Multimodal Signs of Learning

Tracking Semiosis in the Classroom

Shirley Palframan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000516197
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Filología
• Subtopic: Lingüística

Multimodal Signs of Learning proposes a methodology to uncover evidence of learning in students' multimodal compositions. Informed by social semiotic theory, the book tracks representation of subject content from physical and embodied teaching resources to students' handmade artefacts and physical presentations.

Using materials from secondary school history and science classrooms, multimodal realizations of specific representational processes are tracked from the input of resources through to the students' multimodal compositions – their posters, models and physical presentations. Through tracking semiosis, the book exposes the epistemologies inherent in the representational choices articulated in the students' multimodal designs. These, it is argued, are to be valued as signs of learning. Learning is thus characterized as 'design' and the transformation of subject content through representation in different modes shown not only to promote learning, but also to contain evidence for its recognition.

The book raises important questions about what constitutes multimodal learning and how it can be applied. It contributes to the growing body of research into the changing dynamics of classrooms and assessment practices and will be of great interest to researchers, and academics in the fields of education research, multimodality, semiotics and communication.

1Introduction

DOI: 10.4324/9781003198802-1

This book is concerned with signs of learning as evidenced in the multimodal representations of students. In the spirit of an archaeological excavation, it seeks to uncover evidence of that which cannot be seen; of learning.

Positioning the research

As an application of social semiotics, this study explores the abstract relationships between texts and text-makers; the realization of mental propositions in choices of textual configuration. In choosing this focus, two assumptions have been made: firstly, that learning and representation are indeed related and secondly, that this relationship has the potential, under appropriate investigation, to yield significant insights. The research, being concerned with both the invisible processes of learning as well as tangible, visible texts consequently draws on a wide range of qualitative educational research conventions. What follows is an attempt to broadly sketch out the position of this research in relation to existing conventions: to clarify what kind of knowledge is sought by this research and, by implication, what claims can be made on its behalf.

The first positioning feature of the study to be addressed is its scope. It focuses, primarily, on the texts produced by just one group of four students during two sets of lessons taught in 2001. It does so, however, on the understanding that the full and detailed exploration of one specific set of relationships, between one group of students and the texts they produce, is indeed a relationship from which generalizations can be made. It will also be shown that the findings offered by the research concern both individual instances of learning and the principles behind them which, it is proposed, govern relations between representation and learning more widely.

There are, however, questions raised by this proposed generalizability that need to be addressed. (Clearly, this is not generalization based on accumulative instances.) There are two propositions regarding generalizability of educational research which hold currency within the research establishment and to which this particular study can usefully make reference. The first of these propositions is Stake's notion of ‘naturalistic generalization’; a concept originating from the concern to direct researchers and evaluators to practical experience in context rather than abstract issues. Generalizations under these circumstances, Stake argues, have a particular quality: ‘… they seldom take the form of predictions but lead regularly to expectations’ (Stake, 1983). Such generalizations are grounded in vicarious experience and tacit knowledge being shaped by the rich ‘thickly described’ circumstances of the localized study which offer the reader a ‘surrogate experience’ on which expectations will be based. Eisner (1991) makes a similar case for ‘evaluative connoisseurship’ from which the ‘thematics’ or concrete universals of the individual case evaluated are of likely interest beyond it. The notion of connoisseurship is not out of place in this research where the data consist of richly detailed accounts of texts and their contexts of production. The intention here is to offer the reader the experience of a particular way of seeing; engagement with the data thus affording a range of opportunities for generalization. For this to succeed, the accounts must ring true and be recognizably typical. Arising, then, from its validity as vicarious (surrogate) experience and as concrete data, the investigation into the relationship between learning and multimodal representation offered here is intended to be of wider interest. As such, it should be regarded as relevant to teaching and learning in other curriculum areas and with other age groups. The research will consequently invite generalization and will propose that the principles underlying the relationship between multimodal representation and learning uncovered here may indeed constitute ‘concrete universals’ which can usefully inform wider contexts.

