Opetusharjoittelun rooli opettajankoulutuksessa on merkittävä, sillä oppituntien suunnittelu, toteuttaminen ja reflektio ovat keskeinen osa opetustyötä. Kehitimme opetusharjoittelua varten didaktisen tuntisuunnitelmalomakkeen, joka tarjoaa opettajaopiskelijoille erilaisia vaihtoehtoja opetuksen toteuttamiseen ja pyrkii siten monipuolistamaan opetusharjoittelussa pidettyjä oppitunteja. Tutkimukseen osallistuneet matemaattisten aineiden aineenopettajaopiskelijat (N=18) luovuttivat tutkimusta varten kaikki pedagogisen opiskeluvuoden aikana tehdyt tuntisuunnitelmat. Analysoimme klusterianalyysin keinoin, millaisia vaihtoehtoja opettajaopiskelijat lomakkeesta tyypillisesti valitsevat. Tulosten mukaan tuntisuunnitelmat jakautuivat yleisyysjärjestyksessä kolmeen pääkategoriaan: perinteiset, ongelmalähtöiset ja kokeelliset oppitunnit. Koska perinteisen oppitunnin piirteitä korostavia suunnitelmia laaditaan opetusharjoittelussa turhankin paljon, kyseisten suunnitelmien määrää pienentämällä voisi opetusharjoittelukokemusta monipuolistaa. Didaktisen tuntisuunnitelmalomakkeen instrumentilla on potentiaalia tutkia opetusharjoittelua systemaattisesti, ja sitä voidaan laajentaa myös muihin opettajankoulutusyksiköihin ja oppiaineisiin. STEM subject teacher training: What kind of lessons are planned in teaching practice? Abstract: The role of teaching practice in teacher education is significant, as lesson planning, implementation and reflection are a central part of teaching work. We developed a didactic lesson plan form for teaching practice, which offers teacher students different options for implementing teaching and thus aims to diversify the lessons held in teaching practice. The mathematics subject teacher students who participated in the study (N=18) submitted all lesson plans made during the pedagogical study year for the study. We analyzed using cluster analysis what options student teachers typically choose from the form. According to the results, the lesson plans were divided into three main categories in order of prevalence: traditional, problem-based and experimental lessons. Since majority of the plans emphasize the features of a traditional lesson, the teaching practice experience could be diversified by reducing the number of such plans. The didactic lesson plan form instrument has the potential to systematically study teaching practice and can also be extended to other teacher education units and subjects. Keywords: Teacher education, teaching practice, lesson plans, STEM-subjects, assessment and development
The aim of this systematic review is to examine the possibilities of incorporating music education into STEAM education. The review was conducted and reported in accordance with the PRISMA statement and examines the ways in which music is used as part of STEAM and the role of music in STEAM processes across different educational contexts. A systematic search was carried out in January 2025 in four databases: EBSCO, Scopus, Pro Quest Social Science Premium Collection, and ScienceDirect. The inclusion criteria comprised peer-reviewed articles, dissertations, and empirical studies published in English between 2015 and 2025 that addressed educational contexts from primary school to higher education and incorporated music education within a STEAM context. Exclusion criteria included studies involving children under primary school age, pedagogical texts, conference presentations, therapeutic contexts, research without musical activities, and publications before 2015. Seventeen studies were selected for the extraction phase, two of which did not fully meet the eligibility criteria: one involved preschool-aged students and one was not peer-reviewed. Due to the limited number of available studies, these were included because they addressed musical activities within STEAM in a school context. The data were analysed using thematic and theory-informed qualitative synthesis, drawing on frameworks of interdisciplinarity, pedagogical integration, and aesthetics. The results indicate that music can be integrated into STEAM in multiple ways, including music theory learning, playing, singing, composing, and bodily musical expression. The role of music ranged from a motivational element supporting learning to a phenomenon under study within the STEAM process. However, not all music-related activities identified in the reviewed studies included aesthetic or creative expression, and the heterogeneity and limited number of studies constrain the generalisability of the findings. The review was not registered.
