| 51. |
- Nordén, Birgitta, et al.
(författare)
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Practices In Development : How Is Meaning, Context And Motivation Created For Learning For Sustainability In The Preschool's Educational Outdoor Activities?
- 2019
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- European Commission underlines the import ance of early childhood education for education attainment, and to reduce social inequalities. The Proposal on early childhood education has now been adopted (EC, 2018). But early childhood education also plays a role in achieving Agenda 2030 sustainability goals and honouring European commitments for the environment. Research suggests that early childhood experiences of nature shape emotional relations to the natural environment, supporting agency and environmental awareness (Hammarsten et al, 2018). Outdoor education thus lays a foundation for future engagement and education for sustainability. The present study concerns an outdoor education project at a Swedish urban pre-school for 3-5 year olds that receives a large proportion of newly arrived children, with a focus on a section with about 20 children between three and five years who do not speak any or very little Swedish. It is part of a larger study financed by the Swedish School Research Institute concerning the conditions for learning and teaching in a world characterised by diversity and migration. The researchers support and follow staff, management, parents and children in jointly developing educational environments where different languages, identities, pedagogical relations and organisation work together to support children's learning and development. Outdoor education in this context involves three main dimensions: (1) Children's relation to place and their immediate environment. (2) The curriculum's goals for natural science in preschool. (3) Pedagogical didactic strategies. In Sweden, preschool is an integrated part of the education system, and the preschool curriculum currently stresses a mission of teaching. Policy ambitions in this respect are rising, and from July 2019, the preschool has the task of striving for every child ... "... to develop their ability to distinguish, explore, document, ask questions and discuss natural science ..." The Swedish preschool education curriculum thereby creates challenges for preschool teachers, especially in pre-schools that have not previously focused on nature or science phenomena. The increased demands entail a risk that sustainability will become something that is placed on top of existing activities, and which is difficult to integrate. There are not necessarily relevant given activities or traditional forms of teaching to fall back on, when preschool teachers are to interpret the curriculum's intentions in their practice. Should the children develop a relationship with the place they live in, or should focus rather lie on learning limited abstract elements about different phenomena? Is the subject-specific language important, or the phenomenon itself? Is the child assumed capable of thinking independently, and find his or her own explanations, or is it instead important to teach the difference between facts and imagination? In practice, there is not much room to go into depth about such issues in planning. There is therefore a risk of working with fragmented and decontexualised activities that are easy to implement in practice. The study consequently examines reflection-in-action processes of the preschool staff, in connection with the group of staff, management and children in their collaborative work to improve the preschool playground. Focus lies on the one hand on the preschool teachers’ thoughts on how different changes can offer opportunities for learning, and on the other, on the children’s participation and children's own thoughts in these processes. Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used The research approach draws on Participatory Action Research ( PAR) focusing learning through action and with reflection in focus. The approach used in the study aims to change practitioners' understanding of their practice and under what conditions they practice. PAR is understood as a practice-changing practice with the aim of developing the practice by creating a critical approach to what one does, how to think and how to relate to the contexts in which it operates (Kemmis 2009). The analysis tool consists of the concept of Practice Architecture (PA), which helps us explore and understand what enables and limits teaching practices and learning opportunities.The starting point for the PA is that people meet in intersubjective spaces that are arranged in specific ways. These spaces mediate the conditions for practitioners: Cultural-discursive arrangements (1); Material-economic arrangements (2); Social policy arrangements (3) (Kemmis 2009; Kemmis et al 2014; Rönnerman, 2017). Changing the PA involves changing the overall framework for what is said, done and how to relate to each other and to what you do - thereby opening new spaces for their teaching, development and learning practice. In the period 2017-2018 the children have taken pictures of their environment and talked about it; conversations with children; a children’s council has been formed. The outdoor group meetings take place regularly, involving