Teachers' and pupils' scientific dialogue in learning about ...

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found athttps://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=tsed20

International Journal of Science Education

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tsed20

Teachers’ and pupils’ scientific dialogue in learningabout invisible thermal phenomena

Niclas Åhman & Fredrik Jeppsson

To cite this article: Niclas Åhman & Fredrik Jeppsson (2020) Teachers’ and pupils’ scientificdialogue in learning about invisible thermal phenomena, International Journal of Science Education,42:18, 3116-3133, DOI: 10.1080/09500693.2020.1852334

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2020.1852334

© 2020 The Author(s). Published by InformaUK Limited, trading as Taylor & FrancisGroup

Published online: 14 Dec 2020.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 1603

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Teachers’ and pupils’ scienti!c dialogue in learning aboutinvisible thermal phenomenaNiclas Åhman a and Fredrik Jeppsson b

aDepartment of Physics and Electrical Engineering, Linnaeus University, Kalmar, Sweden; bLinköpingUniversity, Linköping, Sweden

ABSTRACTIn science education research, there is a growing body of studiesfocusing on the role of multiple representations in pupils’learning. This study is based on a social semiotic perspective andin the analysis, there is a special focus on how the content isconveyed and how relations are created through interactionbetween teachers/pupils and the infrared camera and betweenteachers and pupils. We report the results from a pilot studyinvolving one teacher’s work with thermal phenomena in grade6. A class of 45 primary pupils, divided in 4 groups. Overall, wedescribe !ndings from three lessons involving experimentssituated in pupils’ everyday experiences of thermal phenomena.In the analysis, we focus on two groups of pupils (N = 25) anddata are generated from three lessons by video and audiorecordings. With the help of the infrared camera, the pupilsmanage to represent heat as a process. The infrared cameraprovides a visual interface for a shared point of reference and isan important semiotic resource for stimulating verbalcommunication between pupils and between pupils and teachers.

ARTICLE HISTORYReceived 10 July 2019Accepted 13 November 2020

KEYWORDSLanguage in classroom;physics education;elementary/primary school

Introduction

In science education research, there is a growing body of studies focusing on the role ofmultiple representations in pupils’ learning (Tang et al., 2014) and increasingly a!ordablevisualisation technology presents opportunities for pupils to learn science concepts bymaking the invisible visible.

There have been an extensive number of studies about pupils’ and teachers’ con-ceptions of the physical concept of temperature and where the focus should be, when itcomes to teaching and learning this concept, during the last three decades (e.g. deBerg, 2008). For instance, it has been reported that pupils tend to have an everyday con-ceptualisation in which heat and temperature are di!erent names for the same phenom-enon (Almahdi, 2011; Wiser & Amin, 2001). In their study of heat, Wiser and Amin(2001) look at language integration between everyday language and formal scienti"c

© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis GroupThis is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in anymedium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.

CONTACT Niclas Åhman [email protected] article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENCE EDUCATION2020, VOL. 42, NO. 18, 3116–3133https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2020.1852334

language to gain a higher level of understanding. They stress the fact that a word like ‘heat’appearing in both languages results in the need for an explicit awareness in science edu-cation and practice, by discussing the di!erences between the two languages. In addition,it has also been recognised that pupils have di#culties adopting and understanding thefundamental idea of heat transfer by conduction (Haglund, Jeppsson, & Schönborn,2016). Erickson (Erickson & Tiberghien, 1985) studied children’s (4–13 years) under-standing of heat and temperature, and found that children are aware of heat transferfrom a hot object to a cold object. Pupils do have di#culties understanding that objectsin a room have the same temperature, because they do not take into consideration thatthe objects interact with the environment, for example, the air in the system. Ericksonalso emphasizes that, if pupils were able to see the transfer of energy, this problemwould be more uncommon. Furthermore, the children have di#culties distinguishingbetween the concepts of heat and temperature. Tiberghien (Erickson & Tiberghien,1985) emphasises that not all pupils (10–14 years) are aware that the temperature risesfor all substances when heated – instead, pupils think it depends on the matter.

By the use of infrared cameras (IR cameras), it is now possible to visualise physicalphenomena such as friction, electricity and thermal physics. IR cameras help pupilsto discover physical phenomena that they otherwise have to accept as true (Vollmeret al., 2001). Visualising heat and thermal conductivity by the use of IR camera hasbeen shown to have a positive impact on pupils’ understanding of these concepts(Haglund et al., 2014, 2015; Xie & Hazzard, 2011). Xie and Hazzard (2011) emphasisethat the IR camera demysti"es heat transport and makes the concepts ‘speak for them-selves’. Cabello et al. (2006) have shown that the use of IR cameras facilitates pupils’understanding, and tends to make them become more motivated in the subject.Haglund et al. (2014) have developed and implemented laboratory work in physicsfor primary and secondary schools, and their "ndings indicate that the IR camera hasa positive e!ect by guiding the focus of pupils’ attention to the intended studiedobject. In their case, they have focused on heat conductivity and heat transfer atprimary and secondary school levels. In addition, Haglund et al. (2015) have alsoshown that the IR camera also serves as a pedagogical instrument in subjects likebiology and chemistry. As argued by Jeppsson et al. (2017), the IR camera may serveas a shared point of attention (Schoultz et al., 2001) in pupils’ dialogue when talkingabout invisible phenomena such as heat conduction and heat transfer. Even if the IRcamera has been shown to have many advantages in relation to stimulating pupils’ dia-logue when learning about central ideas of thermal concepts, research has also shownthat pupils sometimes may misinterpret the visualisation image and may be confusedwhen the IR camera calibrates towards the surroundings. According to Schönbornet al. (2014), pupils need to have some prior understanding of the concepts of heatand temperature so they can interpret the visualisation of the IR camera. Along thelines of Jeppsson et al. (2017) reasoning about seeing the IR camera as a shared pointof attention, Samuelsson et al. (2017) have shown that students’ work with IRcameras may stimulate a playful approach for students to learn about thermal conceptssuch as visualising the chemical reaction when table salt is sprinkled over ice. Samuels-son et al. (2017) also point to the fact that the IR camera itself invites students to extendthe experiment and start to pose their own questions, such as ‘What would happen if wedid this in a di!erent way?’. As we see, prior research has shown that the IR camera

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENCE EDUCATION 3117

invites students to start talking science. However, in our study, we are interested in thedialogue per se and not so much on the a!ordance of the IR camera itself.

