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This study reports on a case study about multimodal work in a primary physics classroom focusing on forces. Previous research reports that students benefit from multimodal work in science classrooms. Yet, few systematic studies have been performed to reveal how students represent their experiences and ideas of science phenomena over time within and across different semiotic modes (e.g., through action, speech, writing, and image, including multimodal ensembles). The design of the lessons was built around a number of experimental activities, starting with a puzzling phenomenon and where students for each experiment predicted, observed, described, and tried to come up with explanations. Based on social-semiotics, we combined analysis at an overall level (long timescale and large grain size) and a detailed level (short timescale and small grain size) to shed light on how the science content was represented within and between modes over the teaching and learning period, and what content was expressed in these representations. Our findings reveal how students moved from focusing on attributes such as a "heavy" regarding artifacts used in the experiments, towards the central physics processes, such as one object exerting force on another object. Furthermore, we were able to detect that such "signs of learning" were shown in students' small-group discussions and multimodal texts following a carefully orchestrated multimodal exposition by the teacher. Hence, such a careful multimodal orchestration appeared to be critical for the students' meaning-making about the science content.

Worksheets are common in science classrooms with an aim to support pupils' meaning-making, e.g., for guiding them in performing hands-on activities and documenting their experiences of such activities. Yet, there have been few systematic studies of pupils' disciplinary representations in worksheets. Drawing on systemic functional linguistics, we have analyzed fifth grade pupils' (age 10-11) multimodal texts in worksheets (n = 25) when they were working with shadow formation as part of their regular classroom activities. In the worksheets they were asked to first explain in writing why or why not a shadow was formed and then explain shadow formation through a drawing. At an overall level, we found that a majority of the pupils managed to express in writing why a shadow is formed, though it appeared to be more challenging for them to explain why a shadow is not formed. In their drawings, quite a few pupils managed to include several key aspects of shadow formation, at least when combining image with writing. For all tasks, the explanatory parts of the pupils' responses were often implicit. Based on our results, we suggest that pupils may benefit from teaching practices that integrate a parallel focus on form and content as a way to raise their awareness of, for instance, the affordances of different resources and how explanations can be structured. Such practices may support pupils to be able to consider and choose appropriate resources in their disciplinary texts.

There is a growing research examining the use of visual diagrams in scientific explanations. However, current research in this area is mostly based on case studies involving a few explanations from one or two topics in science. There are few systematic studies that examine more broadly how diagrams are used in relation to scientific explanations across a range of scientific texts. The aim of this study is to investigate the characteristics of diagrams in scientific explanations found in Grade 7-10 science textbooks covering many topics in biology, chemistry, earth and space sciences, and physics. The study is informed by the theories of systemic functional linguistics and social semiotics and applies a mixed methods approach to textbook analysis. A content analysis was first carried out to systematically identify the image functions (e.g., narrative, analytical, classificational) in all the diagrams (N = 749) and compare their distributions across different genres (e.g., explanation, information, experiment). This is followed by a multimodal discourse analysis to understand how the various image functions are combined with the linguistic features of the written text in the construction of scientific explanations. Quantitative results reveal explanation diagrams are characteristically different from diagrams used in other genres in terms of a higher usage of narrative function, temporal function, and annotated caption. Qualitative results further show how these image functions are typically used to support the reasoning of the explanation focusing on dynamic processes and time-bounded sequences. This study has implications to our understanding of how diagrams are used to support the construction of scientific explanations.

There is currently a lack of systematic study examining the integration of verbal-visual elements in science textbooks. In particular, few research has investigated how different types of visual representations (e.g. photograph, diagram, table) vary across the major written genres of science (e.g. information report, explanation). Based on the perspective of social semiotics, this paper aims to understand the co-dependency between visual representations and written genres by analysing a corpus of multimodal texts from a major Australian textbook series. Quantitative and qualitative analyses reveal a number of interesting patterns in terms of how several types of representations tend to appear with certain genres, as well as possible reasons for this co-dependency. In particular, the analysis accounts for why and how: (a) photographs and tables are used to support information report, (b) diagrams and photographs for explanation, and (c) diagrams and tables for experimental account. This study provides empirical evidence to support the importance of analysing multimodal genre for science teaching and learning as well as science education research.