Having expressed the view that the findings of this research are intended for generalization, it is important to identify the nature of the findings on offer. Certainly, the findings are not, as has already been stated, confined to the specific patterns and regularities observed in this set of research data. Although they are of great interest and value in their own right, these observations are more usefully understood as a demonstration of the tools and techniques developed for the purpose of making the relationship between multimodal representation and learning explicit. This being the case, the findings do not so much concern the learning of these specific students but the propositions concerning how to go about finding out how they learnt. In short, the development of the methodology and its possible usage are being offered as valid in their own right. The research account, consequently, is weighted heavily towards the development of tools and techniques: their underpinning theory, design principles and practical application.

Philosophical contexts

All research has a philosophical basis. In this case, where the focus and approach are not clearly identifiable with a particular convention, it is particularly useful to explore, at least in very general terms, that basis. This will be done by positioning the research in relation to the major philosophical traditions, a relationship which is complex and apparently contradictory. For example, although post-positivist, the research does share at least one characteristic of even this philosophical tradition, a desire for some kind of social improvement to emanate from the findings. It is genuinely believed that perspectives arising from the research, if allowed to inform educational practice, could lead to better teaching and learning. There is also, in line with the positivist tradition, an element of empirical measurability implied in the proposed tools and techniques. One only needs to glance over the scientific-looking diagrams in later chapters to gain a sense of this. To this extent, the research does appear to subscribe to a single version of reality; albeit one which serves the purpose of producing a much wider appreciation of multiple perceptions. It should also be noted that such wholehearted engagement with a singular version of reality is necessitated by the use of these methodological tools to organize and conceptualize a wide range of phenomena. It does not preclude alternatives. What is offered, rather, is an engagement with a particular (version of) reality in order to propose plausible interpretations.

This indeed brings the positioning of the research to a more obvious place; that of the interpretivist or hermeneutical approach. The primary aim of this research is indeed to generate new understanding and perspectives and even the development of multiple perspectives. Its concern is with interpretation of meaning invested in what is apparent: features of the written, visual and embodied texts of the classroom. The context bound subjectivities of the varying texts are struggled with in order to establish coherent patterns and regularities. There is mediation and accommodation, rather than denial of difference. A further characteristic of the research which aligns it firmly with the interpretivist approach is the fact that the methodology (the tools and techniques) derived from it are explicitly informed by metatheory: the social semiotic theories of communication.

Having so firmly aligned the research with the interpretivist approach, there are nevertheless emancipatory elements in it which draw on notions of hidden truths and masked power relations more typical of critical theory. It is indeed the intention of the research to inform and thereby change practice. Engagement with theory alone is not an intended outcome. Although the scope of the study does not allow for extensive exploration of practical implementation of new perspectives afforded by the research, it is, fundamentally, a practice-driven piece of research whose findings are intended to be the impetus for change. The interpretation of texts offered by the research brings into question the nature of the power relationships at the heart of education: the relationship between teachers and learners, between learners and their peers and between learners and the established communities of experts. By casting learners as agents it implicitly addresses power relations historically underpinning education policy and practice. This is further reinforced through consistently foregrounding the value of learners' conversations, texts and artefacts. In focusing on the experience of the learner, as interpreted from their texts, it seeks to uncover what has previously been unseen and in so doing seeks to transform the conditions of learning.

Methodological contexts

Having mapped out the position of the study in relation to major philosophical strands, it should also be positioned in relation to conventional research methods to identify which existing research practices have been drawn on. As with the philosophical approaches, this research, as multimodal analysis, draws on a wide and varied range of practice.

Although the understanding of ‘text’ here embraces a number of different types of multimodal representation, the practice is nevertheless closely aligned with the kinds of context-based text analysis and deconstruction known as ‘discourse analysis.’ The practice undertaken here and that of discourse analysis share a common assumption: the existence of analysable elements other than what is immediately apparent in the one-off text. What is sought is an understanding of the underlying social practices which shape the acts of communication (or representation) in which individuals are participants (Fairclough, 1989). In common with discourse analysis there is, in the methodology of this research, a preoccupation with what is implicit in the text and how this reflects the social construction of its context of production.

