Encountering Evolution : Children's Meaning-Making Processes in Collaborative Interactions

Abstract

This thesis explores preschool class children's meaning making processes when they encounter evolution. By adopting social semiotic and sociocultural perspectives on meaning making, three group-based tasks were designed. Video data from the activities were analysed using a multimodal approach. The analysis focuses on how the communicated science content affects the science focus of the tasks, how different materials function as semiotic resources and influence meaning making, and interactive aspects of doing science in the meaning-making processes. The findings reveal that, by using the provided materials and their previous experiences, the children argue for different reasons for animal diversity and evolution. Throughout the tasks, a child-centric view of life emerged in a salient manner. This means that, apart from the science focus, the children also emphasise other aspects that they find important. The child-centric perspective is suggested to be a strength that enables children to engage in science activities. The results show that the provided materials had three functions. Children use materials as resources providing meaning. This means that the children draw on the meaning potential of the materials, a process that is influenced by their previous experiences. Moreover, in interaction with peers, the materials also serve as communicative and argumentative tools. Thus, access to materials influences the children's meaning making and enables them to discuss evolution and "do science". The findings also reveal an intimate relationship between task context and interaction. More scripted tasks convey more child-adult interaction (scaffolding) while less scripted tasks, during which children build on previous experiences instead of communicated science content, stimulates child-child interaction (mutual collaboration). In scaffolding interactions, a greater emphasis is placed on the science topic of the task due to guidance from the adult. Consequently, meanings made by children in more scripted tasks are more likely to be "scientifically correct". However, if the teacher or the adult steps back and allows the children to engage in mutual collaboration, they engage in multiple ways of doing science through evaluating, observing, describing and comparing. v Overall, the research reported in this thesis suggests that task contexts and materials have a great impact on children's meaning making and how science is done.

Book talks as an approach to nature of science teaching in early childhood education

“…Therefore, it has been argued that teachers need to develop skills for how to carefully plan and scaffold the book readings so that the contents of the book can be supplemented with nuanced reflections and discussions in order to broaden the images of science (Brunner, 2019;Dagher & Ford, 2005;Schroeder et al, 2009;Sharkawy, 2009;Zarnowski & Turkel, 2012). Such scaffolds have been discussed as extra-textual talk (Anderson et al, 2012) or as dialogic and interactive read alouds (Frejd, 2019;Oyler, 1996;Smolkin & Donovan, 2003;Wiseman, 2011) that is, conversations that extend the text by sharing and co-constructing meaning in various ways. In this project, we have chosen the term 'book talk', which is a summary concept for the reading from a book and the discussions among teachers and children connected to the reading.…”

Characteristics of book talks aboutNature of Science

“…First, we acknowledge the importance of approaching the books in a reflective and critical manner which also means that the teacher must be able to problematize the contents of the book together with the children. Previous studies have labeled these kinds of conversations extra‐textual talk (Anderson et al, 2012) or dialogic and interactive read‐alouds (Frejd, 2019; Oyler, 1996; Pappas et al, 2003; Smolkin & Donovan, 2003; Wiseman, 2011). In the present study we use the term book talk , a term that, in fact, can mean that the teacher does not read at all but only orchestrates a talk connected to a specific book.…”

Praktiska moment på distans – Form och ämnesinnehåll i naturvetenskap och teknik inom grundlärarutbildningen under covid-19-pandemin

“…Det innebär att ämnesinnehåll och arbetssätt integreras i naturvetenskapliga och/eller tekniska aktiviteter som till exempel laborationer, observationer, exkursioner, konstruktionsaktiviteter och designprocesser. Naturvetenskap och teknik är därmed också mänskliga aktiviteter vilka konstrueras genom och i interaktion mellan människor och material/artefakter (jfr Frejd, 2019). Utifrån detta perspektiv är kunskap i dessa ämnen snarare något som aktualiseras i ett aktivt görande än något som överförs från en mer kunnig person (universitetsläraren) till en mindre kunnig person (lärarstudenten).…”

“…I de salar som används vid praktiska moment i naturvetenskaps-och teknikundervisning i campusförlagd utbildning finns ämnesspecifika material, som djurpreparat, konstruktionsmaterial, mätglas och mikroskop. När studenter ska lära sig något nytt och meningsskapande sker blir både material (Frejd, 2018;Hetherington et al, 2018) och interaktion (Walker & Baepler, 2018) viktiga resurser (Frejd, 2019). I den här artikeln användes begreppet semiotiska resurser för att beskriva språk, gester, material och andra resurser som används i kommunikation där ett Högre utbildning 65 meningsskapande äger rum (Frejd, 2018;Van Leeuwen, 2005).…”