Disciplinary learning is a multimodal endeavour that calls for achieving representational competency (Linder et al 2014), which is constituted from the coordination of disciplinary semiotic resources (Airey & Linder, in press). Examples of these semiotic resources for disciplines such as physics and chemistry are mathematics, graphs, gestures, diagrams and language. The effective learning of complex subjects such as these presents many unsolved challenges. In order to begin working towards solving these challenges much still needs to be done to deepen our understanding of how such disciplinary learning takes place. Taking the idea that formal learning is made possible through experiencing specific patterns of variation (Marton 2015), we will use our analysis of student-engagement data to present a case for seeing complex learning in terms of the multimodal emergence (Davis & Sumara, 2006) of transduction (Kress, 2010).  We use these results to propose a model of disciplinary learning that characterizes the multimodal emergence of transduction in terms of the start of a journey towards achieving fluency in a critical constellation of semiotic resources (Airey & Linder 2009; in press) for a given object of learning.

References

Airey, J. & Linder, C. (in press) Social Semiotics in University Physics Education, in Treagust, D., Duit R., Fischer, H. (eds) Multiple Representations in Physics Education: Springer.

Airey, J., & Linder, C. (2009). A disciplinary discourse perspective on university science learning: Achieving fluency in a critical constellation of modes. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 46(1), 27-49.

Kress G. 2010. Multimodality. A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication. London: Routledge.

Davis, B., & Sumara, D. (2006). Complexity and education: Inquiries into learning, teaching and research: Erlbaum.

Linder, A., Airey, J., Mayaba, N., & Webb, P. (2014). Fostering Disciplinary Literacy? South African Physics Lecturers’ Educational Responses to their Students’ Lack of Representational Competence. African Journal of Research in Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 18(3), 242-252. 

Marton, F. (2015). Necessary Conditions of learning: Routledge