John Airey

Social Semiotics in Higher Education:

Examples from teaching and learning in undergraduate physics.

Uppsala Physics Education Research Group

Department of Physics and Astronomy

Undergraduate teaching and learning in physics

Ångström Laboratory

In US 86 PER research groups In university physics departments

In US 86 PER research groups In university physics departments Only one in Sweden

What is Physics Education Research? A form of Discipline-based Education Research

Disicipline-based Education Research

“investigates learning and teaching in a discipline using a range of methods with deep grounding in the discipline’s priorities, worldview, knowledge and practices.

Long-term goal: “to understand the nature of expertise in a discipline”.

US National Research Council (2012, p 9)

Research group interests

Understanding physical phenomena How do students understand physical phenomena and how can learning experiences be constructed to facilitate such understanding? Social identity and the culture of physics How does the culture of physics affect the possibilities for student learning? Representation in physics How can the different resources we use in physics be coordinated in order to improve the teaching and learning of physics?

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My personal interests

The role of language Airey 2004; 2010; 2011a; 2012; 2015; in press Airey & Linder 2006; 2008 Thøgersen & Airey 2011; Airey et al in press

Disciplinary literacy Airey 2011b, 2011c; 2013; Linder et al 2014

Airey & Linder 2009; Airey & Linder in press

Ericsson et al 2014a; 2014b Fredlund et al 2012; 2015a; 2015b; 2015c

Larsson & Airey 2014a 2014b;; 2015a; 2015b Airey & Larsson 2014 9

Representation in physics

Teacher identity/ professionalism

Four-year funding from Swedish Research Council Benchmark physics teacher training across four countries with different PISA results

NIE, Singapore

Åbo Academy, Finland

Cambridge, UK

Uppsala, Sweden

New research project

Interested in the affordances and constraints for trainee physics teachers to construct a professional identity across different settings.

New research project

John Airey

Social Semiotics in Higher Education:

Examples from teaching and learning in undergraduate physics.

What is social semiotics?

The study of the development and reproduction of specialized systems of meaning making in particular sections of society.

Airey & Linder (in press) (See also descriptions in Halliday 1978; Hodge & Kress 1988;

Thibault 1991; van Leeuwen 2005)

Use as a lens to understand teaching and learning in undergraduate physics.

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Learning a particular physics concept is dependent on becoming fluent in a critical constellation of semiotic resources.

(Airey 2009, Airey & Linder 2009)

Theoretical constructs

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Critical constellations

A Physics Concept

Airey & Linder (2009)

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Discourse imitation is when students use semiotic resources appropriately without the associated disciplinary understanding Discourse imitation occurs because students can’t become fluent in everything at once.

Teachers should expect discourse imitation Airey (2009); Airey & Linder (2009)

Theoretical constructs

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Affordance

Key term in our work Affordance (Gibson 1979; Norman 1988)

Disciplinary affordance The agreed meaning making functions that a semiotic resource fulfils for a particular disciplinary community. Airey (2014)

Pedagogical affordance The aptness of a semiotic resource for teaching some particular educational content

Airey (in press)

Two related affordances

Disciplinary affordance

Disciplinary learning can be problematised in terms of coming to appreciate the disciplinary affordances of semiotic resources

Fredlund et al (2012:658)

Focuses on the discipline’s interpretation of the resource rather than the learner’s experience

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Disciplinary affordance

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The disciplinary affordance of a semiotic resource is shaped by its:

Materiality

Historical convention Rationalization

Airey (2014); Mavers

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Airey & Eriksson 2014

An example of a semiotic resource with high disciplinary affordance *Information highly packed *High level of usefulness in the discipline

» 

Pedagogical affordance

Deal with less information (reduces cognitive load

Often less abstract (this is something you can ’see’)

Has limited use in the day-to-day work of the discipline

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Disciplinary affordance Usefulness doing the discipline

Pedagogical affordance Usefulness for teaching the discipline

Two related affordances

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Pedagogical vs disciplinary affordance

Disciplinary affordance

Pedagogical affordance

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Disciplinary affordance

Appropriate disciplinary learning only possible when there is a match between:

•  what a given semiotic resource affords to the student (Gibson 1988; Norman 1979)

And •  its disciplinary affordance

(i.e. what it affords for the discipline)

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How can we help students discern disciplinary affordances?

