Proposal view
| Proposal Type: | Individual Paper |
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| Domain: | Learning and Social Interaction |
| SIG: | Social Interaction in Learning and Instruction |
| Type | Submitted Paper |
| Equipment |
Overhead projector |
| Paper Details |
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| Title | Planning work - student activity in the primary classroom |
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| Abstract | In the Swedish comprehensive school, teachers’ lecturing is to a great extent being replaced by a pedagogy involving students’ individual and self-directed studies. Students are supposed to have influence over and take responsibility for their own work and learning. This paper aims at scrutinizing conversations between teacher and student concerning students’ planning of their weekly work. The research is carried out as a field study in a Swedish primary school. Three groups with 18 students in each are being followed. Each group has its own teacher (female). Data is collected by means of observations and field notes, audio tape-recorded teacher instructions and conversations between teacher and student. There is a clear focus on meta-cognitive aspects concerning ability to plan one’s own work. It is also obvious how forms of disciplining are intertwined with activities, not least as concerns study behaviour and children’s use of time. The emergence of specific forms of communication in this teaching and learning context implies an increasing bureaucratisation of schooling. Results will give insight into what this organization of teaching and learning does when it comes to defining students as successful or not, and in which ways teachers’ work and the character of institutional knowledge is transformed. |
| Summary | An increasing variation as concerns students’ cultural background, a growing body of information in society as well as demands on students’ participation and influence has contributed to the fact that forms for teaching and learning have changed radically in the Swedish comprehensive school. Teachers’ lecturing is to a great extent replaced by a pedagogy involving students’ individual and self-directed studies. Accordingly, the teachers’ role has changed into being more of a tutor and students are supposed to take more responsibility for their own work and learning. What does this mean to the organisation of schoolwork and to premises for students’ activities and learning? What is emphasized as appropriate activities? What is construed as valued knowledge? How do students make sense of and cope with planning? What makes a successful student? Aim The general interest behind the project is to analyse teaching and learning as communicative practices. The specific aim with this paper is to scrutinize the teacher’s and the students’ planning of the weekly individual work and the following conversations between the teacher and individual students about the student’s work. Methodology The research is carried out as a field study in a Swedish primary school. It is a small school unit with six groups of students, 6-8 years old (grade 1-2) and one preschool group, 5-6 years old. Three groups with 18 students in each are being followed. Each group has its own teacher (female). Data is collected by means of observations and field notes, audio tape-recorded teacher instructions, conversations between teacher and student and between students. Furthermore interviews with the teachers and students as well as various working material, logbooks, portfolios, etc, will make up the data in the project. Questions will be posed and data generated and analysed from a socio-cultural and discursive perspective. Findings In this paper, some preliminary findings from the project will be reported. Talk and conversations concerned such as listening to, understanding and adhering to instructions, choosing and naming study content, textbooks and other study material. There is a clear focus on meta-cognitive aspects concerning ability to plan one’s own work. It is also obvious how forms of disciplining are intertwined with activities, not least as concerns study behaviour and children’s use of time. The emergence of specific forms of communication in this teaching and learning context implies an increasing bureaucratisation of schooling. Theoretical and educational significance of the research Features of how forms of learning and knowing are construed and evolve in the classroom will be illustrated in the paper. This is done within a socio-cultural and dialogic perspective on learning and interaction (Vygotsky, 1934/1986; Wertsch, 1991, 1998). Teaching and learning are seen as embedded in institutions with long traditions. Even though classrooms constantly change, they maintain basic features that are immediately identified as instances of school practices. Traditions of the old institution are reconstructed also in working forms that carry traits of more modern ambitions, as for instance students’ participation and influence. For participants, it takes considerable skill and sensitivity to realize what is expected (Bergqvist & Saljo). The work is also inspired by a discursive approach to the study of social interaction (Harre & Gillet, 1994; Fairclough, 1995; Edwards, 1997; Mercer, 2004). Schooling is largely a communicative activity and phenomena as for instance “influence” and “own choice” are construed by means of language. It is talked into being (Bergqvist, 2001). Foucault (1977) will be of use as concerns theories about how institutions work when it comes to the disciplining of individuals. Also Bernstein 1975/1984) is highly relevant in the sense that this is a kind of education to a great extent characterized by invisible and indirect aims which means difficulties for many children to see through what counts and what activities are (seen as) productive. Individual work and planning is now widely spread at all levels within the Swedish comprehensive school. Still, there is little knowledge about the concrete premises for teaching, learning and communication and what qualifies as work and learning within this organization. The project aims at generating knowledge about children’s readiness to make use of the learning environment. The project will also give insight into what the organization of teaching and learning does when it comes to defining students as successful or not and in which ways teachers’ work and the character of institutional knowledge is transformed. |
| Keywords | Classroom discourse Planning Self-regulation |
| Appendices | |
| Authors | ||||||
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| Name | Surname | Institution | Country | EARLI Number | Presenting | |
| Kerstin | Bergqvist | Linkoping university | Sweden | kerbe@ibv.liu.se | * | |