children and staff. Conversations took place in groups with staff or with staff together with managers, as well as individual interviews with parents. Pre-school teachers (n = 5) were interviewed, examining their and the children's perspectives on what are important activities in science/environmental and sustainability education. The study also involved informal participant observation and conversations with children. Cooperation between the three sections of the preschool has been initiated through a "child council" (n = 4 children) and teacher´s "outdoor group" (n= 6: staff + researcher), focusing ways to change the preschool’s playground, and create an outdoor environment offering rich opportunities for play and learning. Conclusions, Expected Outcomes o r Findings Initial findings involve spatial perspectives of ch ildren's places: (1) Adults organise spaces for children at preschool.The physical space and design, including vegetation, water and surfaces affect how the space creates - or does not create - opportunities for action and interactions for the children. (2) The children take their place in these spaces, create their own places and invest them their own meanings. Children attribute meaning and emotions in ways that may differ from adult practices and intentions for the same places. Material-economic arrangements: Physical time-space enables and sets limits to how we can do things in the (outdoor) c lassroom, shapes and gives content to the "doing" of practice: (1). Educational Development Limitations: (1.1) fragmentation of the educational content; (1.2) family's living conditions; (1.3) the way activities are organised in time and space; (1.4) the allocation of human resources and staff schedule. (2). Opening up the physical space (changing the action): (2.1) Create spaces for shared reflection between and within the different organisational levels, and between children, educators and researchers. (2.2) The researchers actively participate in the development of the learning space. The role of the preschool teachers and educators is multifaceted and complex: to provide care, security, learning, entry into society, and entail transparency in difficult living conditions. What the staff express is in line with findings from the report by Zetterqvist, Nelson and Hagström (2017) on newly arrived children in Sweden. It appeared that administrative and other factors placed considerable constraints on the staff’s and children’s agency in creating a greener outdoor environment, which would greater opportunities for activities and experience. Nevertheless, the processes encouraged action, reflection and collaboration. Engagement in the process of changing their immediate environment appeared particularly important for the newly arrived children, as a way of making their own place in Sweden.
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| 52. |
- Nordén, Birgitta, et al.
(författare)
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Praktiker under utveckling : hur skapas mening, sammanhang och motivation att lära för hållbarhet i förskolans utepedagogiska aktiviteter?
- 2018
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Från juli 2019 har förskolan uppdraget att sträva efter att varje barn..."...utvecklar sin förmåga att urskilja, utforska, dokumentera, ställa frågor om och samtala om naturvetenskap...". Förskoleläroplanen skapar utmaningar för förskollärare, särskilt i förskolor som inte sedan tidigare haft fokus på natur eller naturvetenskapliga fenomen. De ökade kraven medför en risk att naturvetenskap blir något som läggs ovanpå befintlig verksamhet, och som är svårt att integrera. Wanda Sass (2018) betonar istället motivationens betydelse för ”viljan-att-handla". Det finns inte nödvändigtvis relevanta givna aktiviteter eller traditionella former för undervisning att falla tillbaka på, när förskollärare skall tolka läroplanens intentioner i sina praktiker. Skall fokus ligga på att barnen utvecklar en relation till platsen de bor på, eller snarare på att lära sig avgränsade abstrakta moment om skilda fenomen. Är det fackspecifika språket betydelsefullt, eller fenomenet i sig? Kan barnet fundera självständigt, och hitta sina egna förklaringar, eller är det viktiga att förstå skillnad på fakta och fantasi? Det finns inte mycket utrymme att gå på djupet omkring sådana frågor i planeringen. Snarare än att följa didaktiska argument, uppstår därför risken att man arbetar med lösryckta aktiviteter som är lätta att genomföra praktiskt. Presentationen redogör för en studie om ett utepedagogikprojekt på en förskolaför 3-5-åringarsom tar emot en stor andel nyanlända barn. Mellan tre avdelningar har samarbete initierats genom ett "barnråd" (n=4 barn) respektive en "gårdsgrupp"(n=6 personal + forskare) och gårdsmiljöns förändringsmöjligheter fokuseras. Förskollärare (n=5–10) intervjuas varvid deras och barnens perspektiv på vad som är viktiga aktiviteter i natur-/miljö-och hållbarhetsundervisning undersöks genom ett participatoriskt och aktionsforskningsinspirerat arbetssätt. Studien syftar till att ta fram lämplig verktygslåda för att stärka det pedagogiska utvecklingsarbetet i förskolan och utgör ett delmoment i en större studie finansierat av Skolforskningsinstitutet om förutsättningar för lärande och undervisning i en värld som kännetecknas av diversitet och migration.
