126,99 €
The sciences are, in essence, highly semiotized. Our ways of thinking and communicating about science are based on permanent transformations from one system of signs to another, such as scriptural, graphic, symbolic, oral and gestural signs. The semiotic focus studied in this book makes it possible to grasp part of the complexity of teaching and learning phenomena by focusing on the variety of possible interpretations of the signs that circulate within the science classroom. Semiotic Approaches in Science Didactics brings together contributions from didactic research involving various disciplines such as mathematics, chemistry, physics and geography, which mobilize different types of semiotic support. It offers the key to understanding and even reducing some of the misunderstandings that can arise between a speaker and a receiver in scientific teaching situations.
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Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Introduction
I.1. General intention of the book
I.2. Research in didactics, semiotic approach, elements of definition
I.3. General presentation of the book’s structure
I.4. References
PART 1: A Study of the Dynamics of the Development of Scientific Knowledge
Introduction to Part 1
1 A Walk in Semiotics and Mathematics
1.1. A glance at semiotics
1.2. At the heart of mathematics, the symbolic
1.3. The life of a basic sign in contexts
1.4. Semiotics and questions of teaching
1.5. Conclusion
1.6. Appendix: the mystery writing in Figure 1.1
1.7. References
2 Semiotic Systems Specific to Chemistry and Their Learning
2.1. Introduction
2.2. The specific signs of chemistry
2.3. Didactical analysis framework: domains of knowledge in chemistry
2.4. Semiotic supports
2.5. The challenges of learning some chemical signs
2.6. Students’ understanding of names and formulae
2.7. Students’ understanding of stereochemical formulae
2.8. Conclusion
2.9. References
PART 2: The Semiotic Approach
Introduction to Part 2
3 Scientific Knowledge at the Mercy of the “BD” Comic Strip
3.1. Introduction
3.2. Science in comic strips: semiotic analysis of some strips by apprentice-authors
3.3. Science in science comics for the “wider public”: some narrative-visual invariants
3.4. Science comics at the mercy of the reader
3.5. Conclusion
3.6. References
4 The Map at the Heart of Disciplinary Learning
4.1. Introduction
4.2. Cartography in the classroom: a complex learning challenge
4.3. Toward a renewal of mapping practices?
4.4. The sensitive map, a lever for renewing mapping
4.5. Conclusion
4.6. References
PART 3: The Multimodal Semiotic Approach
Introduction to Part 3
5 Semiotic Modes and Models in Physics
5.1. An initial epistemological anchoring: modeling
5.2. The second anchoring: semiotic representations
5.3. The contribution of gestures
5.4. Articulation of modeling and semiotic representations within the epistemo-semiotic framework
5.5. Solving the problem of the principle of inertia at upper secondary school
5.6. Conclusion
5.7. References
6 The Didactic Effects of Semiotic Microphenomena in Mathematics
6.1. Some foundations
6.2. Dissonance and interactions in a mainstream class
6.3. Dissonances and symbols in a class at a medical-education institute
6.4. The table, a support for hidden complexity
6.5. Conclusion
6.6. References
7 Body, Matter and Signs in the Constitution of Meaning in Mathematics
7.1. Introduction
7.2. Body, matter and thought
7.3. The body and the historical emergence of algebraic symbolism
7.4. Sight, touch, orality and symbol
7.5. Conclusion
7.6. References
Conclusion
C.1. Specific theoretical tools
C.2. Toward a shared semiotic framework in the didactics of sciences?
C.3. References
List of Authors
Index
End User License Agreement
Chapter 2
Table 2.1.
Various signs to represent substance and molecule
Table 2.2.
Correct answers for names (Canac 2017, p. 124)
Table 2.3.
Correct answers for formulae (Canac 2017, p. 124)
Table 2.4.
Choices of macroscopic criteria for name and formula in two examp
...
Table 2.5.
Comparison of molecular formulae (Canac 2017)
Table 2.6.
Percentages of correct answers among students for whom O and O2 a
...
Table 2.7.
Types of answers provided to the treatment operation (Mangane and
...
Chapter 4
Table 4.1.
Type of tasks using maps in class
Table 4.2.
Grid for analyzing textbooks
Table 4.3.
Proportion of map exercises in the first chapter of school textbo
...
Table 4.4.
Supports and tasks for the statement with “blanks”
...
Chapter 5
Table 5.1.
Analysis of the productions of eight groups of students depending
...
Chapter 1
Figure 1.1
Photo of a day-to-day object
Figure 1.2
The first addition and subtraction symbols (Widmann 1526, p. 32)
...
