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- Andrée, Maria, 1974-, et al.
(author)
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Play with Science in Inquiry Based Science Education
- 2011
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In science education students sometimes engage in imaginary science-oriented play where ideas about science and scientists are put to use. Through play, children interpret their experiences, dramatize, give life to and transform what they know into a lived narrative. In this paper we build on the work of Vygotsky on imagination and creativity. Previous research on play in primary and secondary school has focused on play as a method for formal instruction rather than students’ spontaneous informal play. Our aim is to explore students’ informal play as part of activity in lower secondary school science. The empirical study was conducted as part of a larger study on learning, narrative knowing and remembering in inquiry based science education in two Swedish compulsory schools. Data were collected during 10 weeks using video- and audiotape recordings. The results show that the studied classroom practices offer students a variety of resources that may be used to engage in spontaneous play with science. We discern two categories of play: role-playing and game-playing involving transformations of classroom tasks and opening up for different social positioning in relation to science. Implications for teaching science is that teachers, in order to promote students learning about science as a cultural endeavor and about themselves in relation to science and scientist communities may encourage students’ informal play.
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- Andrée, Maria, 1974-, et al.
(author)
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Play with Science in Inquiry Based Science Education
- 2012
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In: Science learning and Citizenship. E-bok: http://lsg.ucy.ac.cy/esera/e_book/base/table-of-content.html..
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In science education students sometimes engage in imaginary science-oriented play where ideas about science and scientists are put to use. Through play, children interpret their experiences, dramatize, give life to and transform what they know into a lived narrative. In this paper we build on the work of Vygotsky on imagination and creativity. Previous research on play in primary and secondary school has focused on play as a method for formal instruction rather than students’ spontaneous informal play. Our aim is to explore students’ informal play as part of activity in lower secondary school science. The empirical study was conducted as part of a larger study on learning, narrative knowing and remembering in inquiry based science education in two Swedish compulsory schools. Data were collected during 10 weeks using video- and audiotape recordings. Our analyses of play show that the students step in and out of play when engaging in task completion. Play offers opportunities for sense-making, opposition and exploration of ways of enacting science identities. Implications for teaching science are that teachers, in order to promote students’ learning about science as a cultural endeavor and students’ learning about themselves in relation to science and scientist communities, may encourage students’ informal play.
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- Andrée, Maria, 1974-, et al.
(author)
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Spontaneous Play and Imagination in Everyday Science Classroom Practice
- 2013
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In: Research in science education. - : Springer. - 0157-244X .- 1573-1898. ; 43:5, s. 1735-1750
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In science education, students sometimes create and engage in spontaneous science-oriented play where ideas about science and scientists are put to use. However, in previous research, little attention has been given to the role of informal spontaneous play in school science classrooms. We argue that, in order to enhance our understanding of learning processes in school science practices, research that investigates play as an aspect of everyday culture is needed. The aim of this paper is to explore students’ informal play as part of activity in lower secondary school science. The empirical study was conducted in two Swedish compulsory schools in grade 6. Data were collected throughout a teaching unit called ‘The Chemistry of Food’ during a 10-week period using video and audiotape recordings of classroom work. Our analyses show that the play students engage in involves the transformations of given tasks. We find that students’ spontaneous collective play offers opportunities for them to explore the epistemic values and norms of science and different ways of positioning in relation to science. Our findings contribute to the understanding of how learning in the school science classroom is socially and culturally–historically embedded and how individual students’ engagement through play may transform and transcend existing classroom practices.
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- Andrée, Maria, 1974-, et al.
(author)
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Students' Ways of Using Prior Experience in Inquiry Based Science Education – the case of NTA
- 2010
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Inquiry has been identified as a 'key-approach' and recommended as an important pedagogy to improve primary science education in Europe. Inquiry is also a key component in the US national science education standards. In Sweden, inquiry pedagogy in primary science has been introduced through a large curriculum program called NTA (Science and Technology for all). The aim of this paper is to shed light on what inquiry based science education (IBSE) practices are emerging in Swedish primary schools through the introduction of the NTA-program and what activities students are engaging in, in these practices. In particular we focus on ways of working with 'what is already known' which is held to be a central aspect to IBSE in e.g. the definition of inquiry in the US national science education standards. The research questions investigated are: In what actions do students engage in when working with ‘what is already known’ in IBSE practice? How is 'what is already known' acted with in practice? Data was collected, during a 10-week-period using video- and audiotape recordings of classroom work, in two 6th grade classes where teachers and students worked with an NTA-unit called 'the Chemistry of food'. Our analysis is conceptualized within a cultural-historical activity-theoretical perspective. Results show that students participate in three different actions: A) separation of tasks, B) playing the lottery and C) challenging test results with ‘what is already known’. These different actions involve different types of use of 'what is already known' , and the actions correspond to, and acquire meaning in relation to, different goals. Common to the different ways of working is that we can discern two different types of ‘what is already known’: (1) referring to facts, and (2) making use of ideas about science culture.
