I den här texten beskrivs hur en förskollärare tar vara på en situation där hon upptäckt att hon tidigare har ”gjort fel” och sedan mycket medvetet koordinerar flera olika resurser (gester, tal, mimik, intonation osv) för att undervisa om ett naturvetenskapligt fenomen – tromber. Poängen med texten är således att visa hur ett fel kan vändas till något som är helt rätt genom en skicklig förskollärare. Förskolläraren rör sig mellan fantasi och verklighet och använder kontrastering mellan begrepp för att synliggöra fenomenet. Analysen visar att ett identifierat ”fel” kan användas som en pedagogisk resurs.

Teachers making errors in explanation that require subsequent self-correction is presumablycommon in education. However, it may be difficult to capture in research. In this study, teacherself-correction in the context of early childhood science education within a fictive frame wascaptured on video when documenting science activities over a prolonged time. How the teachersaddress the error they discover in their teaching and work in correcting it in subsequent activitiesare analyzed. The error identified and addressed concerns the distinction between a tornado and adust devil (dust vortex). The empirical data consist of video recordings of teachers-childreninteraction in Swedish preschool. The participating children are 4 to 5 years old. The findingsclarify how the teachers in addressing and correcting the conceptual error uses different semioticmeans, with a particular emphasis on the coordination of gesturing and verbal explication whencontrasting and explaining the different phenomena. The analysis also clarifies how the fictivecharacter employed leads to a shift in epistemic status of the teachers to becoming co-learnerswith the children. How addressing and amending errors in explanation may function in deepening meaning making rather than working detrimental to it is discussed.

Teacher education programs have the dual task of teaching specific subject content while also providing examples of how this content can be taught in schools. This task is especially important, and also problematic, when it comes to technology and science education, where hands-on components such as design/construction exercises, laboratory exercises, and excursions are central epistemic practices. When COVID-19 hit, Swedish universities were forced to change from campus-based teaching to online distance education, termed “emergency remote teaching (ERT).” The present study aims to investigate university teachers’ experiences of how hands-on components in science and technology education worked in the ERT mode that arose during the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis was performed with a social semiotics and community of inquiry framework, and shows that both the type of instruction and the subject content were impacted. In particular, the reduced opportunities for students to apply scientific and technical methods and the reduced ability of teachers to determine whether the students had understood their instruction generated new ways of communicating and supporting the students’ learning. Therefore, analysis of meaning making in science and technology online-learning contexts needs to address the topics of the nature of science (NOS) and the nature of technology (NOT). An extended, three-dimensional model of meaning making is suggested.

Whereas previous studies show that children are able to make meaningabout evolutionary concepts within read-aloud contexts, little is knownabout how semiotic resources and interaction influence children’s meaningmaking about evolution. This study investigates children’s meaning makingabout evolutionary concepts during a modelling activity conducted after aninteractive storybook read-aloud describing the evolution of a foraging traitof a fictitious mammal (the pilose). Forty children (13 groups) were videotapedas they produced a clay pilose model, while explaining how theythought their pilose would appear after inhabiting a ‘future’ environment(mountainous, snowy or forest). A multimodal analysis focused on howchildren demonstrated their meanings of seven evolutionary conceptsdescribed in the book. An eighth concept, ‘adaptation to environment’,was also often discussed. While all eight concepts emerged, the mostfrequent concerned survival and adaptation. The eighth concept appearedto serve as a synthesis of children’s interpretation of the storybook thathighlighted the visible consequences of evolution. The children engagedfive interactional resources, dominated by the interactional resource ofcommunicating the concepts in direct relation to their produced pilosemodels. The findings shed light on how children’s representational andrelational practices impact making meaning about evolution.

