Thinking with Hands, Eyes, and Signs: MultiModal Science Talk in a Grade 6/7 Unit on Simple Machines

Abstract This study focused on the role of chalkboards in classroom science talk. Using a representative whole‐class conversation, similarities of its overall structure with scientific laboratory talk are illustrated. I show how meaning emerges from the interaction of multiple modes of communication. To understand “conceptual” talk and thinking in science classrooms organized as linguistic communities one must account for the fundamental interdependence of “hands, eyes, and signs.” This study has important implications for the design of technologies that allow larger numbers of students to participate in whole‐class sense‐making conversations. Ethnomethodological studies of lecturing and of mathematicians’ work have identified the essential, mutually constitutive relationships between marks and the activity of their use. Rather than analyze whiteboard inscriptions as such, therefore, we are interested in viewing them in relation to activity, through the use of video records. Viewed as free‐standing signs ...