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| 53. |
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| 54. |
- Nordén, Birgitta, et al.
(författare)
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South/North Perspectives on Global Learning for Sustainable Development
- 2019
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Ingår i: Sustainability. - : MDPI. - 2071-1050. ; 11:11/11
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This call for a Special Issue aims to present perspectives from all continents on what Global Learning for Sustainable Development can be today, and what it could mean for the future of our planet. When the term was originally coined ten years ago, the intention was to underline that cooperation and intelligent action is needed on a global scale, to resolve the serious environmental threats our modes of production have resulted in. Global action is also necessary to address famine, war, forced displacement or population explosion. Unfortunately, despite several international conferences and significant agreements, we can see that sustainable development is still interpreted as continuing on a path of unrestrained economic expansion. Education for sustainability in schools or universities is still very far from transforming societies or enabling transitions to sustainability. The question is therefore what can global learning mean, if our aim is not only to achieve incremental improvements, but to reverse current trends before we cross even more tipping points? How can we define truly sustainable development, while seriously considering both economic and technological implications? How can we as societies organize our learning for transitions to sustainability, within and outside existing formal education systems?
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| 55. |
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| 56. |
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| 57. |
- Nordén, Birgitta
(författare)
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Sustainability Teaching Beyond Disciplines with a Global Dimension
- 2014
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Including a global context while initiating transdisciplinary education for sustainable development locally, is urgent. In literature review rhetoric still dominates. There is a demand for investigating teacher experiences of transdisciplinary sustainability teaching within a global framework. In particular as the process of learning towards sustainability in global–local settings is often stated as critical. Research on new settings of teaching and learning approaches, with the potential to facilitate real transdisciplinary thinking, and seeking to implement SD into the curriculum, must be given priority. This empirical study of teachers´ understanding of their teaching of Global Learning for Sustainable Development (GLSD) records subsequent educational development steps identifying the challenges. A phenomenographic approach with semi-structured interview questions is used to research teachers’ experiences of extending towards transdisciplinary GLSD teaching. Within a longitudinal study teachers at an upper secondary school reflect on real practices focusing critical aspects experienced. The investigation shows teachers´ understanding of their teaching of GLSD. Continuity in the didactic process of initiating globalisation of teaching ESD is hardly extraordinary. Because of the complexity of SD issues, it is necessary to bring in an open-minded elucidation of the globalization aspects actually at hand in the foundation of the SD concept. Comprehensively examined, a foundation built on knowledge capabilities for transdisciplinary teaching approaches characterized by signs of capability to learn and act globally could be considered forceful and holistic in its nature , instead of relying on a competence-base.
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| 58. |
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| 59. |
- Nordén, Birgitta, et al.
(författare)
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Sustainable development through global learning and teaching
- 2012
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Ingår i: Handbook of sustainability managment. - : World Scientific Publishing. - 9789814354813 ; , s. 379-401
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Towards sustainability the implementation of Global Learning for Sustainable Development (GLSD) is crucial. A better understanding of how to – from a global didactic angle – establish globally genuine dialogues forming nuanced conceptions of sustainable development (SD) is necessary. Global teaching as well as global learning has to identify the challenges in various contexts for transdisciplinary knowledge formation. Aiming to reach established and new target groups; higher education and secondary school as well as informal learning situations demands a holistic understanding. Highlighted from a perspective of preventive management strategies for SD, understanding collaboratively could serve as a tool to reach a deeper knowledge formation process through global learning i.e. GLSD. Notwithstanding, the global perspective has to be integrated in curriculum to achieve a competence-driven global curriculum. Thereby, capabilities through constructive interaction for various (intercultural) qualities of global learning and knowledge formation for sustainable development will be a central part of the outcome.
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| 60. |
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