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Abstract While there is increased interest in using movement and embodiment to support learning due to the rise in theories of embodied cognition and learning, additional work needs to be done to explore how we can make sense of students collectively developing their understanding within a mixed-reality environment. In this paper, we explore embodied communication’s individual and collective functions as a way of seeing students’ learning through embodiment. We analyze data from a mixed-reality (MR) environment: Science through Technology Enhanced Play (STEP) (Danish et al., International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning 15:49–87, 2020), using descriptive statistics and interaction analysis to explore the role of gesture and movement in student classroom activities and their pre-and post-interviews. The results reveal that students appear to develop gestures for representing challenging concepts within the classroom and then use these gestures to help clarify their understanding within the interview context. We further explore how students collectively develop these gestures in the classroom, with a focus on their communicative acts, then provide a list of individual and collective functions that are supported by student gestures and embodiment within the STEP MR environment, and discuss the functions of each act. Finally, we illustrate the value of attending to these gestures for educators and designers interested in supporting embodied learning.
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Symmetry Elements Embodied by Students’ Hands: Systematically Characterizing and Analyzing Gestures in Inorganic Chemistry
We previously observed students gesturing during a symmetry and group theory activity. This prompted additional interviews wherein we attempted to understand the semiotic function of these gestures. We report here on the gestures which students have used in this context to represent symmetry elements, symmetry operations, and other related ideas. In the process, we have developed a scheme to code gestures in a systematic way that enables qualitative analysis and may lend itself to quantitative methods. This analysis leads to two observables: physical forms and motions enacted while representing or thinking about symmetry. These gestures are metaphorical and allow us to infer cognitive notions underlying the gesture as part of the student’s reasoning, their communication, or both. Characterizing these gestures and associated notions offers the opportunity to add to our understanding of how gesture and other embodied representations can systematically support student learning in relation to spatial concepts and descriptions in chemistry. This characterization also has implications for instruction to support student learning about symmetry in inorganic chemistry.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2111446
- PAR ID:
- 10540579
- Editor(s):
- Holme, Thomas A
- Publisher / Repository:
- American Chemical Society
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Chemical Education
- Volume:
- 101
- Issue:
- 3
- ISSN:
- 0021-9584
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 819 to 830
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- Chemical Education Research Upper-Division Undergraduate Inorganic Chemistry Analogies / Transfer Hands-on Learning / 25 Manipulatives Group Theory / Symmetry
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.3c01110
