Students' understanding of nature of science (NOS) has been largely examined primarily in written or verbal modes. The visual, verbal, and written modes are essential for students' meaning-making of NOS. However, research has sidelined the interaction among these three modes in understanding students' collaborative discourse of NOS. Informed by…

Background: Understanding students' preconceptions is an important initial step towards a successful and meaningful learning in physics. This is more relevant and important especially for concepts that are introduced formally as early as preschool including friction. Visual representation maybe often used as an aid to teaching, however,…

Motivation and engagement are often barriers to literacy for adolescent readers. Traditionally, the graphic novel has been seen as easy to read and a resource that only has value for students with language difficulties or learning challenges. This qualitative case study investigated how middle school readers' ability to make meaning contributed to…

Arrows are recognized as efficient visual elements in conveying location, direction, connection, and process because the shape is thought to have an immediate, common sense impact on viewers. However, the results of our prior quantitative study did not support the assumed effects of arrows in reading energy pyramid diagrams. The current study…

The angle topic is central to the development of geometric knowledge. Two of the basic concepts associated with this topic are the adjacent and opposite angles. It is the goal of the present study to analyze, based on the cultural historical semiotics framework, how high-achieving seventh grade students objectify the adjacent and opposite angles'…

This paper examines the roles of multimodality and thematic patterns in the teaching of the particle model of matter. Although the particle model is a fundamental topic in science education, there is no consensus on (1) whether or not the model should be introduced in early grades and (2) how to introduce the model to students for the very first…

We examined semiotic exchangeability in pop-up glossary translations and illustrations used as supports for second language learners (SLLs) in computer-administered mathematics tests. In a sample of 516 mathematics items, Grades 3-8 and 11, from a large-scale assessment program in the US, test developers identified terms that could be translated…

Problem Statement: In entering the world intellectually and affectively equipped, humans develop in a systemic way that encompasses both thought and art education and in which written, oral, and visual texts are important tools. In particular, visual literacy, which refers to the interpretation of elements other than written text, including…

Picturebooks were one format of multimodal text used during the classroom-based research that is featured in this article. Although the research conducted with a class of grade 7 students had several overarching purposes, the two most relevant to this article were to investigate student development of visual meaning-making skills and competencies…

During a classroom-based study that explored the teaching and learning of visual elements of art and design, Grade 7 students had the opportunity to read four graphic novels. Theoretically, the research was informed by social semiotics, visual literacy, sociocultural theory, and Rosenblatt's transactional theory of reading. The instructional unit…

Balancing content and students' participation in the mathematics classroom is an area of both practical and theoretical interest. In this article we relate and contribute to these two interests by analyzing classroom data from an intervention project aiming at teaching mathematics through problem solving. The study shows that several aspects such…

Explicit pedagogy that focuses on visual design and composition principles can affect students' responses to and understanding, interpretation and analysis of images, as well as the creation of their own visual representations. This article considers the why, the what, and the how of teaching various visual elements of art and design to students…

This paper describes how language and literacy classrooms became more participatory, agentive spaces through addressing a central issue in teaching and learning: the forms of representation through which children make their meanings. It reconsiders pedagogic research in under-resourced Gauteng classrooms during the period 1994-2005, during the…

Three visual priming experiments using three different prime durations (60 ms in Experiment 1, 250 ms in Experiment 2, and 800 ms in Experiment 3) were conducted to examine which properties of morphemes (form and/or meaning) drive developing readers' processing of written morphology. French third, fifth, and seventh graders and adults (the latter…

Literate practice in the arts encompasses both aesthetics and creativity. It is also multimodal in nature and often collaborative. This article presents data collected from a small multi-age school, with children from Prep to Year 7, during their preparation for an end-of-year show. The children had studied the topics of conservation and…