Transformed Instruction: Teaching in a Student-Generated Representations Learning Environment

Abstract

This chapter presents a novel way of approaching science education through activities involving Student-Generated visual Representations (SGR), and examines the role of the teacher in leading such instructional approach. We conducted a 4-week study in a sixth grade classroom (31 students) focusing on the topic of energy transformation. We designed an instructional unit involving activities of SGR that include: the generation of visual representations by students that describe energy transformations in various phenomena, small group negotiations and co-constructions of representations, class discussions on scientific principles centered around a selection of students’ representations, and class discussions aiming to develop a set of criteria for evaluating representations. We demonstrate how aspects of such instructional design give rise to progressive activity structures, authentic forms of dialogue, and original ways for students to be explicit about their own ideas, and express themselves and their creativity. Nevertheless, meeting these opportunities requires a significant transformation of the teacher’s role in the classroom, which may profoundly challenge her epistemological beliefs. We argue that this instructional approach, with the appropriate guidance, can serve as a springboard for such deep transformation of teacher epistemological beliefs, which in turn support the emergence of new instructional practices.