The main purpose of this thesis is to investigate how future pre- and primary school mathematics teachers change their approaches to mathematics and mathematics education during their subject studies, and also how this view has affected their teaching of mathematics after graduation. A qualitative interview method was used in combination with observations, notes, sound recordings, video recorded mathematics classes and materials produced by the teacher in order to answer the research questions. The research was carried out in two parts.The institutional theory has been used as theoretical framework throughout. This perspective was supplemented by a design theoretical perspective in part two.In the first investigation it became clear that the language used by the students is under change, and that they use terms from the national curriculum as well as the aims of the programme syllabus when they discuss mathematics teaching. The results from the observations later show that four out of five of the teachers have a clear connection to the sort of teaching they said they want to conduct, in that there is a clear relationship between the sort of teaching that they claim to perform and the sort of teaching they actually perform. From the overall results, it is apparent that teachers one year after graduation describe that they feel well prepared for teaching mathematics in preschool and primary school. This is interesting in the light of their dissatisfaction with the limited emphasis on concrete recommendations and "tips" directly after their graduation. In fact, the teachers said that in practice it turned out that their education provided a more stable and secure foundation than they described it to be shortly after having completed their mathematics studies. They say that during their education they developed knowledge and skills that enabled them to be better prepared for their future work roles than they believed themselves likely to become. / Disputationen sker den 2009-10-16, Tillbergsalen, Campus Konradsberg, hus T, Rålambsvägen 32, Stockholm, 10:00

The main purpose of this thesis is to investigate how future pre- and primary school mathematics teachers change their approaches to mathematics and mathematics education during their subject studies, and also how this view has affected their teaching of mathematics after graduation. A qualitative interview method was used in combination with observations, notes, sound recordings, video recorded mathematics classes and materials produced by the teacher in order to answer the research questions. The research was carried out in two parts. The institutional theory has been used as theoretical framework throughout. This perspective was supplemented by a design theoretical perspective in part two. In the first investigation it became clear that the language used by the students is under change, and that they use terms from the national curriculum as well as the aims of the programme syllabus when they discuss mathematics teaching. The results from the observations later show that four out of five of the teachers have a clear connection to the sort of teaching they said they want to conduct, in that there is a clear relationship between the sort of teaching that they claim to perform and the sort of teaching they actually perform. From the overall results, it is apparent that teachers one year after graduation describe that they feel well prepared for teaching mathematics in preschool and primary school. This is interesting in the light of their dissatisfaction with the limited emphasis on concrete recommendations and "tips" directly after their graduation. In fact, the teachers said that in practice it turned out that their education provided a more stable and secure foundation than they described it to be shortly after having completed their mathematics studies. They say that during their education they developed knowledge and skills that enabled them to be better prepared for their future work roles than they believed themselves likely to become.

This thesis studies designs for learning in the extended digital interface in the Social Science classroom. The aim is to describe and analyse how pupils interact, make meaning and learn while deploying digital learning resources. Together with the thesis a multimodal design theoretical perspective on learning has developed: Designs for Learning. Here learning is understood as multimodal transformative processes of sign-making activities where teachers and pupils are viewed as didactic designers. A model called Learning Design Sequence has been developed and serves as a tool for data collection and analysis. Video observation material from five ICT-advanced schools with pupils aged 6-17 was multimodally transcribed and analysed. In conclusion the thesis, among other things, indicates that: - Social Science acquires informal features and pupils are independently designing their own digital Social Science material. - Pupils’ interactions are significantly multimodal and the digital learning resource becomes a third element in interaction. Pupils are constantly active and very responsive to each others’ representations. They cooperate as if learning in the extended interface is a collective responsibility. - Pupils’ learning is also significantly multimodal. Being digital natives, they engage in colours, sounds and images to represent some of their learning. - Learning represented in modes other than text and speech becomes invisible and disappears in the digital divide. - Pupils are simultaneously designing parallel paths of learning. One path represents the formalised education which is the path initiated, promoted and assessed by the teacher. The other path is guided by pupils’ interests and by affordances in the digital interface. This represents the extended learning that goes on below the surface.           The thesis ends with a discussion about didactic complexities in The Online Learning Paradigm. / At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 1: Accepted. Paper 5: Submitted.

In digital-classroom practices, pupils design their learning processes in collaboration with their peers, employing different semiotic resources when representing signs of learning in a constant flow. There still remain differences, however, between learning practices and the way pupils are formally tested. During tests, knowledge is regularly represented individually and often by delimited resources in contrast to digital learning practices where technologies enable redesign with a broader mix of written text, images, colours, graphs etc. In this thesis I investigate the increased access to and the frequent use of digital resources in schools and how these challenges contribute to tensions between and among school practices. In addition I discuss how digitalised learning environments can be studied in educational research. The aim of my thesis is to add to the existing knowledge about how the use of digital resources shapes knowledge representations and also the pupils’ possibilities to represent their knowledge. Knowledge representations are seen partly as an expression of the pupils’ knowledge in school and partly as an expression of products that are designed to be used in education such as digital educational games, two of which I will study in this thesis. My theoretical understanding draws on a design-oriented multimodal perspective on learning. Findings are discussed in relation to didactic design and Learning Design Sequence model (LDS). A developed LDS model is presented that summarises and highlights my findings. In the thesis I also discuss some of the challenges for a researcher when studying learning in a digitalised school with a focus on interaction and communication and how multimodal data can be transcribed, analysed and presented in a publication. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 1: Accepted. Paper 4: Manuscript.</p>

The purpose with this study is to problematize implementation of the concept of universal design for learning (UDL), (Meyer, Rose & Gordon, 2014) in higher education. The study focuses on what university teachers express regarding their experiences of the concept of UDL two or three years after having taken part of a series of workshops to learn UDL. The analysis was done using content analysis (Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2011) and the theoretical framework of Designs for Learning (DFL) was used in order to highlight the results (Marie Leijon & Lindstrand, 2012; Selander, 2008; Selander & Kress, 2010). The results cannot be generalized but imply that UDL, without any particular adaptation for a Swedish context, is a concept for widening participation. After participating in a workshop series on UDL the concept has had a lasting impact with the respondents. The respondents use all three of the main principles of UDL; provide multiple means for engagement provide multiple means for representation and provide multiple means for action and expression. UDL is indicated to be a concept towards student centered learning and teaching, towards improving student’s possibilities of learning to learn and as a concept for manifesting a mindset for widening participation. UDL is by the respondents in this study also seen as a concept to develop widening participation. They see UDL as a concept for management to strategically implement widening participation. which is missing and asked for by the respondents. The possible drawbacks with the concept is just that, that few use UDL, few know about it and there is no recommendation from management to use UDL. Another drawback is that it takes time implementing UDL, though some respondents point out that it saves time in the end.