Affordances of Multiple Scientific Representations for Middle School Teacher and Student Meaning-Making About Disease Transmission

• In Event: Identity as an Outcome and Unfolding Process in Science Education

Abstract

In this study, we explored middle school students’ and teachers’ meaning-making processes through a role-playing game combined with a computational modeling activity that simulated epidemic disease transmission. Student and teacher interviews were used as the primary data sources and analyzed using the Representational Constructions Affordances (RCA) framework (Prain & Tytler, 2012). Analysis of student and teacher interviews revealed how the different representations of disease transmission functioned in complementary and constraining roles for students’ meaning-making. Additionally, the teachers predominately focused on the role-playing game as a semiotic tool for meaning-making about the computational model. This has implications for both science educators and researchers aiming to support and develop teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge for incorporating computational modeling into science classrooms.

Authors

• Teresa Leavens, North Carolina State University

• Danielle Cadieux Boulden, Code.org

• Madeline Hinckle, North Carolina State University

• Arif Rachmatullah, SRI International

• Eric N. Wiebe, North Carolina State University