Transforming through Technologies the Modalities of Learning: New Life Sciences in Secondary Schooling

Abstract

Issues of disciplinarity and technology are implicated in the New Life Sciences (NLS), a meta-discipline of emerging areas of bioscience in which much understanding is mediated via digital technologies, and much knowledge is represented in symbolic forms other than or in conjunction with language. Nonetheless, limited attention has been directed to observing the incidence and structure of NLS teaching in the Science classroom. We address this limitation by identifying and describing the digital and multimodal representations currently being used to teach concepts from NLS in Australian senior secondary school Biology classrooms. Qualitative analyses revealed many instances of NLS concepts being integrated with more traditional Biology material, best-case practices of effective non-verbal digital representations including modelling and animation of complex concepts, and individual differences between both teachers and schools. These findings preface a systematic program of re-theorisation, collaborative trialling, and intervention focused on NLS curriculum and pedagogy.