Students as producers of augmented reality in science - Developing representational competence through scaffolded dialogue

The paper presents findings from a 3 year EU-project focusing on the use of Augmented Reality (AR) for science education in lower secondary school. Based on teacher interviews and video/observation from Danish, Norwegian and Spanish classrooms, possibilities and challenges are discussed in relation to how students’ inquiries in science can include AR, and how their exploratory talk and representational competence can be supported. An overall aim is that students can be producers of AR animations and representations themselves.
The piloting of the AR-resources shows positive possibilities for supporting students meaning-making related to the science content, however dependent of the teachers’ thorough use of scaffolding. Scaffolding is in the project conceptualized as both the pre-planned sequencing of the lessons (macro-scaffolding) and the micro-scaffolding used in teacher-student dialogue. Participating teachers were in general positive in relation to students’ learning outcomes, and students reported a high level of perceived outcomes, e.g. by experiencing a sense of presence in the science phenomena and “seeing the invisible”. The approach in the third piloting, where students are themselves producing AR-resourses connected to their science inquiries, is promising so far.