The meaning of things. Didactic objects and the implementation of educational theory

ABSTRACT

For the everyday education of students in schools, objects are made available to teachers that illustrate subject matter and make it comprehensible. These objects are created to make something visible, so that it can be presented, worked on, and understood. This article starts from the assumption that didactic objects are not neutral media: In the course of their manufacturing, educational theory as well as everyday knowledge about the ‘nature’ and particularity of students, teachers, and classroom lessons are technically inscribed into them. This article explicates work with didactic objects empirically and shows how this inscription of theoretical perspectives takes place in companies within the education sector. It becomes apparent how specifically designed objects retroact performatively within classroom lessons on those who use them to display and work on school knowledge.

KEYWORDS:

• Materiality
• didactic objects
• manufacturing knowledge
• education sector
• translation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. This is connected to the Latour’s notion of network (Latour 2005; see Nespor 1997 for a network view on educational practice) linking different actors across time and place.

2. In a broad sense, materiality in a classroom comprises not only didactic objects or media but other artifacts too, for instance classroom furniture such as the school desk. For a historical account of the invention of this classroom artifact with its implemented idea of disciplining pupils cf. Hamilton (2009).

3. The content of the learning software are in accordance with subject-specific topics (e.g. ‘The Ear’ or ‘Electric Fields’) and combine 3D-objects, texts, and tasks. Currently, the focus lies on mathematics and natural science classes and single modules (e.g. ‘The Statue of David’) expand this content-related focus.

4. The school’s relative unwillingness to innovate has to be considered as well. Reasons for that are, for example, financial restrictions, long bureaucratic decision cycles, and the market power of a few oligopolists (Foray and Raffo 2014, 1714).

5. For an account of teachers’ design activity in educational technology cf. Kali, Goodyear, and Markauskaite (2011).

6. Here, this can also be described as an epistemic practice, which at the same time makes (didactic) knowledge available and circulates it by creating an object (Ammon 2013).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) [KA 1235/9-1; WI 3862/3-1].