STRATEGY TO PROMOTE THE USE OF MULTIPLE

REPRESENTATIONS USING ICT IN TEACHING

C.R.M. Alvarado Zamorano, J. Ramirez Ortega, R. Castañeda Martinez,
G. de la Cruz Martinez
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México - Instituto de Ciencias Aplicadas y Tecnología
(MEXICO)

Abstract
The use of Multiple Representations (MR) constitutes a powerful strategy in the educational field, in
particular, to present abstract themes or phenomena not perceivable through our senses. Studying a
subject under two or more ways of representing it, promotes in students to mobilize their knowledge to
establish the correspondences and equivalences between these representations, favoring the
understanding of the object or phenomenon.
Various forms of representation (diagram, graph, concept or mind map, equation, video, animation,
simulation, photography, comic, infographic), mediated by technology, promote learning situations and
dynamic activities in the classroom [1]. Each representation addresses different aspects of the object
or phenomenon, and its selection depends on the characteristics and properties of the object being
analyzed.
The cognitive implications that the student has to apply to transform the information from one
representation to another (an activity called "recoding") implies processing, categorizing, coding, and
interpreting the information according to situational demands and personal goals [2], for form concepts
and achieve meaningful learning.
This paper describes the topic "Strategies for the recoding of information with ICT", from the
International Diploma in Innovation in University Teaching-2020, of 136 hours, with 170 professors
from a Mexican and a Chilean university. As part of this topic, teachers were asked to generate two
representations with different modalities of the same concept, reviewed in the classroom, with two
different technological tools, and send the document with their representations through the platforms
used in the Diploma. The participants had to indicate the educational objective of their proposal and
justify the equivalence or complementarity of the modalities of representation.
The activity had two primary purposes: a) That teachers perceive the importance of different
representations of the same concept, to favor their understanding of students. b) Identify and
characterize the MR modalities used as a teaching strategy in the subjects they teach, as well as the
technological resources used.
The activity was evaluated by rubric with the criteria: a) Clarity of the educational objective of the
representations; b) Justification of the relationship between both representations; c) Modalities of
representation; d) Use of technological tools.
Support materials and technological tools to generate the representations were presented.
We select Words (Concepts) and Semantic Units as the central recording units of the MR Content
Analysis.
Among the modalities most used by teachers, concept maps, mind maps, infographics and comics
were identified; As technological tools were PowerPoint, CmapTools, Genially, Piktochart and Pixton.
Keywords: Multiple representations, Information encoding, Information and Communication
Technologies, Teaching practice.

1 INTRODUCTION
Every concept is a cognitive unit, an abstract construction, resulting from human reflection, which
implies an understandable representation of an object, phenomenon, process, feeling, of reality
(present, past or even future) or of the ideal. The construction of a concept necessarily implies
designating it by means of a term and its definition, usually through language, as well as its insertion in
a branch of specialized knowledge (scientific, technical, artistic, social, etc.) or daily.

