During my time as a student of education I have learnt that it is my responsibility, as a teacher, to adjust the ways in which I teach to the needs, abilities, experiences, and thoughts of each individual child. What I have not yet gained much knowledge on is how to go about finding the children?s thoughts.In this thesis I investigate the interview as a method of finding out how sixth graders think about their mathematics education. Four children were interviewed. In addition to these inter-views, as a means of giving a broader perspective to and a greater understanding of the chil-dren?s answers, one math lesson was filmed and the math teacher was interview on two sepa-rate occasions.What I found was that a number of factors seemed to influence the children?s thoughts and answers, and that their answers were most likely not always a mirror of their thoughts.

The Swedish School Board reported in 2007 that students with a foreign background to a larger extent than Swedish students leave school without grades in one or more subjects in the ninth grade. The report also reveals that during the year 2007/2008 17 percent of elementary school pupils had the right to home language instruction. Students with an other mother tongue than Swedish are considered a separate group that doesn?t perform as well in school.My study investigates how eleven Arabic-speaking ninth-graders at age 15-16 perceive the importance of their mother tongue for learning and identity development. To this purpose I have conducted semi-structured interviews ? one comprising six students in group and five individual ? in a school in one of the suburbs of Stockholms.

During my practice as a teacher trainee at an upper secondary school it became clear to me that many pupils have difficulties with algebra. Also in a report from the National Agency for Education (1999) you can see that the students algebra knowledge get worse and worse. I was surprised to find that many pupils seemed to get stuck on the level of attainment for the senior level of the nine-year compulsory school. As I have not studied anything about difficulties in algebra during my training to become a qualified teacher I would like to get to know more about this. I also examine why you have to study algebra in upper secondary school.

Practice of mathematical proof increase the understanding of mathematics anddevelop creativity skills, problem solving, communication, logical thinking andreasoning which are all important tools not only within the subject of mathematicsbut also important tools for the society in which we are living. The aim of this projectwas to investigate whether it is accurate that proof and proving has a subordinate rolein mathematic education in the upper secondary school in Sweden. This was done byconstructing of a digital survey that was sent to approximately 100 practicingmathematics teachers in a normal size city located in the middle of Sweden. Theresults of the survey show that the teachers consider themselves comfortable withtheir own skills in teaching proof. Paradoxically, the results also show that there is alack of teaching of proof and proving in the upper secondary school, although the newcurriculum puts more focus on proof and proving..

In each classroom there is a teacher with good intentions wanting what´s best for their pupils. But grades and tests in mathematics from 2009 in Sweden shows there is a crack between the subject being taught and the learning child. The purpose with this research is to find an understanding from a teaching and learning perspective of which teaching method is more suitable for teaching and learning mathematics by doing a comparison between two methods. The main question is:What are the advantages and disadvantages of the traditional and the laboratory method of teaching, supported by the two keywords teaching method and learning?This C-paper is based on a qualitative research aiming to gather an in-depth understanding of human behavior.

The purpose of this study was to find out what the educators view on the working method Matte på burk in preschool looked like. I also wanted to find out what the educators thought about the working method. My questions are:How does the educators in preschool experience the method Matte på burk?What do the educators in preschool believe that Matte på burk can give the children?The study was carried out through a qualitative interview study with six educators. During the interviews with the educators it became apparent that the method not only focused on mathematical exercises.

This study is part of an international project, The Third Wave Project. The project aims to conductstudies with students of different cultures to see what they value as important in mathematics andmathematics learning. Part of the project involves carrying out a survey, the WIFI study. The WiFistudyaims to examine values of mathematics teaching that may affect student learning. The valuesthat are examined in this study are based on the mathematical values which are described by Bishop(1991).

This study investigates how Arabic-speaking students in Sweden use syntax and prepositions in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), and how their writing is influenced by Swedish grammar and Arabic dialects. The focus is on identifying systematic patterns of cross-linguistic influence and variation between different groups of learners. The data consists of written translations by 30 students in grades 7?9 who receive mother tongue instruction in Arabic. All students translated the same Swedish source text into MSA, and the translations were analysed with attention to syntactic structures and the use of prepositions. The theoretical framework draws on transfer theory, interlanguage theory, and the interdependence hypothesis, complemented by perspectives on multilingualism and diglossia. These frameworks make it possible to capture both external influences from Swedish and Arabic dialects, as well as internal processes of second language development.