Argumentation as a scientific practice has largely been examined along an epistemic and/or dialogic perspective in science education research. Both perspectives have sidelined the use of real material objects that are indispensable for scientists to construct arguments about the natural world. To address this gap, this article investigates how material objects are used to coordinate with our speech and actions to shape argumentation in secondary physical science. Drawing on actor-network theory, the article reframes argumentation as a chain of human-material interactions incorporating the role of physical things to construct evidence. Based on a collective case study comprising classroom video data generated from two grade nine science classrooms, the article examines how teachers and students used material objects to engage in argumentation related to qualitative analysis in chemistry and Newton's laws of motions in physics. The analysis reveals two major themes: (a) "material inquiry" as the framing of questions and statements about the behavior or property of the material world and (b) "material transformation" as the orchestration of material objects, embodied actions, and words to actively create evidence. This article concludes that both material inquiry and material transformation are essential prerequisites for scientific argumentation to take place, not only in research laboratories, but also in science classrooms. The contribution to the development of a future socio-material theory of scientific argumentation, which takes material agency and multimodal discourse into account, are also discussed.

This paper argues that meaning-making with multimodal representations in science learning is always contextualized within a genre and, conversely, what constitutes an ongoing genre also depends on a multimodal coordination of speech, gesture, diagrams, symbols, and material objects. In social semiotics, a genre is a culturally evolved way of doing things with language (including non-verbal representations). Genre provides a useful lens to understand how a community's cultural norms and practices shape the use of language in various human activities. Despite this understanding, researchers have seldom considered the role of scientific genres (e.g., experimental account, information report, explanation) to understand how students in science classrooms make meanings as they use and construct multimodal representations. This study is based on an enactment of a drawing-to-learn approach in a primary school classroom in Australia, with data generated from classroom videos and students' artifacts. Using multimodal discourse analysis informed by social semiotics, we analyze how the semantic variations in students' representations correspond to the recurring genres they were enacting. We found a general pattern in the use and creation of representations across different scientific genres that support the theory of a mutual contextualization between genre and representation construction.

The visual mode provides emergent bi/multilinguals an essential resource to construct scientific explanations. Yet, while a metalanguage is used to describe the written mode of scientific language such as, claim, evidence, reason; there is little research that makes students aware of the metalanguage of a visual mode. We propose an introduction to the visual metalanguage will ensure emergent bi/multilinguals better access to the visual mode. This study employs an instrumental case study to examine the introduction of visual metalanguage to a fifth-grade science class. Two cameras record ten emergent bi/multilinguals as they construct scientific explanations in nine lessons. We use a framework informed by social semiotics to analyse the meanings made. The data revealed that an awareness of the visual metalanguage led to an enhanced commitment to illustrate the explanation of the phenomenon, illuminated key concepts and provided more context to the audience. In addition, teacher questioning became more focused.

Current research in science education and the cognitive sciences has highlighted the importance of epistemic tools in scaffolding learners to think in ways consistent with scientific practices. However, recent studies on epistemic tool have mainly focused on epistemic cognition, but not epistemic metacognition. Epistemic metacognition, which operates at a meta-level targeted at our own thought processes concerning the source, nature, and justification of knowledge, is a crucial component that promotes and regulates epistemic development. The aim of this paper is to illuminate how an epistemic tool mediates and supports epistemic cognition and epistemic metacognition, and the difference between them. Drawing data from a design research study that introduced a specific epistemic tool called PRO (premise-reasoning-outcome) to describe the structure of a scientific explanation, this paper illustrates how PRO was used to facilitate the development of both epistemic cognition and epistemic metacognition. Specifically, epistemic metacognition was developed by using PRO with multiple metacognitive instructional approaches to: (a) highlight the epistemic connections between the various components of an explanation, (b) prompt questions that regulate one's own thought processes, and (c) organize navigational markers that regulate key ideas linking the causality of an explanation. The findings from this study provide insights and evidence for a crucial theoretical link that is currently missing in our understanding of epistemic tools, epistemic cognition, and epistemic metacognition.

