This study was designed to examine the impact of embedding multiple modes of representing science information on student conceptual understanding in science. Multiple representations refer to utilizing charts, graphs, diagrams, and other types of representations to communicate scientific information. This study investigated the impact of encouraging students to embed or integrate the multiple modes with text in end of unit writing-to-learn activities. A quasi-experimental design in which four separate sites consisting of intact chemistry classes taught by a separate teacher at each site was utilized. At each site, approximately half of the classes were designated treatment classes and students in these classes participated in activities designed to encourage strategies to embed multiple modes with text in student writing. The control classes did not participate in these activities. All classes participated in identical end of unit writing tasks in which they were required to use at least one mode other than text, followed by identical end of unit assessments. This progression was then repeated for a second consecutive unit of study. Analysis of quantitative data indicated that in several cases, treatment classes significantly outperformed control classes both on measures of embeddedness in writing and on end of unit assessment measures. In addition, analysis at the level of individual students indicated significant positive correlations in many cases between measures of student embeddedness in writing and student performance on end of unit assessments. Three factors emerged as critical in increasing the chances for benefit for students from these types of activities. First, teacher the level of implementation and emphasis on the embeddedness lessons was linked to the possibility of conceptual benefit. Secondly, students participating in two consecutive lessons appeared to receive greater benefit, inferring a cumulative benefit. Finally, differential impact of the degree of embeddedness on student performance was noted based on student's level of science ability prior to the initiation of study procedures.

This content analysis assesses the insight facilitating capacity of some very common inquiry-based writing activities (featured in today's mainstream first-year college composition texts). It accomplishes that assessment by using three language-based insight facilitating methods--one centered on metaphor, another on opposition, and the other on paradox--as evaluative lenses. The position of this study is that these methods--advanced by widely published scholars in the fields of science, psychology and business as effective insight facilitators--can shed light on development opportunities (where insight facilitation is concerned) in the design and protocol of the writing activities selected for analysis. The outcome is ultimately a comparison of sorts drawn between key insight facilitators at work in the proven methods and comparable features capable of eliciting insight in the writing activities. While the analysis aims to show just how effectively insight facilitation is prompted in the selected writing activities, it also--through its evaluative lens--suggests ways the activities could more effectively do so.

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This study uses qualitative methods to investigate the use of writing in a content course for elementary education majors in which writing was considered an important part of mathematical learning. The study differs from previous studies by investigating the role of writing in the everyday instructional activities, rather than investigating writing as a separate mathematical activity. An analysis of the instruction and class discussions that took place in this class reveals that components of writing that were addressed implicitly and explicitly in classroom instruction were developed simultaneously with conceptual understanding, suggesting a much stronger and more integral relationship between writing and learning than the relationship that has been hypothesized by previous research. Furthermore, specific ways in which the class was structured seemed to support the development of students' written explanations. Appropriate explanations of particular concepts were modeled by both teacher and students, and explanations of mathematical concepts were developed gradually in a relatively consistent progression that paralleled the development of the concepts themselves. The findings of this study contribute to the field of research by helping to describe the relationship between writing and learning and by illuminating some of the ways in which both student learning and student writing are affected by classroom instruction.

Writing-to-learn strategies have been well documented in the promotion of student learning (Poirrier, 1997c). Less is known about how teachers come to use these strategies in every day instruction. This study is a description of the experiences of one science teacher at a large suburban high school who shared writing-to-learn strategies with his department to promote the use of these strategies in daily instruction of his colleagues. The strategies involved 1) improving reading comprehension using paraphrasing, 2) activating prior knowledge using generic questions: who, what, where, when, why, & how, and 3) writing before and after other classroom activities to activate prior knowledge and then better integrate new information. The strategies were shared during informal meetings at lunch. Participation was voluntary. Of the eighteen faculty members, four chose to implement the strategies on a longer-term basis. Follow-up analysis in subsequent years, showed that the strategies were still in use and that the colleagues who used the strategies had passed them on to newly inducted members of the department. Results were discussed with regards to how teachers acquire or decline the incorporation of new teaching ideas in the normal course of their work in collegial settings. / Ed. D.