Figure 1.3
First equation symbol (Recorde 1557)
Figure 1.4
Descartes’ symbol for equality
Figure 1.5
Advert on top of a display stand in a pharmacy
Figure 1.6
Changing a sign to change interpretation
Figure 1.7
Writing in base 10 of a whole number of n digits
Figure 1.8
Techniques for adding in columns
Figure 1.9
Explanation of definition III from the Disme
28
Figure 1.10
How to calculate a sum?
Chapter 2
Figure 2.1
Example of an inscription mixing a diagram representing objects f
...
Figure 2.2
Triadic relationship
Figure 2.3
Triadic relationships for the name “methane”
Figure 2.4
Representation R1, representation R2
Figure 2.5
Representation R1, representation R3
Figure 2.6
Representation R4, representation R5
Figure 2.7
Triadic relationships for a sign referring to two objects
Figure 2.8
Illustration of the question posed to students
Figure 2.9
Representations corresponding to the first three categories of an
...
Figure 2.10
Semiotic representations completing the wording of the question2
...
Chapter 3
Figure 3.1
Modeling science comic workshops and partners involved in creatin
...
Figure 3.2
Examples of “games of scale” taken from strips by Arthur (BIO wor
...
Figure 3.3
Extract from Amélie’s comic strip (CHIM workshop)
Figure 3.4
Examples of using ideograms and onomatopeia taken from Bastien’s
...
Figure 3.5
Extract from Axel’s strip (PHY2 workshop)
Figure 3.6
Extract from Louise’s strip (PHY2 workshop)
Figure 3.7
Antoine’s whole strip (CHIM workshop)
Figure 3.8
Extract from Noah’s strip (BIO workshop)
Figure 3.9
Extract from Emmanuel’s strip (PHY2 workshop)
Figure 3.10
Arthur’s whole strip (BIO workshop)
Figure 3.11
Extract from Jean’s strip (PHY1 workshop)
Figure 3.12
Extract from Marc’s strip (PHY1 workshop)
Figure 3.13
Extract from Lily-Rose’s strip (CHIM workshop)
Figure 3.14
Mathieu Burniat and Thibault Damour, The Mystery of the Quantum
...
Figure 3.15
Liam O’Donnell and Richard Dominguez, The Shocking World Of Elec
...
Figure 3.16
Assa Auerbach and Dick Codor, Max the Demon vs the Entropy of Do
...
Figure 3.17
Masayuki Ishikawa, Moyasimon, vol. 1, trans. Anne-Sophie Théveno
...
Figure 3.18
Jay Hosler, The Last of the Sandwalkers, trans. Adèle Carasso. ©
...
Figure 3.19
Lison Bernet, La Chasse au bison de Higgs. © Lison Bernet (2011)
...
Figure 3.20
Marion Montaigne, Mardi d’hiver, lasers, blog “Tu mourras moins
...
Figure 3.21
Julien Solé and Fabcaro, “What is absolute zero?” © Dargaud édit
...
Figure 3.22
Laurent Schafer, Quantix – La physique quantique et la relativit
...
Figure 3.23
Adaptation of an extract from the manga album Albert Einstein, t
...
Figure 3.24
Peb and Fox, Des autoroutes pour les électrons (Highways for ele
...
Chapter 4
Figure 4.1
The rules of the semiology of graphics included in textbooks
7
.
Figure 4.2
Relationship between geographical knowledge and map (from Fontana
...
Figure 4.3
An example of a statement “with holes” (blanks to be filled in) t
...
Figure 4.4
The corrected exercise “with holes” (blanks to be filled in) text
...
Figure 4.5
The punctuation sign, an index of the “fill in the blanks” exerci
...
Figure 4.6
An example of a legend where the pupil develops their reasoning.
...
Figure 4.7
Exercise mapping the Ganges delta in three textbooks for seconde:
...
Figure 4.8
An example of progression
Figure 4.9
Simplified background map, to support the cartographic croquis
Figure 4.10
Helping pupils with cartographic writing: practices from school
...
Figure 4.11
The semiotic system of the sensitive map
Figure 4.12
Stage 1: collecting language representations
Figure 4.13
Stage 2: mapping the voyage on the sand, in groups
Figure 4.14
Stage 3: back on the bus, each pupil represented their trip in t
...
Figure 4.15
Stage 4: back in class, each pupil made a sensitive postcard (ba
...
Figure 4.16
Stage 5: in class, making a group sensitive postcard.
Chapter 5
Figure 5.1
Extract from a school book (Le livre scolaire, physique-chimie 5°
...
