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Energy is a central, cross-cutting concept in science, but its abstract nature poses challenges for learners. Metaphor has been recognized as a productive resource used by students, teachers, and scientists to understand and communicate about energy. While much research has focused on metaphors about energy expressed in learners’ speech, we know less about the range of ways learners use gesture to evoke metaphors about energy. In particular, the metaphor energy as substance has been found to be useful for conceptualizing various features of energy. Using a microethnographic approach, we demonstrate how students in an introductory algebra- based university physics course use gesture in three different ways to evoke substance-like metaphors that offer valuable affordances for sensemaking about energy: These include (1) container metaphor gestures, (2) stimulus metaphor gestures, and (3) accounting metaphor gestures. Implications for learning and teaching about energy are discussed. 

Gesture has been shown to play an important role in how learners conceptualize phenomena in physics. However, we know little about how gesture is used to conceptualize instantaneity. Drawing on multimodal microanalysis of interaction, we examine how undergraduate physics students use representational gesture to make sense of instants while modeling energy dynamics. Our analysis describes four different forms of representational gesture used to capture instantaneity: These include (1) Replay loop of scenario, (2) Subinterval on timeline, (3) Freeze frame of scenario, and (4) Indexical location on timeline. 

Gestures play a key role for physicists and physics students in representing physics entities, processes, and systems. One affordance of gesture is the ability to laminate or layer together representations of concrete physical features (e.g., objects and their interactions) and symbolic representations (e.g., coordinate systems) to make sense of and model physical scenarios. Using interaction analysis, we illustrate how students can laminate these different layers of abstraction together in gesture to generate complex explanations to solve physics problems. We argue that laminating different layers of abstraction (both the symbolic and concrete) constitute a key form of representational competence in physics. 

Gesture’s role as a powerful and versatile tool for instruction, especially in STEM domains, is well-established. However, many specific teaching moves accomplished through gesture remain understudied. Using interaction analysis, we examine how an introductory. university physics instructor uses gesture during whole-class discussion of graphical representations of energy conservation to synthesize multiple student groups’ solutions. This embodied, whole-class discussion orchestration move distills and summarizes the key points of the lesson while highlighting student contributions and addressing misunderstandings. 

An understanding of vectors and vector operations is crucial for success in physics, as this serves as the foundation for various essential concepts, including motion and forces. Previous research indicates that only a fraction of introductory physics students have a usable knowledge of vectors and vector operations, and that more attention should be given to how students make sense of vectors. We examined classroom video data from an introductory physics course wherein students worked collaboratively through learning activities to introduce vectors and vector operations. During these activities, students’ employment of gesture as a representational mode facilitated group sense-making. We propose a preliminary taxonomy of gestures for representing vector magnitudes, directions, and initial and terminal points. By identifying and characterizing the gestures used by students, we can gain insights into their learning processes and conceptual understanding of vectors, which can inform instructional design and teaching practices. 

Embodied forms of communication like gesture are essential for problem solving, but we know little about how they are used in group interactions. Drawing on ethnomethodology and conversation analysis (EMCA), we examine how undergraduate physics students use the temporality of gesture to orchestrate productive interactions: Using kinetically-held (frozen in place) gestures, students (1) recruit attention, (2) mobilize responses, (3) weather interruptions, and (4) facilitate extended consideration of elaborated and clarified ideas.