This paper reports on the design and enactment of an instructional strategy aimed to support students in constructing scientific explanations. Informed by the philosophy of science and linguistic studies of science, a new instructional framework called premise--reasoning--outcome (PRO) was conceptualized, developed, and tested over two years in four upper secondary (9th-10th grade) physics and chemistry classrooms. This strategy was conceptualized based on the understanding of the structure of a scientific explanation, which comprises three primary components: (a) premise -- accepted knowledge that provides the basis of the explanation, (b) reasoning -- logical sequences that follow from the premise, and (c) outcome -- the phenomenon to be explained. A study was carried out to examine how the PRO strategy influenced students' written explanations using multiple data sources (e.g. students' writing, lesson observations, focus group discussions). Analysis of students' writing indicates that explanations with a PRO structure were graded better by the teachers. In addition, students reported that the PRO strategy provided a useful organizational structure for writing scientific explanations, although they had some difficulties in identifying and using the structure. With the PRO as a new instructional tool, comparison with other explanation frameworks as well as implications for educational research and practice are discussed.

The purpose of this study is to examines the relationship between the communicative approach of classroom talk and the modes of representations used by science teachers. Based on video data from two physics classrooms in Singapore, a recurring pattern in the relationship was observed as the teaching sequence of a lesson unfolded. It was found that as the mode of representation shifted from enactive (action based) to iconic (image based) to symbolic (language based), there was a concurrent and coordinated shift in the classroom communicative approach from interactive-dialogic to interactive-authoritative to non-interactive--authoritative. Specifically, the shift from enactive to iconic to symbolic representations occurred mainly within the interactive-dialogic approach while the shift towards the interactive-authoritative and non-interactive-authoritative approaches occurred when symbolic modes of representation were used. This concurrent and coordinated shift has implications on how we conceive the use of representations in conjunction with the co-occurring classroom discourse, both theoretically and pedagogically.

This article presents an instructional strategy called Premise-Reasoning-Outcome (PRO) designed to support students in the construction of scientific explanations. Informed by the philosophy of science and linguistic studies of science, the PRO strategy involves identifying three components of a scientific explanation: (i) premise--an accepted principle or fact that provides the basis of the explanation, (ii) reasoning--logical consequences that follow from the premise, and (iii) outcome--the phenomenon to be explained. Based on a year of study in four physics and chemistry classrooms, the article reports on how the teachers integrated the PRO strategy in their science teaching.

This paper presents an integrative framework for analyzing science meaning-making with representations. It integrates the research on multiple representations and multimodal representations by identifying and leveraging the differences in their units of analysis in two dimensions: timescale and compositional grain size. Timescale considers the duration of time a learner typically spends on one or more representations. Compositional grain size refers to the elements of interest within a representation, ranging from components such as visual elements, words, or symbols, to a representation as a whole. Research on multiple representations focuses on the practice of re-representing science concepts through different representations and is typically of long timescale and large grain size. Research on multimodal representations tends to consider how learners integrate the components of a representation to produce meaning; it is usually of finer grain size and shorter timescale. In the integrative framework, each type of analysis on multiple and multimodal representations plays a mutually complementary role in illuminating students' learning with representations. The framework is illustrated through the analysis of instructional episodes of middle school students using representations to learn nanoscience concepts over the course of a lesson unit. Finally, recommendations for new research directions stemming from this framework are presented.

