Vaughan Prain
Biographic Data
| ID | 757407 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Vaughan Prain |
| GIVEN NAMES | Vaughan |
| FAMILY NAME | Prain |
| SIGNATURE | PRAIN V |
| AFFILIATIONS | Deakin University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5832-4727 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 8 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Guiding student transduction in elementary school astronomy
Science educators now broadly recognize the multimodal nature of learning in science, where learners make meanings within modes (linguistic, mathematical, visual, and actional) by using the conventions of different sign systems or grammars in these modes. However, how teachers guide students to link and infer new meanings across modes, called “transduction” (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2006. Reading images: The grammar of visual design. Routledge, p. 39…
Interdisciplinary aesthetics when science and drama are linked
There is a strong tradition of viewing these two school subjects as mutually enhancing, but aesthetic aspects of this interplay are less studied. In this paper we define disciplinary aesthetics as appreciation and enjoyment of the what and how of learning within and across both subjects. Drawing on Peirce’s semiotic theory of signs, we claim that meaning-making from, with and through signs and sign systems (a) is fundamental to learning in both s…
Supporting Student Transduction of Meanings Across Modes in Primary School Astronomy
The multimodal nature of knowledge development and learning in science is now increasingly recognized. While researchers have focused on identifying how different representational modes afford meaning-making, the question of how students are guided to link, confirm and expand similar and different meanings across modes, called ‘transduction', has been less explored. This transduction process is fundamental to students realizing, aligning, generat…
Addressing methodological challenges in research on aesthetic dimensions to classroom science inquiry
There has been longstanding interest in students’ aesthetic feelings in engaging with school science, but new multimodal accounts of meaning-making, and changing curricular goals where science is integrated with other subjects, pose new methodological challenges for researching these feelings. In this paper, we aim to synthesise relevant literature as the bases for proposing methodological practices to address these new research challenges. We dr…
Aesthetics, affect, and making meaning in science education: An introduction
This overview gives a background for this special issue of the International Journal of Science Education on Aesthetics, affect, and making meaning in science education. Contributions to this special issue examine how and what kind of aesthetics of science is constituted when it meets the aesthetics of other practices (e.g. arts, mathematics, student lives), in and outside classrooms, and the consequences these encounters have for meaning-making …
The role of aesthetics in learning science in an art-science lesson
In this paper, we analyse results from one classroom session within an 8-week program in which Year 10 students constructed ‘trash’ puppets of endangered Australian animals. In making the puppets and using them as part of a ‘theatre in a suitcase’ performance at Melbourne Zoo, students were expected to integrate both scientific and artistic goals to demonstrate knowledge of specific endangered species. In this process, students needed to learn ho…
Associations between Australian students’ literacy achievement in early secondary school and senior secondary participation in science: Accessing cultural and science capital
Many factors are claimed to explain Australian students’ declining participation rates in senior secondary science subjects. These include, for instance, the influences of SES, indigeneity, and gender. While acknowledging the compelling case for these factors affecting student pathways, in this study we explore associations between students’ literacy achievement test scores in early secondary school and their senior secondary participation in sci…
Challenges in designing and assessing student interdisciplinary learning of optics using a representation construction approach
There is a growing interest in the value of teachers guiding students to generate their own representations to support conceptual learning in science and across complementary subjects such as mathematics. However, this approach to an interdisciplinary focus poses challenges for programme design and learning assessment. In this paper, we report on a 10-week study with a class of Year 5 students designed to (a) facilitate learning of key concepts i…
An interdisciplinary approach to primary school mathematics and science learning
Against a backdrop of advocacy for interdisciplinary STEM curricula, this paper explores the design principles underpinning a three-year longitudinal research project that develops and evaluates interdisciplinary mathematics and science learning sequences involving multiple teachers and student cohorts across the primary school years. The research uses design-based methodology and deploys a pedagogical cycle based on representation construction a…
Revisiting Peirce’s account of scientific creativity to inform classroom practice
Peirce made repeated attempts to clarify what he understood as abduction or creative reasoning in scientific discoveries. In this article, we draw on past and recent scholarship on Peirce’s later accounts of abduction to put a case for how teachers can apply his ideas productively to elicit and guide student creative reasoning in the science classroom. We focus on (a) his rationale for abduction, (b) conditions he recognised as necessary to suppo…
A framework to support personalising prescribed school curricula
There is a recent advocacy for students to experience their learning as personalised, but this expectation poses challenges for teachers tasked with addressing prescribed curricula. In this article, we draw on relevant literature and our analyses of three case studies to propose a framework within which teachers can achieve both goals. We first clarify what we mean by personalising learning, noting problems in how it is currently conceptualised a…
Coming to Know More Through and From Writing
Over the past 20 years, claims about how and why student writing can serve learning have changed markedly. This has been partly due to new technologies displacing writing as a predominant resource for learning, prompting new sense-making practices and shifts in how these changes are theorized. Learners now routinely collaborate to generate, manipulate, analyze, and share images in many subject areas, where multimodal and multimedia resources are …
Personalised learning: Lessons to be learnt
Personalised learning is now broadly endorsed as a key strategy to improve student curricular engagement and academic attainment, but there is also strong critique of this construct. We review claims made for this approach, as well as concerns about its conceptual coherence and effects on different learner cohorts. Drawing on literature around differentiation of the curriculum, self‐regulated learning, and ‘relational agency’ we propose a framewo…
Drawing to Learn in Science
Emerging research suggests drawing should be explicitly recognized as a key element in science education.