Learning of threshold concepts in engineering science courses such as statics has traditionally been a difficult and critical juncture for engineering students. Research and other systematic efforts to improve the teaching of statics in recent years range widely, from development of courseware and assessment tools to experiential and other "hands-on" learning techniques. This dissertation reports the findings from a multi-year, dual-institution study investigating possible links between short writing assignments and conceptual knowledge development in statics courses. The theoretical framework of the study draws on elements from cognitive learning theory: expertise, procedural and conceptual knowledge development, and conceptual change. The way that students approach learning in statics with regard to procedural and conceptual knowledge is explored qualitatively, and the relationship between the writing assignments and conceptual knowledge development is examined using a mixed-methods approach. The results show that students approach learning in statics with varying emphasis placed on procedural and conceptual knowledge development and that a student's learning approach influences their perception of the written problems and the ways that they utilize them in learning. Thus, they provide evidence that the learning approach of students may be an important factor in the success of interventions designed to improve conceptual knowledge in statics. Increases in conceptual knowledge as a result of completing the written problems are also empirically supported though limited by problems with data collection. Areas for future work in light of these findings are identified. / Ph. D.

Students of chemistry encounter difficulties due to its abstract nature and the need to understand and communicate its concepts on macro, submicro, and symbolic levels using a range of representations and representational modes. Research suggests that when students are required to use multiple representations they have difficulties in understanding individual representations and in negotiating meaning through their use. This study sought to address these issues through the application of digital technologies. The main areas of research that provided a theoretical framework for this study were multiple representations in chemistry education and writing-to-learn in science. Other research in these areas has suggested that a better understanding of multiple representations might enhance students’ chemical literacy; however, limited research has investigated the impact of using digital technologies to create multimodal texts on students’ learning in chemistry, particularly the development of students’ skills in generating and integrating multiple representations. Until recently, much of the writing-to-learn research has focused on written composition. The knowledge-transforming model was proposed by Bereiter and Scardamalia (1987) to explain the influence of written composition on knowledge construction. However, having been developed prior to the time when students had ready access to digital technologies and a consequent capacity to create multimedia and digital texts, this model does not account for the production of such multimodal texts. This study examined the effect of learning experiences that utilised digital technologies to support students in using multiple representations and through writing-to-learn activities to create multimodal texts on learning outcomes in chemistry. The study was conducted in a metropolitan public co-educational high school in Queensland, Australia. Two Year 11 chemistry classes participated in the study, which was conducted in the first term of a 2-year course in which students learn chemistry as a separate discipline. The study consisted of a pilot study and an intervention study with two phases. The pilot study was used to trial the learning activities and data collection instruments and to gain an insight into instructional approaches that might be appropriate for the study. Phase 1 of the intervention study employed a pretest–posttest design. In this phase, students learned about chemical bonding and structure and their effects on the properties and behaviours of different materials. They also learned about the multiple representations used to understand and communicate about chemical bonding and structure. Within a modified crossover design, Phase 2 of the study employed mixed