Many scholars have highlighted the importance of meta-discussion in relation topupils’ meaning-making in science (Lemke, 1998; Tang et al., 2011). Tang et al.(2011) highlight that verbal spoken language between pupils, and between pupilsand teachers, play an important role for meaning-making of abstract symbols andscienti"c concepts. How teachers use verbal language in their conversations withpupils, and how open questions are used by teachers, are important aspects regardingpupils’ learning trajectories from everyday language use towards disciplinary knowl-edge within a subject (Nygård Larsson, 2018). Nygård Larsson (2018) found that tea-chers build their lessons on pupils’ context-based expression, and then guide thepupils’ ideas and experiences toward a more disciplinary scienti"c language. Thepupils’ context-based expression usually consisted of verbs, while the teacher’s scien-ti"c expression was a nominalisation of these verbs. Bergh Nestlog (2012, 2019)emphasises teaching and the link between the content that is conveyed, how thecontent is conveyed and how relationships to the content are created between arte-facts, teachers and pupils, and between pupils and pupils, in order to facilitate ameaning-making process for pupils. In her analysis, she developed the model of vari-ables of practice discourse (Figure 1), which focuses on how and why meaningmaking may occur during teaching, based on the discourse.

The model is based on the three practice variables, practice voices, practice formand practice !eld, and by using systemic functional linguistics (SFL) in the analy-sis, she focuses on the mobility of pupils’ and teachers’ orientation among andbetween the three above-mentioned functions. By studying the practice !eld, youfocus on the content of the teaching. Within the variable practice voices, the par-ticipants and the interactions between them are in focus. The last variable, practiceform, highlights how the subject (practice "eld) is communicated by the practicevoices.

Figure 1. Variables of practice discourse (cf. Bergh Nestlog, 2012).

3118 N. ÅHMAN AND F. JEPPSSON

Theoretical background

The theoretical perspective in this paper stems from social semiotics (Jewitt, 2009; Kress,2010) and the framework of systemic functional linguistics, SFL (Halliday &Matthiessen,2004). Every time we express ourselves, we say something about the world, or rather ourexperience of the world. At the same time, we use language to participate in various typesof social activities, which means that with the help of language we control our relation-ships with the person or people we communicate with. In addition, we organise the infor-mation we provide. Our expression about the world says something about how weinterpret and understand the world around us. This leads to the conclusion that ourmeaning-making is based on the social actions we take part in. Social semiotics focuson communications in social groups where di!erent semiotic resources are used.Studies adopting a social semiotic perspective have a strong emphasis on the contextin the analysis (Danielsson & Selander, 2014; Jewitt, 2009). The focus in social semioticanalysis is on how people use the involved semiotic resources in a situated social context.Semiotic resources are the actions, materials and artefacts we use in our communications,which are used to communicate a particular purpose. In relation to our study, we regardthe IR camera as a semiotic resource.

One of the main areas in SFL is to focus on meaning-making, and the central ideas inSFL seek to understand how people communicate by a variety of means in particularsocial settings with a range of semiotic resources. In the current study, the interactionbetween the pupils, the teacher and the IR camera, is described from this perspective,through which representations are considered in terms of the interpersonal, ideationaland textual metafunction (Halliday, 1978; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004). The interper-sonal metafunction answers questions such as who is taking part in the situation, andfocuses on the relationships between the people and what kind of exchanges happenin the conversations (Knain, 2015). In this study, the interpersonal metafunction isextended to include the relationship between pupils and the IR camera image. In theanalysis, we describe the role of the teacher in relation to conversation in terms ofprimary speech function (Knain, 2015). This type of speech function includes the follow-ing types of functions: a claim, a question, an o!er or an exhortation by the teacher in theconversations (Holmberg, 2006; Knain, 2015). Depending on the outcome of the conver-sations, the teacher either a#rms or rejects pupils’ responses. The pupils’ ideas of what isgoing on in the experiment constitute the pupils’ meaning-making in relation to idea-tional metafunction. This metafunction corresponds to the question of what content isconveyed (Jewitt et al., 2016; Knain, 2015). Through the ideational metafunction wedescribe the teacher’s and pupils’meaning of heat conduction and insulation, in relationto science teaching practice at the primary level. The textual metafunction is related tohow meaning is organised within a particular context (Jewitt et al., 2016; Knain, 2015).Within our study we analyse how pupils’ focus shifts during their overarching themework with heat conduction and insulation, and we are particularly interested in thelink between the ideational and interpersonal metafunction in relation to the pupils’meaning-making of the involved thermal concepts.

Grounded on the three metafunctions, we focus on six variables of practice discourse(Bergh Nestlog, 2012, 2019) in our analysis as a way to explain the relationships betweenartefact (IR camera), teacher and pupils in their meaning-making process. The model is


an adaptation of SFL in order to describe classroom discourse. By using the six variablesof the school discourse in the analysis, we want to illuminate how and why the subjectbecomes part of the pupils’ understanding in the practical implementation in thecontext. Related to the three metafunctions, described above, interpersonal metafunctionis associated with practice voices, ideational metafunction refers to practice "eld, and thethree sub-categories (subject voices, subject content and subject textuality) and textualmetafunction relate to practice form. Focusing on the six variables gives a broaderpicture of the teaching based on the content and the interaction with the participantsand Bergh Nestlog’s (2012) model within the SFL framework provides opportunitiesand tools for analysing the variables within a classroom discourse.