Research in languages and literacies in science education (LLSE) has developed substantial theoretical and pedagogical insights into how students learn science through language, discourse, and multimodal representations. At the same time, language is central to the functioning of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI). On this common basis concerning the role of language, this paper explores how foundational ideas from LLSE studies can inform the use of GenAI in science education. A bibliometric analysis of 412 journal articles from Web of Science provided the initial step to identify major themes and relationships in the LLSE literature. The analysis revealed four clusters of research in LLSE: reading and writing scientific text, science discourse and interaction, multilingual science classroom, and multimodality and representations. Each cluster was further analyzed through close reading of selected articles to identify and connect key constructs to the potential use of GenAI. These constructs include the interactive‐constructive reading model, text genre, reading‐writing integration, dialogic interaction, critical questioning, argumentation, translanguaging, hybridity, thematic pattern, modal affordance, and transduction. From these ideas and connections, the paper recommends several pedagogical principles for science educators to guide the use of GenAI. It concludes that LLSE research offers valuable insights for researchers and teachers to investigate and design the use of GenAI in science education. In turn, the impending use of GenAI also calls for a rethinking of literacy that will shape future research in LLSE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proliferation of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) means we are witnessing transformative change in education. While GenAI offers exciting possibilities for personalised learning and innovative teaching methodologies, its potential for reinforcing biases and perpetuating stereotypes poses ethical and pedagogical concerns. This article aims to critically examine the images produced by the integration of DALL-E 3 and ChatGPT, focusing on representations of science classrooms and educators. Applying a capital lens, we analyse how these images portray forms of culture (embodied, objectified and institutionalised) and explore if these depictions align with, or contest, stereotypical representations of science education. The science classroom imagery showcased a variety of settings, from what the GenAI described as vintage to contemporary. Our findings reveal the presence of stereotypical elements associated with science educators, including white-lab coats, goggles and beakers. While the images often align with stereotypical views, they also introduce elements of diversity. This article highlights the importance for ongoing vigilance about issues of equity, representation, bias and transparency in GenAI artefacts. This study contributes to broader discourses about the impact of GenAI in reinforcing or dismantling stereotypes associated with science education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With a growing new materialism paradigm and research on multimodality, there is an increasing attention on the role of material objects in science teaching and learning. However, there is currently no available framework, coding scheme, or method of inquiry to specifically analyze the use of material objects in science meaning-making. This paper presents and discusses two analytical frameworks developed to examine teachers' and students' interaction with material objects during classroom discourse. The first analytical framework was theoretically informed by multimodal interaction analysis (MIA), focusing on humans' situated interaction using embodied and disembodied modes located in the material world. The second framework was informed by social semiotics multimodal analysis (SSMA), focusing on material interaction as a semiotic mode with unique affordances for sign-makers to make meaning alongside other semiotic modes (e.g. speech, gesture). Both frameworks are used to analyze two vignettes of classroom discourse generated from video data to illustrate their applications, coding procedures, and interpretative potential. The MIA-informed framework highlighted the dynamic and reciprocal relations between students' experiences and the transformation of materials, while the SSMA-informed framework highlighted the subtle meanings constructed with the unique affordances of the material mode. The affordances and limitations of the two frameworks are discussed, along with their compatibility and complementary relations. This work contributes to the emerging field of materiality in science education research and provides a foundation for future studies on the analysis of material interaction in science meaning-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is currently a lack of systematic study examining the integration of verbal-visual elements in science textbooks. In particular, few research has investigated how different types of visual representations (e.g. photograph, diagram, table) vary across the major written genres of science (e.g. information report, explanation). Based on the perspective of social semiotics, this paper aims to understand the co-dependency between visual representations and written genres by analysing a corpus of multimodal texts from a major Australian textbook series. Quantitative and qualitative analyses reveal a number of interesting patterns in terms of how several types of representations tend to appear with certain genres, as well as possible reasons for this co-dependency. In particular, the analysis accounts for why and how: (a) photographs and tables are used to support information report, (b) diagrams and photographs for explanation, and (c) diagrams and tables for experimental account. This study provides empirical evidence to support the importance of analysing multimodal genre for science teaching and learning as well as science education research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introductory paper to the special issue "Reading in Science and Mathematics" presents four major theoretical perspectives of reading, literacy, and language that underpin many studies in this area, including the nine articles selected for this issue. It first outlines several new developments and contemporary issues that drive the growing importance of reading in science and mathematics. It then presents the perspectives that inform and situate the authors' research as reported in this special issue, followed by a brief introduction of their articles situated within each of the perspectives. The four perspectives are reading comprehension, scientific/mathematical literacy, disciplinary literacy, and linguistic/semiotic meaning-making. The purpose in discussing these perspectives is to map out the theoretical terrain in the field and connect the key ideas within the research on reading in science and mathematics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This epilogue for the special issue consists of brief reviews related to reading in language arts, science, and mathematics research areas; summaries of the nine contributions; themes arising from a cross-case comparison of the contributions; and further research, curriculum, and instructional considerations. The introduction and articles not only indicate the authors' thinking about reading as a stand-alone language art but also imply the paired language arts (i.e. reading–writing, representing–interpreting, talking–listening) and scientific and mathematical literacies. Seven themes emerged from these contributions: the influences from the nature of these disciplines, unique attributes that affect discipline-specific reading comprehension, movement toward international perspectives and languages, models of reading and comprehension, content teachers' responsibility for explicit strategy instruction and metacognition, data collection and analysis to reflect established frameworks for reading and other language arts in doing and learning science and mathematics, and professional learning and promising classroom practices. The concluding remarks provide suggestions for further research, classroom instruction, and professional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The original article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-022-10322-1.Correction to: International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education (2022) 20 (Suppl 1):S1– S1https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-022-10322-1The original version of this article unfortunately contained a missing ethical declaration statement.Ethics declarationsEthical ClearanceEthical clearance was granted by all participating institutions.By Kok‑Sing Tang; Sheau‑Wen Lin and Berinderjeet KaurReported by Author; Author; Author [Extracted from the article]

