Exploring Six-year-olds´ Meaning-making in different Subjects through Multimodal Teaching and Their Creation of Digital Animations

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 problematize what happens and 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, 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. Experience 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 answers to questions concerning pupils’ use of digital tools that are relevant to both research and educational practice.