Figure 5.2
System of signs in a physics article (Pantaleone 2017)
Figure 5.3
Using a mathematical model to process measurements
Figure 5.4
Representations of the electrical circuit and the circuit of vans
Figure 5.5
“Battery” object and its representations as an opaque object (to
...
Figure 5.6
Examples of drawings: a) produced by students; b) expected by the
...
Figure 5.7
Example of a semiotic bundle
Figure 5.8
Drawing of the teacher’s analogy and gestures
6
Figure 5.9
Mimes of the open/closed switch by the teacher and representation
...
Figure 5.10
Photo and text on the situation
Figure 5.11
Chronophotographs provided to students
Figure 5.12
Examples of drafts by students with and without text
Figure 5.13
Final response from group 1
Figure 5.14
Final response from group 3
Figure 5.15
a) Gesture of tracing the actual plot; b) tracing (plotting) ges
...
Figure 5.16
Gestures produced: a) individually; b) collaboratively
Chapter 6
Figure 6.1
Appendix of the student sheet (on the original document, the figu
...
Figure 6.2
Transcription of the teacher’s oral task in table form
Figure 6.3
Semiotic table, giving instructions
Figure 6.4
Student sheet
Figure 6.5
Material available to students
Figure 6.6
Extract from the second “order form”
Figure 6.7
Extract from the first “order form”
Figure 6.8
Semiotic table.
Figure 6.9
Mélanie’s third sheet
Figure 6.10
Mélanie’s answers for the third and fourth columns
Figure 6.11
Mélanie’s gesture-based procedure
Figure 6.12
The table filled in by Mélanie
Figure 6.13
Mélanie’s procedure for the order for 100 chalks.
...
Chapter 7
Figure 7.1
The sequence explored by children in a kindergarten class
Figure 7.2
The children exploring the extension of the sequence
Figure 7.3
Excerpt from Trattato d’Abaco (della Francesca 1460)
Figure 7.4
Excerpt from algebra by Bombelli (1572, p. 214)
Figure 7.5
Excerpt from algebra by Bombelli (1572, p. 250), with translation
...
Figure 7.6
a) Students explaining to the teacher (second right to left) the
...
Figure 7.7
Paul’s perceptual activity on the alphanumerical algebraic text
...
Figure 7.8
a) Writing an equation and its solution as proposed by Paul. b) P
...
Cover Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Introduction
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
Conclusion
List of Authors
Index
Wiley End User License Agreement
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SCIENCES
Education and Training, Field Director – Jean-Marc Labat
Didactics, Subject Head – Cécile de Hosson
Coordinated by
Catherine HoudementCécile de HossonChristophe Hache
First published 2022 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licenses issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address:
ISTE Ltd27-37 St George’s RoadLondon SW19 4EUUK
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.111 River StreetHoboken, NJ 07030USA
www.iste.co.uk
www.wiley.com
© ISTE Ltd 2022The rights of Catherine Houdement, Cécile de Hosson and Christophe Hache to be identified as the authors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s), contributor(s) or editor(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of ISTE Group.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022941464
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-78945-070-5
ERC code:
SH3 The Social World, Diversity, Population
SH3_11 Social aspects of learning, curriculum studies, educational policies
SH3_14 Science and technology studies
Catherine HOUDEMENT1, Cécile DE HOSSON2 and Christophe HACHE2
1 LDAR, Université de Rouen Normandie, France
2 LDAR, Université Paris Cité, France
Mathematics, the natural sciences1, and by extension, their teaching, engage in essence in activities and practices that are highly semioticized, which rely on the written word, on symbols and graphs, on the spoken word and gestures, so many systems of signs are involved, for the scholar, the teacher and the pupil, to manipulate, coordinate and communicate. Thus, our ways of thinking, communicating and teaching sciences are found to be heavily reliant on permanent transformations from one system of signs to another. Taking the semiotic focus as a filter for analyzing processes of teaching and learning presents some potential for research in the didactics of sciences, a potential that has been refined gradually over the past 20 years in international work on scientific education (Radford and D’Amore 2006; Sáenz-Ludlow and Presmeg 2006, Sáenz-Ludlow and Kadunz 2015; Radford et al. 2008; Bartolini et al. 2012; Radford 2013). Duval (1995, 1998, 2006) introduced this entry into research on the didactics of the francophone world, with the study of written and graphical signs needed for the mathematical activity of the expert.
