Dialogic gesture in collaborative sense making in physics

主动的、协作的学习方法被广泛认为是学生学习本科科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）的有效方法。然而，学习成果在很大程度上取决于学生参与的互动过程的质量。关于小组工作中成功的语言交际实践的研究很多，但对手势等非语言交际实践如何促进成功的合作却知之甚少。先前的研究表明，当团队对彼此的口头想法做出反应、接受和讨论时，他们在STEM中合作解决问题时更成功。在这个项目中，研究人员将调查(1)学生在一起工作时如何对彼此的手势做出反应，采取，交换或互动，以及(2)这种行为如何影响或限制小组解决问题和在本科物理入门中建立意义。该项目将提高我们对非语言交际在协作学习中所起作用的理解，并将有助于制定更广泛、更广泛、更包容的STEM学习和实践能力和实践定义。在这个项目中，研究人员将分析现有的大型视频语库，在基于代数的本科物理入门课程中，使用通过物理主动意义构建的协作学习（CLASP）课程，在西班牙裔，亚裔美国人和美洲原住民太平洋岛民服务机构，不同群体的学生参与群体意义构建，以模拟力学场景中的能量动力学。在创建视频语料库的全面内容日志后，团队将对语料库进行编码，以用于表征手势，以识别物理组使用的对话手势形式。通过多模态会话分析，研究人员将描述这些对话手势的交流功能，并创建对话手势类型的分类。研究人员将研究学生使用某些类型的对话手势如何有助于（或限制）群体在物理中的意义构建实践，作为开发准确而稳健的科学模型的一部分。该项目将通过(1)创建学生在协作物理学习中使用的对话手势类型的形式和功能分类，(2)识别和表征对话手势使用支持（或限制）意义构建实践的机制，为推进当前对STEM学习和交流的理论理解做出根本性贡献。(3)表征学生在物理课中使用对话手势与意义建构结果之间的关系。这个项目将突出、识别和描述各种各样的学生带到课堂上的资产（以交流资源的形式）。本项目由美国国家科学基金会EHR核心研究（ECR）项目支持。ECR项目强调在该领域产生基础知识的基础STEM教育研究。投资在至关重要、广泛和持久的关键领域：STEM学习和STEM学习环境，扩大STEM参与，以及STEM劳动力发展。该项目支持积累有力的证据，为理解、构建理论进行解释提供信息，并提出干预和创新建议，以应对STEM兴趣、教育、学习和参与方面的持续挑战。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Active, collaborative learning approaches are widely seen as effective ways for students to learn undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). However, learning outcomes are highly contingent on the quality of the interactional processes in which students engage. There is a great deal of research on successful verbal communicational practices in group work, but little is known about how nonverbal communicational practices like gesture contribute to successful collaboration. Previous research shows that when groups are responsive to, take up, and discuss one another’s spoken ideas, they are more successful at collaborative problem solving in STEM. In this project, researchers will investigate (1) how students are responsive to, take up, exchange, or interact with each other’s gestures while working together, and (2) how this behavior shapes or constrains groups’ problem solving and sense making in introductory undergraduate physics. This project will improve our understanding of the role nonverbal communication plays in collaborative learning, and it will contribute to the development of broader, more expansive, and inclusive definitions of the competencies and practices involved in learning and doing STEM.In this project, researchers will analyze an existing large video corpus of active, collaborative physics learning in an algebra-based introductory undergraduate physics course using the Collaborative Learning through Active Sense-Making in Physics (CLASP) curriculum at a Hispanic, Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution, where diverse groups of students engage in group sense making to model the energy dynamics in mechanics scenarios. After creating a comprehensive content log of the video corpus, the team will code the corpus for representational gesture use to identify the forms of dialogic gesture used by physics groups. Using multimodal conversation analysis, researchers will then characterize the communicational functions of these dialogic gestures and create a taxonomy of dialogic gesture types. Researchers will examine how students’ use of certain types of dialogic gesture contributes to (or constrains) groups’ sense-making practices in physics as part of developing accurate and robust scientific models. This project will make fundamental contributions to advance current theoretical understandings of learning and communication in STEM by (1) creating a taxonomy of forms and functions of dialogic gesture types that students use in collaborative physics learning, (2) identifying and characterizing mechanisms by which dialogic gesture use supports (or constrains) sense making practices, and (3) characterizing relationships between students’ use of dialogic gesture and sense making outcomes in physics. This project will highlight, identify, and characterize assets (in the form of communicational resources) that a diverse set of students bring to the classroom.This project is supported by NSF's EHR Core Research (ECR) program. The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that generates foundational knowledge in the field. Investments are made in critical areas that are essential, broad and enduring: STEM learning and STEM learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development. The program supports the accumulation of robust evidence to inform efforts to understand, build theory to explain, and suggest intervention and innovations to address persistent challenges in STEM interest, education, learning and participation.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.