Because it also relies heavily on transcribed dialogue, action and observations of students, the research practice undertaken bears many resemblances to ethnography. The data occur in everyday settings, in real time. They were not staged for the purposes of research and the stance taken was non-interventionist. In keeping with the practice of critical ethnography, there are no claims to neutrality or transparency (Clifford and Marcus, 1986), in contrast, the research seeks out and give prominence to the perspectives of the students themselves (the subjects). The study, however, is emphatically not ethnography but multimodal analysis; description of comparable forms of data arising from a concern with them as instances of semiosis; of representation of meaning, not as a lens through which culture may be observed. Despite superficial similarities, the defining characteristics of ethnography (that it is concerned with understanding, from the perspective of the insider, a particular social or cultural scene, Fetterman, 1989) are redundant. There are no such competing perspectives in multimodal analysis. Nor is there any attempt to build up the kind of prolonged, repetitive and contextualized observations proposed by Spindler (1982) in his ‘Criteria for a Good Ethnography of Schooling.’ Although the origins of the research did indeed lie in familiarity arising from the researcher's prolonged involvement with the students concerned, data of equal value could also have been drawn from a new or unfamiliar site.

As multimodal analysis, this study, as has been discussed, does make some claims to generality. This being the case, some similarities with case study practice, where issues of generalizability are more prominent, can usefully be drawn. Certainly, the almost exclusive focus on the representational activity and learning of one particular group of students is evocative of the case study approach. The use of interviews to validate other data (in particular the students' written and visual representations) reinforces this position. The similarity to be noted is with instrumental types of cases where the intention is to refine theory and gain insight into the phenomenon at issue (Stake, 1983). In this case, the phenomenon is the relationship between multimodal representation and learning and the case focused upon the representational activity of one group of students. Importantly, in this ‘case,’ these instances of representational activity are understood to embody phenomena typical of the relationship between representation and learning in general.

A glance towards archaeology

Use of the terms ‘excavation’ and ‘sites’ in later chapters is not incidental. The evoking of archaeology is deliberate, for there is much to be gained from approaching the task of evidence gathering and interpretation at hand with the kind of practical, systematic approach to uncovering hidden realities that the science of archaeology embodies. Without wishing to exercise the analogy beyond its limits, a brief explanation is offered here of how an archaeological mindset can, it is believed, concentrate and invigorate the task of uncovering evidence of learning in multimodal texts.

The archaeologist casts an eye over an apparently unexceptional landscape and asks the question ‘What am I seeing?’. Every landscape is unique; the result of a one-off set of geographical and historical circumstances. It is the work of the archaeologist to expose the qualities and features that in each case are exceptional and thereby to make plausible propositions about actual circumstances and events. What the archaeologist, quite rightly, anticipates finding are material objects which bear witness to another, hidden reality; those events of the past which have brought the current landscape in to being, which have shaped it. Consider, in a similar way, the classroom as a semiotic landscape (see Chapter 5), where the conventions and practices of meaning-making between students, teachers and their (multimodal) texts are both conventionally patterned and uniquely realized. The usefulness of viewing things ‘differently’ is striking. To approach the familiar landscape of the classroom, like an archaeologist, with ‘unfamiliar’ eyes is indeed an excellent starting point. In the archaeologist's world, instances of builders, farmers or householders overlooking priceless artefacts in the ground are well known. In classrooms, equivalent items of great value and importance are regularly overlooked. They are not of the same currency as those valued by the dominant institutions; the school and curriculum. The work here, then, is to uncover the semiotic artefacts of the classroom and instate them as evidence of that hidden reality; of learning.

