This study is a part of the research project “Performing Knowledge. A project to improve knowledge in higher education through a double perspective; Theory and Performance”. The project is supported by the Swedish Research Council and will last during a three year period (2008 – 2010). The aim is to examine how different kinds of knowledge appear in learning processes as well as in student’s dissertations; focus is equally on forms of multimodal representation and presentation. The project will contribute to educational science by analyzing experiences from five different departments of higher education: four pedagogical departments and one department of Art, Culture and Communication. In our part of the study we focus on how different knowledge appear and can be expressed and represented in student’s interactions with different media texts. This kind of construction of knowledge is particularly important within the contemporary teacher training programs based on socio cultural pedagogy theory (Säljö 2005). In our work we take inspiration from visual literacy (Mirzoeff, 1998, Mitchell 1995, Pink 2001/2007) and media literacy (Graviz 2002, 2008, Danielsson 2002, Kress 2003). Research questions are related to both theoretical studies of knowledge construction and multimodal representation of knowledge. What happens when these different areas act together in the creation of new knowledge? What kind of representations can be used in order to express scientific knowledge? We mean representations that concern the student’s research results as well as the student’s knowledge and learning process. Through these combined processes the students will get access to theories as well as tools for performing knowledge.

In a qualitative study data has been collected using ethnographic methods in which the researchers follow students and their dissertation works and make interviews and observations with both students and teachers. This material is collected with tape recorder, video and photo camera. Our fieldwork is carried out in three different teacher training programmes: Media Education, Visual Art, Education and Teaching: Media, Gender and Ethnicity. The first step was carried out at Dalarna University in the spring 2008, the second step at Örebro University in the autumn 2008 and the third step at Södertörn University in the spring 2009. Data from the three fieldworks is cross analyzed.

In the workshop session we will present and discuss excerpts from our empiric material; such as media productions, video stripes, photos, sound tracks, dissertation parts. We want to discuss concepts as esthetical learning processes, performance, creativity and an extended text concept. We will also examine the use of traditional scientific concepts when using an extended text concept that includes written and oral words, pictures and movies. We expect that the study will increase the awareness of multimodal representations of knowledge and what kind of knowledge that might be possible to represent by different expressions. In extension the study will also contribute to the discussion about the possibilities to use multimodal representations in teacher training dissertations.