<p>Study: Degree project in teacher education, Advanced level, 15 hp</p><p>University of Skövde</p><p>Title: Religious belief in everyday life – a study of the effects of a teaching</p><p>model focusing on religious belief in everyday life</p><p>Number of pages:42</p><p>Author: Johanna Claesson</p><p>Tutor: Kennert Orlenius</p><p>Date: Jan 2009</p><p> </p><p>Keywords: Religious study, students´ understanding, students´ commitment,</p><p>Buddhism</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>This paper presents the execution and the result of a project examining how a tutorial model (called <em>the model of everyday religious practice</em>) focusing on how Buddhism is expressed in the daily life of Buddhists believers, affects students understanding of and commitment in religious studies. In the project, Thai students have partaken by producing sex posters and a picture-show with the help of their own photographs and short texts. However, the picture-show was mainly produced by the author of this paper. These posters and the picture-show were brought to Sweden to figure as teaching material during a lesson in religious studies for students in year eight in a Swedish school. The Swedish students participated in <em>focus-discussions</em> about religion as well as religious studies before and after this lesson in order to make it possible to analyse the lesson´s affects, regarding understanding and commitment, on the students. In the result of this paper, this tutorial model appears, on one hand, to encourage students to commitment in religious studies by adding an emotive dimension to the lesson which helps the students to an authentic experience. On the other hand, it is not unequivocal whether the students did gain understanding or not for religious studies. The lesson enabled the students to see that they are likely to experience some usefulness of religious studies in their lives outside school and thereby the students gained some understanding for the subject. However, it is not clear whether this understanding is complete or not. It is likely that the teacher in planning the lessons also need to take two other tutorial models, presented in this paper, in consideration. Finally, this paper ends with a discussion about which impact the result of this study might have on how religious studies are thought in Swedish schools.</p>

Our essay begins with two experience-based stories where we want to discuss problems that may arise during personal meetings in preschool. What we have experienced, and which also occurs in the stories is that meeting situations often loses focus and the main subject often gets overlooked. In this essay we have focused on the adults in preschool, teachers who meet every day and the tools we can use to be able to familiarize and understand the interaction between these. The purpose was to investigate and try to understand why conflicts in the meeting of educators arises. The aim was also to critically examine our role and our actions in the stories. Important concepts and investigating issues of our essay is teams and responsibilities, language and communication and how differently we can perceive the same thing. Another important concept to discuss in a profession that is characterized by close relations are power. Ethics and its importance for understanding other people is also an important aspect. We have chosen to write this essay in the essay form, which also forms the basis for our method. Since we are constantly reflecting about this, it was natural to have a hermeneutic approach where understanding is the foundation for our thoughts and reflections. We reflected on our own actions, but also try to put us into and understand how the other people we work with thought and acted. What is the basis for our own actions and why act the people that we describe in our stories as they do?

Denna uppsats avser besvara huruvida rubriksättningen i media är bra eller dålig på att förmedla artiklarnas innehåll, vilket kan vara ett problem ur demokratisynpunkt, samt om nyheternas inträde på internet kan vara orsaken. Forskning av Daniel Dor visar på att en läsare generellt skannar rubriker snarare än att läsa tillhörande artikel, samtidigt som relevansteorin pekar på att det en risk att således också bilda sig kunskap utifrån dessa rubriker. Utifrån denna bakgrund analyseras resultaten med utgångspunkt i Robert A. Dahls demokratikriterium upplyst förståelse. Undersökningen använder sig av metoden innehållsanalys och fokuserar på rubriksättningen i Sveriges största dags- respektive kvällstidning, DN och Aftonbladet. De år som undersöks är 1995 och år 2015, vilket är innan de tryckta tidningarna också etablerade sig på internet respektive det år undersökningen genomförs. Kompletterande frågor ställs också till en anställd på DN som förklarar att rubriksättningsprocessen förändrats från 1995 till 2015. Resultatet av innehållsanalysen är att både DN och Aftonbladet har en betydande del, utifrån tillhörande artikel, informationsmässigt begränsade rubriker både år 1995 och 2015. Vidare argumenteras dessa resultat vara ett demokratiskt problem utifrån demokratikriteriet upplyst förståelse, eftersom de då riskerar att bilda sig utifrån artiklarna felaktiga åsikter.

The aim of this study is to investigate how elementary school teachers use conceptual understanding in the teaching of the variable concept, namely, how these teachers connect the variable concept with other areas of mathematics, such as algebraic expressions.  The empirical data was obtained by qualitative methods comprising interviews with five mathematic elementary school teachers. In addition three observations in three classrooms were made; one observation is in grade 4 and the other two are in grade 6.The theoretical framework is based on Kilpatrick et al. (2001) theories: conceptual understanding, strategic competence and procedural fluency. Furthermore the theory of representations of Bergsten et. al (1997) and Persson (2010) were used in the theoretical framework. The results of this study show that none of the five participating teachers connects the variable concept to other areas of mathematics, such as algebraic expressions. However, two of them mention the variable concept in equations, problem-solving, algebraic expressions and shapes, but without explaining the meaning of the variable concept or how that concept is used and integrated into these mentioned areas of mathematics. Furthermore the study shows that the other three participating teachers mention the variable only to one to two areas of mathematics. These areas are problem- solving and shapes. These teachers do not explain how the variable concept is used in the mentioned areas of mathematics, but they focus on how the calculation will be performed to solve the data they used. The participating teachers do not use any representations to explain the variable concept and how it’s connected to the other areas of mathematics. In conclusion, the variable concept was not explained and its connection to other mathematical areas was not addressed, which due to the absence of usage of conceptual understanding in teaching the variable concept.