Lärarutbildningar har ett dubbelt uppdrag. Dels ska studenterna få kunskaper i att undervisa ett specifikt ämnesinnehåll, dels ska studenterna få exempel på hur ämnesinnehållet kan undervisas om i skolan. Detta uppdrag är särskilt viktigt och på samma gång problematiskt i teknik och naturvetenskapliga ämnen, där praktiska konstruktionsövningar, laborationer och exkursioner ingår som centrala kunskapspraktiker. Då covid-19 slog till tvingades svenska lärosäten att på kort tid ställa om från campusbaserad undervisning till distansundervisning, s.k. emergency remote teaching (ERT). I den här studien undersöks hur tre universitetslärare upplever att praktiska moment som laborationer, exkursioner och konstruktionsövningar inom naturvetenskaps- och teknikundervisning på grundlärarutbildningen fungerat som ERT. Av analysen framgår att både undervisningens form och ämnesinnehåll påverkades. Studenternas möjlighet att själva tillämpa praktiska naturvetenskapliga och tekniska arbetssätt minskade. Vidare minskade lärarnas möjlighet att veta om studenterna förstått undervisningen, vilket genererade nya sätt att kommunicera och stötta studenternas lärande.

Previous studies have shown that children as young as 5 years of age are able to form abasic understanding of evolution after listening to a storybook about natural selection.This study offers a semiotic exploration of children’s meaning making during an interactiveread aloud of the same storybook by investigating what children focus on andnegotiate during the read aloud. Video data from eight interactive read aloud sessions(N = 24 children) were analysed using a multimodal approach and contrasted with sevenbiological concepts intentionally described in the storybook. During the interactivereading, the children focused on all biological concepts at some point. However, apartfrom the biological concepts, the children also paid attention to other topics during theread aloud. These topics comprised Death, Change in behaviour, Realism, Babies, Millibugs, and Aesthetics. Throughout the read aloud, a child-centric view of life influencedhow the children made meaning about evolution. The findings highlight that throughinteractive reading, instructional storybooks also become a tool for discussing otheraspects that children find important. Overall, the findings contribute with knowledgeabout the role of interactive read aloud as a pedagogical tool for introducing evolution inearly childhood education.

With the aim of exploring how science is done in collaborative interactions when children discuss reasons for animal diversity, this paper provides insight into the relationships between acts of doing science and collaborative interactions. Video data from four small-group discussions (N = 14) were analysed using Lemke’s (1990) talking science framework and Granott’s (1993) collaborative interaction framework. During their interactions, the children make use of their prior experiences and the materials provided as they engage in acts of doing science. The findings reveal that 6-year-old children are able to engage in science dialogue as they use observations and comparisons as data to generate, describe and discuss ideas. Moreover, while engaged in highly collaborative interactions, the children use observations to evaluate, challenge and question each other. Overall, the study sheds light on how acts of doing science can be perceived in young students’ discussions about science phenomena. The study indicates that the character of the collaborative interactions is an important factor for how acts of doing science are carried out.

I den här texten sammanfattar jag resultaten av min avhandling "Encountering evolution: Children’s meaning-making processes in collaborative interactions". Resultaten baseras på videoanalyser av tre olika gruppbaserade aktiviteter med evolution i fokus. Alla barn som deltog i studien gick vid tiden i förskoleklass. Då förskoleklassens verksamhet har drag både av förskolans lekbaserade praktik och grundskolans mer undervisningsinriktade praktik, är min förhoppning att resultaten kan vara till nytta för lärare och pedagoger i såväl förskolan som grundskolan. Sammanfattningsvis visar resultaten att både tillgång till material och uppgifters utformning och kontext har stor påverkan på vad som sker när barn deltar i aktiviteter med naturvetenskapligt innehåll.

Den här avhandlingen utforskar förskolebarns meningsskapandeprocesser kring evolution. Tre gruppbaserade aktiviteter har designats. Videodata har analyserats utifrån ett multimodalt perspektiv på kommunikation. Analysen fokuserar på hur kommunicerade naturvetenskapliga beskrivningar av evolution påverkar aktiviteternas naturvetenskapliga fokus, materials funktion som semiotiska resurser och påverkan på meningsskapande och interaktiva aspekter av att göra naturvetenskap.

