Student Difficulties in Learning Density: A Distributed Cognition Perspective

Xu, Lihua; Clarke, David

doi:10.1007/s11165-011-9232-7

Cited by 28 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 20 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Hewson & Hewson, 1983;Smith et al, 1997). Thus far, the role played by classroom interactions in students' learning of the density concept has been neglected (Xu & Clarke, 2012). In their study, Xu and Clarke (2012) attempted to address this gap by adopting the theory of distributed cognition to show how ambiguities inherent in the whole-class discussion contributed to student difficulties with the concept of density.…”

Section: Viewing Students Learning About Density Within a Conceptual mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus far, the role played by classroom interactions in students' learning of the density concept has been neglected (Xu & Clarke, 2012). In their study, Xu and Clarke (2012) attempted to address this gap by adopting the theory of distributed cognition to show how ambiguities inherent in the whole-class discussion contributed to student difficulties with the concept of density. They attributed the ambiguities mainly to 'the limited connection between the macroscopic and microscopic views of density' (p. 788), which in turn could be attributed to the lack of differentiation between the density of a substance from that of an object.…”

Section: Viewing Students Learning About Density Within a Conceptual mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The socioconstructivist view we have employed has its theoretical underpinning in Vygotsky's (1978) general genetic law of cultural development, which emphasises the role of language as providing the cultural and cognitive tools for the construction of scientific knowledge. Studies of classroom interactions, including that of Xu and Clarke (2012), have mostly paid attention to this role of language as cultural and cognitive tool. However, language also serves as a semiotic tool, essential for both the construction and representation of knowledge.…”

Section: An Lg Approach To Understanding Students' Challenges In Learmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The study by Xu and Clarke (2012) used distributed cognition as theoretical lens. Theirs was a deductive approach to the data: they first analysed the classroom interactions subsequently relating them to the difficulties students faced when learning about density.…”

Section: The 'Causal Connections In Science Classrooms' Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Hewson, 1986;Smith, Maclin, Grosslight, & Davis, 1997). As pointed out by Xu and Clarke (2012), few studies have examined the consequences which classroom interactions might have for students' evolving understanding of the concept of density. Using the theory of distributed cognition as a theoretical and analytical lens, Xu and Clarke (2012) illustrated how ambiguities inherent in specific classroom interactions contributed to student's learning difficulties.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Understanding Middle School Students’ Difficulties in Explaining Density Differences from a Language Perspective

Seah

Clarke

Hart

2015

International Journal of Science Education

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study examines how a class of Grade 7 students employed linguistic resources to explain density differences. Drawing from the same data-set as a previous study by, we take a language perspective to investigate the challenges students face in learning the concept of density. Our study thus complements previous research on learning about density which has mostly focussed on the conceptual challenges. The data consist of transcripts of lessons on density and students' written assignments. Using selected analytical categories from the Systemic Functional Linguistics framework, we first examined students' use of linguistic resources in their written reports of a practical activity. We then compared the language employed by the students with the instructional language, identifying possible links. Our analysis identified specific aspects of language that the students need to appropriate in order to express an understanding of density that aligns with a scientific perspective. The findings from this study illuminate ways by which teachers could assist students in overcoming the linguistic challenges in explaining density differences, which complement those made by existing studies that focus on conceptual challenges.

show abstract

Section: Viewing Students Learning About Density Within a Conceptual mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Viewing Students Learning About Density Within a Conceptual mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: An Lg Approach To Understanding Students' Challenges In Learmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The 'Causal Connections In Science Classrooms' Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Understanding Middle School Students’ Difficulties in Explaining Density Differences from a Language Perspective

Seah

Clarke

Hart

2015

International Journal of Science Education

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Collaborative Design Capacity for Enactment Framework: An Analytic Tool for Conceptualizing Pedagogical Design Capacity Within Social Context

Ellingson,

Roehrig

2024

Science Education

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study examines an urban middle school teacher design team's capacity for creating integrated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics curricula. Using Brown's pedagogical design capacity (PDC) theory, which highlights interactions between personal and curricular resources, this paper introduces an extended framework that includes social interactions as key influences on teachers' design abilities. Findings show that individual teachers' spontaneous curriculum modifications were adopted by the team, becoming collective resources for ongoing redesign and improving their design capacity. Teachers effectively used each other as resources to address unexpected challenges in integrating science, engineering, and mathematics concepts. Three types of social interactions were identified as collaborative resources: (i) Storytelling: sharing experiences to make abstract concepts actionable for curriculum development; (ii) Protocols: structured methods to address curricular problems related to integration; and (iii) Assessment “for” curriculum redesign: using assessment tools to inform and improve the curriculum. The Collective Design Capacity for Enactment framework is introduced to describe PDC within a social context, highlighting the importance of social interactions in bridging curriculum use and development, thus extending the literature on PDC.

show abstract

Discourse Analysis and Multimodal Meaning Making in a Science Classroom: Meta-Methodological Insights from Three Theoretical Perspectives

Martin

Seah

2020

Res Sci Educ

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article provides rich insights into the process of data generation for discourse analysis from three separate studies of the video recordings of a single science classroom in action. The central claim is that multimodal transcription can contribute to developments in discourse theory. A three-stage reflective heuristic is developed and used in the article to support meta-methodological discussion on different researchers' negotiations with the complexity of the video data. The focus is how the different researchers attended to modalities of meaning making (e.g. speech, learning artefacts, whiteboard notes, gestures, bodily actions) and appropriated, adapted and transformed their theoretical framework in order to construct the transcripts for each study. The three-stage heuristic is shown to facilitate transparency in analytic decision-making and is recommended for promoting much needed discussion on processes of data generation for discourse analysis that draws upon video recordings of action in situ.

show abstract

Student Difficulties in Learning Density: A Distributed Cognition Perspective

Cited by 28 publications

References 20 publications

Understanding Middle School Students’ Difficulties in Explaining Density Differences from a Language Perspective

Understanding Middle School Students’ Difficulties in Explaining Density Differences from a Language Perspective

Collaborative Design Capacity for Enactment Framework: An Analytic Tool for Conceptualizing Pedagogical Design Capacity Within Social Context

Discourse Analysis and Multimodal Meaning Making in a Science Classroom: Meta-Methodological Insights from Three Theoretical Perspectives

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About