This study presents an analysis of preschool teachers' reasoning about pedagogical goals. Of specific interest is how teachers in a Swedish and a Finnish context describe goals for children's learning and how they describe them implementing these goals into their practice. The research question is thus: How are pedagogical goals perceived and…

The study investigates the transdisciplinary teaching of education for sustainable development (ESD) with a global dimension at an upper secondary school in Sweden. The purpose was to analyse and describe variations in how nine teachers in different subject matters experienced collaborative teaching in the context of a whole school educational…

Visual representations are essential for communication and meaning-making in chemistry, and thus the representational practices play a vital role in the teaching and learning of chemistry. One powerful contemporary model of classroom learning, the variation theory of learning, posits that the way an object of learning gets handled is another vital…

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 2013) defines its views on necessary skills for 21st century citizenship and life-long learning, advocating a generic skillset of literacy, numeracy, and problem-solving in technology-rich environments. Other sources also include critical thinking as a vital 21st Century skill.…

Explanatory pictures and models are frequently used in teaching and learning situations. However, it seems to be simply assumed that they are always beneficial. In this article results from an investigation with 16 Swedish pupils aged 7-9 year are presented based on an analysis that has examined how well this assumption holds up. Concepts from…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the challenges of using ICT in secondary schools in Sweden from teachers' perspectives. Design/methodology/approach: The research followed a qualitative research approach. First, a conceptual framework was developed based on previous research. Then, four teachers, teaching in six different…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore upper secondary school students' voices on how information and communication technology (ICT) could structure and support their everyday activities and time at school. Design/methodology/approach: In all, 11 group interviews were conducted with a total of 46 students from three upper secondary…

Background: Assessment "for" learning (AfL) is now marketed across the Western world as a key to an improved goal attainment in most school subjects. The concept has also attracted increased interest in the international research field of physical education (PE) in recent years. According to (Chan, K., P. J. Hay, and R. Tinning. 2011.…

During the last decade there has been on-going discussions about students' declining interest and low achievement in science. One of the reasons suggested for this decline is that teachers and students have different frames of reference, whereby teachers sometimes communicate science in the classroom in a way that is not accessible to the…

In educational settings, sustainable development (SD) is often handled with the aim of reducing the contested aspects of the concept. Issues like trade, conservation, public health and international relations are often presented in a simplified way so that they are easier for students to grasp. However, in education, this tendency to simplify…

Background: For many years, scholars in Physical Education Teacher Educator (PETE) have argued for the importance of educating pre-service teachers (PSTs) about equality (e.g. Evans, J. 1990. "Defining a Subject: The Rise and Rise of the New Physical Education?" "British Journal of Sociology of Education" 11: 155-169),…

Previous research has suggested that adopting a transformative school organisation perspective when implementing ESD may be more productive than the previously recommended transmissive perspectives, but it is not clear how transformative perspectives could be introduced. To address this issue, we conducted an empirical mixed methods study of…

The development of language and literacy abilities of young multilingual children is important to their future educational engagement and success in school. In this study, the value of taking account of place and sustainability in early literacy education is considered. This research provides ideas for practice-based research on early literacy in…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how teachers' approaches to teaching and conceptions of teaching and learning with educational technology influence the implementation of three-dimensional virtual worlds (3DVWs) in health care education. Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected through thematic interviews with eight…

In this study we investigated the visions of 12 music teacher educators who teach pedagogical courses called instrumental pedagogy and classroom music pedagogy in three music academies in Finland, Norway and Sweden. The data were collected through individual, semi-structured qualitative interviews. Drawing on Hammerness' concept of "teachers'…