Avhandlingens resultat visar att barnen, genom att använda material och sina tidigare erfarenheter, för olika resonemang kring varför djur utvecklas och blir olika. Genomgående har barnens syn på världen en betydande roll för meningsskapandeprocessen. Det betyder att barnen, förutom att fokusera på det naturvetenskapliga innehållet i aktiviteterna, också lägger stor vikt vid andra aspekter som är viktiga för dem. Det barncentrerade perspektivet förslås vara en styrka som möjliggör för barn att delta i och engageras av naturvetenskapliga aktiviteter.

De material som barnen har tillgång till de i de olika aktiviteterna har tre funktioner. Barnen använder material som meningsgivande resurser, vilket betyder att barnen använder materialens meningspotential. Denna process påverkas av barnens tidigare erfarenheter. Vidare används materialen som kommunikativa- och argumentativa redskap i interaktion med andra. Tillgången till material påverkar således barnens meningsskapande och möjliggör att de kan diskutera evolution påverkar barnens naturvetenskapliga handlande.

Avhandlingens resultat visar på en nära relation mellan uppgifters kontext och interaktion. Mer styrda aktiviteter medför mer interaktion mellan barn och vuxna (scaffolding). Mindre styrda aktiviteter, där barnen bygger på sina tidigare erfarenheter, stimulerar istället interaktion mellan barnen (mutual collaboration). Som ett resultat av den vuxnes agerande, läggs det större vikt vid det naturvetenskapliga innehållet (evolution) i scaffolding-interaktioner. Följaktligen är de meningar som skapas i mer styrda aktiviteter mer i linje med naturvetenskapliga förklaringar till evolution. Samtidigt finns det ett samband mellan att den vuxne kliver åt sidan och att barnen kliver fram och gör naturvetenskapliga handlingar som att utvärdera, observera, beskriva och jämföra.

Sammanfattningsvis visar den här avhandlingen att uppgifters kontext och material har stor påverkan på barns meningsskapande och hur de gör naturvetenskap.

With the aim of exploring how children discuss underlying reasons forevolution and how materials function in children’s meaning making processes,this article provides insight into how evolution theory can beintroduced in preschool and in the early years of primary school. Videodata from eight group discussions (N = 27) were analyzed using a multimodalperspective. Despite not having had any formal instruction aboutevolution theory, the 6-year-old children in this study made use of theirprevious experiences and the materials to make meaning and argue fordifferent reasons for animal diversity. The results show that the children’sdiscussions concerned four conceptual themes: animals are differentbecause of kinship and heredity, environmental effects, the need for adaptation,and the need for geographic separation. The children used theprovided materials, comprising photographs, figurines, and a topographicworld map, as resources for providing meaning, as argumentative tools, andas tools for communication. By making observations in a logical and scientificway, the children spontaneously discussed similarities and differencesin traits, which implies that variation might be a fruitful way to introduceevolution theory to preschool children.

Children in preschool encounter sensations in their daily activities that could be interpreted as scientific phenomena. As part of these encounters, social interaction and meaning making are important elements in making science available to the children. Children in preschool rely on multimodal communication since they have not yet developed a verbal language. Therefore, this study aims at taking a multimodal perspective to investigate meaning making in science in a preschool setting. Data was collected using observations and audio recordings from one Swedish preschool with 18 children between 1-5 years old and three preschool teachers. Data was analyzed using semantic relationships. However, these relationships were investigated not only within verbal utterances, but in gestures and embodied activities as well. The results show that the preschool teacher verbalizes children’s embodied actions and gestures. In doing so, the teacher not only offers words for children’s activities, but also makes the activities, and participants’ meaning making, explicit to all children in the group. Hence, the teacher is translating modalities. Furthermore, this study shows the importance of attending a multimodal perspective in preschool settings. If attention is only given to children’s verbal output, there is a risk of underestimating their competence in emergent science meaning making. Instead, a multimodal perspective reveals children’s competent meaning making in interaction.

This study aims to investigate how peer collaboration affects individual pupils’ conceptions of speciation. Earlier research on evolution has primarily focused on children’s conceptions using individual and/or written examination. In this study, individual interviews and group discussions have been performed with eight 9-years old pupils who lack formal education on evolution. The results show that the pupils develop their conceptions on speciation in group discussions compared to individual interviews. This result suggests that also younger pupils improve their conceptual understanding in peer collaboration.