Graphical Representations: To Promote Elementary Knowledge Construction Of Learning

This article mainly did research on the STS course from September2011to January2012, in grade three of Baiyunyuan School. The theory of knowledge building, the idea of STS, and the method of graphical representation were integrated in courses of grade3. Mainly aimed at the slow speed of written expression, unclear language, inattention in class, the shallow understanding of complex concepts, feeling hard to deal with a lot of information, and how to share and exchange information, I try to find methods to improve or solve them and to promote personal knowledge building and community knowledge formulation and advancement.This study using12principles of knowledge building as a guide, combined knowledge building and graphical representation effectively; took STS course as an object which integrated science, morality and society and IT of primary school, and designed a framework including graphical theme introduction, graphical brainstorming, graphical knowledge management and presentation, graphical field trips, graphical design of experiments, and graphical communication. Each one promotes students’own knowledge building, and thus, promotes community knowledge building through each student’s share and exchanging. In turn, the development of community knowledge promotes students’ own knowledge building.I collected data from the STS course of Baiyunyuan School; it includes "the dissolution of water","the four main themes of water" and "water pollution" over time. I sorted out of them from the three stages and analyzed the graphics of grade3. I found that graphical representation play an important role in the depth and width of students’ knowledge building. And aroused more people to raise their hands to speak, made the class atmosphere more active. Moreover, the teacher also changed his role in classroom gradually, from a decision maker to a guide in graphical representation.