Aim and research questions

The aim of this study is to investigate how the IR camera supports teachers’ and pupils’scienti"c communication in learning about heat conduction and insulation. Hence, thisstudy is guided by the following research questions:

. What characterises communication in science teaching targeting the concepts of heatconduction and insulation?

. In what way is meaning-making o!ered by the teacher to the pupils in their work withheat conduction and insulation?

Method

This study is part of a larger project, and this particular data set involves one teacher’swork with thermal phenomena in Grade 6 (12-13 years) with 45 pupils, divided intotwo classes or four groups. During teaching-led lessons the pupils were divided intotwo classes (A and B), and in laboratory work the pupils were divided into four groups(A1, A2, B1 and B2). Class A includes groups A1 and A2, and class B includes groupsB1 and B2 In the results section we have given pupils and the teacher "ctive names.

Before the teacher introduced the pupils to the topic of heat conduction and insula-tion, the teacher participated in a workshop together with the "rst author of thispaper. The purpose of the workshop was to let the teacher get acquainted with the IRcamera and its functions. In addition, based on previous research involving IRcameras, thermal phenomena and school science practice (e.g. Haglund et al., 2014;Haglund, Jeppsson, Melander, et al., 2016), this workshop also gave the opportunityfor the teacher and the researcher to discuss educational challenges and implications.However, based on this workshop, the teacher chose to use the following six experiments:how ice melts while in contact with various materials such as paper and a china plate;conductivity through paper and copper strips; heat radiation on black and whitepaper; frictions of an eraser on a table and dropping a ball on a $oor; how to conserveheat in a thermos; and the insulating properties of a quilted jacket.

Based on the workshop, the teacher made a plan for three separate lessons for thepupils (see Table 1).

During the "rst lesson, the pupils constructed a thermos. For the thermos construc-tion experiment, the pupils used a 0.5 L PET bottle, and based on their ideas they


could use materials such as styrofoam, textiles, tape, cotton wool and tinfoil in order toinsulate the thermos. During Lesson 2 (laboratory work), the pupils worked with the sixselected experiments, using the IR camera. All the experiments involved a predict,observe and explain (POE) approach as a method (White, 1992). The third lesson wasa teacher-led lesson with a summary discussion and conclusions of the experiments.From Lesson 3, there was only a recording from one class, which a!ected which datawere used from Lesson 2. Overall, in this study, we describe "ndings from A1 and A2(25 pupils). We have collected our data by use of video and audio recordings fromLesson 2 and Lesson 3. During these lessons the teacher and pupils used and/or discussedtheir results based on the IR camera.

Between Lesson 1 and Lesson 2 the teacher handed out laboratory guides to the pupils,and the pupils wrote down their own predictions in relation to the experiments. This par-ticular occasion was not video-recorded.

In all the involved experiments the pupil used a FlirOne IR camera. This particular IRcamera is attached to an iPad and is cheaper than other IR cameras.

Data collection and analysis

The empirical data that served as the basis for the analysis reported in this paper was col-lected as part of a larger project with a focus on teachers’ professional development. Thedata in focus for this study consists of "eld notes and video and audio recordings fromLesson 2 and Lesson 3. A verbatim transcript of the video and audio recordings fromLesson 2 and Lesson 3 was written in MAXQDA software to support the subsequentSFL qualitative data analysis (see below). The analysis was performed based on theSwedish transcript by the "rst author. Examples provided to illustrate the results havebeen translated into English.

Chi’s (1997) procedure for analysing qualitative data served as a guide in our analysis.Both lessons were analysed as a whole. First, the transcript for each lesson was divided upinto episodes that re$ected the interpersonal, ideational and textual metafunction. Thisallowed for coherent stretches of reasoning to serve as the basis for analysis of the par-ticular role played by di!erent metafunctions. Thereafter, the "rst round of the analysiswas discussed with other researchers with a special research interest in social semiotics.Finally, the method and analysis were presented and discussed at di!erent seminars atour department and at di!erent national science education conferences. In the sub-sequent paragraph, we elaborate on the di!erent metafunctions in relation to variablesof practice discourse in order to carry out an in-depth analysis.

In this second phase of the analysis we focused on practice voices, practice "eld andpractice form, which all correspond to the di!erent metafunctions (Figure 1 and Table2). In the dialogue between the teacher, pupils, texts and IR camera, we focus on practice

Table 1. Overview for lessons, participating pupils and method of data collection.Activity Group Data collection

Workshop Researcher and teacher Audio recordingLesson 1 45 pupils in four groups Video and audio recording (four groups)Lesson 2 45 pupils in four groups Video and audio recording (four groups)Lesson 3 45 pupils in two classes Video and audio recording (one class)


voices and analyse the role of the teacher in terms of primary speech function of o!er,command, statement and questions (Holmberg, 2006; Knain, 2015). By focusing onthe primary speech functions, it becomes clearer how dynamic the dialogue is betweenteachers and pupils. Turning our focus to the content involved in the laboratory exer-cises, we centre our analysis on the practice "eld and its related sub-categories. Our dis-tinction between practice voices and subject voices is that practice voices focus on thesocial interaction and dialogue among the teacher, pupils, texts and IR camera,whereas subject voices are the ones that guide the content of the dialogue. (For an in-depth reading on metafunctions and the relationship with variables of practice discourse,see Bergh Nestlog (2012).) Finally, we focus on the interaction between interpersonalmetafunction and ideational metafunction corresponding to how the contents are nego-tiated in the dialogue, which is corresponding to the practice "eld, i.e. the preconditionfor meaning-making, which also is the a!ordance of the di!erent modes. Here we look atcoherence and cohesion, which is based on how the di!erent parts of the lessons are con-nected to each other and how the meaning is tied together by conjunctions and refer-ences (Bergh Nestlog, 2012; Knain, 2015).

Results

Below we present our "ndings based on the variables of practice discourse, practicevoices, practice "eld and practice form. IR screenshots and transcribed excerpts are pro-vided to illustrate the results.