methods to compare the effects on learning outcomes when they created two different scientific texts: a digital poster and a laboratory report. Both text types required students to integrate multiple representations to report on their learning during laboratory investigations. These text types were chosen because they are commonly used by scientists to communicate their experimental findings. In Phase 1, students engaged in computer-based inquiries using both molecular modelling and simulation software to investigate phenomena such as intra- and inter-molecular bonding and their effects on properties, the differences between various types of bonds, the multiple representations used to describe and investigate bonding and structure, and to present their understanding to others. In Phase 2, students used a range of scaffolding resources to design and carry out two inquiries about the chemistry of biomaterials. In the first inquiry, students made and compared the properties of two different bioplastic films; in the second, students compared the relative fermentation rates of a range of carbohydrates. In both inquiries, students were required to report their findings and explain them on the submicro level using appropriate representations. Scaffolds included Science Writing Heuristics, which explicitly required students to consider which multiple representations would support their claims and explanations of data; digital resources for selecting, modifying, or creating representations; and genre templates. Pretest–posttest comparisons for both phases showed that the instructional approaches and resources used were effective for enhancing students’ learning outcomes. In all comparisons, the posttest performances were significantly higher. In the first phase, several of the identified alternative or missing conceptions about chemical bonding were effectively addressed, and in both phases, students’ conceptual understanding and their representational competencies were enhanced. The pretest–posttest comparisons for Phase 2 suggested that creating a diversified text – a digital poster – for explaining experimental results is at least as effective for enhancing understanding and representational competencies as creating a more traditional laboratory report. Other data were analysed to gain an insight into how or why the instructional strategies and resources used might have been effective. The student interviews revealed a number of advantages of using digital technologies, including promotion of higher order thinking, enhanced motivation and interest, the capacity of digital technologies to support and enhance visualisation, and the production of multiple representations in multiple modes. Students suggested that the digital resources allowed them to make links between macroscopic, molecular, and symbolic levels and to include a range of representations in their explanations. The evaluation questionnaire revealed similar trends. Analysis of the students’ texts suggested that the approaches used in Phase 2 were effective in supporting students’ content and rhetorical problem solving and the interactions between the two. Students utilised a range of representations, particularly structural diagrams, when making explanations of their macroscopic data on the submicro level. This study has implications for the instructional approaches used by chemistry teachers because it showed that integrating digital technologies into learning environments is effective when introducing students to the multiple representations used in chemistry and in the development of students’ chemical literacies. It also contributes to writing-to-learn research by focusing on multimodal communication and the benefits of creating multimodal texts for presenting, organising, and explaining data, and for representing knowledge. Significant findings of the study relate to the importance of digital technologies in generating multimodal texts and representations for instruction, scaffolding, and in student-centred inquiry-based learning. Further research might focus on the use of such resources for addressing other commonly identified alternative conceptions, the creation of other multimodal text types, the use of other digital technologies or authoring tools, or on the development of teachers’ technological pedagogical content knowledge, which is required for effective classroom implementation of these resources and strategies.

