Study

The Centre for Multimodal Research runs the following courses for the Doctoral School:

• Analysing Multimodal Texts
• Analysing Video Workshops
• Discourse Analysis: Multimodal Perspectives and Methodological Issues
• Multimodality: Social Semiotic and Discourse Analysis Perspectives

It also offers a student-led Visual and Multimodal Research Forum.

These courses can be attended by doctoral researchers of the IOE and visiting researchers.

Analysing Multimodal Texts
Dr Diane Mavers and Sophia Diamantopoulou
Tuesday 24 Apr, 1, 8, 15 and 22 May 2012, 3.00 – 5.00p.m.
20 Bedford Way, WC1H 0AL

The aim of this course is to explore methods of analysing multimodal texts, i.e. those that comprise ensembles of various modes of communication, such as writing, image, speech and movement. It will introduce a social semiotic multimodal approach to the analysis of a range of materials and will provide opportunities to try out, reflect on and critique methods through discussions, presentations and other group activities. Each session will foreground particular modes and how they operate within multimodal ensembles. We will examine the resources made available and how people make meaning with them within particular frames. Examples will span a range of educational research data gathered for different purposes and in different sites. Participants will be encouraged to reflect on their own research data and share how the issues raised during the course relate to their research. The course is designed for those who are at the beginning of their data analysis stage.

Discourse Analysis: Multimodal Perspectives and Methodological Issues
Professor Andrew Burn, Sophia Diamantopoulou and Professor Richard Andrews
Wednesday 2 May – 30 May 2012, 5.30 – 7.30p.m.
20 Bedford Way, WC1H 0AL

The course is designed for researchers at the beginning stages of their data analysis who would like to find out what discourse analysis is, how it can inform their approaches to their data and how it can resource their research design. Researchers who are already using discourse analysis are also invited to contribute with presentations of their own data and participate in group discussions. Participants will be encouraged to bring in resources that interest them in order to analyse them in the class. The overall aim is to show participants some ways to explore the different accounts of "what the world is and how it should be", as well as the different sets of interpretations and evaluative judgements that feature within discourses. There will be particular emphasis on analysing textual and multimodal data, i.e. data comprising variety of modes and media, including writing on a page or recordings of speech. We will look at how discourses emerge and shape not only language (transcribed speech of teachers and students, textbooks), but also image (magazines, newspapers, maps, drawings), and moving image (advertisements, video). Starting from the understanding that discourses are 'socially constructed knowledges' of reality, we will look at a variety of examples from a range of research projects to explore how various discourses are realized in different social contexts and how they are materialized through a multiplicity of modes and media.


Multimodality: Social Semiotic and Discourse Analysis Perspectives
Facilitator: Sophia Diamantopoulou
Tuesday 6, 13, 20, 27 March, 2 April 2012, 2.30 – 4.30p.m.
20 Bedford Way, WC1H 0AL
 
Multimodality has in the recent years shifted our attention to meanings realized in modes other than the linguistic. Research in different disciplines has adopted multimodal perspectives, while the growing interest in multimodality has created a range of approaches that converse with various epistemologies. This reading group will explore multimodality as it has emerged in the work of Gunther Kress. This foregrounds the social semiotic, communication and discourse analytical perspectives. We will focus on his seminal book (2010) 'Multimodality: A social semiotic approach to contemporary communication', as well as on a more recent article exploring multimodal discourse analysis.  The first session will include an introduction to multimodality, as well as the setting of the agenda for the discussions in the light of the participants' interests.


Visual and Multimodal Research Postgraduate Research Student Forum
 Facilitator: Sophia Diamantopoulou
Monday 12 December 2011, 23 January, 13 February, 12 March, 2 April, 14 May, 11 June 2012, 12.00 noon – 2.00p.m.
Knowledge Lab, 23-29 Emerald Street, WC1N 3QS

The Visual and Multimodal PGR Forum is a student-coordinated forum for research students across the Institute of Education working with visual and multimodal theories, methods and data.
The forum provides a supportive and critical group to discuss visual and multimodal research. Forum activities include:
• Discussion of key concepts and ideas
• Data sharing and analysis sessions
• Exploring different approaches to data collection and analysis
• Reading and discussing key articles
• Presentations of visual and multimodal research projects
Please email Sophia s.diamantopoulou@ioe.ac.uk if you would like to join the forum or just come along to a meeting.


Please note that the first session will take place on Monday 23rd January 12.00-2.00 p.m. in Room 801 of the Institute of Education main building.
 
The theme of this meeting is 'Visual data analysis and recognition of the meaning makers' production'. As visual data are often used as indicators of what has been learned by children or adults, it would be interesting to consider:
• Issues of assessment, or 'recognition' of the learners'  production
• Methodological and analytical 'toolkits' for understanding pedagogies and designs for learning reflected in the visual data.      
 
The following two presentations will form the basis for our discussion:
 
Kostas Korfiatis
Assistant Professor of Environmental Education, Dept. of Education, University of Cyprus/ Visiting Scholar at IOE
'Children's drawings in an environmental education project'
 The session will focus on children's drawings as means for evaluating their perceptions of the environment and the relationship between humans and nature. Examples from a student's MA thesis 'Mediating children's environmental representations through an interactive storytelling environment' will be used to discuss visual data analysis and the findings from this approach. The presentation will raise issues about role of drawings, as an apt tool for data collection, and its relation to children's writings and other data collected through questionnaires and interviews.
 
Martyn Richmond
PhD student, Department of Culture, Communication and Media, IOE
'Young people's images as part of a small research project on what food means to them'
The session will focus upon our analysing a small selection of 'mind-maps' and images produced by these young people, asking what meanings they communicate: do they represent meanings about an aspect of the phenomena of food to us? Do they show the production of a 'self' to us? Do they show a stance to discourses in wider cultural circulation?