Proceedings of ICERI2020 Conference ISBN: 978-84-09-24232-0

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9th-10th November 2020
The teaching and learning of concepts implies that the information is organized internally, with a
logical and understandable relationship, which usually leads to a mental representation. The mind
interprets nature and, consequently, the representations are an interpretation of the logic of our
external and internal world. We build mental representations about the environment that surrounds us,
about ourselves, about society and about the nature in which we constitute ourselves as individuals.
A subject of great current interest in fields of knowledge such as philosophy, cognitive sciences,
science didactics and mathematics, is that of representations. The representation that we form of the
world does not include it in its totality, nor is it the same for all; there are as many "worlds" as subjects,
while the meaning of things is predefined by the organization of knowledge of each one. Thus,
Evolutionary Epistemology conceives knowledge as the ability of every organism to organize its
internal order and interact with the environment, depending on the representations that it has made of
objects, phenomena, processes, etc., of its environment, either through their own experience, through
the scholastic instruction they have received or even through the various media,
We can represent in our mind something that we perceive with our senses, something that we see,
smell, feel, imagine, so we can build a mental representation of an angle, a trip, a tree, a cell, an atom,
a feeling, etc. These representations are constructed by scientists as well as by anyone. Individuals
form networks of mental structures, of representations of "key" or "central" concepts linked to a certain
topic. Teachers can document the representations of our students through various techniques and
resources, such as brainstorming, questionnaires, interviews with experienced teachers, mind or
concept maps, videos, interactive, comics, graphics, etcetera; how to organize and rank these
concepts usually requires great effort and guidance from the teacher.
The representations of the concepts are constituted in attributes of an abstract nature, which are
formed through direct experiences, hypothetical processes, and are expressed in a symbolic way, not
having a single way of being approached and presented. Its format is reduced to a symbolization
problem; thus, we construct different representations of the same phenomenon, there being no one-to-
one correspondence between the symbol and its referent, since the same referent could be
associated with different symbols from one situation to another. Thus, an image or situation can have
different interpretations, which we call Multiple Representations (MR), as presented in the case of the
various representations that Mexican high school students expressed regarding the acid concept and
concepts closely related to it [3] (Alvarado and Casas, 2014).
As we grow and develop, we form representations of the different aspects of the society in which we
live, we construct them in a social context. Social psychology, by [4], establishes that each person
builds their representations, however, there is not an infinite variety of representations because
individuals "reproduce" the fundamental representations of the society in which they live, in the same
way that they reproduce language or behavioral norms. In this sense we speak of "social
representations". The representations become a way of interpreting and thinking about everyday
reality, in a mental process developed by people to fix position in relation to objects, situations and
events that concern them.
The representations are forms of knowledge of the individuals to interpret the reality; they are strongly
oriented by the cultural practices that the individual carries out in their group and that usually take
place in a context of interpersonal relationship and communication. Through these experiences, the
individual collects and organizes information based on the demands of his environment, and develops
representations of the reality that surrounds him, structuring his own synthesis of representations
adjusted to situational demands and personal goals, in a context of practices defined by culture.
Multiple representations can be taken as a didactic strategy to build and carry out the teaching-
learning processes.
[5] state that considering that teaching requires alternatives for students to develop meaningful
learning, multiple representations play a decisive role in teaching practice, since teachers can
enhance students' cognitive abilities by developing the same topic through different didactic tools such
as writing, mind maps, concept maps, among others. On the part of the teachers, the use of didactic
tools that lead the student to take an active part in the construction of knowledge, at the same time
that they account for their argumentation process through writings and by the students, are of real
relevance, allow to enhance the cognitive skills that lead to the ability to code, process and interpret
information from their environment. Representations are the means through which the human being
interprets, describes reality and takes it into account to encode information.The cognitive implications
that the student has to apply to transform the information from one representation to another (an
activity called "recoding") implies processing, categorizing, coding, and interpreting the information

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according to situational demands and personal goals (Álvarez, 2014), for form concepts and achieve
meaningful learning.
It is important to understand how students analyze, understand and interpret the information
presented during their learning process, allowing them to propose possible explanations for the
phenomena that occur around them and allowing them to be critical of situations or information
presented in context. When people are learning certain concepts, interact with multiple representation
modes such as diagrams, graphs, concept maps, equations, etc. can have various benefits
(Ainsworth, 2008). Thus, the speed of a mobile can be represented by using a table, an equation, a
numerical screen, an animation or a graph.
Today, mathematical, verbal and graphical modalities are usually used to represent knowledge
individually or in a coordinated way, helping to visualize MR of objects, phenomena, processes,
including videos, animations, simulations and dynamic graphics, mediated by technology, that they
also make classroom activities more dynamic. Each representation, be it a graph, an equation, a
photograph, a physical model, an animation, etc. represents different aspects of the object or
phenomenon to be represented, so the choice of which form of representation to use depends on its
characteristics and properties. Thus, diagrams can exploit processes by grouping relevant information
and facilitating its search and recognition; tables make information explicit and can highlight patterns
and regularities; the equations show quantitative and compact relationships between variables.
Unfortunately there is considerable evidence to show that teachers fail to exploit these advantages in
the classroom. MR can support the construction of a deeper understanding when students relate
them, to identify the shared invariant characteristics of a certain concept and the properties of its
individual representations, increasing the probability that it will be transferred to new situations,
enabling knowledge that a student has of a known representation is transferred to an unknown one,
but fundamentally preserving the nature of that knowledge. It is extremely important to understand
how to select the most appropriate representations according to needs, consider what objective you
are trying to achieve, what modes of representation are available and what are individual preferences.
Encouraging students to construct their own representations has many educational benefits, as this
action can lead to better understanding than if only a given representation is interpreted. A relevant
cognitive task is linked to how to learn with more than one representation, how to relate different
representations, which is often difficult for students. It has been argued about the many advantages
that different combinations of representations can play in supporting learning. MR are powerful tools to
help students develop knowledge, but require careful handling and often considerable experience
before people can use them most effectively.

