The aim of this study is to investigate into the use of discussions in the classroom to help the pupils develop a deeper understanding of mathematical concepts and operations. The empirical data contain interviews with two teachers and observations from their lessons. The purpose of the interviews was to find out what importance the teachers ascribed to the ability of their pupils to talk about mathematics, and how they organised their classes to encourage mathematical discussions. With the observations, I was able to see the interaction in the classroom and hear discussions between the teacher and the pupils, as well as between the pupils themselves.The interviewed teachers proved to share my own belief in the results of researchers like Malmer (1999) and Löwing (2006) about the importance of verbal discussion, argumentation and reflection during mathematics classes. But convictions derived from the research of others are one thing, the practical application of the wisdom in the classroom another.

I dagens informationssamhälle har fokuseringen på livslångt lärande och kontinuerlig kompetensutveckling blivit en viktig fråga. E-learning kan vara en teknik som får en avgörande roll för både individers och organisationers utveckling framöver. E-learning kan definieras som ett koncept för att distribuera utbildning och lärande via Internet eller ett lokalt nätverk. En e-learningapplikation kan ses som en relativt ny typ av informationssystem vars syfte är att öka användarens kunskaper inom ett aktuellt område. Denna rapport undersöker huruvida det finns någon skillnad mellan att utveckla ett traditionellt informationssystem och en webbaserad e-learningapplikation.

This Master?s thesis aims to study how the concept ?youth? is understood and used in papers and publications about public libraries, written at The Swedish School of Library and Information Science from 1972 to 2002. It does this by answering three questions: Firstly, how is the concept ?youth? formulated in papers and publications at SSLIS from 1972 - 2002? Secondly, has the concept ?youth? changed in the analysed texts during the chosen time and, if that is the case, what constitutes this change? And, finally, what types of consequences for the understanding of the users can this have for the writers and readers of these texts? Discourse analysis is used to analyze how this concept is constituted, transformed and understood. Among the things studied in the discourse analysis is the interdiscursivity and intertextuality of the texts, as well as the meaning of the word, the wordings and modality of the analysed texts.

This master thesis is based on the sociocultural perspective. A qualitative research study was conducted to investigate children's attitudes towards reading, texts and libraries.The theoretical background is constituted by ideas from the new sociology of childhood, literacy-studies and reader-response theory.The study was conducted with 23 children, 13 girls and 10 boys, participating in focus groups.The results of the study reveal that children's literacy-activities in school are strongly influenced and limited by adults. Children's interest in pictures and non-fiction-reading do not correspond to the school institution that favors traditional media and fiction. The study also reveals a gender division between children's literacy-activities that tends to grow with age. All the children in the study regard libraries as book-houses and wished for libraries that combine activity and serenity.The thesis shows the importance of being aware of, and engage in, children's reading-interests and reading-practices if the reading stimulating activities in schools and libraries are to be successful.

Abstract A central problem in all language teaching is to teach the correct use of prepositions. There are grammar rules, but also a lot of exceptions and idiomatic expressions that often have to be learnt by examples or by heart. A trick for learning might be to use a mnemonic method with songs and music to memorize a correct use of prepositions. The purpose of this study is to test a language teaching didactic exercise for knowledge of preposition in Spanish with songs and music. Grammatical aspects, rules and exceptions when studying prepositions in Spanish are presented.

The aim of this study is investigating how some Elementary School teachers of special classes describe how they use iPad as an educational tool when teaching Swedish. To find out I have carried out an interview investigation. I have analyzed results using theoretical concepts from the sociocultural perspective, scaffolding and artefacts.The cummulative result shows that teachers describe that they practice linguistic consciousness and that pupils are trained in writing Swedish in this subject. Another result shows how all teachers describe that they work face-to-face with pupils using iPads in Swedish lessons. Further results show how teachers present possibilities of using iPad as an educational tool when teaching Swedish.

Many of the schools premises are neglected and the physical environment has not been prioritised. Instead the focus is set on scientific learning methods and pedagogic. The need for an environmental shift has not got an essential place in the governing documents for schools, although the focus on school premises should be suited to the purpose of the activity and for the pupils needs. Today the interest and the need of research within the physical environment is evermore increasing. The Swedish Work Environment Authority, present in their activityplan for 2006, that the schools premises and equipment is not adjusting to today?s activity and it is in bad condition that can lead to work-related injuries.The purpose of this essay is to bring to light a different pedagogic train of thought around the surrounding environments importance, for students learning and to compare these with our study of a selection of classrooms and what the teachers to these classrooms consider about the environments importance.

