Abstract

Representations are created and given meaning in a shared perceptual space, where they are spoken, written, and drawn in the context of social activity. Consequently, problems in science education cross the boundaries of traditional modularization of the mind into separate perceptual, representation, and communication components that act at distinct times, in distinct domains. We illustrate these issues with a case study of physics learning using a simulation program. The learners are initially uncertain about what aspects of motion to see, where the representations are on the screen, and how to express the relationship between vector notation and motion. At a local level, the students jointly coordinate conversational and perception-action processes to maintain a mutually intelligible stream of activity. At a slightly broader level, they use perception, language, and gesture to construct a shared understanding of what the notation on the computer screen means. Even more broadly, the students use their understanding of the notation to relate their activity to ways in which scientists address similar situations. We conclude that learning to make sharp distinctions from a repertoire of fuzzy, everyday descriptions requires simultaneous, coordination of perception, gesture, and language; one cannot assume competence in two areas and analyze only the third.