The purpose of this study is to gain a better understanding of how physical activity can be used in school to create more favorable conditions for students' learning in mathematics. The study investigated the effect of physical activity in the long term on the students’ concentration, working memory and knowledge of mathematics via recurring short activity of physical activity. The study was conducted with 175 grade 7 students from four different schools. An initial task of seven minutes of pulse-raising exercises was introduced in five of the groups at the beginning of the mathematics lesson. The results show an improvement in the students' concentration and working memory in the intervention group compared to the control group. There was no significant difference between gender or ability, all were similarly affected by the physical activity. Students from different school environments are also affected by the physical activity in the same way.

The aim of this study is to examine what students in grade 3, half of them multilingual,stress as important in multimodal text production while performing a task that isgoing to be assessed by their teacher. Sociosemiotic multimodal theories, and researchon multiliteracies, form the theoretical basis for the study. The empirical data consistsof fifteen individual interviews with the students. Through the interviews theirmultimodal text production appears to be complex. Also it becomes clear that images,rather than written text, play an important role for conveying messages in theirtexts. Furthermore, the interviews show that the students find it difficult to verbalizethoughts on qualities in their text productions. To sum up, the study stresses the riskfor discrepancy between what students achieve, by the use of several resources, andthe teachers’ notions of the students´ achievements. Additionally, the study highlightsthe role of task formulation and the need for competence when it comes to assessmentof multimodal texts.

In this study, which is part of a larger project on play-responsive teaching in preschool,we analyze the questions children ask when they play. Questions are understoodas verbal actions that renders something in the foreground and something else in the background. Questions indicate what is in focus of children’s attention when they play and are considered important to respond to with an ambition to design teaching responsive to play. The purpose is therefore to contribute with insights about what we can learn from children’s questions with an interest in teaching in play. The study is based on an analysis of all questions children ask in 51 video documentation where teachers and children play. The results show that children primarily (94 of 104questions) ask about matters in or about the play they are engaged in (’as if ’), while the rest of the questions (10) concern something actualized in play but concerning conceptual matters outside the play (’as is’). The implications for teaching in preschool are discussed.

The aim of this study is to analyse the preschool staff’s reflections on teaching the youngest children in preschool. Conversations in focus groups with preschool staff have been used for data collection. Theoretically the study considers Billigs concept concerning argumentation that has influence on discourses in change. The concept is used to view that an utterance about something that belongs to a particular discussion, stating that teaching can be understood as an explicit or implicit contradiction to the same discussion. The results point out two discourses where the demands and rights are seen as fields of tensions where an argument for something can, at the same time constitute arguments against something. Teaching the youngest children is part of a preschool in change. With that in mind, we understand the arguments as contradictory when the concept of teaching in preschool is described by the staff, something which can be seen both within and between discourses.

Sjutton lärarstudenter i idrott och hälsa deltog i ett utvecklingsprojekt på lärosätet med syftet att undersöka hur studenternas resonemang i hälsa och miljö utvecklades under de tre månaderna projektet varade. Datainsamlingen bestod av enkäter och fokusgruppsintervjuer. Seminarier med föreläsningar och diskussioner samt ett studiebesök vid ett Science center utgjorde aktiviteter i projektet. Studenterna uttryckte sina kunskapsbrister och kritiserade undervisningen de genomgått i hållbar utveckling i ungdomsskolan och lärarutbildningen, och menade att den oftast handlat om sopsortering. De kopplade efterhand samman människors hårdutnyttjande av skog och mark med försämring av människans livsvillkor och hälsa. Merparten av studenterna vidgade perspektivet, från ett egocentriskt till ett biocentriskt synsätt. Studenterna sade sig under studien utveckla ett personligt engagemang för hälsa och miljö.