A Multimodal Positioning Theory Analysis of Interaction Surrounding Design Failures in an Elementary Engineering Club

• In Event: Multimodal Mapping: Positioning, Representation, and Semiotic Cycles

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative, multimodal positioning analysis is to discover students’ and teachers’ positions toward other people, artifacts, and materials in relation to design failure in an afterschool elementary engineering club (EC). We share how interactions in EC co-construct and mediate failure as it unfolds as well as the role-based positions that these multimodal, embodied interactions illuminate. Both teachers and students mediated failure by drawing on these multimodal and embodied positions (e.g., director, idea-sharer, builder) that offered ways through design failure. Failure, which is typically negatively constructed in school spaces, can be reframed to support cultural shifts in learning through the phenomenon of engineering failure, creating learning spaces with new positions, storylines, and cultural norms.

Authors

• Katarina N. Silvestri, SUNY - College at Cortland
  Presenting Author

• Mary B. McVee, University at Buffalo - SUNY
  Presenting Author

• Lynn Shanahan, Amherst Central School District
  Presenting Author

• Kenneth English, University at Buffalo - SUNY
  Presenting Author