As Sweden has become a multicultural society the need for developing new educational approaches rises. The preschool is a crucial piece in this as it is the one of the first institutions where the children start to develop the language skills. The aim of this study is to investigate the language development approach as practiced by teachers, in their preschool programs, and determine if the teachers work methods can be considered intercultural. This is done to gain a deep understanding on several language development methods and analyze the teachers' approach within the framework of intercultural pedagogy perspective. The theoretical framework used in the study is the intercultural perspective.

My main purpose for this paper was to find out what the four teachers I interviewed thought about the design of their classroom and how they linked that to pedagogy, pupils learning and policy documents. I also wanted to find out if classroom design were something they discuss and reflects on in the college.My questions for this study were: What do some teachers who work in the early ages in the school think about the classroom design? Do these teachers link the classroom design to policy documents or pedagogy? Do these teachers consider classroom design to be something that should be discussed in the same way as other factors (for example teaching aids, resources etc.) within the college?My method was to make qualitative interviews with four teachers, analyze their answers and link them to my main theories and research in the area of the study. My main theories were multimodal communication, which means that there are several systems of signs in communication, which all have an essential function for the meaning of the communicated. It also means that learning happens both individually and socially and that school is a social construction, and that the system of opportunities and boundaries in which it takes form is mediated within our multimodal systems.

In 1990 the education training program for teachers working with children with special needs was changed. One major difference in the new program compared with the former one is that the specialized teacher is now mainly supposed to supervise teachers instead of teaching pupils who have learning difficulties. The aim of this qualitative interview study has been to find out what the specialized teachers think about there education, and how this could influence children with cognitive disabilities in special schools. I have interviewed six teachers who specialized in teaching pupils with cognitive disabilities. Three of them where educated prior to 1990 and the others were educated after 1990.

This essay is based on students' growing lack of interest in science at school. Both from a democratic and social perspective, this is a worrying factor for the future. Through observation, I investigated how five science teachers conduct their teaching. This is to get a better understanding of how teachers' behaviour in the classroom can affect students' interest in science. With a socio-cultural research approach, I have tried to highlight a few pieces of the puzzle that may explain students' declining interest in science.

The purpose of my study is to describe how educators think about the play environment, the nature and its importance for the children's development and learning in preschool. The study is based on qualitative interviews with four active educators. The results of the study show that the teachers regarded the children's interests to a great extent when the different play environments were structured. They are also based on different themes that they have seen that the children were interested in, such as the fire station, hair salon or shop and café. Educators designing not only these play areas for different types of play for the children, but the different environments also have a learning purpose. The outdoor environment however attracts greater interest from children, to where they have more space to move freely in and outdoors, there are no limits to the children.

?Pedagogiska kvarten? is a project at Örebro University. It is a study that deals with the teachers? perspective of pedagogics. When I came in touch with ?Pedagogiska kvarten? I found it interesting to find out more about pupils? perspective of pedagogics, since the teachers? perspective already had been noticed.

The aim of this study is to explore hiphop music as an aspect of youth socialization and the relationship between music creation and identity. The study is conducted through five semi- structured qualitative individual interviews. Our theoretical starting points are Putnam?s (2000) bridging and bonding social capital symbolic interactionism. We also have used a model of learning presented by Fornäs, Lindberg and Sernhedes (1989).

This Independent work is about testing a method to create meaningful learning and a deeper comprehension in matter of basic hairdressing techniques. I got the idea for this method by reading literature related to my education to become a teacher for hairdressers, the new schoolreform and from my own experience of a teaching method that I saw an opportunity to develope. My teaching method was based on first teaching the pupils the basic techniques, and then give them an assignment were they were to find out their own final result by using a picture for inspiration. They were given an assignment description with certain frames but with freedom of choice how to get to their own final result. By making a job description and a headdrawing to show how the work should be done, and during the process try different ways to achieve the best result, my idea was that a deeper understanding and a feeling of meaningfulness would appear.The result shows that the pupils by freedom within frames experienced meaningful learning and thereby deeper understanding when it comes to basic hairdressing techniques.