The semiotic focus makes it possible to grasp some of the complexity of teaching-learning phenomena by focusing the attention of the researcher on the variety of possible interpretations of signs (oral, scriptural, graphical, gestures, etc.) given by the teacher (respectively by the pupil), by the receivers of these signs, a pupil (respectively a teacher, another pupil). From this point of view, the Peircian approach seems promising. But then, what contribution can semiotics provide to scientific education and more broadly to research in the didactics of sciences? The end goal of this book is to provide a multidisciplinary didactic illumination to this question.
Research in the didactics of sciences should here be comprised in a broad sense as the study of the phenomena of teaching and learning in institutions dedicated to teaching (schools, universities, etc.) and more generally to the study of any form of acculturation to sciences in society. Its main goal is to understand what is at play when knowledge passes from a space enunciation (which structures particular choices of presentation) to a space of reception (organized by the cognitive and social characteristics of the individuals that form it). The choices of exposure (the signs of which are consubstantial) are not neutral from the point of view of learners and it is on the nature of these choices and in their consequences for comprehension that research on didactics is, for the most part, interested.
Semiotics (in Charles Sanders Peirce’s sense) amounts to the analysis of the possible distances between sign and sense (sense being on the side of interpretation). It engages the exploration of a triadic system within which a “perceived” sign denotes an object, material or conceptual, via an interpretation constructed by a receiver. The first chapter will offer the reader a more precise illumination of this theory, which forms the guiding thread of this book.
Through this book, organized into three parts, we intend to initiate the reader in the complexity of acculturation to the signs of science to enable them to grasp, thanks to a shared semiotic focus, the problems specific to research in the didactics of sciences, in which he or she is not necessarily a specialist.
The first part of the book engages the reader in an acculturation to the semiotic practices linked to knowledge known as “scholars”. The two chapters that form this part explain the way in which symbolic scientific language (mathematical symbols and writing – Chapter 1; chemical symbols and formulae – Chapter 2) has been constructed in history, the problems of which it has made possible to illuminate and the models to whose emergence it has led. This leads the authors of these chapters to analyze from a semiotic point of view some difficulties in learning and teaching and to revisit from this angle some work produced by research in didactics in France and abroad.
Although the semiotic approach allows a specific illumination of the genesis and dynamic of knowledge in and outside the classroom, it also makes it possible to imagine the original paths by which these concepts, laws and experimental procedures were appropriated. This is the aim of the second part of the book. In the two chapters that structure this part, it is a mixed “text-image” semiotic system that is laid out for study. The researchers integrate learners into a process of sign creation to aim for a better understanding of scientific knowledge: learners thus become designers, some of “scientific” comic strips (Chapter 3), others of maps in geography (Chapter 4). Although in both cases, the manufactured signs are more accessible to the group of learners since they form, in part, a shared culture, these signs are also syncretic since they should form knowledge of science with other codes.
The three chapters of the third and last part coach the reader in the grand library of signs and semiotic resources mobilized for teaching and learning. Here, the signs chosen to analyze the didactic interactions at play are no longer only those of oral and written language and graphical traces, but also gestures for oneself or for others. Chapters 5 and 6 rely on theoretical semiotic tools, with an integrative scope, to take account of the multimodality of interactions and analyze their effect on teaching and learning. By extension, Chapter 7 takes a more philosophical look at the role of semiotic resources in the construction of knowledge and proposes a new theoretical vision of cognition, conceived as sensuous cognition: “A sensitive and multimodal form, shaped culturally and historically, to think, act, imagine, feel, transform and give meaning to the world.”
Bartolini, M.G., Corni, F., Mariani, C., Falcade, R. (2012). Semiotic mediation in mathematics and physics classrooms: Artifacts and signs after a Vygotskian approach.
The Electronic Journal of Science Education
, 16, 1–28.
Duval, R. (1995).
Sémiosis et pensée humaine. Registres sémiotiques et apprentissages intellectuels
. Peter Lang, Bern.
Duval, R. (1998). Signe et objet : questions relatives à l’analyse des connaissances.
Annales de didactique et de sciences cognitives
, 6, 165–196.
Duval, R. (2006). Quelle sémiotique pour l’analyse de l’activité et des productions mathématiques ?
Revista latinoamericana de investigación en matemática educativa
, Special issue, 45–82.
Peirce C.S. (1978).
Écrits sur le signe (rassemblés, traduits et commentés par Gérard Deledalle)
. Le Seuil, Paris.
Radford, L. (2013). On semiotics and education.
Éducation et Didactique
, 7(1), 185–204.
Radford, L. and D’Amore, B. (eds) (2006). Semiótica, cultura y pensamiento matemático.
