Using “Slowmation” to Enable Preservice Primary Teachers to Create Multimodal Representations of Science Concepts

Research has identified the value of students constructing their own representations of science concepts using modes such as writing, diagrams, 2-D and 3-D models, images or speech to communicate meaning. “Slowmation” (abbreviated from “Slow Animation”) is a simplified way for students, such as preservice teachers, to make a narrated animation using a combination of modes. In this study, 13 preservice primary teachers learned how to create a slowmation during a two-hour class in a science methods course and then created one about an allocated science topic as an assignment. The research question that guided this study was, “What are the preservice teachers’ perceptions of making a slowmation and how was the science concept represented in the animation?” Data included pre and post individual interviews, concept maps constructed during the interviews and the animations as artifacts. Three case studies provide a window into the perceptions of preservice teachers making a slowmation and show how they represented their concept. Slowmation is a new form of student-generated representation which enables them to use their own technology to construct a narrated animation as a multimodal representation to explain a science concept.