The mathematics teaching that young students encounter affects not only the mathematics they are given the opportunity to learn but also their view of what mathematics is, how mathematics is taught, and how they view their own ability to learn mathematics. In this article, we explore how six-year-old students’ participation in an intervention focused on problem solving and problem posing is associated with differences in their views of what it means to be taught and to learn mathematics. We compare drawings of mathematics classrooms created by students from different classes, some of whom had participated in the intervention and others who had not. The results reveal notable differences in the actors and objects included in the drawings. The control group commonly drew textbooks, teachers, and mathematical symbols, whereas the intervention group also depicted other aspects, such as collaborative settings and manipulatives. Thus, a more diverse view of mathematics education appeared in the drawings of the students who participated in the intervention. We argue that these differences may be related to students’ experience with problem solving and problem posing, as well as to critical aspects of these activities, such as creativity and autonomy.
It is evident that climate change, pollution, population growth rate, and environmental and social issues have become prominent subjects in recent years. Statistical graphs have emerged as the predominant method for scientists to communicate data regarding these phenomena. Within the Factfulness project, the incidence of certain facts interpreted on the basis of personal conceptions is presented in graphical form, which may present a different narrative to that which individuals believe to be true, thus purportedly correcting the most common biases. However, research in the field of Mathematics Education has indicated that individuals frequently encounter challenges in comprehending graphs. The present study investigates the role of affect-related variables in shaping the manner in which individuals approach graphs. A sample of 80 undergraduate students in Psychology was considered for this study. The students were invited to: (i) respond to a Factfulness questionnaire concerning environmental issues, (ii) read and interpret graphs from which they could infer the correct answers to the questionnaire, and (iii) rate the aesthetics and the transparency of the graphs proposed to them. The analysis of the participants' comments and their appreciation of graphs provides a foundation for enhancing the communication of environmental issues through statistical graphs, with a particular focus on affect-related aspects.
In mathematics education, student collaboration is often emphasised as desirable. The focus of this paper is on students’ positioning during collaborative problem solving and problem posing on the mathematical content combinatorics. The study utilises the Learning Design Sequence model for lesson design and positioning theory as an analytical framework. In a sequence of lessons, students worked with both problem solving and problem posing, using different ways of representing their solutions, such as pictures, physical objects, and digital animations. Two cases of collaboration between 6-year-old students are used to illustrate their positioning during this sequence of lessons. One conclusion is that, when collaborating, students’ experiences of each other as learners in general and mathematics learners in particular have influence on their positioning which in turn may influence their possibilities of meaning making in mathematics.
This paper aims to analyse and discuss grade 2 students’ conceptions about working with sharing. The students worked with cases in an education that differed from their regular mathematics classes, working silently with a textbook at their desks. When working with the cases, they worked in pairs, were encouraged to discuss, and then got to present their solutions in front of the whole class. The cases were problems that could have several valid solutions and answers. We interviewed 25 students, ages 8–9 years, and data was analysed using thematic analysis generating five themes. The first theme was about the importance of making sharing fair and that the cases were realistic. The second theme was about solutions being valid. The third theme covered conceptions about the cases as context or as concrete materials versus working in a textbook, which was connected to the fourth theme: discussing and thinking versus being quiet. The fifth theme was about working at your desk versus the whiteboard. The results signal that open problems can alter students’ conceptions about mathematics and challenges when creating spaces for such teaching.
In technology-based learning environments, informative tutoring feedback (ITF) strategies can be implemented to support students during task completion by providing elaborated feedback such as error-specific hints instead of directly showing correct solutions. However, identifying the underlying causes of errors is challenging, especially for more advanced mathematical tasks in higher education. To counteract this issue, an ITF-strategy called guiding feedback has been conceptualized. In the context of guiding feedback, students’ answers are examined based on mathematical properties to identify the causes of their errors and provide error-specific feedback. If students’ error causes cannot be identified, they can work through the task in a series of sub-steps, allowing the system to gain insights into their procedures and facilitating the provision of specific feedback. A previous field study examined the motivational effects of guiding feedback in a mathematics course with engineering students. Contrary to expectations derived from the literature, students who completed more tasks with guiding feedback did not demonstrate significantly higher self-efficacy than those who completed fewer tasks. To investigate whether students who worked on fewer tasks may have inaccurately judged their abilities, the present research extends the previous findings by further analyzing students’ performance and calibration. Based on the number of completed tasks, 196 participants of the field study were grouped into low, moderate, and high engagement categories. We evaluated students’ performance by analyzing their assignments and assessed their calibration by comparing their self-efficacy and performance. Results revealed that students in the high engagement group had significantly better performance and calibration than students in the low and moderate engagement groups. Overall, this research provides a more nuanced understanding of the previous findings by showing that even though guiding feedback may not directly boost students’ self-efficacy, it ensures that their judgments align with their actual performance.
