In Sweden we have the highest rate of nontraditional students among Europe. Coincidently, we also have the highest rates of drop outs among OECD. In this particular field, drop out from higher education, there is a need fore more qualitative studies that can support the "statistics". Studies about experiences of drop outs are significant for society, university and individual. The aim of this study is to describe and understand how nontraditional student experiences drop out from higher education.

AbstractAnn-Kristin Mortensen & Susanne WilliamssonPedagogers medvetenhet om barns lärandemiljö.En intervjustudie om barns lärande i förskolanTeachers? awareness of children?s learning environment.An interview study about teachers? awareness of children?s learning environment.Antal sidor: 32Vi undersökte i en kvalitativ intervjuundersökning vad pedagoger på två förskolor anser lärande är hos barn, samt hur de menar att de bemöter och utmanar barns lärande utifrån Vygotskijs proximala utvecklingszon. Undersökningen och litteraturens teorier gav kunskap i hur pedagogerna utmanar och bemöter barns lärande i förskolan. Detta gav underlag för analys och diskussion. Samtliga informanter var överens om att kommunikation borde vara en röd tråd i förskolans verksamhet och har en stor betydelse för barns lärande. Pedagogerna ville se och höra varje barn och utgå från deras tankar och funderingar enligt Vygotskijs proximala utvecklingszon. Informanterna ville ge barnen goda förutsättningar för en bra lärandemiljö.

In the spring of 2006 a pilot project was initiated by The Rural Economy and Agricultural Societies of Sweden together with The Swedish Ornithological Society in order to increase collaboration between bird watchers and farmers. The project as a whole comprised 11 farms in South-Central Sweden. The aim was to benefit the decreasing populations of bird species related to the agricultural landscape. The purpose of this master thesis was to study how similarities and differences between bird watchers and farmers regarding opinions about nature, landscape, agriculture, birds and nature conservation have influenced the collaboration. Four of the farmers and five of the bird watchers that participated in the project were included in this study.

Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att beskriva och analysera hur två olika organisationer arbetar med strategisk HRM vid högkonjunktur respektive lågkonjunktur.Metod: För att besvara studiens syfte har vi valt att tillämpa en kvalitativ undersökningsmetod. I studien har både primärdata det vill säga intervjuer samt sekundärdata i form av årsredovisningar, årsöversikt, hållbarhetsredovisning och hemsidor använts.Slutsatser: Den första slutsatsen i denna studie är att Coca-Cola Drycker Sverige AB och TV4 AB ser på HRM som mycket betydelsefullt och att medarbetarna är en central tillgång som kan utgöra en konkurrensfördel. Den andra slutsatsen är att Coca-Cola Drycker Sverige AB inte använder olika HR-strategier vid olika konjunkturer. Emellertid upplever vi att de gör små förändringar i sitt HR-arbete i olika konjunkturer men att de ständigt följer de övergripande HR-strategierna. TV4 AB arbetar på olika sätt med HRM vid olika konjunkturer.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to study how university teachers look upon information literacy, what they consider the professional role of the academic librarian and how they value cooperation between the two professions. The methodology is based on qualitative interviews and is inspired by phenomenography. A limited number of qualitative interviews has been carried out in order to describe the attitudes and opinions of the university teachers related to my issue. I have also used the results of two theoreticians, Monica Hansen and Berth Danermark, who have studied cooperation between different professional groups.

Title: ?The letters jump?- to struggle with decoding and still understand what you are reading.Author: Maria EkUniversity of UmeåDepartment of EducationSupervisor: Asbjörg WestumExaminer: Fredrik KarlssonKeywords: Poor readers, Structured text talks, Reading strategies, Reading comprehension, Commitment and Motivation.During the past decades, Swedish studies show that reading comprehension and skills in reading strategies have decreased. In secondary school for individuals with learning disabilities there has been a focus on care-taking rather than on comprehension in general, and on reading comprehension in particular.The purpose of this study was to investigate whether Reciprocal Teaching would increase reading comprehension and motivation among upper secondary school for individuals with learning disabilities. The study presents how three 17-year-old pupils and their teacher, discussed expository fact texts during twelve lessons using the reciprocal method combined with power point-presentations to get the students to read more actively with interferences and reflections. The ambition was to make the structured text talks as interesting as possible with texts easy to read, technical aids, structure to make the students feel security when reading and to get committed pupils with an increased interest in reading.The results show an increase in motivation in reading, and the students were more prone to take an active part in discussions..

My objective for this project was to create a short but thrilling 2D-animation intended as promotion for an online comic book. The purpose of the project was to learn more about animation and graphics, to further my artistic skills and to learn how to work in Adobe After Effects. I also wanted to learn more about scheduling, project methods and how to handle stress. During the ten weeks of the project I have created the story, the storyboard, the character design, the backgrounds and the animation. The voice over was recorded with the help of a fellow student who also made the music and the sound effects.

