Methods for multimodal analysis and representation of teaching-learning interactions in primary science lessons captured on video

Video-based classroom research is opening-up exciting new insights into how teachers generate productive opportunities for student engagement in quality learning, reasoning and the development of their scientific literacy. The significant role played by multimodal representations in learning and teaching becomes evident through the medium of video and its analysis. Classroom research that is framed from social constructivist, sociocultural, activity theory and social semiotic perspectives highlights the social interactions involving multimodal representations which are used to communicate science ideas and also act as semiotic resources for meaning making. Social and cognitive processes of co-constructing meaning are mediated by talk, embodied representations such as gesture and role play, graphical and textual representations. Video offers unique affordances to capture the multimodality of these representations and interactions (Flewitt, 2006), however, new methods of documenting, transcribing and re-representing such data are needed to capture the rich multimodality of the data (Bezemer & Mavers, 2011). This paper outlines research methods developed to analyse and represent classroom video data collected in a study of primary science teaching and learning funded by the Australian Research Council.