This study addresses the question of how teachers reason about teaching autotrophy and heterotrophy, and contributes to TSPCK research in biology. Topic-specific pedagogical content knowledge (TSPCK) is a knowledge base in the framework of PCK and is found both on a personal level and a collective level in the teaching community. TSPCK is practice-based and comes to the fore in everyday teaching and lesson planning. Knowledge on how to teach specific topics directly impacts learning, and examples of TSPCK are therefore valuable both in the context of teacher education and professional development. The aim of this study was to examine in-service teachers’ TSPCK concerning the teaching of autotrophic and heterotrophic organisms. Seven Finnish biology teachers participated in the study. Content representation (CoRe) was used as an instrument to document teacher knowledge in written responses and in semi-structured interviews. Five components of TSPCK (curricular saliency, learner prior knowledge, representations, what is difficult to teach and conceptual teaching strategies) were used analytically to find what kind of TSPCK teachers expressed. The components curricular saliency and what is difficult to teach were most represented in the empirical material, while representations and learner prior knowledge were less frequent. Conceptual teaching strategies is an integrative knowledge component building on and incorporating other TSPCK components, and examples of this component were expressed by nearly all teachers. All teachers discussed the challenge and need to take two inherent aspects into consideration when teaching about autotrophy and heterotrophy: the abstract concepts and the interactions of abstract concepts on both a subcellular level and an ecosystem level. The written answers and the interview complemented each other, the prompts of the CoRe tool giving a certain structure to the reflection, and the semi-structured interview allowing for reasoning on a deeper level. The teachers found the CoRe instrument useful for reflection and presented suggestions for its use and adaptations in didactical courses.
Mathematical competence is considered crucial for physics learning; besides knowing abstract mathematics, students need to apply mathematical skills to different physical concepts. It is hypothesised that the development of this applied physical competence requires some threshold of mathematical competence. However, the relation between these two competences remains unclear. Furthermore, research on undergraduate physics education is scarce within the Finnish national context. To bridge these research gaps, this study addresses the development of both abstract mathematical and applied physical competence in a physics intervention course in a Finnish university. The focus is on the key mathematical concept of vectors, which is covered in introductory physics courses and considered highly difficult, as students tend to acquire misconceptions of the topic and struggle to apply the mathematical construct in the physical context. The pre- and post-test results show that most of the learning outcomes during the intervention course were related to improved applied physical competence. Furthermore, common misconceptions regarding vectors are identified. Analysing the joint development of mathematical and physical competencies supports the assumption that the improvement of applied physical competence depends on some foundational level of mathematical understanding. Furthermore, the students’ prevailing misconceptions and only modest overall improvement of their physics understanding highlights the need for more deliberate teaching practices.
STEAM education has received growing research interest as a pedagogical approach that supports multidisciplinary learning, creativity and authentic problem-solving in schools. In the Finnish basic education context STEAM aligns closely with the National Core Curriculum, which emphasises transversal competencies and multidisciplinary learning modules. Despite this alignment the practical implementation of STEAM teaching remains complex and places significant demands on teachers’ pedagogical competence, collaboration, and professional support. This study explores in-service teachers’ (N=10) perceptions of STEAM education, their readiness to implement STEAM teaching and the challenges and support conditions shaping STEAM implementation in everyday school contexts. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten in-service teachers from primary, lower secondary and upper secondary schools who had experience with or interest in STEAM teaching. The interview data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis supported by qualitative data analysis software. The findings indicate that teachers view STEAM positively, but experience challenges related to multidisciplinary lesson design, assessment of integrated learning, subject-specific constraints, and limited opportunities for collaborative planning. Teachers’ readiness to implement STEAM was closely linked to their pedagogical content knowledge, particularly multidisciplinary PCK, as well as access to sustained professional development and collaborative support structures such as co-teaching. The results highlight a gap between conceptual understanding of STEAM and the practical ability to apply it. The study contributes to research on STEAM education by focusing on teachers’ perspectives and identifying key pedagogical and organisational conditions that support sustainable STEAM implementation in schools.