Lärare använder IKT i olika utsträckning i verksamheten och de har olika kompetens när det gäller hur verktygen ska användas (Skolverket 2009). Kompetens och kunskapssyn är två begrepp som är nära förbundna. Lärarens kunskapssyn påverkar hur verktygen används i verksamheten och kompetensen påverkar om läraren kan använda verktygen på rätt sätt för att skapa möjligheter till lärande. I uppsatsen studeras lärarens kunskapssyn och hur den påverkar undervisningen med IKT.  Frågeställningar:   Hur kommer kunskapssyner till uttryck i lärarens undervisning med IKT? I uppsatsen görs en litteraturstudie av ett urval av studier som tolkats utifrån hur syner på kunskap kommer till uttryck genom lärarens undervisning med IKT.

This study investigates the difficulties that may arise for students as a consequence of differences that exist in mathematics education between different educational systems. The questions asked are when and why difficulties as a consequence of differences in writing or types of student problems may arise and in which way teachers and students attend to these difficulties. The focus is thus on the written parts of mathematics education and the questions are asked within the frame of general upper secondary education.In order to answer these questions, a sociocultural perspective based mainly on Sfard?s (2006) participationist theories together with Vygotsky?s (1999) general theories on development and learning is used. An important analytic tool is the discourse concept which in this context means a type of communication that brings some people together while excluding others from the communication.

Mathematics in preschool - how do preschool teachers make children aware of the matematics around them?.

Mot bakgrunden att matematikresultaten sjunker i svensk skola är det viktigt att lärare använder metoder som bygger på evidensbaserad forskning. Denna systematiska litteraturstudie syftar till att bilda en djupare förståelse för utomhusmatematik genom att undersöka lärares och elevers attityder till metoden, samt om utomhusmatematik finner vetenskapligt stöd och kan rekommenderas som undervisningsmetod.Studiens resultat visar att både elever och lärare överlag ser positivt på utomhusmatematik då metoden bidrar till ett autentiskt lärande. Många lärares uppfattningar är att utomhusmatematik gynnar de yngre eleverna och att geometri och statistik är de delar av matematiken som är lämpligast att ta med utomhus. Utomhusmatematik motsäger kursmålen i alla länder där forskning på temat genomförts och metoden har svagt vetenskapligt stöd, då för få evidensbaserade studier på området utförts..

Syftet med detta examensarbete är att undersöka undervisning och lärande under en matematiklektion som präglas av traditionell skolmatematik. Metoden för undersökningen var en deltagande observation av en matematiklektion i åk 3 på gymnasiet. Med hjälp av begreppen matematikens lärandeobjekt, matematiska resurser, eleven som lärande aktör och sociomatematiska normer har jag tolkat de resultat som genererats från observationen. Två slutsatser som kan dras av undersökningen är att eleverna stimuleras till att bli oberoende lärande aktörer i undervisningen av traditionell skolmatematik samt att det i första hand är läraren som synliggör potentiella matematiska resurser för eleverna. Medvetenheten om elevernas användande av matematiska resurser skulle kunna påverka elevernas lärande genom att läraren synliggör matematiska resurser på ett mer medvetet sätt..

The aim is to examine how students with attention difficulties may demonstrate their mathematical understanding through visual representations. A curiosity about how students think about mathematics, national tests and Concepts cartoons has also permeated the study. With help of observations combined with interviews and actively work for a week, the study shows an idea of how visual representations can help students with concentration difficulties to stay focused on their tasks. I chose a selection of pupils to do some mathematical tasks from the national tests which they had not been able to solve before. Now in the form of Concepts cartoons, which I designed, they managed to solve the same mathematics data. In my study treatment and interaction reveals as key pillars for a successful educational work with the students with concentration difficulties. Thus, all pupils who previously have been unable to solve these assignments on the National test were now able to show their mathematical understanding supported by visual representations..

The aim of this essay is to examine why and how three teachers who work in elementary classes choose to use ability grouping during math lessons and what they think of ability grouping as a method to individualize the activities according to the pupil?s needs.I chose one main question for this study that is the following:What is the teacher?s point of view and experience of ability grouping in teaching mathematics?And three sub-questions:What are the motives behind the choice of ability grouping?What are the advantages of ability grouping?What are the disadvantages of ability grouping?In order to be able to answer my questions, I used the qualitative method. I interviewed three teachers who work in the elementary classes (First to fifth grade) to find out what they think about ability grouping and how it is experienced in mathematic teaching.The result shows that the common thing between these three teachers is that they don?t use ability grouping as the only teaching method. They all agree that the whole class teaching has many benefits for the pupils.