1.   Unpack the disciplinary affordance (Fredlund et al 2014)

2. Use variation theory to draw the appropriate disciplinary affordance to students’ attention

(Marton and Booth, 1997; Lo, 2012; Marton, 2015)

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Channel 1:

Channel 2:

1. Unpacking disciplinary affordance

RC-circuits Fredlund et al (2014)

Unpacking disciplinary affordance

Channel 2

Channel 1

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Channel 2

Channel 1

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Channel 2 Channel 2

Channel 1

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Unpacking disciplinary affordance

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OC1 OC2

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Table I (e) shows the oscilloscope indicating a square signal from the function generator on Channel 2, and a characteristic charging and discharging curve from the capacitor on Channel 1. The students could finally get on with their measurements. TABLE I. Summary of the illustrative vignette showing the sequence of connections and reconnections of the circuit that the students carried out and the oscilloscope images obtained at each stage. The signal from the function generator and the capacitor are shown in blue and yellow respectively.

Description Circuit connection Image on the oscilloscope screen

(a) The students’ first connection

(b) The students’ simplified connection

(c) The circuit after the TA’s first intervention

(d) The same circuit after having increased the frequency

(e) The circuit after the TA’s second intervention

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Unpacking

Unpacking a semiotic resource increases its pedagogical affordance but decreases its disciplinary affordance

Airey (2015)

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2 Variation theory

Use variation theory to draw the appropriate disciplinary affordance to students attention

(Marton and Booth, 1997; Lo, 2012; Marton, 2015) We notice aspects that vary…

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Hold all aspects constant except for the aspect of you want students to notice

Suggest that we can leverage this with all the disciplinary specific semiotic resources we use.

Allows students to discern the disciplinary affordance

Patterns of variation

Identify disciplinary-relevant aspects

Select appropriate semiotic resources

Create systematic pattern of variation that allows students to notice the disciplinary affordances

Fredlund (2015), Fredlund, et al (2015 a; 2015b; 2015c)

Patterns of variation

Shown how this systematic variation could be applied to help students notice disciplinary affordances in Optics and Electrostatics

Fredlund (2015); Fredlund et al (2015b)

Thanks for listening!

Airey, J. (2004). Can you teach it in English? Aspects of the language choice debate in Swedish higher education. In Robert. Wilkinson (Ed.), Integrating Content and Language: Meeting the Challenge of a Multilingual Higher Education (pp. 97-108). Maastricht, Netherlands: Maastricht University Press.

Airey J. (2009). Science, Language and Literacy. Case Studies of Learning in Swedish University Physics. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Science and Technology 81. Uppsala Retrieved 2009-04-27, from http://publications.uu.se/theses/abstract.xsql?dbid=9547

Airey, J. (2010). The ability of students to explain science concepts in two languages. Hermes - Journal of Language and Communication Studies, 45, 35-49.

Airey, J. (2011a). Talking about Teaching in English. Swedish university lecturers' experiences of changing their teaching language. Ibérica, 22(Fall), 35-54.

Airey, J. (2011b). Initiating Collaboration in Higher Education: Disciplinary Literacy and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Dynamic content and language collaboration in higher education: theory, research, and reflections (pp. 57-65). Cape Town, South Africa: Cape Peninsula University of Technology.

Airey, J. (2011c). The Disciplinary Literacy Discussion Matrix: A Heuristic Tool for Initiating Collaboration in Higher Education. Across the disciplines, 8(3), unpaginated. Retrieved from http://wac.colostate.edu/atd/clil/airey.cfm

Airey, J. (2012). “I don’t teach language.” The linguistic attitudes of physics lecturers in Sweden. AILA Review, 25(2012), 64–79. Airey, J. (2013). Disciplinary Literacy. In E. Lundqvist, L. Östman, & R. Säljö (Eds.), Scientific literacy – teori och praktik

(pp. 41-58): Gleerups. Airey, J. (2014) Representations in Undergraduate Physics. Docent lecture, Ångström Laboratory, 9th June 2014 From

http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-226598 Airey, J. (2015). From stimulated recall to disciplinary literacy: Summarizing ten years of research into teaching and learning in

English. In Slobodanka Dimova, Anna Kristina Hultgren, & Christian Jensen (Eds.), English-Medium Instruction in European Higher Education. English in Europe, Volume 3 (pp. 157-176): De Gruyter Mouton.

Airey, J. (In Press). Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) and English for Academic Purposes (EAP). In K. Hyland & P. Shaw (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of English for Academic Purposes. London: Routledge.

References

Airey, J., & Eriksson, U. (2014). A semiotic analysis of the disciplinary affordances of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram in astronomy. Paper presented at the The 5th International 360 conference: Encompassing the multimodality of knowledge, Aarhus, Denmark.

Airey, J., Eriksson, U., Fredlund, T., and Linder, C. (2014). "The concept of disciplinary affordance"The 5th International 360 conference: Encompassing the multimodality of knowledge. City: Aarhus University: Aarhus, Denmark, pp. 20.

Airey, J., & Larsson, J. (2014). What Knowledge Do Trainee Physics Teachers Need to Learn? Differences in the Views of Training Staff. International Science Education Conference ISEC 2014, National Institute of Education, Singapore. 25-27 November 2014.