2 METHODOLOGY
The activity of elaboration of MR was framed in the "International Diploma Innovation in University
Teaching" with professors from the UNAM and in the "Diploma in ICT for University Teaching" with
Chilean university professors, to be held from May 12 to 4 December 2020. On the part of the
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) participated 129 professors (from the Faculty of
Philosophy and Letters, the Faculty of Psychology, the Faculty of Arts and Design, the Institute of
Geology, the Institute of Geophysics, the School of Social Work, the National Preparatory School No.
7, the College of Sciences and Humanities - Vallejo) and of the Universidad Tecnológica
Metropolitana de Chile (UTEM-Chile) participated 40 teachers. The teachers developed their activities
for courses in very diverse disciplines, such as Chemistry, Drawing, Mathematics, Physics and
Languages.
Both events comprise two modules:
In Module 1 each of the following topics were addressed weekly: 1) Strategies for the search and
organization of information with ICT; 2) Strategies for the development of critical thinking supported
with ICT; 3) Strategies for the recoding of information with ICT; 4) Strategies for the development of
collaborative work with ICT; 5) Strategies for the design and application of evaluation rubrics
supported with ICT; and, 6) Selected topics: Problem Based Learning and Flipped Classroom.
During Module 2, an innovative activity with ICT is developed, improved, executed and evaluated, with
the support of tutors from UNAM and from UTEM-Chile.
The following describes the development of the topic "Strategies for the recoding of information with
ICT" (from June 2 to 8, 2020), through the Canvas and Reko Platforms:

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A. Welcome to the topic: “Strategies for the recoding of information with ICT”.
In this section, teachers were told that this topic addresses the importance of using MR as a powerful
and simple strategy in the field of teaching, in particular, when presenting abstract themes or
phenomena that are not perceptible by our students. senses; that studying the same topic under two
or more ways of representing it (eg graph vs. data table), encourages students to mobilize their
knowledge to establish the correspondences and equivalences between these representations,
favoring a better understanding of the object or phenomenon; and that this is called "recoding" the
information by transforming the information that is under one representation to put it in another.
B. Review of concepts about multiple representations
It was requested to review: a) a video by C. Alvarado and F. Gamboa to introduce the topic of MR, its
potential benefits and the intimate relationship they have with ICT. b) the extract from an article,
authored by the same authors, which delves into the concept of "Multiple representations of concepts".
c) consult the document: Acid Concept Representation Networks.
Share your thoughts around this topic in the forum "Reflection on Recoding Information”.
C. Example on the use of multiple representations in the "Aula del Futuro" (Classroom of the
Future).
It is indicated that elaborating MR and recoding information to improve our teaching is very valuable,
but it is even more so if our students are the ones who produce information and transform it from
different formats. Not only understanding is favored, but learning as a whole, as it allows higher-order
thinking skills to be put into operation: Analysis, argumentation, evaluation, generation of new
knowledge, among others.
The link to a video with an experience in a mathematics class is presented, in which MR played a
central role in understanding the topic “Remarkable points and lines in triangles”.
D. Tools to generate multiple representations
Teachers were recommended some tools that they could explore to generate various representations,
especially through an online CmapsTools video to make concept maps, and another to create comics
for educational use
E. Activity: Generate different representations of a concept.
The objective of this exercise is to understand the importance of having different representations of a
certain concept to enrich the understanding of it, using various technological tools. The teachers were
given the following instructions to develop the activity:
Choose a concept that you have reviewed with your students in the classroom and generate two
representations using two representation modes or formats (infographic, concept map, comic, video,
etc.) except text, with two different technological tools. In a separate document indicate the following
points:
- The concept to represent.
- Two representations of the same concept using two different technological tools.
- Didactic objective of the representations.
- Justification of the relationship (equivalence, complementary) between the two representations.
Send the design document of the multiple representations of this activity through the Canvas or REKO
platform corresponding.
For the evaluation of this activity, two aspects were considered:
1 Words (Concepts) and Semantic Units as the central recording units of the MR Content
Analysis.
2 Rubric with the following criteria: a) Clarity of the didactic objective of the representations, b)
Justification of the relationship between both representations, c) Use of representation
modalities, d) Use of technological tools.