A Study of Teachers’ Perspectives About Using Multimodal Representations of Concepts to Enhance Science Learning
The discourses of sexuality in curriculum documents on sexuality education: An Australian case study
This paper identifies three underlying discourses on the nature of sexuality evident in two Department of Education curriculum documents on sexuality education in Victoria, Australia, over the past 15 years. These discourses are a cultural ‘preservation’ perspective, a risk minimisation perspective, and a view that sexual expression should enable cultural and individual enlightenment and emancipation. This analysis of underpinning discourses is u…
Connecting Design and Critique: A response to Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis
(1998). Connecting Design and Critique: a response to Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education: Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 243-248
Multi(national)literacies and Globalising Discourses
(1997). Multi(national)literacies and Globalising Discourses. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education: Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 453-467
Selves to Discover, Selves to Invent: Rethinking autobiographical writing in the English classroom
Writing for learning in secondary science: Rethinking practices
Personalised learning: Lessons to be learnt
Personalised learning is now broadly endorsed as a key strategy to improve student curricular engagement and academic attainment, but there is also strong critique of this construct. We review claims made for this approach, as well as concerns about its conceptual coherence and effects on different learner cohorts. Drawing on literature around differentiation of the curriculum, self‐regulated learning, and ‘relational agency’ we propose a framewo…
Revisiting Peirce’s account of scientific creativity to inform classroom practice
Peirce made repeated attempts to clarify what he understood as abduction or creative reasoning in scientific discoveries. In this article, we draw on past and recent scholarship on Peirce’s later accounts of abduction to put a case for how teachers can apply his ideas productively to elicit and guide student creative reasoning in the science classroom. We focus on (a) his rationale for abduction, (b) conditions he recognised as necessary to suppo…
Coming to Know More Through and From Writing
Over the past 20 years, claims about how and why student writing can serve learning have changed markedly. This has been partly due to new technologies displacing writing as a predominant resource for learning, prompting new sense-making practices and shifts in how these changes are theorized. Learners now routinely collaborate to generate, manipulate, analyze, and share images in many subject areas, where multimodal and multimedia resources are …
Multi(national)literacies and Globalising Discourses
(1997). Multi(national)literacies and Globalising Discourses. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education: Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 453-467
Selves to Discover, Selves to Invent: Rethinking autobiographical writing in the English classroom
Writing for learning in secondary science: Rethinking practices
Multi(national)literacies and Globalising Discourses
(1997). Multi(national)literacies and Globalising Discourses. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education: Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 453-467
Connecting Design and Critique: A response to Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis
(1998). Connecting Design and Critique: a response to Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education: Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 243-248
The discourses of sexuality in curriculum documents on sexuality education: An Australian case study
This paper identifies three underlying discourses on the nature of sexuality evident in two Department of Education curriculum documents on sexuality education in Victoria, Australia, over the past 15 years. These discourses are a cultural ‘preservation’ perspective, a risk minimisation perspective, and a view that sexual expression should enable cultural and individual enlightenment and emancipation. This analysis of underpinning discourses is u…
A Study of Teachers’ Perspectives About Using Multimodal Representations of Concepts to Enhance Science Learning
Drawing to Learn in Science
Emerging research suggests drawing should be explicitly recognized as a key element in science education.
