![]() The teacher or student writes the chemical reaction in words.The following student sample is from a Year 9 class. The example below can be used in a Year 9 or 10 class ( VCSSU124, Helping students to move between modes of representation of chemical formulas should assist them to develop both their comprehension of the meaning-making system of chemistry, but also of the chemistry involved in the represented chemical reactions. While chemical formulas enable efficient communication between scientists, they set up comprehension barriers for students (Taasoobshirazi & Glynn, 2009). Writing and drawing chemical reactionsĪ chemical formula is a remarkably short and reduced mode of representation (Taasoobshirazi & Glynn, 2009). The image below is a drawing made by a Year 10 student to show the relationship between chromosomes, DNA and genes ( VCSSU119, The images below are drawings made by Year 7 students to show the relationship between Brownian motion and changes of state ( VCSSU096, Students are given the opportunity to act on the feedback to refine their diagram.Students receive feedback from their peers and teacher about their diagram.Students explain their diagram to the class.Ask students to draw a diagram to represent the process.Have students discuss the definition in pairs.Provide students with a written definition of a process.Joint construction can be used to support students to develop their literate skills to draw visual representations of knowledge. Joint construction is a collaborative learning activity that provides opportunities for the teacher and students to share their knowledge and learn from one another ( HITS Strategy 5). Our changing earth: The rock cycle, Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia), 2014. Students construct their own representation of the rock cycle.The teacher supports the students’ critique by asking question to elicit more specific responses (for example, “What do you mean by ‘everything’?” “What do you like about how the sedimentation process is drawn?”).write down what is shown well and what is not shown well.note features that they find helpful or confusing.In groups of three or four, students critique the different diagrammatic forms.Present students with 5–7 visual representations of the rock cycle.This strategy can be adapted to support learning related to any of the Science Understanding content descriptions. One visual representation of the rock cycle that can be used is also below. The following activity has been adapted from Tytler, Prain and Hubber (2018), and focuses on the rock cycle that is taught in Year 7 or 8 ( VCSSU102). Teaching students the skills to critique visual and physical representations in Science empowers them to identify positive and productive aspects that they can then incorporate into their own diagrammatic representations. Within Science, students are presented with a range of diagrams and models that represent abstract and complex processes. There is also a note about the use of concept maps. Research has shown that the use of workbooks that are lined on one side and blank on the other not only encourage students to use drawing to explore and present ideas, but also improve student engagement with learning (Tytler, Prain & Hubber, 2018).įour strategies to support students to draw visual representations of their scientific knowledge are: The generation of visual representations should thus be thought of as a thinking tool that both develops and shows student understanding. The process of drawing diagrams as well as explaining and justifying them assists students to develop science understanding (Waldrip, Prain & Carolan, 2010). The creation of these representations provides a way for students to play with their emerging ideas, build and extend existing knowledge while also learning appropriate visual conventions (Ainsworth, Prain & Tytler, 2011). Students need to be able to both understand these visual representations and to create their own. In other words, they communicate through a complex combination of semiotic (meaning-making) systems to generate multimodal texts (Polias, 2016). ![]() ![]() Scientists do not only use words but also diagrams, graphs and images to convey their knowledge. ![]()
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