assessment of student responses

Exploring how physics students use a sandbox software to move between the physical and the formal

In this paper, we present a theoretical framework based on Hestenes's discussion of modeling in physics and diSessa's early theories on creativity-based digital learning environments. We use this framework to formulate new understandings of how a pair of students work with an open-ended physics sandbox software, Algodoo, alongside a physical laboratory setup. Algodoo is a digital environment that makes it possible for students to create simple, two-dimensional models of physical phenomena. We identify Algodoo's role as that of a semi-formalism, whereby the students made use of the software in their process of modeling as a means of moving between the physical, experimental context and the formal, mathematical representations associated with that context. We propose a hypothesis to be tested in future research and suggest further avenues for exploration in relation to the proposed theoretical framework.Title in WoS: Exploring how students use sandbox software to move between the physical and the formal</p

Conceptual Blending as an Interpretive Lens for Student Engagement with Technology: Exploring Celestial Motion on an Interactive Whiteboard

We present and analyze video data of upper secondary school students’ engagement with a computer-supported collaborative learning environment that enables them to explore astronomical phenomena (Keplerian motion). The students’ activities have an immersive and exploratory character, as students engage in open-ended inquiry and interact physically with the virtual environment displayed on an interactive whiteboard. The interplay of students’ playful exploration through physical engagement with the simulation environment, their attention to physics concepts and laws, and knowledge about the real planets orbiting the Sun presents an analytical challenge for the researcher and instructor encountering such complex learning environments. We argue that the framework of conceptual blending is particularly apt for dealing with the learning environment at hand, because it allows us to take into account the many diverse mental inputs that seem to shape the student activities described in the paper. We show how conceptual blending can be brought together with theoretical ideas concerned with embodied cognition and epistemology of physics, in order to provide researchers and instructors with a powerful lens for looking critically at immersive technology-supported learning environments

Conceptual Blending as an Interpretive Lens for Student Engagement with Technology : Exploring Celestial Motion on an Interactive Whiteboard

We present and analyze video data of upper secondary school students’ engagement with a computer-supported collaborative learning environment that enables them to explore astronomical phenomena (Keplerian motion). The students’ activities have an immersive and exploratory character, as students engage in open-ended inquiry and interact physically with the virtual environment displayed on an interactive whiteboard. The interplay of students’ playful exploration through physical engagement with the simulation environment, their attention to physics concepts and laws, and knowledge about the real planets orbiting the Sun presents an analytical challenge for the researcher and instructor encountering such complex learning environments. We argue that the framework of conceptual blending is particularly apt for dealing with the learning environment at hand, because it allows us to take into account the many diverse mental inputs that seem to shape the student activities described in the paper. We show how conceptual blending can be brought together with theoretical ideas concerned with embodied cognition and epistemology of physics, in order to provide researchers and instructors with a powerful lens for looking critically at immersive technology-supported learning environments

ChatGPT and the frustrated Socrates

We present a case study of a conversation between ourselves and an artificial intelligence-based chatbot ChatGPT. We asked the chatbot to respond to a basic physics question that will be familiar to most physics teachers: ‘A teddy bear is thrown into the air. What is its acceleration in the highest point?’ The chatbot’s responses, while linguistically quite advanced, were unreliable in their correctness and often full of contradictions. We then attempted to engage in Socratic dialogue with the chatbot to resolve the errors and contradictions, but with little success. We found that ChatGPT is not yet good enough to be used as a cheating tool for physics students or as a physics tutor. However, we found it quite reliable in generating incorrect responses on which physics teachers could train assessment of student responses

Variation theory as a lens for interpreting and guiding physics students' use of digital learning environments

In this paper, we examine the implementation of a digital learning environment—namely, the physics software, Algodoo—which is less-constrained in its design than the digital learning environments typically used in physics education. Through an analysis of a case study, we explore a teaching arrangement wherein physics teachers responsively guide small groups of students as they use less-constrained DLEs in a mostly self-directed manner. Our analysis leads to practical recommendations for physics teachers in terms of (1) how to glean useful information about students' existing physics knowledge through observation and (2) how to responsively intervene so as to productively guide students toward the learning of particular physics content. These recommendations stem from our use of the variation theory of learning as a lens for physics students' use of digital learning environments