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3 RESULTS
Due to the abundant information collected on the development of the activity by the professors, only
the modalities of representation and the tools most frequently used by the professors of the UNAM are
presented; and, some examples of expressions by teachers about the use of infographics, one of the
most frequent representation modalities when dealing with various topics; and, some examples of the
justification of the relationship (equivalent or complementary) between the two representations.
Among the modalities most used by teachers, concept maps (46), infographics (41), video (33), mind
maps (27) and comics (27) were identified. Among other forms of representation used, we can
mention: ppt presentations, diagrams, comparative tables, synoptic tables, word clouds, simulators,
collaborative whiteboard, graphs, tables, timelines, crosswords and memoramas.
As technological tools were: CmapTools (31), mainly for concept maps; Canva software (16), mainly
for infographics; YouTube (10), mainly for videos; Pixton (14), for comics; Genially (7), mainly for
infographics. Other technological tools were:
For Concept Maps: Bubble.us, Mindnet, Mind, Getmind, Inspiration Maps, Google Drive,
For Infographics: Piktochart, Easel.ly, Photoshop, Poxerpoint, Venngage, Visme, Photoshop.
For Videos: Powtoon, MovieMaker, Canva, 3dstudio Max and Adobe Premier, TikTok Sway,
ChemSketch Structure.
For Mind maps: Bobbl.us, Cmaps, Inspiration, Mindmeister, MiMint, Prezi, GoCongr., Pixabay, Mindly,
Genial.ly, Microsoft, Canva, Go.Gjiffy.
For Comic: Powtoon, Comix, Professorgarfield.
Examples of expressions of teachers about the use of infographics are presented, one of the most
frequent representation modalities when addressing various topics:
a) Topic Hypothetical-deductive method: "Graphic representation based on image and little text
that allows the student to capture their attention and visually keep the ideas presented".
b) Topic Argue: "It graphically shows the essential concepts of this philosophical ability. Being a
graphical representation, students will be able to internalize their respective contents more
easily. It allows to collect a very clear synthesis of the main elements to introduce us to the topic
of the Argumentation. It can be perfected with images, videos, audios integrated into
presentation applications such as genial.ly and complemented with images from applications
such as Pinterest and Instagram. These presentations must manifest in a visually attractive,
explicit, brief and clear way the meaning and connection of the main elements of the topic".
c) Theme Levels of ecological organization: "Excellent resource for students to think, synthesize,
organize information, and dialogue and reach consensus to capture their information. It
represents a series of visual elements that contributes to the development of synthesized
information that can contribute to make your reading more attractive to the viewer".
d) Topic Relationship between Latin cases and syntactic functions of words in a sentence: "It
attends to visual students who require order, but also symbols that allow them to understand the
concepts. Students of different learning styles understand the concepts from their cognitive
structure and they see other ways to approach the topics, so that they enrich their
understanding. In my classroom experience, the students have made extremely creative and
interesting performances."
e) Enzymes topic: "It presents information organized in a systematic way and addresses aspects
that are explained in detail. It allows a presentation that is simple to explain and understand, so
that it can be prepared individually or in small teams, favoring collaborative work that implies
reaching consensus on the selection and recoding of the relevant information and knowledge
that will be exposed in said representation" .
f) Topic Mixing: "Visual representation or diagram of written texts that in a certain way
summarizes or explains; it involves various types of non-linguistic and linguistic graphics and
signs (pictograms, ideograms and logograms) forming descriptions, expository, argumentative
or narrative sequences or even interpretive, presented in a graphic way, usually figurative".
g) Topic Speed: "The information is presented in a more visual, striking and explanatory way, but
focusing on the characteristics of a vector quantity".

