As highlighted in the literature, one of the main difficulties in mathematics is the management of different semiotic representations. This difficulty occurs in verticals throughout schooling and is often an obstacle to the proper learning process of mathematics. The present study aims to investigate the different facets of these difficulties with…

In this study, we propose to analyse students' drawings using the Semiotic Cultural Psychological Theory (SCPT), a socio-cultural psychological model that integrates semiotics with dynamic systems theory. According to the SCPT framework, students-generated drawings can be analysed in terms of generalised meanings, i.e., implicit assumptions about…

The purpose of this study was to analyse Italian high school and university students' attitudes towards physics using the Semiotic Cultural Psychological Theory (SCPT). In the SCPT framework, attitudes represent how individuals interpret their experience through the mediation of "generalized meaning" with which they are identified. A…

Literature has already shown that gestures play a relevant role in classroom interactions between students and teacher. We integrate the perspective of Theory of Semiotic Mediation with the notion of Semiotic Bundle to illustrate how gestures can be used as "pivot signs" in semiotic chains. This means that gestures can be performed by…

The learning of algebra represents a difficulty within the mathematics learning process. Precisely because of their epistemological and ontological nature, semiotics provides a good key to understanding the main difficulties that hinder the learning of algebraic objects. The answers to a large scale assessments task that requires a treatment in…

The GeomBot is a drawing robot that combines the well-known strengths and opportunities offered by Scratch with those of Papert's original robotic drawing-turtle. In this study we look at the GeomBot as a physical programmable artifact around which action research with a group of teachers and a researcher was carried out with the aim of designing,…

This paper describes the main findings of a national action-research project, promoted by Regional School Office of Campania (South of Italy), aimed at improving numeracy and mathematical literacy through supporting schools' activities. The main focus is on processes underlying the creation of capabilities in representation, reasoning and…

Purpose: This paper describes a study carried out within an ICLHE training programme in a Northern Italian university. The paper discusses the way an increased awareness of multimodal resources and the ability to deploy them effectively during lectures could offset language deficits of lecturers and enhance overall communicative competence and…

Synchronous online language teaching involves the simultaneous employment of a range of techno-semio-pedagogical competences (Guichon, 2012). Indeed, given their flexibility and versatility, digital tools and the Internet can render teacher-student interactions dynamic. Among the necessary professional skills and strategies for online synchronous…

Lectures prevail as a ubiquitous teaching and learning method across universities worldwide. Whereas lectures have been conceptualized from language-centred perspectives, lectures' materiality as linked to their socio-cultural and historical meanings have been scarcely explored. To address this gap, we tackle the materiality of communication in…

Under the rapid advances of digital technology, traditional paper-based forms of reading and writing are steadily giving way to digital-based literacies, in theory as well as in application. Drawing on a study of literacy in a medical workplace context, this article examines critically the shift toward computer-mediated textual practices. While a…

In early years schooling it is becoming common to propose activities that involve moving along paths, or programming robots to do so. In order to promote continuity towards the introduction of geometry in primary school, we developed a long-term teaching experiment (with 15 sessions) carried out over 4 months in a first grade classroom in northern…

With increasing mobility of people across the world, there is a pressing need to develop evidence-based teaching practices that lead to high-quality education, which serves the needs of inclusive societies and social and epistemic justice. This book presents cutting-edge qualitative case-study research across a range of educational contexts,…

This article expands the study of other-initiated repair in conversation--when one party signals a problem with producing or perceiving another's turn at talk--into the domain of visual bodily behavior. It presents one primary cross-linguistic finding about the timing of visual bodily behavior in repair sequences: if the party who initiates repair…

In this paper we present a study on the difficulties secondary school students experience in interpreting textbook images of elementary astronomical phenomena, namely, the changing of the seasons, Sun and lunar eclipses and Moon phases. Six images from a commonly used textbook in Italian secondary schools were selected. Interviews of 45 min about…