Practice voices

The practice voice category describes the interaction between the teacher and pupils,between pupils, and between pupils using the IR camera. During the lesson, theteacher (Patricia) used open questions, as seen in the two di!erent excerpts below, tostart a discussion about a heat transfer when the pupils discussed how ice melts whilein contact with various materials.

Excerpt 1: Patricia asking open questionsPatricia: When you put your "ngers on these two (teacher pointing to di!erent

materials), what did you experience? How did it feel?Excerpt 2: Patricia asking open questionsPatricia: What was your hypothesis? What thoughts did you have?

Table 2. Overview of analysis.Variables of practice discourse Analysis Categories Metafunction

Practice voice Speech function O!erCommandStatementQuestion

Interpersonal

Practice "eld Subject contentSubject voicesSubject textuality

WhatWhoHow

Ideational

Practice form CoherenceCohesion

ConjunctionReference

Textual


In contrast, to open questions, the teacher also made use of closed questions as away to help the pupils to put their laboratory experiences from the experimentsinto words.

Excerpt 3: Patricia asking closed questionsPatricia: Was there any di!erence when you touched them?Excerpt 4: Patricia asking closed questionsPatricia: Which of the ice cubes did you think would melt "rst?

During the laboratory work, the teacher sometimes used statements together with anopen question. In this way, the combination of an open question and a statement alsoserved as a quick way for the teacher to evaluate whether the pupils had grasped theexpected learning goal from the laboratory experiment.

Excerpt 5: Patricia using statement together with an open questionPatricia: If we say it like this: They are equal… they have the same temperature. How is

it possible that one of the objects feels colder?(Silence for 4 seconds)

Eskil: They do not have the same temperature.Patricia: They have (example of a clear statement) the same temperature, I say!

In the laboratory manual, the teacher used commands in written form. These kinds ofwritten expressions work as instructions for the pupils during their work with differentlaboratory exercises. Excerpt 5 reveals how the teacher also used verbal commands whenshe wanted the pupils to do an experiment.

Excerpt 6: Patricia using commandsPatricia: Are there any of you who have not done this with the metal and paper? It is

important that you do this (command)! It explains a lot.Ester: We have not done it [the experiment].Patricia: Come here and look (command), Ester and Josephine.

Patricia starts off by asking a question. However, the question is changed into acommand ("rst command) and is motivated by the next sentence, which emphasisesthe importance of doing the experiment. The "rst command is addressed to all pupils,while the second command focuses on pupils who say that they have not done theexperiment.

In the category of practice voices, we clearly see a dialogue between the teacher and thepupils where open and closed questions are combined with both statements and com-mands. In Excerpts 1–4 above, we have not included the pupils’ comments. The focusis instead on how the teacher uses language in the dialogue with the students. In additionto the excerpt above, the pupils interacted with the IR camera during their laboratorywork. In Figure 2, the left image is before the experiment, the middle image is duringthe experiment and the right image is after the pupil has taken away their "ngers. Acopper strip is to the left in each image.

In this regard, we saw that the IR camera image o!ered the pupils instant feedback anda visual explanation of what was happening in terms of heat conduction in the exper-iment (see also Figure 3 and Excerpt 13). The teacher also used the instant IR cameraimages to address new questions to the pupils about what was happening in the exper-iment. During the experiment with the two stripes, Patricia and two pupils looked at


the image of the IR camera and they discussed what happened when one of the pupils hadher "ngers on the two di!erent stripes.

Excerpt 7: The image of IR camera o"ers instant feedbackPatricia: Which conducts heat best [of the di!erent stripes]?Astrid: The metalPatricia: Do you notice [on the image of the IR camera] that this one gets hotter? She

[the pupil] give away heat from her body to that one.

By explicitly focusing on the interaction in our analysis of practice voices, we see thatquestions, statements, commands and offers are involved in the science dialogue.Depending on the choice of speech function, it gives different responses from thestudents.

Figure 2. Left image: Copper and paper strips before putting "ngers on them. Middle image: Copperand paper strips when the pupil has put their "ngers on them. Right image: Copper and paper stripswhen the pupil has taken away their "ngers.

Figure 3. Left image: A thermos made by pupils. The yellow stripes are tape and the blue/purple partsare covered with tinfoil. Middle image: A pupil writes the letter H on a desk with an eraser. Rightimage: Heat radiation on white and black paper. White paper is to the left in the image.


Practice !eld

Turning the focus towards the subject content involved in the experiments, we nowdescribe our analysis within the category of the practice "eld. At the beginning ofLesson 2, the pupils started their work by becoming acquainted with the IR cameraand its functions. In addition, the pupils almost immediately started to discuss and inter-pret the IR camera image with each other, and without any interference from the teacher,they related di!erent colours to the temperature scale. The colours of the image are thesubject content the pupils needed to understand for the interpretation of the image. Thesubject content in all six experiments involved heat transfer in terms of radiation andconduction. In addition to heat transfer, two of the experiments (frictions of an eraseron table and dropping a ball on a $oor) had a subject content focused on energy (dissi-pative phenomena of friction). In the experiment ‘How to conserve heat in a thermos’,the aim was for the pupils to experience insulation and heat re$ection. In the "rstlesson, the pupils made a thermos using di!erent materials. Some of the thermoseswere covered by tinfoil, which created an unexpected IR camera image. Due to the emis-sivity of tinfoil, it looked like the thermos had a much lower temperature compared toareas that were not covered in tinfoil (see the blue areas on the left image in Figure 3).In the discussion with the pupils during the experiment, the teachers told them thatuncoloured metal, such as our example of tinfoil, re$ects heat and makes the IRcamera image incorrect (see excerpt Table 4).

