two girls looking at and touching a tablet

Project: Exploring Six-year-olds’ Meaning-making in different Subjects

This project aims to provide both practical and theoretical knowledge about how teachers’ lesson design and pupils’ use of digital tools might support pupils’ meaning-making in swedish, mathematics and chemistry.

Project information

Project name
Exploring Six-year-olds’ Meaning-making in different Subjects through Multimodal Teaching and Their Creation of Digital Animations
Project manager
Marina Wernholm
Other project members
Andreas Ebbelind, Hanna Palmér and Emelie Patron, Linnaeus University; Kristina Danielsson, Stockholm University
Participating organizations
Linnaeus University, Stockholm University
Financier
The Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet; VR)
Timetable
1 Jan 2024–31 Dec 2027
Subject
Pedagogy (Department of Pedagogy and Learning, Faculty of Social Sciences)

More about the project

Inequality among pupils in Swedish schools has risen dramatically. Pupils who are positioned outside the norms are shown to benefit most from using digital tools in school. Therefore, the aim of this project is to discern, describe and problematise what happens and what becomes possible in theoretically framed teaching and learning sequences that include young pupils’ use of digital tools, including their creation of digital animations. We also aim to explore how such teaching and learning sequences can enable pupils’ participation and meaning making in different subjects.

The theoretical base is Designs for Learning (DfL), according to which teaching, and learning are seen as a form of multimodal design: the teacher designs learning activities, thus giving the pupils access to different resources that enable meaning making, and the pupils in turn re-design their learning based on their previous knowledge, interests, and experiences.

The project will be conducted through educational design research. Experiences from one design cycle is brought to the next, and the project will include three cycles. Video observations of teaching and learning sequences when pupils create digital animations will be collected and analyzed. We will also conduct focus-group interviews with pupils and interviews with teachers. The goal is to provide both practical and theoretical knowledge concerning pupils’ use of digital tools.

The project is part of the research in the Research on pedagogical professions and practices (PEPP) and Litteracitet och undervisning research groups, and the Linnaeus Knowledge Environment Education in Change.

Staff