Meningsfullt liv är idag ett etablerat forskningsämne inom psykologin. Nyligen har det uppstått viss konsensus om att begreppet meningsfullt liv är multidimensionellt och främst består av dimensionerna förståelse (en slags känsla av sammanhang), syfte (innehav av viktiga livsmål) och betydelse (upplevelsen att ens existens är av värde). Den aktuella studien hade som syfte att undersöka vilka samband som finns mellan dessa dimensioner och variablerna tacksamhet, självbildsklarhet, optimism, ensamhet och livstillfredsställelse. Tidigare forskning har funnit signifikanta samband, men då har främst endimensionella meningstest använts. En hypotes i den aktuella studien var att det skulle uppstå signifikanta samband även med användande av ett multidimensionellt mätinstrument bestående av nyss nämnda tre dimensioner. En annan hypotes var att studien vid multipla regressionsanalyser skulle upptäcka minst något fall där en meningsdimension är särskilt framträdande när det gäller att predicera ett visst utfall. Hypoteserna testades genom en enkätundersökning som främst hade universitetsstudenter som deltagare. Sammanlagt deltog 191 personer i studien. Den första hypotesen fick entydigt stöd. Angående den andra hypotesen uppstod fall där inte alla tre meningsdimensioner samtidigt unikt kunde predicera ett visst utfall. När utfallet var ensamhet visade det sig att alla tre meningsdimensioner kunde predicera detta utfall ungefär likvärdigt. Men när utfallet var exempelvis självbildsklarhet visade det sig att det främst var förståelse som kunde predicera detta utfall och i viss mån betydelse, men däremot inte syfte. Uppsatsens slutsats är därmed att det verkar finnas åtminstone vissa fall då det kan vara relevant att göra åtskillnad mellan olika meningsdimensioner och inte mäta begreppet meningsfullt liv enbart endimensionellt.

<p>Matematikdidaktik</p>

Syftet med denna litteraturstudie var att undersöka vad forskning säger om elevers kommunikation vid problemlösning i matematik och vilka faktorer som påverkar kommunikationen. Problemlösning har gett människan många verktyg som vi idag ser som livsviktiga och för att utveckla samhället ytterligare behöver skolan utbilda kompetenta problemlösare. Genom att söka i databaserna ERIC, MathEduc och allt-i-ett-söktjänsten UniSearch samt leta manuellt i referenslistor hittades data för den här litteraturstudien. Resultatet visar att elever som kommunicerar väl ser varandras idéer som gemensamma resurser. För det ska vara möjligt krävs att eleverna får undervisning i vad det innebär och att de arbetar med rätt uppgiftstyp.

Examensarbetet fokuserar på fysisk aktivitet och hälsa inom årskurs 1–3. Syftet är att belysa på vilka sätt pedagoger arbetar för att öka elevers förståelse kring fysisk aktivitets betydelse för hälsan och vilken påverkan detta har på eleverna. Urvalsgruppen är verksamma pedagoger. Undersökningen är en kvalitativ forskningsansats med semistrukturerade intervjuer som har kompletterats med ”critical incidents” observationer. Resultatet visar att pedagogerna ofta upprepar fysisk aktivitets betydelse för hälsan för att öka elevernas förståelse kring detta, genom samtal och fysiska aktivitets upplevelser. Kunskap om människokroppen anses även behövas. Slutsatser är att kroppsuppfattning - kunskap om människokroppen, förmåga att använda sin kropp och fysiska aktiviteter - är viktigt för barns förståelse om dess betydelse för hälsan. Studiens resultat ger idéer till pedagoger inom skolan om olika arbetssätt kring fysisk aktivitet för att skapa förståelse, främja hälsosamma vanor och bättre förutsättningar för lärande. Resultatet antyder att elevers totala skolprestationer förbättras av fysisk aktivitet.

The aim of this study is to investigate how elementary school teachers use conceptual understanding in the teaching of the variable concept, namely, how these teachers connect the variable concept with other areas of mathematics, such as algebraic expressions.  The empirical data was obtained by qualitative methods comprising interviews with five mathematic elementary school teachers. In addition three observations in three classrooms were made; one observation is in grade 4 and the other two are in grade 6.The theoretical framework is based on Kilpatrick et al. (2001) theories: conceptual understanding, strategic competence and procedural fluency. Furthermore the theory of representations of Bergsten et. al (1997) and Persson (2010) were used in the theoretical framework. The results of this study show that none of the five participating teachers connects the variable concept to other areas of mathematics, such as algebraic expressions. However, two of them mention the variable concept in equations, problem-solving, algebraic expressions and shapes, but without explaining the meaning of the variable concept or how that concept is used and integrated into these mentioned areas of mathematics. Furthermore the study shows that the other three participating teachers mention the variable only to one to two areas of mathematics. These areas are problem- solving and shapes. These teachers do not explain how the variable concept is used in the mentioned areas of mathematics, but they focus on how the calculation will be performed to solve the data they used. The participating teachers do not use any representations to explain the variable concept and how it’s connected to the other areas of mathematics. In conclusion, the variable concept was not explained and its connection to other mathematical areas was not addressed, which due to the absence of usage of conceptual understanding in teaching the variable concept.

The concept of hybrid warfare is both well used and criticized in today's debate. The critics are several and they do not hold back the criticism. But if the modern war is to be understood, how should it be investigated? When answering that question the critics turn to Carl von Clausewitz theories. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the explanatory value of Clausewitz Trinity concept and Frank G. Hoffman's definition of hybrid warfare, by examining the theories of Russia's Annexation of Crimea 2014. Thus, this thesis wants to investigate whether Clausewitz Trinity concept is sufficient to understand the case . With a most likely one-case study and with the method of qualitative text analysis, the results and conclusions showed that it is not so easy to claim that one concept can rule out the other.