In the third lesson, the teacher discussed the six experiments together with two of thegroups. This type of dialogue is characterised by a clear content focus and the teacherencouraged the pupils to use scienti"c language in their explanations of the experiments.This type of dialogue is exempli"ed below, in the excerpts where Frans explains heattransfer from the "nger through the china plate to the ice cube, and Ethan andMiriam put their experiences of re$ection and absorption from the experiment withheat radiation on black and white paper into words (right image in Figure 3).

Excerpt 8: Dialogue with content focusFrans: I wrote that it [the ice cube] melts faster on the china platePatricia: Mmm. Can you also give an explanation for it? If you think about it. You can

say it orally.Frans: Because of the heat. That is, the heat on the "nger. If you put it there [the

"nger], it [the china plate] removes the heat from your "nger, so it feelscolder, but you warm up the ice cube.

Excerpt 9: Dialogue with content focusEthan: The black paper. It attracts the light [visualised by becoming more yellow than

the white paper in the IR camera image], while the white paper puts it away.Patricia: Very good, Ethan. If we say it once more and then use some scienti"c words.

What is it called when black paper attracts the sunlight? What is it called,Miriam?

Miriam: Absorb.Patricia: It absorbs. And what is it called when the white…When it bounces out again?

Ian [the teacher wants Ian’s attention].Ian: Re$ects.

As seen in the dialogue between Ethan, the teacher and Miriam, the teacher prompted ananswer expressed in scienti"c terms. Without the visual support from the IR cameraimage and the interaction with the IR camera, it would have been dif"cult for Ethan


and Miriam to directly experience heat absorption and temperature differences betweenblack and white paper.

Since interpreting the di!erent colours in the image from the IR camera is central forpupils to grasp the subject content of heat and temperature, our next excerpt is anexample where the teacher stresses the importance of focusing on the di!erencebetween the colours in the IR camera image and the colours’ relationships totemperature.

Excerpt 10: Relationships between colours and temperatureArial: The metal was the warmest, because metal conducted heat better than the

paper.Patricia: Yes. What was the colour on the IR camera image when it was hot? Which

colour, Maria?Maria: Yellow.Patricia: If it gets warmer. Then it was, Anthony?Anthony: White.

We will come back to the reasoning about the relationship of colours (depicted in the IRcamera image) and subject voices at the end of this section.

Due to the IR camera’s potential for visualising invisible phenomena, such as heatre$ection of shiny metal (Figure 3, left image), it is possible for the teacher to discussmany concepts with the pupils orally. In the excerpt below, we see how the teacherexplains the basic idea of a thermos.

Excerpt 11: Construction of a thermosPatricia: Vacuummeans that you do not have any air at all. And think like this…Here

we have metal and then we have metal [sketching the inner and outer casingof a thermos on the whiteboard]. And here we have nothing [pointingbetween the inner and outer casing of the thermos on the sketch]. Then…The heat must go… push on molecules. You know. We’ve talked aboutthis before. That I push on a molecule that pushes on a [another] molecule.If there is nothing that can conduct [heat] here [pointing between theinner and outer casing of the thermos on the sketch]. then it [heat] staysthere [pointing to the inside of the thermos on the sketch]. Besides this,metal also… has something that is called… that it re$ects heat too… staysthere [pointing to the inside of the thermos on the sketch]. So the metal isa good heat conductor, although it also re$ects the heat. This is a bit myster-ious, because you have learned that the metal actually brings out the heat. Butin a thermos, then it [heat] remains.

During the explanation of the thermos, the teacher also started to discuss that the metalre$ected heat, which was something that the pupils had experienced with the IR cameraduring the laboratory work. The subject voices are the teacher, pupils and the laboratorymanual, but also the IR camera image which conveys subject content to the pupils withthe different colours.

When we look at how the subject voices and the subject content are bound together,we focus on the subject’s textuality. Before the colours (as seen on the IR camera image)can be a part of the subject voices and help the pupils to interpret what is happening inthe experiment, the pupils have to understand the meaning of the di!erent colours fromthe projected IR camera image. Before the pupils started to do the experiments, theteacher asked them questions about how to observe temperature with the IR camera.


Excerpt 12: Relationships between colours and temperaturePatricia: Do you know what colour…What do you think…What do you see if it [the

thermos] leaks? If the heat comes out? Do you know?

By using questions in the dialogue, the teacher helped the pupils to connect the subjectcontent (heat and temperature) with subject voices as colours in the IR camera image.

When the teacher explained the construction of a thermos, during Lesson 3, shesketched a schematic diagram on the whiteboard (Excerpt 11). This diagram helped tolink the subject voices with the subject content.

Practice form

In our analysis of the practice form, we look at coherence and cohesion, which meansthat we study how the di!erent parts of the lessons are connected to each other, andhow the sentences in the dialogue are tied together.

In the analysis we see that the topics change during the lessons. At the beginning ofLesson 2, the topic is how the IR camera works and how to take a picture. After awhile, when the pupils have learned how the IR camera works, the topic changes, andthe focus is on the IR camera image and the meaning of the colours. During the exper-iments, the focus remains on the images from the IR camera. However, the topic has nowchanged to heat and temperature and the pupils actually focus on physics. We see that thecoherence between the topics is high, which means that there is a link between the IRcamera’s function, the IR camera image, and heat and temperature. The IR cameraimages mediate the subject content.

Lesson 2 is characterised by a pupil-active approach. Instead of having teacher-ledinstruction, the pupils learn how to use the camera independently. After a short while,when they have understood how to use the IR camera and how it works, the focuschanges to the experiments and the results of the experiments. The teacher’s choice ofexperiments for Lesson 2 is such that the pupils can do them without much involvementfrom the teacher. During the experiments, the pupils start to carry out their own inves-tigations, such as checking if a person has a fever or writing with ice on the china plate. Inthe next excerpt, Elvis is doing the experiment with ice on a china plate. When he looks atthe IR camera image, he pushes the ice with his pencil and "nds that purple stripes appearon the china plate. Also, Eskil looks at the image and tries to write with the ice cube.

