With science and digitalisation emphasised further in the new Swedish preschool curriculum, there is a need to clarify teachers’ role in educating children in and about these areas. With research pointing out the importance of a conscious language use in STEM teaching, we here focus on words used by teachers and children during inquiry-based STEM activities in five different preschools. Bers’ powerful ideas about early childhood computational thinking (Bers 2018. Coding as a Playground. New York: Routledge.) were used for analysis and results highlight how digital programming and use of robots can promote a more versatile use of robotic words, compared to analogue, ‘unplugged’, programming without robots. Furthermore, it is also found that use of precise decontextualised language by the teacher seems to stimulate children’s use of words related to STEM and the object of learning. The findings add to the discussion about how teachers can scaffold children’s learning by inquiry teaching of STEM supported by robotics.
This empirical study analyses the qualitatively different ways in which teachers approach children’s learning in and about nature. The empirical data consists of video observations of children and teachers communicating with one another around natural phenomena found during excursions into a forest. Variation theory is presented as a framework for analysing the opportunities teachers provide for children’s learning. The study identifies three qualitatively different ways in which teachers communicate with children: one based on the principle of opening up dimensions of variation, the second building on presumed shared previous experience as a resource for making sense of a novel observation and the third involving children through using a make-believe playful approach. The implications of these three different approaches for children’s learning are discussed.
In the present study, three different pre-school settings were investigated. The dual aim of the study was to analyse the teachers’ ways of relating to the computer as a tool in pre-school activity, and to describe the three learning environments focusing upon how the computer was used. Data were collected at three Swedish pre-schools, where one computer was available in each department. Three ways of relating to computer use were identified: as a threat to other activities, as an available option, and as an essential activity. A relationship was found between these categories and the three learning environments, characterized respectively as protective, supporting, and guiding.
In this study a particular kind of figurative language, so-called anthropomorphic speech, is analysed in the context of science activities in a preschool setting. Anthropomorphism means speaking about something non-human in human terms. Can any systematic pattern be seen with regard to when such speech is used? Do children and/or teachers introduce this kind of talking and how is it responded to by the interlocutor(s)? Of 128 instances of anthropomorphism found, 24 were made by the children and 104 by the teachers. Children sometimes respond in line with the introduction of such speech but they also at times reject this way of speaking. Anthropomorphic speech is discussed as a strategy for the teachers in handling the dilemma of how to connect with children's experiences and terms, on the one hand, and developing children's understanding, on the other hand.
This systematic review analyses the research results of low-achieving grade K-3 children’s numeracy competencies by investigating the research approaches used, the definitions of low achievers and the numeracy competencies reported. 18 articles, identified in ERIC, PsycINFO and Web of Science, were selected for further analysis. The results show that the main part of the studies used a fixed-strategy design, mainly reporting on children’s numeracy competencies at a group level in which the children’s numeracy competencies were summarily described and focused on difficulties and common errors. Identification of what is defined as low achiever was based on test results from both standardised and non-standardised tests, as well as teacher assessments. The predominant numeracy competencies assessed were basic facts (automatic recall 0–20) and arithmetic skills (addition and subtraction), as well as competencies related to counting. Analyses of the children’s understanding when they do not follow the typical way of learning were not found, which indicates the need for a qualitative approach to the quantitative research results in order to provide deeper understanding of children’s ways of understanding and operating with numbers.