The aim of this study was to investigate preschool children's perceptions of trees in and it was done through qualitative interviews. The children were drawing trees and told me what the tree needs to grow and what happens to the leaves in autumn. In a playful way, they learned more about trees and the purpose was also to examine whether they had acquired new experiences and thoughts on the trees, photosynthesis and decomposition. Then the children were interviewed again to see if their answers were different. The results showed that the children gave different answers at the second interview.

The purpose of this study is to compare different ways to teach mathematics in the school's lower age groups, and to examine whether certain practices increase students' desire and motivation to learn the subject. The questions used to determine the purpose is the following: What vision has the students in the class at maths? How does the teaching of mathematics in the class look like?What vision has the students in the class at working with different approaches in education?Does the traditional approach  and the options that I am examining meet the steering documents requirements?  The essay is organized as a qualitative study. The study was conducted in an elementary school in Sweden, third grade. The methods used included interviews with students and observations in the classroom.

The purpose of this study is to examine how two different primary schools with the same school management district work with daily physical activity. We have chosen to conduct our investigation based on interviews. Through the interviews, we can highlight the teacher´s and principal´s interpretations of the concept regarding physical activity and find out the school´s arguments and working methods for pupil´s physical activity. These two schools work with physical activity in two different ways and the study describes the teacher´s and principal's choice of approach. Since our training is directed towards the younger ages, school years 1-3, we chose to interview teachers who work in these classes.

Background: Students, at a secondary upper school, attending a practical programme have a lower physical capacity than students from theoretical programs. Our physical self-esteem has a great significance for our motivation in being physically active and thereby also for our health. The purpose: of this study is to find out if there is a difference between perceived physical self-esteem and objectively measured physical activity between students attending a practical programme and a theoretical programme. Method: Four classes, in a medium-sized town in the southeast of Sweden, participated in the study, two classes from practical programmes and two classes from theoretical programmes. All the students were in their final year at the upper secondary school, when they were part of the study during the autumn of 2011.

This study examines how upper secondary school teachers in Västerbotten and Österbotten plan to teach about the Finnish War 1808-09. The study includes written interviews with nine teachers in Västerbotten and eight teachers in Österbotten, who have answered questions concerning school policy documents, content and didactic methods. The purpose has been to examine whether there is a difference in historical culture in how the war is treated in the two regions. Historical culture is here meant within the prospective history lesson, where the pupils encounter history within certain boundaries.The result of the interview study shows that there are differences in structure concerning the school policy documents, but that these differences on the whole are compensated by the widespread interest in the Finnish War by the teachers in both regions. The differences in historical culture can be found within the construction of the content when it comes to the aftermaths of the war as well as the purpose of the teaching.

AbstractThis study is based on my work as a secondary school teacher of literature and the Swedish language and rooted in my interest in developing knowledge about the importance of teaching literature in order to both cultivate young people?s reading habits and their view of themselves as readers. The more concrete purpose of this study is to examine a reading project that focuses on theories of literary perception and teaching literature.I examine four pupils who, in 2003, participated in the reading project as readers and compare this description with their view of themselves as readers seven years later. I complete the study by examining how they discuss reading and the teaching of literature. The method is qualitative and the empirics include materiel collected in two different time periods: first in 2003, in a class I taught in a secondary school; and second in 2010, when I examined four of the former pupils who participated in the project from 2003.

Syftet med studien var att se hur man genom reflektion över den egna undervisningen kan öka elevernas möjligheter till lärande. Metoden för arbetet har varit Lesson Study, en forskningsmetod som syftar till att utveckla undervisningen direkt i klassrummet. Studiens tillvägagångssätt innebar att en lektion planerades och genomfördes med likhetstecknet som lärandeobjekt. Efter lektionen problematiserades den och en ny, omarbetad lektion tog form. Även denna lektion analyserades och sattes i relation till den första lektionen utifrån teorier om lärande.

This survey is a qualitative study about how teachers see on the concept student leverage and what they say about how they in practice work with it. We have chosen to examine the subject from a teacher?s perspective, because almost all investigations and literature, that we have found, discuss student influence from a student?s perspective. That?s why we are interested to examine what teachers think of the subject.

Title: This is not Africa - West African teaching methods in Sweden. This is a work of "translation". The study started with a musical journey to Guinea, West Africa. It was a field study where I had the opportunity to open my senses towards another culture and another kind of music. I found another learning tradition and decided to try to bring it with me back to Sweden, into the Swedish school system.