Excerpt 13: Writing with ice on a china plateElvis: It’s really cool. There are purple stripes [on the china plate]. Eskil, look! Look

at the camera.Eskil: You can write again. May I write?Elvis: Wait, I’ll write something. I want to write something… I’ll write…

The writing on the china plate was not a part of the laboratory manual; instead, the imageand the simple treatment of the IR camera may have invited the pupils to conduct theirown investigations. The pupil-active approach, both the teacher’s choice of experimentand the work with the IR camera, support the dialogue about the subject content.

During the lessons, the teacher and the pupils did not use any books. The dialoguebetween the teacher and the pupils is a communication built on the pupils’ experiences


from their work with the IR camera. In these instances, the teacher utilises the pupils’expressions in their conversations and transfers these into a scienti"c dialogue in theclassroom. Before this dialogue, Patricia, Astrid and Asta used the IR camera to seewhat happens with the heat when Asta put her "ngers on paper and copper strips.In the dialogue, Asta connects the result of the experiment with the strips to the exper-iment with the plates. Patricia uses Astrid’s expression and communicates it into ascienti"c dialogue.

Excerpt 14: Communication based on pupils’ experiencesAsta: That’s why this… Then this should be warmer [connecting to the experiment

with the plates by pointing on the plates].Patricia: This [a china plate]. If you hold it, this feels cooler, but I promise that they are

the same temperature [a china plate and a paper plate].Asta: Mmm…Patricia: What do you think you have done with your body heat? What do you think it

[the body] has done when you have held this [the china plate]?Astrid: It emits. [meaning, spreads it out]Patricia: It emits. When I send my heat to it [the china plate], my "nger will feel a little

colder because I have given away some heat. And this is the reason why this[the china plate] feels colder. Because it conducts heat better. And the metalconducts heat better.

Pupil: mmPatricia: And then it is like this, that this [the china plate] transport heat better than the

paper plate.Astrid: Then you should eat ice cream on a paper plate.Patricia: What did you say?Astrid: You should eat ice cream on a paper plate.Patricia: Good thinking. Right on the money. I like that [answer and conclusion].

The dialogue, where the teacher uses pupils’ expressions, interconnects the practicevoices (use of questions and statement) and the practice "eld (subject content). In thedialogues, the sentences are often attached to each other, and subject content startsfrom the known for the pupils and goes to new knowledge. As in the excerpt above,there is coherence in the dialogue, but also cohesion. In the last reply, the teacher usedconjunctions and references – ‘and’, ‘because’, ‘this’ and ‘it’ – to tie the pupils’ expressionsto the scienti"c explanation (Table 3). The "rst parts of the sentences are often the knownand the second parts are new information. There is also a connection from the secondpart of a sentence to the "rst part of the next sentence.

In the last sentence, new information is given at the beginning of the sentence insteadof at the end.

In the next excerpt, the teacher leaves out important information for the pupils, and thismakes the coherence low between the sentences. When the teacher uses the words ‘re$ect’

Table 3. High cohesion in excerpt.First part Second part

When I send my heat to it [the china plate], my "nger will feel a little colder because I have given away some heat.And this is the reason why this [the china plate] feels colder.Because it conducts heat better.And the metal conducts heat better.

Conjunctions (bold) and references in sentences (italics).


and ‘detect metal’, she does not explain what is re$ected or that the IR camera can detectpainted metal. Also, the cohesion between the sentences is low, because the "rst sentencedoes not lead to the second sentence. The word ‘it’ has di!erent meanings in the sentencesand this can mislead the pupils’ meaning-making of the concepts (Table 4).

Also, during the teacher-led lesson, the teacher only said that the metal re$ected raysand that the IR camera did not work in this situation.

Excerpt 15: Low coherencePatricia: Those who had tinfoil on the outside [of the thermos]. It was di#cult to check

yours. Because the rays re$ect and then the IR camera does not work properly.

In the dialogues, the teacher used analogies to help the pupils’meaning-making. The sen-tences in the analogy in the next excerpt have a common theme with a focus on the chinaplate, and this makes the coherence in this analogy high. The reference ‘it’ is used inalmost every sentence and refers to the china plate. However, in the sentence ‘So, itgives it to the ice’, the reference ‘it’ refers "rst to the china plate and then to heat.

Excerpt 16: Using analogy in dialogueTeacher: Yes and then it [the china plate] takes… It conducts the heat better. So, it

steals the heat from me. Do you understand? And now it takes. So, it givesit to the ice. It’s so kind. It gives the heat.

In the explanation of heat conduction, this analogy makes the china plate become morehuman, performing an active action.

Discussion

We have in the result used the model of ‘variables of practice discourse’ to analyse whatcharacterises the communication and how the contents are negotiated during the lessons.The model guided our focus in relation to the pupils’ dialogues based on the subjectcontent and how the meaning-making is o!ered to the pupils. In the discussion werevisit our research questions based on the results and previous research. We alsodiscuss educational implications and how the IR camera can support teaching aboutheat and temperature.

What characterises communication in science teaching targeting the conceptsof heat conduction and insulation?

Based on the SFL and variables of practice discourse, we see that the practice "eld andpractice voices are tied together by the practice form. Analysing the speech functions,we re$ect on the responses in the dialogues, and how they a!ect pupils’ meaning-

Table 4. Low coherence in excerpt.First part Second part

You see, then the metal will re#ect also.The metal will mislead us.It [the thermos] does not have to leak there.You know, it [the IR camera] cannot detect the metal.It is more like this, actually.


making (Holmberg, 2006; Knain, 2015). The teacher used the primary speech function ofo!er, command, statement and questions in the communication with the pupils. Theteacher often used open questions to the pupils, and this leads to the pupils becominginvolved in the discussions. These dialogues started from pupils’ linguistic expressionand what was known by the pupils (e.g. Excerpts 8 & 9). This result of using open ques-tions is correlated to what Nygård Larsson (2018) and Tang et al. (2014) found in theirstudies, emphasising verbal spoken language in pupils’ meaning-making. When theteacher uses o!er and statement (e.g. Excerpts 8 & 14), the pupil can accept or questionit. These statements are also followed by a question from the teacher, which invites thepupils to the dialogue and support their meaning-making. The signi"cance of the colourson the IR camera images caused few problems for the pupils, and instead of discussionsabout the meaning of images we found that the images also o!ered the pupils discussionswith a focus on the subject content. Because of the changing colours on the IR cameraimages during an experiment, this provided an opportunity for the pupils to see theinstantaneous change that takes place in the experiments (see Figure 2 and 3).Without the IR camera, this would have been di#cult for the pupils to detect. Theseinstantaneous changes in the IR camera image were also the focus of the teacher’s dialo-gue with the pupils.