Airey, J., & Linder, C. (2006). Language and the experience of learning university physics in Sweden. European Journal of Physics, 27(3), 553-560.

Airey, J., & Linder, C. (2008). Bilingual scientific literacy? The use of English in Swedish university science programmes. Nordic Journal of English Studies, 7(3), 145-161.

Airey, J., & Linder, C. (2009). "A disciplinary discourse perspective on university science learning: Achieving fluency in a critical constellation of modes." Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 46(1), 27-49.

Airey, J. & Linder, C. (2015) Social Semiotics in Physics Education: Leveraging critical constellations of disciplinary representations ESERA 2015 From http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn%3Anbn%3Ase%3Auu%3Adiva-260209

Airey, J. & Linder, C. (in press) Social Semiotics in Physics Education : Multiple Representations in Physics Education Springer

Eriksson, U. (2015) Reading the Sky: From Starspots to Spotting Stars Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Eriksson, U., Linder, C., Airey, J., & Redfors, A. (2014). Who needs 3D when the Universe is flat? Science Education, 98(3),

412-442. Eriksson, U., Linder, C., Airey, J., & Redfors, A. (2014). Introducing the anatomy of disciplinary discernment: an example from

astronomy. European Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 2(3), 167‐182. Fredlund 2015 Using a Social Semiotic Perspective to Inform the Teaching and Learning of Physics. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Fredlund, T., Airey, J., & Linder, C. (2012). Exploring the role of physics representations: an illustrative example from students

sharing knowledge about refraction. European Journal of Physics, 33, 657-666. Fredlund, T, Airey, J, & Linder, C. (2015a). Enhancing the possibilities for learning: Variation of disciplinary-relevant aspects in

physics representations. European Journal of Physics. Fredlund, T. & Linder, C., & Airey, J. (2015b). Towards addressing transient learning challenges in undergraduate physics: an

example from electrostatics. European Journal of Physics. 36 055002. Fredlund, T. & Linder, C., & Airey, J. (2015c). A social semiotic approach to identifying critical aspects. International Journal for

Lesson and Learning Studies 2015 4:3 , 302-316

Fredlund, T., Linder, C., Airey, J., & Linder, A. (2014). Unpacking physics representations: Towards an appreciation of disciplinary affordance. Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res., 10(020128).

Gibson, J. J. (1979). The theory of affordances The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception (pp. 127-143). Boston: Houghton Miffin.

Halliday, M. A. K. (1978). Language as a social semiotic. London: Arnold. Hodge, R. & Kress, G. (1988). Social Semiotics. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Kryjevskaia M, Stetzer M R & Heron P R L (2012) Student understanding of wave behavior at a boundary: the relationships among wavelength, propagation speed, and frequency Am. J. Phys. 80339–47 Larsson, J., & Airey, J. (2014a). Searching for stories: The training environment as a constituting factor in the professional identity

work of future physics teachers. British Educational Research Association Conference BERA 2014, London, September 2014.

Larsson, J., & Airey, J. (2014b). The competing discourse models future physics teachers’ meet during teacher training. International Science Education Conference ISEC 2014, National Institute of Education, Singapore. 25-27 November 2014.

Larsson, J., & Airey, J. (2015a). Discourse Models in Swedish Physics Teacher Training: Potential Effects on Professional Identity Paper presented at the 16th Biennial EARLI Conference for Research on Learning and Instruction 25-29 August 2015.

Larsson, J., & Airey, J. (2015b). The "physics expert" discourse model – counterproductive for trainee physics teachers' professional identity building? Paper presented at the 11th Conference of the European Science Education Research Association (ESERA) Helsinki, August 31 to September 4, 2015.

Linder, A., Airey, J., Mayaba, N., & Webb, P. (2014). Fostering Disciplinary Literacy? South African Physics Lecturers’ Educational Responses to their Students’ Lack of Representational Competence. African Journal of Research in Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 18(3), 242-252. doi:10.1080/10288457.2014.953294

Lo, M. L. (2012). Variation theory and the improvement of teaching and learning (Vol. 323). Gothenburg: Göteborgs Universitet. Marton, F. (2015). Necessary conditions of learning. New York: Routledge. Marton, F., & Booth, S. (1997). Learning and awareness. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Norman, D. A. (1988). The psychology of everyday things. New York: Basic Books. Mavers, D. Glossary of multimodal terms Retrieved 6 May, 2014, from http://multimodalityglossary.wordpress.com/affordance/

Thibault, P. (1991). Social semiotics as praxis. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. van Leeuwen, T. (2005). Introducing social semiotics. London: Routledge. Wu, H-K, & Puntambekar, S. (2012). Pedagogical Affordances of Multiple External Representations in Scientific Processes. Journal

of Science Education and Technology, 21(6), 754-767.