Personalised learning: Lessons to be learnt
Personalised learning is now broadly endorsed as a key strategy to improve student curricular engagement and academic attainment, but there is also strong critique of this construct. We review claims made for this approach, as well as concerns about its conceptual coherence and effects on different learner cohorts. Drawing on literature around differentiation of the curriculum, self‐regulated learning, and ‘relational agency’ we propose a framewo…
Coming to Know More Through and From Writing
Over the past 20 years, claims about how and why student writing can serve learning have changed markedly. This has been partly due to new technologies displacing writing as a predominant resource for learning, prompting new sense-making practices and shifts in how these changes are theorized. Learners now routinely collaborate to generate, manipulate, analyze, and share images in many subject areas, where multimodal and multimedia resources are …
A framework to support personalising prescribed school curricula
There is a recent advocacy for students to experience their learning as personalised, but this expectation poses challenges for teachers tasked with addressing prescribed curricula. In this article, we draw on relevant literature and our analyses of three case studies to propose a framework within which teachers can achieve both goals. We first clarify what we mean by personalising learning, noting problems in how it is currently conceptualised a…
Revisiting Peirce’s account of scientific creativity to inform classroom practice
Peirce made repeated attempts to clarify what he understood as abduction or creative reasoning in scientific discoveries. In this article, we draw on past and recent scholarship on Peirce’s later accounts of abduction to put a case for how teachers can apply his ideas productively to elicit and guide student creative reasoning in the science classroom. We focus on (a) his rationale for abduction, (b) conditions he recognised as necessary to suppo…
Challenges in designing and assessing student interdisciplinary learning of optics using a representation construction approach
There is a growing interest in the value of teachers guiding students to generate their own representations to support conceptual learning in science and across complementary subjects such as mathematics. However, this approach to an interdisciplinary focus poses challenges for programme design and learning assessment. In this paper, we report on a 10-week study with a class of Year 5 students designed to (a) facilitate learning of key concepts i…
An interdisciplinary approach to primary school mathematics and science learning
Against a backdrop of advocacy for interdisciplinary STEM curricula, this paper explores the design principles underpinning a three-year longitudinal research project that develops and evaluates interdisciplinary mathematics and science learning sequences involving multiple teachers and student cohorts across the primary school years. The research uses design-based methodology and deploys a pedagogical cycle based on representation construction a…
Supporting Student Transduction of Meanings Across Modes in Primary School Astronomy
The multimodal nature of knowledge development and learning in science is now increasingly recognized. While researchers have focused on identifying how different representational modes afford meaning-making, the question of how students are guided to link, confirm and expand similar and different meanings across modes, called ‘transduction', has been less explored. This transduction process is fundamental to students realizing, aligning, generat…
Addressing methodological challenges in research on aesthetic dimensions to classroom science inquiry
There has been longstanding interest in students’ aesthetic feelings in engaging with school science, but new multimodal accounts of meaning-making, and changing curricular goals where science is integrated with other subjects, pose new methodological challenges for researching these feelings. In this paper, we aim to synthesise relevant literature as the bases for proposing methodological practices to address these new research challenges. We dr…
Aesthetics, affect, and making meaning in science education: An introduction
This overview gives a background for this special issue of the International Journal of Science Education on Aesthetics, affect, and making meaning in science education. Contributions to this special issue examine how and what kind of aesthetics of science is constituted when it meets the aesthetics of other practices (e.g. arts, mathematics, student lives), in and outside classrooms, and the consequences these encounters have for meaning-making …
The role of aesthetics in learning science in an art-science lesson
In this paper, we analyse results from one classroom session within an 8-week program in which Year 10 students constructed ‘trash’ puppets of endangered Australian animals. In making the puppets and using them as part of a ‘theatre in a suitcase’ performance at Melbourne Zoo, students were expected to integrate both scientific and artistic goals to demonstrate knowledge of specific endangered species. In this process, students needed to learn ho…
Associations between Australian students’ literacy achievement in early secondary school and senior secondary participation in science: Accessing cultural and science capital
Many factors are claimed to explain Australian students’ declining participation rates in senior secondary science subjects. These include, for instance, the influences of SES, indigeneity, and gender. While acknowledging the compelling case for these factors affecting student pathways, in this study we explore associations between students’ literacy achievement test scores in early secondary school and their senior secondary participation in sci…
Interdisciplinary aesthetics when science and drama are linked
There is a strong tradition of viewing these two school subjects as mutually enhancing, but aesthetic aspects of this interplay are less studied. In this paper we define disciplinary aesthetics as appreciation and enjoyment of the what and how of learning within and across both subjects. Drawing on Peirce’s semiotic theory of signs, we claim that meaning-making from, with and through signs and sign systems (a) is fundamental to learning in both s…
Guiding student transduction in elementary school astronomy
Science educators now broadly recognize the multimodal nature of learning in science, where learners make meanings within modes (linguistic, mathematical, visual, and actional) by using the conventions of different sign systems or grammars in these modes. However, how teachers guide students to link and infer new meanings across modes, called “transduction” (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2006. Reading images: The grammar of visual design. Routledge, p. 39…
Psychology (16 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Mathematics education (12 works) · Computer Science (11 works) · Pedagogy (11 works) · Science Education and Pedagogy (11 works) · Science education (8 works) · Educational Strategies and Epistemologies (6 works) · Epistemology (6 works) · Innovative Teaching and Learning Methods (5 works)