Worksheets are common in science classrooms with an aim to support pupils' meaning-making, e.g., for guiding them in performing hands-on activities and documenting their experiences of such activities. Yet, there have been few systematic studies of pupils' disciplinary representations in worksheets. Drawing on systemic functional linguistics, we have analyzed fifth grade pupils' (age 10–11) multimodal texts in worksheets (n = 25) when they were working with shadow formation as part of their regular classroom activities. In the worksheets they were asked to first explain in writing why or why not a shadow was formed and then explain shadow formation through a drawing. At an overall level, we found that a majority of the pupils managed to express in writing why a shadow is formed, though it appeared to be more challenging for them to explain why a shadow is not formed. In their drawings, quite a few pupils managed to include several key aspects of shadow formation, at least when combining image with writing. For all tasks, the explanatory parts of the pupils' responses were often implicit. Based on our results, we suggest that pupils may benefit from teaching practices that integrate a parallel focus on form and content as a way to raise their awareness of, for instance, the affordances of different resources and how explanations can be structured. Such practices may support pupils to be able to consider and choose appropriate resources in their disciplinary texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the affordances of physical objects (e.g. apparatus, models, manipulatives) as they were used by teachers and students to make meaning in coordination with their speech and gestures. Despite the pervasive use of physical objects as material and tactile resources in hands-on investigations or demonstrations, there have been few attempts to analyze their role and function in meaning-making, in the same way, that researchers have previously done for other modes of representation such as speech, written text, diagram and gesture. Using social semiotics as a theoretical framework, we conceptualise physical objects as a semiotic mode with a particular affordance for making meaning that involves embodied actions and manipulation of tools. Based on a multimodal discourse analysis of numerous classroom situations, we illustrate how physical objects as a mode have four unique affordances for meaning-making in science classrooms. These affordances are: (a) enacting material interaction, (b) providing evidential meaning, (c) orientating three-dimensional spatial meaning and (d) sensitising experiential meaning. The implication of why we should use physical objects to support or value-add science meaning-making is then discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of group drawing to promote student‐generated representation is a common instructional strategy as it combines the benefits of using visual representation and collaborative talk. Although the affordances of group drawing have increasingly been emphasized in science education, few studies have investigated how drawing as a visual mode interacts with group discourse as a verbal mode as well as how that interaction facilitates the development of students' collective ideas. Informed by theories in classroom discourse and multimodality, this paper examines the interaction process between a verbal and visual mode of representation as groups of students engaged in collaborative drawing during guided science inquiry lessons. On the basis of the analysis of data from a science class that adopted group drawing, we found and documented a recurring pattern, Plan‐Draw‐Evaluate or PDE pattern, in how the interaction between the verbal and visual modes occurred during collaborative drawing. This PDE pattern consisted of a triad of moves that alternate between the two modes and fulfilled various discursive purposes, such as suggesting, requesting, recording, visualizing, elaborating, agreeing, and rejecting. The PDE pattern provided a basic social structure that facilitated the collaboration and progression of students' ideas. With illustrations of PDE patterns and its variations, we argue that the PDE pattern provides an insight into the dynamic organization of interactions involved in group drawing that takes into consideration the multimodal affordances of verbal and visual modes of representation and the progression of ideas developed through collaborative discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immersive virtual reality (IVR) offers significant transformative potential for science education by supporting learning experiences that deeply engage students and improve their understanding of scientific concepts. Despite considerable interest, research on the use of IVR in science education is still in its formative stage. Currently, there is a substantial gap in a tool that can help stakeholders evaluate key elements of immersive software for science education contexts. This research addresses this gap by conceptualising and applying a framework designed to assist educators, researchers, and designers in assessing essential components of an immersive science application. The framework highlights three key components: IVR technological affordances, the exploration of science within IVR, and scientific representations. These components are synthesised into the Immersive Representations Model (IRM). Employing screen capture methodology, we evaluated the application and significance of the IRM. This study pioneers a structured approach to evaluating immersive technologies in science education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unique Conditions of Science Education for Discourse Analysis The various papers in this special issue demonstrate that the use of discourse analysis is not a straightforward affair that can ignore the disciplinary and sociocultural context of the science classroom. For their purpose of tracking changes in science teaching that focuses on students' appropriation of various scientific practices, they argue that more "traditional discourse analysis" of using fine-grained micro-analysis to examine short timescale of interaction is difficult to scale up, thus making them infeasible for longer studies that are interested in comparing several different classrooms. In classroom discourse studies, many researchers use a variety of approaches under the umbrella term of "discourse analysis" to understand the dynamic of interaction and sometimes how learning happens in the classroom. Classroom discourse is an indispensable process through which the teaching and learning of any discipline, including science, takes place. [Extracted from the article]

