Online and Face-to-Face Learning in Science

Abstract

Historical and sociological accounts of events typically refer to abrupt macro-social changes that create discontinuity in social structures, thereby changing society. At a micro-social level of experience, events may also unfold that con-tribute to important localized change for the particular people involved. This study of a learning event is an original investigation using empirical data sourced from a secondary school science classroom. Our study adopts a micro-social perspective of events in the context of a school science lesson where emotional fluctuations form the basis for an event to be analyzed. In this sense we adopt the learning event as our unit of analysis to understand the lived experience of a student, the turning point in his learning, and the transformation of his understanding of scientific ideas, as localized structures. This study focuses on the experience of a year 9 science student during a lesson involving both online and face-to-face forms of social interaction. The learning event we analyze highlights the possible contribution of this type of analysis to understanding better, the interplay between emotion and cognition in science education contexts.