In mainstream cognitive research, ‘formal concepts’ usually serve as the main unit of analysis for investigating students’ conceptual learning. Accordingly, conceptual understanding is often seen as a capacity to take an already acquired formal concept and transfer it intact to a new situation, by recognising structural commonalities and using analogy. We use our research into how pre-service (student) teachers design lessons to show that their capacity to use concepts in real world professional work cannot be understood as a simple transfer of formal concepts to new situations. Rather, actionable conceptual understanding, or concepts that are used in action, involve a capacity to construct situated conceptualisations dynamically: by selecting, projecting, mapping and blending relevant conceptual features with material and symbolic affordances of the encountered situation into one emerging multimodal construct that becomes a part of an embodied action. Extending conceptual and material blending (Fauconnier & Turner, 1998; Hutchins, 2005), we show that construction of multimodal blends serves as a productive unit of analysis for investigating conceptual learning for professional action.

1. The University of Sydney Page 1
Learning as construction
of actionable concepts: A
multimodal blending
perspective
Lina Markauskaite and Peter
Goodyear
Acknowledgements:
ARC Grant DP0988307
Dr Agnieszka Bachfischer
Centre for Research on Learning and
Innovation
The University of Sydney
Earli
Tampere, 2017

2. The University of Sydney Page 2
Context
1. Practical & intellectual context
2. Theoretical approach
3. Analytical approach
4. Empirical context
5. Few examples
6. Final notes
Link to eBook

3. The University of Sydney Page 3
Formal concepts, actionable knowledge,
innovation
Actionable knowledge –
“knowledge that is particularly
useful to get things accomplished
in practical activities”
(After Yinger & Lee, 1993, 100)
Upper image http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/imgmec/vec7a.gif

4. The University of Sydney Page 4
Purpose
How do university students enact
formal concepts in practical tasks
when learning to solve innovative
professional problems?
http://netns.ie/class-news/2nd-class/diaper-dissecting/

5. The University of Sydney Page 5
Formal and functional (use of) concepts
A formal concept – “a cognitive
entity that has a reference class
that is determined by an explicit
definition and that is used in a
system of formal deductive
reasoning”
A functional concept – “a
cognitive entity that has
meaning in a kind of activity, in
which it contributes to the way
participants organize their
understanding of what they are
doing”
(After Greeno, 2012)

6. The University of Sydney Page 6
Grounded cognition: Symbolic vs. situated
view of the conceptual system
Situated conceptual system –
brain utilises modality specific
systems when it simulates
conceptual categories
(Barsalou, 1999, 2009)
Situated information that is stored
together with a conceptual
category:
1. selected properties
2. background settings
3. possible actions
4. internal states: affects,
motivations, AND cognitive
states and operations
Actionable conceptual
understanding is “the ability to
construct a wide variety of
situated conceptualizations that
support goal achievement in
diverse situations”
(Barsalou, 2009, 244)
Aspirin

7. The University of Sydney Page 8
Analytical approach: Blending
Mental (conceptual) spaces
– mental arrays of already
familiar ideas
Blending – a routine part of
human cognition during which
selected elements and
connections between several
mental spaces are projected
into a new composite space
that is used to perform further
mental work
(After Fauconnier, 1994; Turner 2001, 2014)

8. The University of Sydney Page 9
Conceptual blending
(After Turner, 2008)
“This surgeon is a
butcher”
Surgeon Butcher
Incompetent
Cutting living tissue, etc
Healing - Killing

9. The University of Sydney Page 10
Material (multimodal) blending
(After Hutchins, 2005)
http://forums.archeagegame.com/showthread.php?47008-So...-
Where-s-the-priority-patron-queue
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/culture/2017-
05/16/content_29363100.htm
Line People
Queue

10. The University of Sydney Page 11
Empirical context: Teaching to “work
scientifically”
Students: pre-service primary teachers
Context: Learning to teach science through inquiry
Activity: Developing 3 lesson plans & resources, teaching,
reflecting/improving & packing all into a shoe box
Topic: material properties
Selected object: nappy
Concept: “scientific experiment”

11. The University of Sydney Page 12
Blending 1: A worksheet, tests and nappy
01a Agi: So that’s gonna be a
(worksheet). The second one –
don’t inquire now how it works
((draws a big rectangle representing
a blank worksheet)) – there’s the
second worksheet,
01b and they’ve got three tests
((writes ‘1’, ‘2’, ‘3’ in the rectangle)).
02 Nat: Yeah.
03a Agi: And so they’ve got four – I
don’t know how many layers in a
nappy. This is layer A, B, C, D
((writes ‘a’, ‘b’, ‘c’, ‘d’ letters near 1)).
01a Worksheet:
Inscriptional scaffold
01b Scientific
experiment “proper”:
Number of tests
03a Nappy: Number
of layers

12. The University of Sydney Page 13
Blending 2: + social-pedagogical arrangements
03b So then they test A, B, C, D,
for… [4 seconds]
03c I don’t know what it is, like
hard err waterproof I think.
03d Maybe we can divide them
into groups.
03e Maybe so, group 1 // test =
((writes ‘waterproof’ near test 1))
04 Nat: = Do this layer.
03b Tests + Nappy’s
layers
03c Tests/Nappy
03d Social-pedagogical
organisation: work in
groups
03e Groups + Tests
04 Nappy’s layers

13. The University of Sydney Page 14
Blending 3: + material + own bodies + curriculum
+…
07a Jill: // And then we also need
less stuff, we don’t need to like
have… [4 seconds] and
07b if there’s three, are there
three things that are being tested
then one of us can be in each of
these groups.
08 Agi: Yeah. Waterproof, what
was the other one? But then umm
((thinks)).
09a Nat: It will be interesting to
look at how they might vary their
results though if they’re all in one
group (…)
09b not like we’re gonna talk
about it, but anyway.
07a Nappy: Materiality
07b Tests + Grouping +
Own bodies: Number of
teachers
08 Tests/Nappy
09a Scientific
experiment: Variability of
results + Grouping
09b Pedagogical-
curriculum design:
Lesson focus

14. The University of Sydney Page 15
Summary: Main spaces and elements brought
into the blend

15. The University of Sydney Page 17
Main insights
1. The pre-service teachers’ capacity to enact concepts in practical
activities cannot be understood solely by investigating how they
define or reason with isolated formal concepts.
2. It necessitates tracing how they blend selected elements of the
concept with: a) other concepts that operate in the same activity
space, b) features of the current and projected social and material
context, including their own bodies, and c) current and simulated
action.
3. Construction of multimodal blends involves emergence and serves
as a productive unit of analysis for investigating conceptual
learning for innovative professional action.

16. The University of Sydney Page 18
If you are interested...
Email:
Follow our website:
https://epistemicfluency.com
Lina.Marakauskaite@sydney.edu.
au