Pedagogical content knowledge of science teachers includes knowledge of representational forms, such as visual displays. Past research has provided a general means to evaluate pictures, but is not fine-grained on features internal to pictures. Furthermore, many existing picture function typologies consider pictures as subservient to text, though pictures have their own explanatory power. We here adapt a general 'performative' image function typology into a science-specific taxonomy of cognitive image functions with fine-grained distinctions of design strategies related to interpretative processes. The authors, including science educators and graphic designers, refined and expanded functions of imagery using visual displays in science textbooks following a constant comparison method. The resulting performative image function taxonomy consists of a structural framework that distinguishes conceptual elements internal to pictures (i.e. concepts, entities, components, attributes, adjuncts, configurations); a process model that identifies three interpretative phases necessary to understand visual displays (i.e. approach, activity, outcome); and 17 functions across the interpretative phases. We demonstrate these functions through analysis of and modifications to visual displays from science textbooks. Many of the modifications presented here can be repeated with rudimentary drawing over existing illustrations (e.g. arrows, dividing lines, labels), and they are thus accessible to science teachers and students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current research in science education and the cognitive sciences has highlighted the importance of epistemic tools in scaffolding learners to think in ways consistent with scientific practices. However, recent studies on epistemic tool have mainly focused on epistemic cognition, but not epistemic metacognition. Epistemic metacognition, which operates at a meta-level targeted at our own thought processes concerning the source, nature, and justification of knowledge, is a crucial component that promotes and regulates epistemic development. The aim of this paper is to illuminate how an epistemic tool mediates and supports epistemic cognition and epistemic metacognition, and the difference between them. Drawing data from a design research study that introduced a specific epistemic tool called PRO (premise-reasoning-outcome) to describe the structure of a scientific explanation, this paper illustrates how PRO was used to facilitate the development of both epistemic cognition and epistemic metacognition. Specifically, epistemic metacognition was developed by using PRO with multiple metacognitive instructional approaches to: (a) highlight the epistemic connections between the various components of an explanation, (b) prompt questions that regulate one's own thought processes, and (c) organize navigational markers that regulate key ideas linking the causality of an explanation. The findings from this study provide insights and evidence for a crucial theoretical link that is currently missing in our understanding of epistemic tools, epistemic cognition, and epistemic metacognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Student-generated drawing is a useful strategy to construct students' scientific ideas. For exploring ways to support student-generated drawing, we focused on the perspective of 'Norms' – shared behaviour patterns desirable in a community. We investigated what norms were formed and how they emerged when students made drawings to explain phenomena. Data were collected from classroom observations, interviews and students' artefacts from five physics lessons in a primary school gifted programme. The data were analysed based on three essential features of norms: justifiability, sharing and behaviours. Consequently, two main norms were reported with four sub-norms in terms of two processes of drawing: meaning-making and representing. First, to show invisible mechanism, 'explaining why' was emphasised as a main norm of the meaning-making process. This norm was shared in classroom discussions and drawings by interacting with two sub-norms that supported students to interpret phenomena with 'key concepts' at a 'particle level'. Second, 'telling a story visually' was another main norm of the representing process. This norm was formed with two sub-norms that encouraged students to visualise ideas with 'their own symbols' in ways that were 'easy to understand'. These results indicate that norms can guide desirable directions for students to construct and visualise ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to investigate the process of students' construction of scientific explanations through drawing explanatory diagrams. For this, we observed fifth and sixth graders' drawing processes in a gifted science class involving learning physics concepts in mechanics. The analysis was carried out on three pictorial representational levels: sensory (e.g. observed materials), unseen substance (e.g. molecules) and unseen non-substance (e.g. forces). We found that there were five patterns of interplay depending on the sequential path through the pictorial representational levels. All students began drawing explanatory diagrams from the sensory level as the first step and then constructed explanations using the unseen levels based on the interplay among different levels. In the process of forming meaningful relationships among the three levels of representation, students focused on a specific phenomenon through drawing at a sensory level and extended their making sense of the phenomenon from what happened to why it happened. Based on these findings, we suggest how teachers can use the interplay among the different pictorial representational levels to guide students in generating scientific explanations through drawing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the design and enactment of an instructional strategy aimed to support students in constructing scientific explanations. Informed by the philosophy of science and linguistic studies of science, a new instructional framework called premise–reasoning–outcome (PRO) was conceptualized, developed, and tested over two years in four upper secondary (9th–10th grade) physics and chemistry classrooms. This strategy was conceptualized based on the understanding of the structure of a scientific explanation, which comprises three primary components: (a) premise – accepted knowledge that provides the basis of the explanation, (b) reasoning – logical sequences that follow from the premise, and (c) outcome – the phenomenon to be explained. A study was carried out to examine how the PRO strategy influenced students’ written explanations using multiple data sources (e.g. students’ writing, lesson observations, focus group discussions). Analysis of students’ writing indicates that explanations with a PRO structure were graded better by the teachers. In addition, students reported that the PRO strategy provided a useful organizational structure for writing scientific explanations, although they had some difficulties in identifying and using the structure. With the PRO as a new instructional tool, comparison with other explanation frameworks as well as implications for educational research and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