Students of chemistry encounter difficulties due to its abstract nature and the need to understand and communicate its concepts on macro, submicro, and symbolic levels using a range of representations and representational modes. Research suggests that when students are required to use multiple representations they have difficulties in understanding individual representations and in negotiating meaning through their use. This study sought to address these issues through the application of digital technologies. The main areas of research that provided a theoretical framework for this study were multiple representations in chemistry education and writing-to-learn in science. Other research in these areas has suggested that a better understanding of multiple representations might enhance students’ chemical literacy; however, limited research has investigated the impact of using digital technologies to create multimodal texts on students’ learning in chemistry, particularly the development of students’ skills in generating and integrating multiple representations. Until recently, much of the writing-to-learn research has focused on written composition. The knowledge-transforming model was proposed by Bereiter and Scardamalia (1987) to explain the influence of written composition on knowledge construction. However, having been developed prior to the time when students had ready access to digital technologies and a consequent capacity to create multimedia and digital texts, this model does not account for the production of such multimodal texts. This study examined the effect of learning experiences that utilised digital technologies to support students in using multiple representations and through writing-to-learn activities to create multimodal texts on learning outcomes in chemistry. The study was conducted in a metropolitan public co-educational high school in Queensland, Australia. Two Year 11 chemistry classes participated in the study, which was conducted in the first term of a 2-year course in which students learn chemistry as a separate discipline. The study consisted of a pilot study and an intervention study with two phases. The pilot study was used to trial the learning activities and data collection instruments and to gain an insight into instructional approaches that might be appropriate for the study. Phase 1 of the intervention study employed a pretest–posttest design. In this phase, students learned about chemical bonding and structure and their effects on the properties and behaviours of different materials. They also learned about the multiple representations used to understand and communicate about chemical bonding and structure. Within a modified crossover design, Phase 2 of the study employed mixed methods to compare the effects on learning outcomes when they created two different scientific texts: a digital poster and a laboratory report. Both text types required students to integrate multiple representations to report on their learning during laboratory investigations. These text types were chosen because they are commonly used by scientists to communicate their experimental findings. In Phase 1, students engaged in computer-based inquiries using both molecular modelling and simulation software to investigate phenomena such as intra- and inter-molecular bonding and their effects on properties, the differences between various types of bonds, the multiple representations used to describe and investigate bonding and structure, and to present their understanding to others. In Phase 2, students used a range of scaffolding resources to design and carry out two inquiries about the chemistry of biomaterials. In the first inquiry, students made and compared the properties of two different bioplastic films; in the second, students compared the relative fermentation rates of a range of carbohydrates. In both inquiries, students were required to report their findings and explain them on the submicro level using appropriate representations. Scaffolds included Science Writing Heuristics, which explicitly required students to consider which multiple representations would support their claims and explanations of data; digital resources for selecting, modifying, or creating representations; and genre templates. Pretest–posttest comparisons for both phases showed that the instructional approaches and resources used were effective for enhancing students’ learning outcomes. In all comparisons, the posttest performances were significantly higher. In the first phase, several of the identified alternative or missing conceptions about chemical bonding were effectively addressed, and in both phases, students’ conceptual understanding and their representational competencies were enhanced. The pretest–posttest comparisons for Phase 2 suggested that creating a diversified text – a digital poster – for explaining experimental results is at least as effective for enhancing understanding and representational competencies as creating a more traditional laboratory report. Other data were analysed to gain an insight into how or why the instructional strategies and resources used might have been effective. The student interviews revealed a number of advantages of using digital technologies, including promotion of higher order thinking, enhanced motivation and interest, the capacity of digital technologies to support and enhance visualisation, and the production of multiple representations in multiple modes. Students suggested that the digital resources allowed them to make links between macroscopic, molecular, and symbolic levels and to include a range of representations in their explanations. The evaluation questionnaire revealed similar trends. Analysis of the students’ texts suggested that the approaches used in Phase 2 were effective in supporting students’ content and rhetorical problem solving and the interactions between the two. Students utilised a range of representations, particularly structural diagrams, when making explanations of their macroscopic data on the submicro level. This study has implications for the instructional approaches used by chemistry teachers because it showed that integrating digital technologies into learning environments is effective when introducing students to the multiple representations used in chemistry and in the development of students’ chemical literacies. It also contributes to writing-to-learn research by focusing on multimodal communication and the benefits of creating multimodal texts for presenting, organising, and explaining data, and for representing knowledge. Significant findings of the study relate to the importance of digital technologies in generating multimodal texts and representations for instruction, scaffolding, and in student-centred inquiry-based learning. Further research might focus on the use of such resources for addressing other commonly identified alternative conceptions, the creation of other multimodal text types, the use of other digital technologies or authoring tools, or on the development of teachers’ technological pedagogical content knowledge, which is required for effective classroom implementation of these resources and strategies.

Students often struggle to understand why the required writing course is important in their academic and non academic life. My project seeks to bring these two parts of students' lives together by urging writing teachers and students to consider a richer concept of the term "composition," one that includes the fundamental work of composing meaningful knowledge by assembling and reflecting on raw experiences. Dewey's term "an experience" clarifies how students constitute knowledge from their experiences, and Burke's methodological concept of form offers students a model for writing that accommodates that Deweyian sort of learning. Building off of these aesthetic theories, I suggest that significant learning experiences must be composed and organized through critical reflection.

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