The purpose of this study was to explore the selected middle years teachers’ experiences of promoting student learning in student-centered classrooms, and how these recalled experiences might affect their own future teaching and assist other teachers to promote student learning. Based on social constructivism as the epistemological foundation, I chose Appreciative Inquiry (AI) as the research methodology. AI values people’s positive experiences and emphasizes the importance of the positive core of change (Cooperrider & Whitney, 2000). In total, there were 53 middle years teachers in China and Canada who responded to an online survey. Four Chinese education experts were interviewed online, and 12 Canadian education experts participated in an interpretation panel. The findings showed that both Chinese and Canadian participants believed that engaging students in their learning was the core of creating student-centered classrooms. They regarded group study as the most popular instructional strategy that was used to promote student-centered learning. Most participants stated that they had changed or planned to change their teaching practices because they had positive teaching experiences in student-centered classrooms. Chinese participants stated that they had shared their positive teaching experiences with other teachers at three levels: school divisions/districts, schools, or grades/subjects. The main activities for communication among Chinese teachers included group discussion, collective lesson planning, and classroom visits. Canadian participants reported that they usually shared their educational ideas and teaching experiences with other teachers in both formal and informal ways, such as chatting with each other during breaks, developing learning projects together, and communicating with each other through school networking websites. In addition, findings also showed that most Chinese middle years teachers teach a single subject, but many Canadian middle years teachers teach multiple subjects. Based on this research, I suggested that teachers should apply multiple instructional strategies in their classrooms, serve students, and collaborate with parents/families. School boards and schools should make more efforts to encourage their teachers to communicate with each other, formally and regularly by providing policy, technical, and financial supports for relevant programs and activities. Teachers should choose either a single subject or multiple subjects to teach according to their own willingness and abilities. Future researchers may benefit by using Appreciative Inquiry to explore people’s positive experiences in education, and should be more open-minded by conducting cross-cultural and inter-cultural research to facilitate educators to communicate with each other and learn from each other.

This study examines (1) whether L2 learners’ oral fluency and accuracy improve through conversation practice with AI tutors in a Japanese language learning app, (2) when fluency increases, and (3) which learning cycle is most effective. Ten participants joined the study and practiced conversations with Kaizen Languages’ AI tutors for three weeks. Learners selected their preferred learning cycle: a group with fewer lessons to complete per day but more practice days per week or a group with more lessons to complete per day but less frequent practice days per week. After three weeks of self-study, participants took an oral test to show how much they improved their fluency and accuracy in new contexts. The results of this study show that not only did learners’ oral fluency improve with the use of the Kaizen app, but their oral accuracy also increased. In addition, learners who improved their fluency practiced repeatedly, and their fluency improved until three or four repetitive practices. Although this study did not find an effective learning cycle, it implies that the ideal learning cycle requires at least three times of practice to improve fluency, while five to six times of practice produces higher accuracy.

Denna studie undersöker samhällskunskapslärares professionella och didaktiska förhållningssätt till artificiell intelligens (AI) som verktyg i samhällskunskapsundervisningen. Fokus ligger på verktyget ChatGPT och hur detta kan användas i undervisningskontext. Syftet med studien är att öka kunskapen kring AI-verktyg i undervisningssammanhang och samla data om lärares åsikter kring dess användbarhet i utvecklingen av elevers förmågor och i relation till måluppfyllelse enligt läroplanen. En systematisk litteraturgenomgång genomfördes för att identifiera relevant tidigare forskning och utveckla inklusions- och exklusionskriterier. Gruppintervjuer genom ett informerande och utforskande seminarium genomfördes för att förstå lärares problemområden i relation till AI i undervisning. Detta ledde till teman av begrepp och problemområden som utgjorde grunden för en analys. Slutsatsen presenterar att ChatGPT har potential att användas som ett verktyg i undervisningen i samhällskunskap i svenska gymnasieskolor. Lärare kan använda verktyget för att effektivisera sitt arbete med att konstruera lektionsinnehåll, planera undervisning, anpassa kunskapsinnehåll till enskilda elever och på så vis stödja elevers måluppfyllelse i samhällskunskap. Verktygets funktionalitet förstås vara flexibelt och samtidigt visa förmåga att förstå innehållet i användarens budskap, generera text som är språkligt korrekt i sin struktur, erbjuda relevant information och besitta ett pedagogiskt värde baserat på användarens syfte. / This study examines social science teachers' pedagogical and didactic approaches to artificial intelligence (AI) as a tool in teaching civics. The focus is on ChatGPT and how it can be used in educational contexts. The purpose of the study is to increase knowledge about AI tools in teaching and to gather data on teachers' opinions on their usefulness in developing students' abilities and meeting curriculum goals. A systematic literature review was conducted to identify relevant the researchbase. Group interviews through an informative and exploratory seminar were conducted to understand teachers' problem areas in relation to AI in education. This led to themes of concepts and problem areas that formed the basis for an analysis. The conclusion presents that ChatGPT has the potential to be used as a tool in the teaching of social studies in Swedish high schools. Teachers can utilize the tool to streamline their work in constructing lesson content, planning instruction, adapting knowledge to individual students, and thus support students' achievement of goals in social studies. The tool's functionality is understood to be flexible while also demonstrating the ability to comprehend the content of the user's message, generate text that is linguistically correct in structure, provide relevant information, and possess educational value based on the user's purpose.