Abstract:

21st century education must inevitably assume a multimedia-mediated transdisciplinary approach which cultivates content competence, digital expertise and foreign language fluency. Although education is looking towards less traditional ways of learning which encompass the technical know-how of our learners, we should be aware that “digitalizing” does not necessarily contribute to fulfilling the aforementioned “21st century education order form”. To address these concerns, we merged two new educational elements, one methodological, the other instrumental, which are emerging on the landscape of science education: the methodology of CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning), in which learners use a foreign language (FL) to learn science, and the instrument of IWB (Interactive White Board) which serves as a mediating artefact in teacher-pupil and pupil-pupil interactions. In a CLIL learning context, since learners must use a FL to acquire new information, discuss hypotheses and negotiate understanding, it is increasingly recognized as a pragmatic means for implementing highly interactive learning contexts which naturally call upon cooperative learning. Given appropriate learning materials, IWBs are likewise increasingly recognized as medium for promoting cooperative learning and more authentic classroom interactions. This study thus brought together CLIL methodology and IWB technology so to develop CLIL-IWB activities which optimized the benefits of “digital” without sacrificing “traditional” learning objectives. For example, where multi-mediality was beneficial in attaining classroom interaction and promoting FL-communicative competence, CLIL-IWB activities were IWB-centered. However, where the important “human activity” of handwriting is more conducive to learning and assimilating the target FL, traditional paper-based learning processes were used. In fact, dragging and dropping does not help learners spell whit rather than with. Guided by these considerations, within the Regionally funded Project “Libera Le Idee”, a highly transdisciplinary team of physics researchers, physics educators, FL educators and neuroscience-education experts developed IWB-oriented MM-LOs (Multimedia Learning Object) addressing thermal phenomena as covered within the upper secondary L1-school science curriculum. In addition to being interactive, the materials were developed with attention to certain understandings of how the brain processes incoming information so that the acquisition of novel science concepts were scaffolded through familiar FL or vice versa, as called for by CLIL good practice. These materials would not only support CLIL-Science education in Italy and Europe but also that in other international contexts which abound with technology but not Anglophone science graduates (e.g. Asia, The Middle East etc.).

Keywords:

CLIL, multimedia, interactive white board, physics.