In archaeology, digging is done systematically and at carefully selected sites. Both aerial photographs and fieldwalking notes are likely to be used to establish which areas are of greatest interest and worthy of further exploration. The bumps and hollows mapped by the fieldwalker may be used alongside records of shadows, soil marks and patterns of plant growth visible from the air. The archaeologist is aware that surface traces of buried features are not always obvious; only with extensive sketching, photographing, measuring and note-making can their presence be confirmed. A similarly exhaustive approach in describing the semiotic landscape reveals the presence of features of learning. Fieldnotes and records gathered in the classroom are viewed alongside video footage of the lesson, perhaps speeded up, or without sound to provide different perspectives. Here it is not bumps and hollows that are measured, but irregularities of a different kind: unusual physical arrangements, sudden increases in quantity of speech, changes in communication roles, etc. These, it can be said, are the surface features of students' hidden learning; sites from which evidence can most likely be drawn; sites at which the ‘digging’ should begin.

Depending on the archaeologist's particular orientation towards their subject, techniques may either focus on revealing the vertical dimension or the horizontal. The vertical approach involves digging out chunks of earth leaving unexcavated strips where cross sections are preserved. In so doing, the horizontal view is destroyed, priority having been given to the evidence yielded by the cross section. Fortunately, the semiotic landscape is not such a physical reality and can thus be excavated in any number of ways without causing its destruction! There is, however, some insight to be gained from this element of the analogy. What is at issue is not the straightforward presence or absence of a feature but evidence of a process at work, i.e. learning. What is being sought are indicators, then, of development, change and progression in the students themselves. As such, the excavation technique must be one which can show progression, which can reveal a connected sequence. Layering, then, is an important factor in choosing an appropriate technique for uncovering evidence of learning. Being able to show change is fundamental. In terms of the semiotic stuff of the classroom, different dimensions can, as in archaeology, afford different layers of perspectives. For example, the instances of semiosis (acts of communication or representation) can be looked at chronologically and peeled back over time. They can also be cross-sectioned according to semiotic function so that just one strand or element of their function is followed at a time. The use of such layering techniques opens up possibilities of not only yielding a greater quantity of evidence but also of cross referencing.

In order to formulate credible descriptions of the past, hidden reality, the archaeologist uses, with skill, a range of tools and techniques designed for the job. As has been shown, the choice of techniques and tools is likely to be determined by the particular concern of the archaeological study. Ranging from the broadly conceptual approaches (horizontal or vertical) to very specific practical techniques (stratigraphic sequencing, carbon dating, pollen analysis), the archaeologist's choice will influence considerably the validity of any subsequent claims of discovery. Any such excavation of a learning site must be subject to a similarly rigorous choice of well-proven tools and techniques. Being such a new area of research, it is of particular importance, in multimodal analysis, that the techniques stand up to scrutiny; that they are suited to the purpose for which their use is proposed and that they are derived from a well-established theoretical base. It is for these reasons that a detailed account will be given to the development of techniques and tools for this study.

Because the presence of certain items can be read as evidence of events, the identification and classification of those items are, in practical archaeology, of great importance. Typological analysis is widely used enabling links to be established between different sites where similar types are found. In order for such typological analysis to operate successfully, a tried and tested system of classification needs to be in place and individual items accurately described and recorded. This is equally true when making a case for classroom artefacts as evidence of learning. Here the artefacts to be considered are all objects of communication; semiotic artefacts. The typologies, although, not as immediately apparent as those seen in archaeology, still need to be identifiable. What is proposed here is the classification of variations in communicative function, in particular of meaning configuration, as a tool for typological analysis of artefact texts. Here identification of similarities and differences linking disparate objects is fundamental to subsequent postulations.

The location of an artefact, the precise position from which it was extracted, is also of great importance to the archaeologist. If the item has to be removed, photographic and written records must be made of its appearance ‘in situ.’ This is done to acknowledge that the artefact becomes something different once removed from its context; that the context shapes what it is...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Theoretical principles and perspectives
• 3 Multimodal classroom data: Theoretical positioning
• 4 Tracking semiosis: Framing the representational structures
• 5 Macro semiosis: Classroom contexts
• 6 Micro semiosis: Students' designs
• 7 Tracking semiosis: Science lessons case study
• 8 Tracking semiosis
• 9 Signs of learning: Process charting
• 10 Signs of learning: Mode mapping
• 11 Signs of learning
• Bibliography
• Index