ABSTRACT This paper presents an integrative framework for analyzing science meaning-making with representations. It integrates the research on multiple representations and multimodal representations by identifying and leveraging the differences in their units of analysis in two dimensions: timescale and compositional grain size. Timescale considers the duration of time a learner typically spends on one or more representations. Compositional grain size refers to the elements of interest within a representation, ranging from components such as visual elements, words, or symbols, to a representation as a whole. Research on multiple representations focuses on the practice of re-representing science concepts through different representations and is typically of long timescale and large grain size. Research on multimodal representations tends to consider how learners integrate the components of a representation to produce meaning; it is usually of finer grain size and shorter timescale. In the integrative framework, each type of analysis on multiple and multimodal representations plays a mutually complementary role in illuminating students' learning with representations. The framework is illustrated through the analysis of instructional episodes of middle school students using representations to learn nanoscience concepts over the course of a lesson unit. Finally, recommendations for new research directions stemming from this framework are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a commentary on how theoretical notions of science literacy and multimodal representations presents opportunities for and challenges the way research are conducted in these areas. It notes that science literacy is a cultural practice that encompass certain ways of talking, writing, viweing, drawing, graphic, and acting within a specialized discourse community. It cites a study which found that there is a need for students to learn the specific literacy practices of integrating the multimodal elements of representations based on scientific conventions in order to develop the canonical meaning of accepted scientific concepts. Particular focus is given to two crucial variables concerning multiple modal representations.