The aim of this project was to develop educational resources concerning bioenergy and sustainability. The initial purpose was to produce two sets of material: one suitable for children in their first years of Swedish compulsory school, and one designed for upper secondary students. In the report, however, the possibilities are discussed for this material to be used with even wider audiences.In the first phase of the process, literature (books, reports etc.) with relevance to bioenergy, sustainability and theories of learning were studied. This insight, along with the appropriate course curriculums, was used in the development stage to produce learning material for the targeted audiences. The development was followed by tests and evaluations carried out with high school students, upon which an analytical discussion is held regarding the consequences and possibilities that the results of this project pose.The content of the learning material is based on the curriculum and course requirements provided by Skolverket (The Swedish National Agency for Education) for lower elementary and high school students.

The aim of this study is to increase knowledge and understanding of free play or free fun time importance for children of age around five years in preschool, in order to promote children?s development and learning. The focus was on exploring and better understanding of teacher?s and educators? approach to the free fun play time as a tool in their educational work, and also about their own role in this context as well as analyzing of forms, rules and structures spontaneously created by groups of children having free play fun time. Another important moment of this study was to give more light on approaches to this issue in education theories by Piaget, Vygotsky and Freud among others.As to the practical experimental part of the study it has been performed at a preschool and kindergarten in a suburb at the outskirts of Stockholm, with four employed educators there and with groups of children of age around five.

The purpose of my study is to investigate teacher?s perceptions of their mission in the preschool class, and how they work to promote children?s written language development. What methods and working methods they use to awaken curiosity and motivate children to read and write. I am using the qualitative research method to get answers to my questions. I have made four qualitative interviews with four teachers in preschool classes from different schools.My questions are:What conceptions does teachers have about their mission in a preschool class?What different methods and approaches does teachers use to stimulate and wake children?s curiosity for reading and writing development?The theoretical basis for my study is the socio-cultural perspective, where learning occurs in interaction.

The project of this thesis is to illuminate the teacher perspective on study visits by examining how six religion teachers relate to the study visit method in high school religious education. The research object of the thesis is to investigate whether teachers believe there are viable didactic possibilities and challenges associated with the study visit concept in education, and to define them if present. The results show that the main didactic advantage, as perceived by the teachers participating in this study, lies in the meeting the study visit enables. A meeting may lead to increased insight and understanding of other people?s way of thinking, conceiving and believing.

In a sequence described in the next paragraphs, I remove the poorly insulated roof of Gustavsberg Porcelain Factory and make new use of its  foundation. The monolith cement slab, once supporting heavy industrial machinery, is now the site of lakes and other movements:The top floor area is split, and a new built volume, one story higher, overtakes the southern half resting on the factory?s basement, digging into it at its western and eastern ends. Striking horizontally, the fissure exposes a long central axis, taking advantage of the factory?s horizontality to articulate vastness .

AbstractSwedish tuition for immigrants (SFI) is a public adult education program in Sweden that was created in order to provide the immigrants with basic skills in Swedish. People with different backgrounds speaking different languages learn together how they should communicate in Swedish, both orally and in writing. For those who teach SFI it is important to know which factors have positive effects on the Swedish language acquisition. One of the questions to be asked is if the learning materials´ genre has any effect on the SFI students´ proficiency, in particular, oral proficiency. Scientists as von Franz, Vygotskiy and Bettelheim argued that fairy tales, as a genre consciously or subconsciously recognizable by all the people, present texts that are easy to acqiure.

The aim of my examination work was to compare and research how russian respective swedish teachers make use of educational aesthetic methods such as drawing, drama, music and dance in the teaching of core school subjects ? mathematics and swedish respective russian languages. The aim of this work was to find out which of these methods are used by pedagogues in the process of education and on what level are they integrated into the theoretical pedagogic work. The point was to also analyse the regulation documents used as pedagogical base in schools i've been doing my survey in. This was done to partly find out what arts perspective is given in the curriculum and partly to see what pieces of it are reflected in the process of education.

As a result of my fascination for nature I have chosen to study the possibilities to introduce natural environments on schoolyards. Too many schoolyards are lacking vegetation and many of them look like sterile asphalt deserts. The master thesis consists of two parts. The first part is based on literature studies and the second part in which findings from part one are put into practice. Five examples are presented; four schoolyards in Malmö; Kryddgårdsskolan, Kirsebergsskolan, Rörsjöskolan and Lindängeskolan and one in Kalmar; Åbyskolan. Malmö Naturskola has been working with the chosen areas on the schoolyards in Malmö.