Modeling Scientific Communication with Multimodal Writing Tasks: Impact on Students at Different Grade Levels

Abstract

One emerging area of science education research deals with the use of multimodal writing tasks to help improve student conceptual understanding. In these tasks, students are asked to utilize non-text modes along with text to discuss concepts dealt with in classroom activities. Previous research has indicated that these tasks benefit student conceptual development most when students are effective at integrating all modes together within one piece of communication. Lessons specifically designed to improve ability to integrate or embed modes have been shown to help students develop this skill, however the impact of these lessons has not been systematically tested at different grade levels. In this study, Cognitive Load Theory provided a framework for evaluation of the lesson and its impact on student writing and conceptual development. Students in pre-existing science classrooms in grades 6, 7, 8, 10 and 11 were randomly assigned to treatment groups in which an “Embeddedness Encouraging Lesson” (EEL) was taught and were compared to control groups that did not receive the lesson. Student multimodal writing products were assessed for embeddedness strategy use and student writing scores were correlated to overall test performance. Results indicate that the current pedagogical progression associated with multimodal writing tasks may be most beneficial for students at middle grade levels.

Appendix 1

Embeddedness Encouraging Lesson (EEL) Outline

Overview

A full understanding of any science concept would likely require a “multimodal” understanding of the concept in that the student would be able to represent their understanding using an assortment of modes and the student would be able to effectively link these multiple representations together to create a well-integrated and cohesive piece of communication. The ultimate intent of this lesson is to help students recognize that when utilizing modes other than text along with text to communicate about a scientific concept, there are strategies and techniques that can be employed to improve the overall cohesiveness of the written communication. In this lesson, students will be given the opportunity to explore common sources of communication about science to observe not only how different modes are utilized to describe science ideas but also to identify strategies that are utilized to link the different modes (including text) together. The lesson will culminate in the production of an assessment matrix that can be utilized to evaluate how well any piece of written communication has integrated multiple modes of representation.

Outline

The lesson should be implemented in the classroom in a manner that fits with the overall progression of the course. In that sense, the lesson should be tailored to meet the specific needs of the specific classroom it is employed in. However, analysis of previous attempts to utilize lessons of this type have indicated that greater effectiveness in impacting student writing and ultimately student understanding are achieved when all of the following components are present:

• 1. Student assessment of unimodal (text only) communication:

  Students can be given a text only description of the topic or concept that will be discussed in the next unit of study. Ask students to analyze the description in terms of what aspects of the communication are effective and how could the effectiveness be improved if the intent of the author is to instruct the reader about the new science concept. In the course of this discussion, ideally, students will recognize that use of other ways to represent information (pictures, diagrams, graphs, tables, etc.) can be helpful. It is often beneficial to have a text only description that is fairly difficult in terms of reading level and heavy in new vocabulary so that most students will be unable to completely grasp the understanding from the description alone.

• 2. Student identification of multimodal usage and strategies to link modes:

  Once students have indicated that science communication is enhanced through the use of modes other than text along with text, students should be given the opportunity to use common sources of science information to find examples of multimodal use and examples of strategies to link modes together. Textbooks, science magazines, websites, or newspaper articles can be provided for this component of the lesson. Ask students to list all modes other than text used in the sources they observe. Discussion about these modes is an appropriate time to discuss naming of the modes. For example, students may disagree on what makes a diagram different than a picture (often students decide that a diagram has labels while a picture does not). While it is not necessary to come to agreement on what constitutes each mode, it is usually easier in future discussions if some sort of consistent naming system is used.

  The other main factor of this lesson component is for students to identify strategies that authors use to link different modes together. Common strategies that are often identified include placing modes other than text near text that refers to them, complete textual descriptions of modes in the text, captions added to modes other than text, and the modes that are designed by the author (rather than simply copied from another source). The goal is for students to develop as thorough a list as possible of common rhetorical strategies utilized by authors to tie all modes together. Again, discussion about the usefulness of different strategies is encouraged.

• 3. Student creation of assessment matrix:

  The culminating activity for this lesson is the production of a student generated matrix for assessing any piece of written communication for how well different modes are integrated and the level of cohesiveness of the entire product. The particular format of the matrix is not critical; rather, the core issue is that students utilize the ideas about modal use and strategies to link modes that they developed in part 2 to create a practical assessment tool. An example of a student checklist created as a part of earlier lessons is included in this packet. Students will utilize this matrix to self-analyze their own writing and potentially, depending on how further lessons are structured, to analyze written communication by other authors.

• 4. Student opportunities to practice using assessment matrix:

  It is often helpful if students are given the opportunity to utilize the newly created assessment tools from part 3 to authentically examine science communication. Students can review the sources they observed in part 2 or other sources. Websites describing science content may be projected for the entire class to see and each student can assess using the matrix. Discussion following this component is often focused on both the practical use of the matrix and the relative necessity or benefit of different strategies students have identified as important. In some cases, at this point in the lesson, students have been asked to create multimodal products and after exchanging with a peer, assess the products. An effective strategy if consecutive units using multimodal writing tasks are used is to have students analyze peers’ work from the first unit using the matrix as a review during the second unit.

Obviously, the more this lesson and the products of this lesson are referred to throughout the overall unit, the more the ideas become a critical factor for students to consider. Greater emphasis on using different modes and connecting the different modes will likely lead to students paying more attention to these characteristics in sources they use and communication they produce. The more the encouragement of this type of communication becomes a “normal” aspect of the classroom environment, the more students will benefit from the practice.