Our "ndings indicate that pupils manage to represent heat as a process and that the IRcamera serves as a shared point of attention (Schoultz et al., 2001) in both visual andverbal communication. The language the pupils and the teacher use indicates that the dis-course around heat and temperature is dynamic. In the dialogues, the teacher uses pupils’expressions and experiences of heat and temperature in the explanations of the exper-iment. For example, the teacher uses analogies based on the pupils’ experiences intheir meaning-making process. In addition, as a way to make meaning of the involvedphysical concepts, heat and temperature, the teacher explicitly makes use of di!erentkinds of resources and semiotic modes, both in combination with and without the IRcamera. The IR camera as a semiotic resource provides a visual support for thermal con-ductivity and heat $ow, and the images seem to facilitate discussions where dialogue, andthe subject voices, are in focus. This, together with the practice form, creates an oppor-tunity for the pupils’ meaning-making.

In what way is meaning-making o"ered to the pupils in their work with heatconduction and insulation?

The results of this study indicate that the IR camera image helps the pupils to observe andunderstand concepts connected to heat and temperature, and this is in alignment withprevious research (e.g. A, B, C and D). The images, together with the dialogues, seemto help the pupils in their meaning-making. In the dialogues, the teacher and thepupils talked about temperature as di!erent colours, based on what they saw in the IRcamera image. The instant feedback and visual explanation, together with the pupils’expressions of what they saw, were the starting point in the dialogues. Based on whatthe pupils saw on the image and their interpretations, the teacher used these to helppupils in their meaning-making and encouraged them to use scienti"c language.

In dialogues the teacher used open questions to start a discussion about, for instance,heat transfer. Based on the result of coherence and cohesion, we found that pupils’ work


with the IR camera, together with the dialogues with the teacher, helps pupils to under-stand concepts of heat and temperature. The images help pupils to see how heat transportis di!erent in di!erent materials, that heat is transferred from a hot to a cold object, andalso how insulation can prevent this. The visualisation made by the IR camera, alsoinitiated discussions about why a china plate feels colder than a paper plate. Thisresult indicates that the interpretation and understanding of the science content arestimulated both by the images and the dialogues, and not only by the images (Erickson& Tiberghien, 1985). The images of the IR camera seem to demystify heat transport forthe pupils, and the visualisation is a shared point for their discussions (Haglund et al.,2014, 2015; Jeppsson et al., 2017; Xie & Hazzard, 2011).

The work with the IR camera and pupils’ experiences of the experiment ‘How toconserve heat in a thermos’ allows teachers and pupils to notice how a real thermosis constructed, and why they have a shiny inside. However, our "ndings indicatethat the pupils’ meaning-making of how shiny metal re$ects heat and heat radiationhas failed, due to the low coherence and cohesion in the teacher’s explanation. Thecontent, heat radiation and heat re$ection, has a high level of abstraction, and thepupils’ prior understanding may have been low. This can lead to the pupils simplyaccepting the information from the teacher as truth, with little understanding of thecontent. To interpret the visualisation of heat radiation and heat re$ection, thepupils probably had to have prior understanding of the content, and this result is inline with previous research (Schönborn et al., 2014).

Educational implications

In this study we have looked at what happens in the communication and meaningmaking when an IR camera is used teaching heat and temperature. The results illumi-nate the role of technology-enhanced visualisation in science education and how it canstimulate communication in the science classroom, which could help practitioners tofacilitate learning of complex phenomena. The work with the IR camera and theillustrative images seems to facilitate a communication based on pupils’ directcontact with the perceived phenomena. Hence, the interaction with the IR cameramay be used either as a starting point in classroom dialogue or as a unique visualisa-tion tool in its own right in laboratory work. In the study, we see that the experiment‘How ice melts while in contact with various materials such as paper and china plates’is confusing when it comes to temperature, because the china plate feels colder thanthe paper plate. Using an IR camera for pupils in Grade 6 of primary school seemsto have a positive impact on the work with heat and temperature, and on pupils’understanding of heat and temperature. The pupils did not have a problem usingthe IR camera and interpreting the IR camera image. The IR camera image alsoseems to invite the pupils to carry out their own investigations, which makes themactive during the second lesson. The instantaneous changes of the IR camera imagesencouraged the pupils to check if a person had a fever, to write with ice, or to seewhat happened when they looked at a window.

In this study, we have seen what characterises communication in science teaching,when an IR camera is used in lessons. If an IR camera is to become a useful semioticresource, the teacher needs to see the didactic advantages it o!ers. An investigation of


how teachers express the didactic advantages and disadvantages of working with an IRcamera would be an important research "eld.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the participants in the study. Linnaeus University for their "nancialsupport to this research project and we are grateful for useful comments and suggestions fromour colleagues. In addition, we much appreciated the helpful comments on this manuscript andsuggestions for complementary references from three anonymous reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential con$ict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Niclas Åhman http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8061-1212Fredrik Jeppsson http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6787-7788

References

Almahdi, A. A. (2011). Misconception of heat and temperature among physics students. Procedia –Social and Behavioral Sciences, 12, 600–614. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.02.074.