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Examples of the justification of the relationship (equivalence or complementary) between the two
representations made by some teachers are presented:
a) Topic Biodiversity: They are complementary, since the infographics show images of living
organisms that are representatives of each of the kingdoms in which they have been classified
by taxonomists and biologists, including a conceptual network in which it is shown the
relationship between the different taxonomic kingdoms. While in the mind map prepared in
CmapCloud, the relationships that exist between the three Domains and the five Kingdoms are
observed, as well as the subsequent classification taxon, the phylum, along with the
representative organisms and their most relevant biological characteristic, such as their form of
nutrition (autotrophs and heterotrophs), traits that have been used as a criterion for the
classification of the planet's biological systems.
Some comments from the professors about the equivalence or complementarity of the two multiple
representations that they elaborated are presented below:
• On the topic of Culture: The representations are complementary since the conceptual map
presents the subject in a theoretical way and the comic presents it in an everyday context for
the students and in some way following the communicative approach of the subject.
• In the topic Drawing: The mind map helps me to order the elements that I will present about the
topic, which information is what I am going to represent or develop, it is a synthesis that will
serve as a basis for the development of the infographic, in which I already the concepts that are
presented in the mind map are developed and are complemented with images.
• In the Topic Descriptive Geometry: Students doing a Montea. Montea of space can be defined
as a form of representation for a 3D figure on a plane, with three or four quadrants (I, II, III, IV),
to obtain all the views of the figure. The projection plane would be the one where the view of the
face is reflected in a plane, either: vertical, horizontal or lateral.). The students worked with
multiple representations, in their notebook they made the design, then they modeled it in an
application on the mobile device (cell phones or tablets) and then they made the final design in
the computer software where they applied dimensions and final colors (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1 Students worked with multiple representation of a Montea

• In the topic An exposition of the body: These are representations that complement each other
by providing different levels of information. Padlet on the collaborative board helps us generate
a kind of visual brainstorming, while the concept map with Mindly helps to specify and structure
ideas.
• In the topic Magnetic Field: The representations are complementary since the conceptual map
hierarchizes the information, in a simple structure where the terms necessary to build the final
concept appear, while the cartoon or comic details the subject through images and accessories,
showing the concept in a clear, precise and fun way, covering what it is, its characteristics, its
importance in daily life, and so on.

4 CONCLUSIONS
The development of the proposed activity shows that new technologies allow the generation of
representations in a more diversified and dynamic way regarding a certain object, phenomenon,
etcetera, allowing more time to reflect on the contents and results presented.

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A professor of Biology from the College of Sciences and Humanities - Vallejo, when developing the
topic of Biodiversity, expressed regarding this activity: "This activity has been of great benefit, because
it has given me the location of what I sometimes did with my students , but I did not know that they
were called "multiple representations" and the importance it has for the learning of the students and
the relevance of promoting that they make their own representations of a certain concept by
themselves".

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work was supported by UNAM-DGAPA-PAPIME, projects:
- PAPIME PE314819. El Aula del Futuro SUAyED de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras.
- PAPIME PE306619. El Aula del Futuro de la Facultad de Psicología.
- PAPIME PE102920. El Aula del Futuro del Instituto de Geofísica.
- PAPIME PE104720. El Aula del Futuro del Instituto de Geología.
- PAPIME PE106420. El Aula del Futuro del Colegio de Ciencias y Humanidades - Vallejo.
- PAPIME PE106419. El Aula del Futuro de la Escuela Nacional Preparatoria # 7.
And it will be incorporated into the Repositorio de Innovación Educativa (CODEIC).

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