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- Andrée, Maria, 1974-, et al.
(author)
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Vad vi vet om fett – en studie av att ta elevers erfarenheter som utgångs-punkt för NO-undervisning
- 2011
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Idén att bygga på elevers tidigare erfarenheter och kunskaper har varit betydelsefulla i det som benämnts ‟konstruktivistisk undervisning‟ i naturvetenskapliga ämnen. Ett råd till lärare har varit att ta elevers tidigare erfarenheter och kunskaper som utgångspunkt för undervis-ningen. Dessa idéer är framträdande i svenska NO-läromedel och upplägg för praktiskt under-sökande arbetssätt (t.ex. NTA). Syftet med detta paper är att problematisera hur elever använ-der ‟vad de redan vet‟ i praktiskt undersökande arbete i NO-undervisnings-praktiken. Inne-börder av att ta utgångspunkt i elevers tidigare efterenheter eller vad de vet om något är inte okomplicerat. Tidigare studier pekar på att det för olika skolämnen utvecklats olika skoläm-nespraktiker. Användning av det som ibland kallas vardagserfarenheter blir begripligt utifrån den specifika skolämnespraktiken snarare än utifrån en vardagskontext. Tidigare forskning om användning av vardag och tidigare erfarenheter i skolan har dock inte fokuserat på vad elever gör när de gör bruk av egna erfarenheter och kunskaper i praktiskt undersökande arbete och i vilken utsträckning bruk av egna erfarenheter bidrar till elevers lärande i linje med det avsedda undervisningsinnehållet i praktiskt undersökande arbete. Vi redovisar här en studie av hur elever arbetar med ‟vad de vet om fett‟ inom ramen för arbete med uppdraget "Matens kemi" i NTA-programmet. NTA (Naturvetenskap och teknik för alla) är ett program för prak-tiskt undersökande arbete med naturvetenskap och teknik i grundskolans tidigare år. I arbetet med matens kemi inleds varje avsnitt med att eleverna ska diskutera ‟vad de vet om‟ olika näringsämnen och därefter undersöka i vilka olika sorters livsmedel som detta näringsämne finns. I det avsnitt som handlar om fett undersöker eleverna om det finns fett i t.ex. mjölk, vatten, äpple, mjöl o.s.v. Studien bygger på analys av transkriberade ljud- och video-inspel-ningar av 12 elevgrupper i två klasser, på vardera skolan, som arbetar med lektionen om fett i uppdraget "Matens kemi". Det empiriska materialet analyseras i ett verksamhets-teoretiskt perspektiv. Resultaten visar att eleverna gör bruk av ‟vad de vet om fett‟ på olika sätt, som del av olika verksamheter. Vi urskiljer tre verksamheter som svarar mot olika ledande motiv: ut-bildning, naturvetenskaplig enkulturering och sociala relationer. Med de exempel vi lyfter fram i analysen visar vi att hur och vilka tidigare erfarenheter elever använder i arbetet med fett inte bara handlar om vilka erfarenheter elever har i relation till fett utan vilka verksamhe-ter eleverna deltar i. Elevernas bruk av ‟vad de vet om fett‟ i relation till olika motiv känne-tecknas av olika tillgängliga resurser, olika gemenskaper, olika arbets-delning mellan elever och elever-lärare samt olika normer/regler för att åstadkomma det som eftersträvas. Samman-fattningsvis visar studien att det inte möjligt att urskilja elevers tidigare erfarenheter i relation till ett naturvetenskapligt fenomen eller begrepp som något i sig som kan utgöra utgångspunkt för undervisningen.
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8. |
- Andrée, Maria, 1974-, et al.
(author)
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'What do you know about fat?' Drawing on diverse funds of knowledge in inquiry based science education
- 2012
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In: NorDiNa. - : University of Oslo Library. - 1504-4556 .- 1894-1257. ; 8:2, s. 178-193
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Connecting students’ worlds, knowledge and experiences with school science has been a central issue in science education research. Here, we conceptualize processes of drawing on students’ personal experiences and knowledge in terms of ‘funds of knowledge’. We scrutinize two sixth grade classroom practices where the inquiry curriculum reform effort, Naturvetenskap och teknik för alla (NTA), is used. This curriculum material explicitly incorporates ideas of ‘learning science from experience’. Our aim is to contribute to a discussion on what conditions of inquiry based science education (IBSE) practices may open up opportunities for science to become personally relevant to students. The research question investigated is: What do students do when they draw on funds of knowledge that are related to students’ memberships and experiences out-of-school in IBSE pratices? We then use Cultural-Historical Activity Theory framework to analyze how students’ actions of drawing on different funds of knowledge gain meaning in relation to different cultural-historical motives. Our findings indicate that students, when positioning themselves as part of different communities in relation to different goals and overall motives, make use of quite different funds of knowledge. Finally, we discuss possibilities for expanding and acknowledging students’ funds of knowledge when working with investigations in the science classroom.
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