One of the purposes of science education is to progress from students’ initial ideas about daily phenomena to explanatory scientific models. However, explaining concepts in scientific language is not always easy for children, as many accepted scientific models involve non-visible structures. Augmented reality (AR) superimposes virtual objects onto the physical environment in real time, enabling learners to engage with representations of phenomena that would otherwise be unobservable. A significant challenge in Chile is that nearly 70% of students from low socioeconomic backgrounds fail to explain everyday phenomena using scientific concepts. Furthermore, there is a research gap in analysing the pedagogical interactions that mediate AR-supported learning in primary education for constructing explanations. We provided tablet-based AR simulations of the Earth’s layers, earthquakes, and volcanoes, and used mixed methods to analyze interactions in three classrooms located in seismic zones vulnerable to these geological phenomena. The participants were 69 fourth graders and three teachers. Special attention was given to the teachers’ guiding questions and their role in facilitating the construction of explanatory models. The study aimed to characterize teacher and student questions posed during AR-enhanced geoscience lessons and to identify which teacher question types promote scientific explanations in primary students. The results indicate that classroom interactions primarily included clarifications, prompted questions, and nonverbal actions such as pointing at the tablet screen. The questions that successfully mediated the explanations aimed to foster a conceptual understanding of the underlying causes and connections between the phenomena, rather than the device’s operation. Metacognitive pedagogical questions played a key role in evaluating the learning gains and promoting deeper reasoning. We discuss these practices in the context of primary school science to inform further research on the use of immersive technology to learn about real-world phenomena. We conclude that the potential of AR resides not solely in its visual fidelity, but in its capacity to evoke pedagogical interactions for sense-making, and that a personal connection with the phenomena complements the technology’s use.
Many students find mathematics to be a challenging subject to learn, leading to anxiety and low self-efficacy. While positive self-beliefs towards mathematics encourage engagement and learning, negative emotions like anxiety restrain it. Voluntary online courses for learning mathematics may provide an opportunity to strengthen mathematical skills in a more flexible and self-paced environment, potentially helping reduce anxiety and increase self-efficacy. The present study investigated the associations among online course activity, test anxiety, and self-efficacy with mathematics performance in high-stakes settings. The analyses focused on 144 final-year high school students who completed the wide national mathematics exam after participating in a voluntary online preparation course. In addition to self-reported data, data regarding online course activity logs and national mathematics exam results from a state registry were extracted. According to our analysis, more frequent online course activity was associated with higher mathematics exam scores. Surprisingly, online course activity was not related to either students' self-efficacy or test anxiety. The regression analysis results suggest that self-efficacy was the strongest predictor of mathematics national examination results, with test anxiety and online course activity also contributing significantly. Although previous research has examined the role of self-beliefs in predicting mathematics exam results, this study offers a fresh perspective by focusing on these relationships in an online educational context, where their dynamics may differ.
