Talked Images: Process of Meaning Construction in a Biology Class

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Talked Images Process of Meaning Construction
in a Biology Class

• Cláudia Avellar Freitas - FAFI /FEMM
• Maria Lúcia Castanheira- UFMG
• Thematic School on Ethnography in Education
• UCSB OSU UCSD - UFMG
• January
• 2006

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• OVERVIEW OF PRESENTATION
• The historical and theoretical context of the
  study
• Questions addressed in this presentation
• Analytical examples
• Summary and discussion

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• Theoretical background
• the onset of a problem to study
• Last 5 decades growing variety and quantity of
  images in sciences textbooks. This aspect can be
  viewed as a consequence of the fact that science
  cannot be constructed or communicated only
  through verbal language.

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• Some studies reveal that the quantity of images
  is used as criteria by teachers when choosing
  biology textbooks.
• Paradoxically, these studies also suggest that
  teachers make a limited use of such images in the
  process of teaching.
• A literature review made visible that studies
  about the use of images in classrooms have not
  being developed.

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• Overarching question addressed
• in this study
• How are images used in the process of teaching
  scientific knowledge in biology classes?

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Research setting

• A public school that attended 2318 students from
  elementary and high school in 2001. This school
  is located in the central area of a city of
  200.000 inhabitants and functions in 3 shifts
  morning, afternoon and night.
• City economical change new factories begin to
  require high school certificate.

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• A first year high school biology class 36
  students (majority 17 years old 2 students 30
  years old) they worked as salesman or
  housekeepers (minimal wage R 300,00 US122)
• The teacher was 37 years old. She has taught in
  state schools for the last 10 years, had a degree
  in biology from a major public university and
  worked during the morning and night shifts (a
  total of 36 teaching hours/week).

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• The field observation started at first day of
  class, February 8th, and continued until the end
  of June. A total of 37 hours of class were taped.

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Data set

• Video record of classroom interaction
• Audio record of interviews with teacher and
  students
• Field notes on classroom interaction and
  interviews with students and teacher
• Xerox of notebooks, exercise sheets, textbook,
  tests.

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• Different types of analysis were developed in the
  present study to address the overarching question
  proposed
• Macro analysis that inquired about
• How is the class organized?
• When are images used? By whom?
• What kind of images are used during the first
  year in a high school biology classes?

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Kind of images

• what kind of biological concepts were
  contemplated through images in the class (content
  knowledge)
• how these images could be classified according to
  Kress and Leeuwen conceptual and narrative

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• Micro analysis that examined
• How are the meanings of images discursively
  constructed by participants?
• How are different semiotic means used by the
  teacher when explaining biological concepts?

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• Premises that guided the proposition of such
  questions and their examination
• A view that classroom acts as a culture in which
  members locally construct patterned ways of
  engaging with each other through moment to moment
  interactions. (SBCDG, 1992 Green Dixon, 1993)
• An understanding that these patterned ways of
  interacting lead to particular ways of doing,
  ways of knowing and to the construction frames of
  reference that guide the interpretation of and
  participation in the group. (Green Wallat,
  1979 Gumperz, 1992 Gee Green, 1999)

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• An understanding of teaching and learning as
  inferential processes as teachers and students
  interact they rely on the interpretation of
  contextualization cues to produce meaning.
• An understanding that meanings are not given but
  constructed by participants as they interact
  throughout the year. Meaning is context
  dependent.
• (Gumperz, 1992 Bakhtin, 1992 Bloome
  Egan-Roberson, 1993 Erickson Shultz, 1981)

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Image

• A complex of visual elements correlated to each
  other that represents reality and can be
  recognized as a unit. An image can be constituted
  by visual and verbal elements.
• (Lemke, 1998 Martins, 2000 Kress Van Leewen,
  1990)

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General Event Map
Time Sub event Event Interactional Space Images
When Describe subgroup of related activities Identify groups of thematically tied activities Describe how participants were organized Types of images
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General patterns identified

• Class was developed in 3 major events

OPENING Whole Class T/I students. - Attendance - Checking previous content in students notebook.
CONTENT EXPOSITION Whole Class Stating topic to be taught Explaining topic Drawing images in the blackboard
CLOSING Whole Class Giving homework Getting stuff together, dismissing students, leaving classroom
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Frequency of use of images

• Standardized images of biological concepts were
  used in a total of 77.4 of classes.
• From those
• 29.63 appeared in books and exercises sheets,
  tests (WG I)
• 70.37 were drawn in the black board by teacher
  (WC- T)

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• The teacher drew 1 to 4 images a day (average of
  2.3 images/day).
• Images could be available on the board from 12
  seconds to 18 minutes. Most of them stayed on the
  board between
• 6 to 8 minutes.

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• Digestive system and its organs

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Digestive system and its organs
T here is the mouth (T. points to image)
this is the nose (T puts hand on her face)
so the masticated food
falls into the pharynx
this part here is the pharynx (T. points to image)
St pharynx
T here is the esophagus
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• Teacher draws one organ and the system a
  conceptual image.
• The talked image becomes a model to understand
  part- whole relationship of a system
  (analytical).
• Teacher names and identifies parts of the system
  by using different semiotic systems gestures,
  deixis, drawing on the board. (Descriptive
  function)

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• Energy transfer
• Image used by ecologists

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Representing selected elements of energy transfer
model
T food chain ok?
And these consumers T. draws first doted arrow. Food Chain producers consumers
and producers T. draws second doted arrow. Food Chain producers consumers
...Will die T. writes word decomposers. Food Chain producers consumers decomposers
and be decomposed
decomposers
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Food Chain
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Redundancy and complementarity
237 here
238 i have a food chain
239 look
240 you have the
241 producers and consumers T. points to elements following the direction of arrows.
242 it is understood
243 that the decomposers are here T. moves hand back to the beginning of chain. She passes her hand under the drawing.
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Contradiction between semiotic means
253 consumer of first order
254 or primary consumer
255 why?
256 because he is feeding
257 directly from? T. points to fish and moves hand in the opposite direction of arrow
258 Producers
259 ok?
260 all primary consumers
261 eat producers
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269 piranhas in this case
270 are what?
271 s consumer
272 t second order consumer
273 because he feeds from T. points to piranha and moves hand in the opposite direction of arrow.
274 a first order consumer
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• Different semiotics means are explored by
  participants in the process of producing and
  using images in the classroom verbal (oral and
  written language), gestures, drawings.

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• The result of exploring different semiotic means
  can be complementary by redundancy gestures and
  talk reinforce potential meaning of elements
  visually represented in the image.
• The result of exploring different semiotic means
  can also be contradictory what is visually
  represented is the opposite of what is signaled
  by gestures or words.

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• The use of scientific representation implicated
  in the omission of original elements or its
  substitution by other means (the constraints of
  the context of use).
• Images used in the classroom are related to
  different kinds of contexts academic/scientific
  where the concepts and images come from
  education department orientation which topics
  should be addressed and in which order.

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• The analysis shows that the meaning of an image
  is not simply in the image itself it depends on
  the discourse that is produced about the image
  presented to students.
• (Context dependent/ constructed shared
  meanings same understanding?)

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• The fact that students have to copy the images in
  their notebooks increased the changes of them not
  processing the different semiotic means explored
  by the teacher.
• What sense do students make of images used in
  the classroom?

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• Since images are such central to the teaching
  process in biology classes, it seems necessary to
  address with teachers what is implied in its
  transposition from the scientific world to the
  classroom.
• It is necessary to make explicit the grammar used
  in the production of images to help students to
  understand the role of this semiotic mean in the
  construction of scientific knowledge.