Acceso usuarios
Yi-Ju Lai
This paper examines the chronotopic nature of physics discourse and instructional practices that are mediated through the integration of disciplinary spatial repertoires and mathematical symbolic systems. The paper addresses how meanings are constructed during instruction between bilingual international teaching assistants (ITAs) and undergraduate physics students through the chronotopic (re)contextualization of prior physics reasoning and future applications in present discussions about a physics event. Instructional activities mediated by spatial repertoires and mathematical symbolic systems between ITAs and undergraduates were video recorded. Data were analyzed using a joint method of multimodal conversation analysis and the Bakhtinian concept of chronotope. Findings illustrate that the simultaneous chronotopes of physics discursive practices engaged student participation in ITA-led activities and maintained the sequential chronotopes in instructional practices, demonstrating joint attention between ITAs and undergraduates as co-contributors to meaning making. The chronotopic link creates a dialogic space in which multidiscursive practices of knowledge construction can be achieved through an integration of disciplinary spatial repertoires and mathematical symbolism and images. The present study suggests a spatial repertoire-informed chronotopic turn in analyzing the dynamic multiplicity of physics instructional practices by ITAs in academic contexts.