Denna artikel syftar till att bidra med kunskap om på vilket sätt läromedel i teknik kan möta elevers behov av komplexitet i teknikundervisningen. Fokus ligger på elever som exempelvis har särskild begåvning och därför har ett uttalat behov av mer komplexa utmaningar. I studien ingår de tre tryckta läromedel för teknikämnets högstadium som fanns vid tillfället för studien med fyra kapitel vardera. Aktiviteter har undersökts med ramverket AKTA som analytiskt verktyg, och centrala begrepp i elevtexter har analyserats med en kodningsmanual i tre nivåer. Aktiviteter utgörs av alla de presenterade uppgifter och övningar som elever kan utföra för att lära ett innehåll och där vissa aktiviteter anses som komplexa. Resultaten visar att komplexa aktiviteter till största delen fokuserar på konceptuella kunskaper och på att analysera teknik och tekniska lösningar. Komplexitet förekommer i en tredjedel av alla undersökta aktiviteter, och det saknas en tydlig progression. I elevtexterna är en tredjedel av de undersökta centrala tekniska begreppen presenterade på en komplex nivå. Från resultaten diskuteras att aktiviteterna är begränsade i omfattning och en implikation är att elever erbjuds att lära sig att lära och att utveckla viss digital kompetens. Vidare dras slutsatsen att teknikläromedel kan behöva kompletteras genom olika didaktiska beslut för att kontinuerligt möta elevers behov av komplexitet. Denna studie bidrar både till teknikdidaktisk forskning och till forskning om elever med särskild begåvning genom att belysa på vilket sätt läromedel i teknikämnet möter behov av komplexitet. Studien bidrar dessutom till lärarprofessionen genom att synliggöra vikten av olika didaktiska val vid planering, genomförande, utvärdering, och utveckling av teknikundervisning. Technology education and giftedness: How do textbooks in lower secondary technology education meet students’ need for complexity? This article examines how technology education textbooks can address students’ need for complexity, with a focus on gifted students. The study investigates three printed lower secondary technology textbooks available at the time, each with four chapters. Activities within the textbooks were analyzed using the AKTA framework, while key concepts from text books were analyzed with a three-level coding scheme. Activities entail all tasks and exercises through which students learn subject content, some of which are considered complex activities. The results reveal that approximately one third of the activities contain elements of complexity, and there is no clear progression of complexity. Most activities aim to develop students’ conceptual knowledge and their ability to analyze technology. One third of the key concepts are presented at a complex level. Based on the results, it is argued that the activities are limited in scope. Even so, students are offered opportunities to learn how to learn and to develop certain aspects of digital competence through information-seeking processes. Furthermore, it is concluded that teachers play a pivotal role in designing technology education that incorporates activities with elements of complexity. Teaching based solely on textbooks does not appear to be sufficient to continuously meet the need for complexity among gifted students. This study contributes to technology education research and research on gifted students by examining how technology education textbooks address the need for complexity. It also contributes to the teaching profession by highlighting the importance of pedagogical choices in planning, implementation, evaluation, and development of technology education. Keywords: giftedness, technology education, complexity, educational textbooks, activities
Research on academic resilience has gained attention for its potential to promote equitable opportunities, especially for socioeconomically disadvantaged students who face significant barriers. Yet, research on factors supporting academic resilience in science specifically across different cultural contexts remains limited. This study investigates academic resilience in science among secondary school students in two socio-culturally distinct countries, Sweden and Vietnam. It examines how students’ motivation to learn science and perceptions of school science differ between academically resilient and non-resilient students in each country. The analysis utilises data from the 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) science cycle, involving 5,458 students from 202 Swedish schools and 5,826 students from 188 Vietnamese schools. The findings show a lower proportion of academically resilient students in Sweden (36.19%) compared to Vietnam (59.89%). Despite socio-cultural differences, both countries share common factors contributing to resilience in science, including enjoyment of science, science self-efficacy, teacher support, and a sense of belonging. However, several factors distinguishing resilient from non-resilient students vary between these countries, which are pertinent not only to students but also to teachers and their teaching approaches. This study underscores the importance of discipline-specific and contextually relevant approaches for fostering academic resilience in science education, particularly among disadvantaged youth. Adapting interventions to align with cultural and contextual needs can enhance equitable science learning outcomes.
Mathematics teachers ought to possess solid knowledge of different school mathematics topics. Though classification of quadrilaterals (‘House of Quadrilaterals’) is an important and integral part of geometry curricula worldwide, research reports on learners’ difficulties understanding this particular geometric topic. The goal of this paper was to examine what professional knowledge on concept formation, using the example of the ‘House of Quadrilaterals’, prospective primary school mathematics teachers exhibited after attending a two-semester geometry course. For this purpose, an exploratory mix-methods study with 95 prospective primary school mathematics teachers was conducted. Capturing different facets of their professional knowledge of the aforementioned topic was based on analyzing a single task with three sub-tasks on concept formation. Descriptive statistics revealed satisfactory achievement with the majority of the prospective primary school mathematics teachers achieving more than half of the points. The results of the qualitative content analysis revealed an in-depth insight into a wide range of competence levels in all facets of professional knowledge. In the context of adopting one student’s conception of a square and (general) quadrilateral, identifying possible causes of underlying student’s misconceptions, and describing theory-driven suggestions for their prevention, deficits in prospective primary school mathematics teachers’ content and pedagogical content knowledge were evident. Especially, establishing links between specific sub-tasks and the subject-specific facets of professional knowledge proved to be challenging. Consequently, implications for mathematics teacher education pertaining to (re)design of courses that would support the development of prospective teachers’ professional knowledge, are provided. Furthermore, alternative study designs are discussed, which would enable a more in-depth assessment of prospective primary school mathematics teachers’ professional knowledge.
