Beyond transparency: How students make representations meaningful

In current science education reform, two criteria are considered most critical for determining whether or not an external representation is pedagogically productive. One is whether or not the representation maintains a high level of epistemic fidelity. The other is whether or not the representation is transparent relative to the content it is supposed to represent. We believe that these criteria are too limited in scope and have been considered acceptable in part because we have a very limited understanding of how students construct meaningful interpretations of unfamiliar representations. To remedy that, we propose a new framework for understanding acts of interpretation that focuses on four major constructs: registrations, symbolic forms, interpretive genres, and interpretive maxims. We demonstrate this framework's utility by applying it to excerpts of middle school students interpreting unfamiliar representations of light reflection.