The Contribution of Visualisation to Modelling-Based Teaching

Abstract

Both the creation of models and their communication to other people involve visualisations. These are, respectively, 'internal' (or mental) and 'external' (or public) representations, with the latter confusingly also being called visualisations. Perceptions by one of the five senses provide external representations. The modes of external representation of particular importance in science education are the: gestural, concrete, static visual (pictures, diagrams, graphs, mathematical and chemical equations), dynamic visual (drama, animation, simulation), oral and auditory. The skills and abilities that constitute meta-visual competence in the modes are reviewed in this chapter, for they enable the central element of modelling -the design and conduct of thought experiments -to take place. Consequently, the skills and abilities of both modelling and of visualisation are mutually developed and employed during MBT. The Growing Importance of VisualisationSince the dawn of 'the age of science', arguably about 1400 CE, evermore detailed phenomena in the world-as-experienced have been studied, producing increasingly complex and detailed models of their behaviour and constitution. In order to be accepted as contributing to scientific progress, these models then have to be communicated by their creators to other scientists for critical review and, given sufficient support, for general publication in scientific journals and use in other research. Creating, seeking approval for, and disseminating these models inevitably taxes the imaginations of scientists, tasks for which every help is no doubt much appreciated. With the somewhat parallel growth of systematic science education, in Europe and North America from about 1850, one problem that rapidly emerged was how to successfully promote an understanding of the ever-expanding range of established models in students. More recently, in order both to support the development of more scientists and to facilitate greater creativity, as well as providing insight for the general public into how models are devised and evaluated, a greater emphasis has been placed in science education on the skills of modelling. Visualisation plays a central and increasing role in all three of these activities: the creation of models, their evaluation by the scientific community, and their communication to students of science of all ages. 122A visualisation, also commonly called 'what is seen in the mind's eye', is a colloquial way of referring to the result of the formation of a 'mental image' or 'mental model'. Visualising, the formation of a visualisation, is a quasi-perceptual experience, in that it resembles perceptual experience, but is one which can occur in the absence of the external stimuli (Thomas, 2014). The steadily increasing social pressure to create and communicate visualisations has gone hand-in-hand with an expansion of the availability of support for doing so. Whilst early efforts were largely confined to sketches and line drawings, the advent of high-quality reprographics and ...

The role of scaffolding in the instructional design of online, self-directed, inquiry-based learning environments: student engagement and learning approaches

“…As in previous research findings, the data above revealed that MERs played an important role in developing the mental model for atoms and molecules (Gilbert, 2005;Rapp, 2005). A form of learning progression was observed through the growing perception of molecular structure and their behaviour through students' experiencing the MERs, where their understanding level transitioned from the observable (macro) to the sub-micro level (Dickson et al, 2016;Gilbert et al, 2016;Gilbert et al, 2009;Meijer et al, 2013). This learning progression afforded the students the opportunity to cognitively delve more deeply.…”

“…Due to the ability to represent the complex phenomena of scientific concepts in multiple formats, it has been widely used in the science domain (Rau et al, 2015). In this regard, Johnstone (1993), Gilbert (2008) and Gilbert et al (2016) classified and discussed three representational levels in which the visualisation operates functionally, that is, at the macroscopic, sub-microscopic and symbolic levels (Johnstone, 1991). This study used these representational levels to facilitate students to understand the phenomena of abstract science concepts in the learning modules.…”

As Symbol as That: Inconsistencies in Symbol Systems of Alleles in Textbooks, and Students’ Justifications for Them

“…Understanding the meaning of a symbol is not only knowing which object it represents, but also acknowledging its limitations in representing the object [3,9,30]. To enable communication using symbols, the meaning that is embedded in a symbol by its creator must be understood by all those who perceive it [1].…”

“…External representations are used by scientists to communicate with one another and with the non-scientist population. Therefore, the meaning that is embodied in a representation by its creator should be understood by all those who perceive it [1]. Furthermore, using external representations in a flexible manner allows scientists to manipulate those representations, thus creating a working model that can be updated when new experimental results are obtained or a new understanding is reached [2].…”

“…We focus in this article on visual representations, i.e., an external representation perceived by the visual senses, which is the result of an attempt to communicate a mental model [1]. It has been claimed that just as visual representations are important to the work of scientists and the development of science, they are also important in teaching the subject [3,4].…”