Bergh Nestlog, E. (2012). Var är meningen? Elevtexter och undervisningspraktiker [where is themeaning? Pupils’ texts and teaching practices] (Doctoral dissertation). Linnaeus University,Växjö. Retrieved from: https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A562114&dswid=-4772

Bergh Nestlog, E. (2019). Ämnesspråk: En fråga om innehåll, röster och strukturer i ämnestexter[language of subject: A matter of content, voices and structures in subject texts]. Humanetten,42(42), 9–30. https://doi.org/10.15626/hn.20194202.

Cabello, R., Navarro-Esbri, J., Llopis, R., & Torrella, E. (2006). Infrared thermography as a usefultool to improve learning in heat transfer related subjects. International Journal of EngineeringEduction, 2, 373–380.

Chi, M. T. H. (1997). Quantifying qualitative analyses of verbal data: A practical guide. Journal ofthe Learning Sciences, 6(3), 271–315. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327809jls0603_1.

Danielsson, K., & Selander, S. (2014). Se texten! Multimodala texter i ämnesdidaktiskt arbete. [Viewthe text! Multimodal texts in education]. Gleerup.

de Berg, K. C. (2008). The concepts of heat and temperature: The problem of determining thecontent for the construction of an historical case study which is sensitive to nature of scienceissues and teaching–learning issues. Science & Education, 17(1), 75–114. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-006-9040-z.

Erickson, G. L., & Tiberghien, A. (1985). Heat and temperature. In R. Driver, E. Guesne, & A.Tiberghien (Eds.), Children’s ideas in science (pp. 52–84). Open University Press.

Haglund, J., Jeppsson, F., Hedberg, D., Xie, C., & Schönborn, K. (2014). Värmekameror gör detosynliga synligt [infrared cameras makes the invisible visible]. Venue.

Haglund, J., Jeppsson, F., Melander, E., Pendrill, A.-M., Xie, C., & Schönborn, K. J. (2016). Infraredcameras in science education. Infrared Physics and Technology, 75(C), 150–152. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infrared.2015.12.009.

Haglund, J., Jeppsson, F., & Schönborn, K. (2015). Värmekameror hjälper elever se naturfenomen[infrared cameras help pupils to see science phenomena]. Lmnt-Nytt. 1.


Haglund, J., Jeppsson, F., & Schönborn, K. J. (2016). Taking on the heat – A narrative account ofhow infrared cameras invite instant Inquiry. Research in Science Education, 46(5), 685–713.https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-015-9476-8.

Halliday, M. A. K. (1978). Language as social semiotic. The social interpretation of language andmeaning. Edward Arnold.

Halliday, M. A. K., & Matthiessen, C. (2004). An introduction to functional grammar. Routledge.Holmberg, P. (2006). Grammatik med betydelse: En introduktion till funktionell grammatik.

[Grammar with a meaning: An introduction to functional grammar]. Hallgren & Fallgren.Jeppsson, F., Frejd, J., & Lundmark, F. (2017). Wow, It turned out red! "rst, a little yellow, and then

red! 1st-graders’ work with an infrared camera. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 31(4), 581–596. https://doi.org/10.1080/02568543.2017.1347589.

Jewitt, C. (2009). The Routledge handbook of multimodal analysis. Routledge.Jewitt, C., Bezemer, J. J., & O’Halloran, K. L. (2016). Introducing multimodality. Routledge.Knain, E. (2015). Scienti!c literacy for participation: A systemic functional approach to analysis of

school science discourses. Sense Publishers.Kress, G. R. (2010). Multimodality: A social semiotic approach to contemporary communication.

Routledge.Lemke, J. (1998). Multimedia literacy demands of the scienti"c curriculum. Linguistics and

Education, 10(3), 247–271. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0898-5898(99)00009-1.Nygård Larsson, P. (2018). “We’re talking about mobility”: discourse strategies for promoting dis-

ciplinary knowledge and language in educational contexts. Linguistics and Education, 48, 61–75.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2018.10.001.

Samuelsson, C. R., Haglund, J., & Elmgren, M. (2017). Looking for solutions: University chemistryand physics students interacting with infrared cameras [Paper presentation]. 12th Conference ofthe European science education research Association (ESERA), Dublin. August 21-25.

Schönborn, K., Haglund, J., & Xie, C. (2014). Pupils’ early explorations of thermoimaging to inter-pret heat and temperature. Journal of Baltic Science Education, 13(1), 118–132.

Schoultz, J., Säljö, R., & Wyndhamn, J. (2001). Heavenly talk: Discourse, artifacts, and children’sunderstanding of elementary astronomy. Human Development, 44(2-3), 103–118. https://doi.org/10.1159/000057050.

Tang, K. S., Delgado, C., & Moje, E. B. (2014). An integrative framework for the analysis of mul-tiple and multimodal representations for meaning-making in science education. ScienceEducation, 98(2), 305–326. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21099.

Tang, K. S., Tan, S. C., & Yeo, J. (2011). Students’ multimodal construction of the work–energyconcept. International Journal of Science Education, 33(13), 1775–1804. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2010.508899.

Vollmer, M., Mollmann, K.-P., Pinno, F., & Karstadt, D. (2001). There is more to see than eyes candetect: Visualization of energy transfer processes and the laws of radiation for physics edu-cation. The Physics Teacher, 39(6), 371. https://doi.org/10.1119/1.1407135.

White, R. T. G. R. (1992). Probing understanding. Falmer Press.Wiser, M., & Amin, T. (2001). Is heat hot? Inducing conceptual change by integrating everyday

and scienti"c perspectives on thermal phenomena. Learning and Instruction, 11(4), 331–355.https://doi.org/10.1016/S0959-4752(00)00036-0.

Xie, C., & Hazzard, E. (2011). Infrared imaging for inquiry-based learning. The Physics Teacher, 49(6), 368–372. https://doi.org/10.1119/1.3628268.


Teachers' and pupils' scientific dialogue in learning about ...

Documents

Transcript of Teachers' and pupils' scientific dialogue in learning about ...