Memory, Imagination, and Meaning-Making in Learning Scientific Concepts: a Case Study About the Concept of Substance in Chemistry

To understand the relation between memory, imagination, and learning, I consider that it is necessary to adopt alternative models for these cognitive processes. For instance, in learning, instead of the traditional view that knowledge is transferred from the teacher to the students, I adopt the sociocultural constructivist model, in which learning is a meaning-making process with a social nature mediated by signs. In regard to imagination, I consider it as a higher mental function that creates possible scenarios in the Zone of Proximal Development for the future. At last, for memory, I highlight the theory of remembering, in which memory is understood as a meaning-making reconstruction process. This reconstruction is characterized by a few features, such as transformations, transferences, elaborations, and importations. In this chapter, I present a few illustrations of the relation between memory, imagination, and meaning-making (focusing on remembering) from a case in which two students try to answer questions about chemical substances by recalling information from prior sources and knowledge. The analysis showed that the building of meanings occurs from modifications in memory through the emergence of remembering features (transformation, importation, transference, and elaboration) and new meanings appear on the Zone of Proximal Development projected by imagination. Thus, it is possible to understand how students build new meanings about scientific concepts by analyzing how they remember prior knowledge and prospect for new meanings through imagination.