This case study aimed at exploring how pre-service science teachers perceived a jointly developed course based on flipped pedagogy and how it supported their learning. For this purpose, quantitative data of how pre-service science teachers perceived the course was collected through a standardized instrument, while qualitative data was collected from lesson plans that they developed before and after the course. Target group consisted of 14 students who are enrolled in their pre-service teacher education diploma program. Quantitative data was analyzed using Mann-Whitney U-Test comparing the target group to previous two years (N = 29). The qualitative data was analyzed through deductive content analysis based on Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge framework. Quantitative results revealed that pre-service teachers assessed the newly designed course very positively and statistically significant differences were found. while qualitative results show a shift from the lecturing type teaching toward more student-centered learning activities in the lesson plans, such as collaborative and interactive group work. Also, results pointed out deeper student understanding of the STEM content knowledge with concrete examples of important scientific concepts and ideas and paying more attention to alternative conceptions. Moreover, final versions of the lesson plans included explicit and rich use of digital technology elements such as links to videos and use of specialized tools and applications for science education. The results strongly suggest that flipped pedagogy is a promising model and encourage its further use for science teacher training.
This systematic review assesses the development of local wisdom-based citizen science models designed to enhance scientific literacy and foster teacher professional identity in Indonesia’s 3T (frontier, outermost, and least developed) regions. While previous studies have explored ethnoscience and culturally based pedagogy, a conceptual gap persists in connecting these approaches with citizen science frameworks and theories of teacher identity. Guided by PRISMA procedures, fifty eligible studies published between 2018 and 2025 were reviewed using thematic analysis, bibliometric mapping, and meta-analytic synthesis. Findings suggest that integrating local knowledge into science learning enhances relevance, participation, and cultural alignment between communities and schools. Quantitatively, the meta-analysis of twenty-eight comparable studies produced a large effect size (g = 1.12), indicating significant improvements in scientific literacy when local wisdom and citizen science strategies are combined; 72% of studies demonstrated notable learning gains, and 64% reported increases in teacher motivation, self-efficacy, and cultural pedagogical competence. However, scalability, methodological rigor, and long-term sustainability remain significant challenges, particularly in contexts where teaching resources and institutional support are limited. This review proposes a conceptual model linking citizen science participation, culturally responsive pedagogy, and teacher professional identity development. Policy support, long-term evaluation, and scalable teacher training are recommended to institutionalize local wisdom-based citizen science as an equitable science education innovation for marginalized regions.
This study has two related aims; to investigate the perspectives of pre-service science teachers from Türkiye and Sweden on scientific literacy including what content is relevant and important and how these perspectives might be related to their future teaching practices. Utilizing the framework of Visions of Scientific Literacy and Curriculum Emphases by Roberts (1998, 2007), the research conducts a comparative analysis to give an overview of how pre-service teachers privilege specific contents that they attributed to science education in terms of “why to teach science” according to their perspectives. The findings reveal that participants from both countries referred to the curriculum emphases, Everyday Coping (EC) and Correct Explanation (CE), as the most important reasons to teach science, whereas Scientific Skills Development (SSD) and Science, Technology, and Decision (STD) were notably underemphasized in both contexts. However, the study also revealed differences in the perspectives of pre-service science teachers. For the pre-service teachers from Türkiye, teaching science was important to deal with daily life issues, whereas the ones from Sweden privileged more scientific facts and processes. Furthermore, participants from both countries problematized science teacher education but in different ways, including teaching evolution, having too few or too many subject courses in the teacher education. This cross-cultural comparison provides insights into how scientific literacy is promoted within diverse educational environments; the results help to reflect on what may be included and excluded in science teacher education and inform possible future improvements within science teacher education.
