This thesis describes a field study in which one teacher and one class in Grade 5, with special focus on four pupils, are observed throughout four lessons of about 80-minutes in Physics. The lessons together deal with a project on Magnetism. The main aim of the thesis is to investigate how the teacher uses texts as a resource when designing and implementing Science lessons (Learning Design Sequences). A further aim is to study what texts are used and produced by both the teacher and the pupils, and how these texts are used. The four lessons were recorded with a video camera and the recordings supplemented by field notes and interviews. All the texts used were copied or photographed. A design theoretical frame and a sociocultural perspective have been applied to analyse both the presence of texts during different stages (activities) of the lessons, and to analyse the text-related interaction and communication that has taken place in the classroom. The results confirm several previous studies and show that the teacher is the main producer and consumer of texts before and during the Science lessons. Textbooks, and texts on the Internet, are only used by the teacher to design the lessons, and are then mediated by the teacher during classroom interaction. The pupils mainly read questions, which they write brief answers to, and also read and copy texts written by the teacher on the white board. One interesting finding is that dialogue concerning texts increases the scientific content, which means more empirical or theoretical descriptions and explanations. To become scientifically literate it is therefore argued that pupils need more practice reading and writing in combination with dialogue and activities in the science classroom.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:su-54727 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Mindedal, Annika |
| Publisher | Stockholms universitet, Institutionen för pedagogik och didaktik, Stockholm 2011 : US-AB |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Licentiate thesis, monograph, info:eu-repo/semantics/masterThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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