Resources for unit 2

Pupils’ representations refer to the ideas, beliefs, opinions, mental models or prior knowledge that learners already have about a topic, subject, concept, or phenomenon before they are taught it at school or during instruction. These representations come from daily life, previous learning, culture, family, media, language or personal experience, and they influence how pupils understand new knowledge (Gurung, 2021; Fyttas, et al., 2023; Susac, et al., 2023).

In teaching and didactics, pupils’ representations are important because learners do not come to class with empty minds. They already have their own way of explaining things, which may be correct, incomplete, or wrong. The teacher must first identify these representations and then help learners improve or change them through teaching.

For example, in science, some pupils may think that the sun moves around the Earth because they see the sun moving in the sky. This is a pupil’s representation. In history, a pupil may believe that all kings were good leaders, which is also a representation based on limited knowledge. In mathematics, a learner may think that multiplication always makes numbers bigger, which is not always true.

In didactics, taking into account pupils’ representations helps the teacher to adapt the lesson, correct misunderstandings, and guide learners toward correct scientific knowledge. Therefore, pupils’ representations are the starting point of teaching and learning, and they play an important role in the process of didactic transposition and effective instruction.