I denna fallstudie fokuserar vi på en lärares stöttning av smågruppsdiskussioner i kemi i årskurs 8. Syftet med diskussionerna var att skapa undervisningssituationer där eleverna skulle ”tala kemi” och därmed få utveckla sin förståelse genom att använda det naturvetenskapliga språket. Som stöd för elevernas diskussioner skapade läraren tankeblad som är ett gemensamt arbetsblad med frågor, bilder, modeller, tabeller eller begreppsbubblor. Teman för elevernas diskussioner var kemiska reaktioner, kolets kretslopp och fossila bränslen. I denna artikel fokuserar vi på lärarens stöttning, både den planerade stöttningen i form av tankeblad och stöttningsprocessen i klassrummet. Denna artikel bygger på data från videoinspelningar av några gruppers diskussioner samt på deras ifyllda tankeblad. Lärarens stöttning analyserades med hjälp av en modell som omfattar både diagnostiska strategier och interventionsstrategier. Studiens resultat visar hur tankebladets frågor gav struktur åt elevernas diskussioner och fungerade som ett verktyg för läraren att följa med elevernas arbete. Resultaten visar också hur tankebladen fungerade för att diagnostisera elevernas förförståelse bland annat med hjälp av en begreppsbubbla och med bilder där både den makroskopiska och submikroskopiska nivån synliggjorts. Läraren använde flexibelt olika interventionsstrategier för att stötta elevernas diskussioner. Elevernas frågor till läraren visar att kombinationen mellan planerat material och lärarens muntliga stöttning är viktig. En utmaning med tankeblad är att hitta frågeställningar som skapar diskussion och att ställa frågor på en lämplig nivå. A teacher’s scaffolding of group discussions in 8th grade chemistry education Abstract: In this case study we focus on a teacher’s scaffolding of small group discussions in 8th grade in chemistry education. The purpose of these discussions was to create opportunities for students to ‘talk chemistry’ and thereby develop their understanding through the use of scientific language. As scaffolds to support the students’ discussions, the teacher designed thinking sheets, which are shared worksheets containing questions, images, models, tables or concept cartoons. The themes for discussions were chemical reactions, the carbon cycle and fossil fuels. In this article we focus on the teacher’s scaffolding, both the planned scaffolding through thinking sheets and the real-time scaffolding during classroom interaction. The data consists of video recordings of selected group discussions together with the completed thinking sheets. The teacher’s scaffolding was analyzed using a model that includes both diagnostic strategies and intervention strategies. The findings show that the questions on the thinking sheet structured students’ discussions and provided the teacher with a tool for monitoring their work. The findings also show how the thinking sheet functioned to diagnose the students’ preconceptions, for instance through the use of a concept cartoon and images making both the macroscopic and submicroscopic levels visible. To scaffold the discussions, the teacher drew flexibly on a variety of intervention strategies in order to promote the students’ discussions. The students’ questions to the teacher illustrate the significance of combining planned materials with the teacher’s verbal scaffolding. A continuing challenge with thinking sheets lies in formulating prompts that genuinely stimulate discussion and are pitched at a suitable level.
This study highlights the challenges faced by pre-service teachers in navigating mathematics problem-solving instruction at the university level. The activity of problem-solving is central to mathematical sense-making, crucial from the elementary grades onward. However, problem-solving often occupies a marginalised position in elementary school classrooms. This issue can be partly attributed to the fact that many pre-service elementary teachers possess (1) limited mathematical knowledge regarding problem-solving strategies and (2) counterproductive beliefs about how to effectively teach these skills. Building on an intervention with a group of pre-service elementary teachers addressing these two critical barriers to teaching problem-solving, this study explores the challenges that these teachers identified as they prepared and delivered lessons focused on problem-solving. Drawing on the Theory of Didactical Situations (TDS), key concepts were employed to analyze the data with a focus on the target knowledge. The findings add to the growing body of research highlighting challenges that teacher education programs can address to better prepare pre-service teachers for teaching problem-solving in mathematics.
