Digitale Lernumgebungen kognitionslinguistisch rekonstruiert: Lernprozesse verstehen zu Fotosynthese, Evolutionstheorie und Artenkenntnis

The use of digital technologies in science education is a topic of controversial discussion. Alongside new possibilities for designing instruction, challenges such as declining academic performance are also emerging. To assess the impact of digital technologies on learning, this work examines learning processes in various digital learning environments on biological topics. Following the biology didactic adaptation of the cognitive-linguistic Conceptual Metaphor Theory - known as the Theory of Experiential Understanding - learning processes are viewed and analyzed as the transformation of conceptions at different levels of complexity. To provide a comprehensive picture, two different research scenarios distinguish between digitization and digitality. To address fundamental content-related challenges in biology education, learning processes on the topics of photosynthesis, evolution, and species identification are investigated. The Peer-Interaction Method was tested as a digital teaching method conducive to learning for the topics of photosynthesis and evolution, and social factors were identified as causes of transformations in conceptions. To study digitality, a community of practice was examined in the development of an app for shape and species identification. This highlighted the significance of digital culture for content-related learning processes. Finally, this work presents a nuanced perspective on the use of digital technologies for research and teaching.