• Clarifies the constructs of metadiscourse, metalanguage, and metacognition. • Uses discourse analysis to show how these constructs are manifested in talk. • Reports the high co-occurrence among these constructs in science classroom talk. • Discusses the interconnections among these meta-level constructs. • Expands Vygotsky's theory on the relationship between language and cognition. This paper examines the interconnections among three "meta" constructs that are increasingly used in education research: metadiscourse, metalanguage, and metacognition. Metadiscourse is a commentary of our own discourse, metalanguage is a specialized language used to describe language itself as an object, while metacognition is thinking about our own thought process. Due to their self-referential and reflexive similarities, these three constructs are closely related. Yet, their precise nature and connections have seldom been clarified and investigated in education research. This paper reviews the theoretical perspectives and literature that inform the research on metadiscourse, metalanguage, and metacognition. It then illustrates with a case study from science classrooms to show how metadiscourse, metalanguage, and metacognition are analyzed, before discussing the interconnections among these three meta-level constructs. The paper argues that an understanding of their interconnections can bring clarity to the field in applied linguistics and classroom discourse studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a multimodal teaching approach delivered to grade 5 elementary students in a bilingual school in Hong Kong, as part of a larger research study aimed at supporting English Language Learners (ELLs) in science class. As language demands of reading, writing and talking science place additional challenges on ELLs, there is much research interest in exploring the use of multiple modes of communication beyond the dominant use of verbal and written language. Research has shown that students develop a better scientific understanding of natural phenomena by using and alternating between a variety of representations. Yet, questions remain as to what meanings ELLs make during a multimodal discourse and, in turn, how such discourse provides support to ELLs in learning science. Drawing on social semiotics, which theorizes language as a meaning making resource comprising a range of modes (e.g. gestures and diagrams), we used a case-study approach to examine how a multimodal instructional approach provided 10 students with multiple avenues to make sense of science learning. Video recordings (capturing gestures, speech and model manipulation) and student works (drawing and writing) were collected during nine inquiry science lessons, which encompassed biology, physics and chemistry science units. Multimodal transcription allowed discourse to be analysed at a fine-grain level which, together with analysis of student works, indicated that the multimodal instructional approach provided the necessary inquiry opportunities and variety of language experiences for ELLs to build science understandings. Analysis also revealed how the affordances of modes attributed to the meaning making potentials for the ELLs and how they provided alternate communication avenues in which new meanings could be made. The findings from this study have implications for ELLs learning science within the growing multilingual Asia-Pacific region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]