Syftet med denna studie var att med hjälp av kvalitativa intervjuer undersöka lärares medvetenhet angående betydelsen av användandet av barnens erfarenheter i skrivundervisningen, för att erbjuda eleverna en god möjlighet till att utveckla sin skrivförmåga. För att uppnå syftet formulerades två frågeställningar, hur lärare beskriver barnens erfarenheter utifrån skrivundervisningen och hur de beskriver att de utformar sin skrivundervising med tanke på elevernas erfarenheter.I studien har framkommit att lärarnas intention är att utgå från barnens erfarenheter. De lärare som intervjuats ser barnens erfarenheter som viktiga och som en förutsättning i skrivundervisningen, men de ser också att olika erfarenheter förbereder eleverna på olika sätt inför den undervisning som ges. Detta gör att de värderar och väljer ut vilka erfarenheter de vill använda i skrivundervisningen. Samtidigt ser lärarna sig själva som viktiga förmedlare av erfarenheter som barnen kan bygga sin skrivutveckling på.Uppsatsen har som teoribakgrund Vygotskijs sociokulturella perspektiv men även Deweys erfarenhetsteori och Bourdieus teori om fält, habitus och kapital.

Background: Students, at a secondary upper school, attending a practical programme have a lower physical capacity than students from theoretical programs. Our physical self-esteem has a great significance for our motivation in being physically active and thereby also for our health. The purpose: of this study is to find out if there is a difference between perceived physical self-esteem and objectively measured physical activity between students attending a practical programme and a theoretical programme. Method: Four classes, in a medium-sized town in the southeast of Sweden, participated in the study, two classes from practical programmes and two classes from theoretical programmes. All the students were in their final year at the upper secondary school, when they were part of the study during the autumn of 2011.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how twelve middle school teachers use educational tools and what influences their choice of educational tools in Swedish language writing instruction. To answer this purpose, three research questions were formulated: What does writing instruction look like for middle school students according to the teachers in the study? What influences teachers' choice and use of educational tools in writing instruction? What opportunities and challenges do teachers experience in Swedish language writing instruction when using different educational tools? Twelve teachers from variously sized municipalities and with different experiences participated in the study through purposive sampling and convenience sampling. The chosen method is qualitative semi-structured teacher interviews. To analyse the results, this study employs analytical tools from the sociocultural perspective, using concepts such as mediation, appropriation, the zone of proximal development, and scaffolding. The results show that both analogue and digital tools are used in the teachers' writing instruction. The choice of tools should be based on pedagogical considerations, with an emphasis on social interaction and collaboration during the learning process.

The purpose of this essay has been to identify a couple of different factors that matter when a teacher chooses method and raw material for teaching his students. The person interviewed is a man, whose lesson I also observed. The result shows that there are several factors of great importance for his choice. My conclusion of this is that this teacher?s choice depends on the school as institution with all the people that operate there, the composition of the students and the school?s curriculum, but this teacher?s pedagogical basic view also has a great importance for his teaching..

The purpose with this essay is to compare two classes in an international school during their mathematic lesson. The international school offers education to their pupils in two languages; in Swedish and in English. Through this study I want to find out how teachers are working with language and communication during school hours. I will compare the work of two teachers and two classes to find out the differences and similarities between their work methods concerning language and communication during mathematic lessons.The main questions for the essay:How do the teachers work with language and communication in this school during the mathematic lessons?What similarities and differences are there between the two teachers in matter of methods of working with language and communication during the mathematic lessons?The research is based on interviews with the teachers and also on observations in the classroom during mathematic lessons.

Det senaste decenniet har matematikundervisningen i Japan fått mycket uppmärksamhetför dess annorlunda och unika sätt jämfört med västerländska motsvarigheter. Dennaundersökning jämför matematisk problemlösning mellan Sverige och Japan. Treundersökningsmetoder användes: analys av läromedel, lektionsobservation ochelevlösningsanalys. Under de svenska lektionerna arbetar eleverna ofta enskilt medmånga uppgifter, då de samtidigt lär sig matematiska begrepp och lösningsprocedurer.På det sättet skaffar sig högpresterande elever en självsökande problemlösningsförmåga.Eleverna föredrar att använda konkreta metoder vid problemlösning. De japanskalektionerna däremot fokuserar mest på genomgångar av nytt stoff med ett fåtal problem.Klassdiskussioner om olika lösningsmetoder ger eleverna en djupare bild av problemen.Elever arbetar med algebra i större utsträckning och är vana vid att uttrycka sig påmatematiskt korrekt språk.