Revista latinoamericana de investigación en matemática educativa
, Special issue
.
Radford, L., Schubring, G., Seeger, F. (eds) (2008).
Semiotics in Mathematics Education. Epistemology, History, Classroom and Culture
. Sense Publishers, Rotterdam.
Sáenz-Ludlow, A. and Kadunz, G. (eds) (2015).
Semiotics as a Tool for Learning Mathematics. How to Describe the Construction, Visualisation and Communication of Mathematical Concepts
. Sense Publishers, Rotterdam.
Sáenz-Ludlow, A. and Presmeg, N. (eds) (2006). Semiotic perspectives in mathematics education.
Educational Studies in Mathematics
, Special edition, 61(1/2).
1
The expression “natural sciences” refers to a branch of science that focuses on the description, modeling and understanding of natural phenomena, on the basis of empirical elements taken from observation and experimentation. We include the material (or “hard”) sciences (physics and chemistry), life sciences and Earth sciences (including geography).
Catherine HOUDEMENT1, Cécile DE HOSSON2 and Christophe HACHE2
1 LDAR, Université de Rouen Normandie, France
2 LDAR, Université Paris Cité, France
This first part engages the reader in an acculturation to the semiotic practices linked to knowledge, known as “scholarly” knowledge. The two chapters that form this part illuminate the way in which symbolic scientific language (mathematical symbols and writing – Chapter 1; chemical symbols and formulae – Chapter 2) has been constructed in history, the problems it has allowed to be illuminated and the models it has drawn out. This leads the authors of these chapters to analyze from a semiotic point of view some difficulties in learning and teaching and to revisit from this angle some work produced by research on didactics in France and abroad.
The first chapter seeks to instill in the reader a semiotic posture, by relying on the two founders of modern semiotics, Ferdinand de Saussure and Charles Sanders Peirce. Many examples mark the text, enabling the reader to enrich their knowledge on semiotics and the genesis of symbolic mathematical writing. The “equality” sign will be studied in particular and the reader will be surprised perhaps by the variety of possible interpretations of a symbol as basic as this. This chapter also takes account of the crucial semiotic dimension of mathematics (as opposed to the language dimension) not only to denote and communicate concepts and work with but also to produce new mathematical objects, especially by allocating a word, or a symbol, to objects before they exist within mathematics. Zero, a digit and number familiar to all, is a famous example, its first function being to take account of an empty space in the writing of a number using digits: “The presence of an absence, materialized by zero, illustrates and contains the essence of mathematics”1. On the didactic level, the project of the first chapter is also to exemplify a semiotic perspective linked to teaching and acculturation to mathematics, as much in the epistemological analysis of expert scholarship as in the study of learning and teaching phenomena.
The second chapter studies, from a didactic perspective, the language of symbols in chemistry, made up of a variety of signs of diverse “forms”: language expressions, juxtapositions of letters and digits (chemical formulae), codified graphical representations, in its relationship with the double level of describing macroscopic and microscopic chemical entities.
At the end of the 2000s, this complexity was already considered an obstacle to the teaching of chemistry and attempts were made to analyze it. Isabelle Kermen took this path from a didactic viewpoint, by relying on a characterization of chemistry as the dialectic between the empirical register and the model register, and from a semiotic viewpoint, by relying on Duval, whose major contributions she shares, and Peirce. She thus pursues the project, initiated in the first chapter, of acculturing the reader to semiotics. The author puts to work analysis of the semiotic process linked to the language of symbols in chemistry: she emphasizes the importance of context for reconstructing, from a sign, the object, the chemical objects they denote: a chemical formula can in fact refer to two “different” objects, the (macroscopic) chemical space and the (microscopic) molecule. This duality is transparent and fertile for the expert chemist, but formidable for the learner.
The author treats the question of the interpretations students make of signs in chemistry by relying on two theses. One studies two systems of spatial representations of molecules (Cram and Newman), the other, names and chemical formulae and students. In the first, students in their final year have difficulties visualizing representations and understanding syntax, which compromise the help that the two types of representation could provide. The other thesis shows the tendency of students, from college to university, to solidify a sign in a single interpretation, even though they can change this over time, the manifestation of insensitivity to the chemical context of a sign’s usage. The chapter is characterized too by a great effort to explain the meaning of the terms and symbols of chemistry. This also illuminates the concepts that the language of symbols denotes, and we hope that the reader will gain a deeper knowledge of chemistry.
1
Houzel, C. (2002), “L’écriture du zéro”,
Du signe à l’écriture
, Dossier
Pour la Science
, 33, October 2002.