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In this new working group, we will explore the use of creative methods for both analysing qualitative data and reporting research results.

In this paper, we attempt to open a discussion about mathematics teacher education settings constraining prospective teachers’ discursive opportunities, a phenomenon noted in our respective doctoral dissertations. These two doctoral dissertations represent two different types of prospective teachers from three countries. Prospective primary school teachers who had positive experiences and interest in mathematics on the one hand, and prospective teachers who struggled with mathematics and were insecure about their future mathematics teaching on the other. In the discussion, we speculate about the implications of discursive opportunities for prospective teachers' process of becoming a mathematics teacher and highlight the need to place effort to offer sufficient discursive opportunities to prospective teachers.

Research suggests that engaging in identity work is a vital part of a process of becoming a mathematics teacher and that mathematics teacher educators (MTEs) are key to supporting this process, yet we currently know very little about the identity work of MTEs themselves. In this paper, we contribute to this dearth of literature whilst exploring what the perspective of enactivism has to offer identity research given its emphasis on relationships and embodied action. We formulate our conceptualisation of MTE identity work as a set of seven methodological principles informed by the enactivist theory of cognition., The Makings

The mathematics teaching young students encounter not only affects the mathematics they are given the opportunity to learn but also their view of what mathematics is, how mathematics is taught and how they view their ability to learn mathematics. In this paper, an Educational Design Research study on problem solving and problem posing with Swedish six-year-olds will serve as an example. We elaborate on how students’ participation in education may affect their views of what it means to be taught and to learn mathematics. We do so by comparing drawings of mathematics classrooms made by students from eight classes, of which four attended the project. The results indicate a reform-oriented and more diverse view of content and form reflected in the drawings by the students participating in the intervention.

Previous research shows that pupils’ participation in educational activities increases when they are allowed to use several forms of expression. Furthermore, digital media have become increasingly prominent as “carriers” of meaning in chemistry education. Based on that, this paper aims to explore ‘what is happening’ and ‘what is possible’ when six-year-old pupils participate in multimodally designed learning activities and create digital animations of water molecules and phase changes of water. This study is qualitative and draws on the frameworks of social semiotics and Designs for Learning, DfL, where teaching and learning are seen as a multimodal design. The Learning Design Sequence model, developed within DfL is used as a basis for the lesson design and as an analytical tool. The analyzed data were generated by filming when pupils participated in multimodal learning activities, created digital animations, and participated in meta-reflective discussions regarding their digital animations. The main findings are that multimodally designed lessons can increase pupils’ meaning making in chemistry, that the creation of digital animations may both increase pupils’ participation and support their meaning making, and that meta-reflection of pupils’ representations is an important part of the lesson design.

In this paper we present findings from an initial phase of a more extensive study focussed on ways in which prospective mathematics teachers negotiate meaning from mathematics teacher education situations. The focus of this paper is on the language of one mathematics teacher educator and specifically the interpersonal aspects from one mathematics teacher education lecture in Sweden for prospective upper-primary school teachers. We draw on the enactivist view of cognition as a theoretical basis for a methodology we develop that utilises Systemic Functional Linguistics as an analytical tool for studying language-in-use. We exemplify our interpretations through a series of extracts from the mathematics education lecture. This initial phase of our study has exposed several important questions about how participating in an initial teacher education situation may contribute to the development of teacher identities, questions we raise throughout our analyses to provoke further investigation as part of our future research.

This paper initiates a longitudinal study that explores the growth and development of mathematics teacher educators (MTEs), particularly those transitioning from mathematics teacher to university-based MTE. While existing research often employsself-based methodologies, this study adopts positioning theory as an alternativeapproach, examining Mikaela, a lower primary school teacher transitioning to auniversity-based MTE in Sweden. The paper contributes to the broader understanding of growth and development, offering insights into the challenges and strategies involved in transitioning from mathematics teacher to a MTE. The study marks the beginning of a more extensive exploration of this transition process, emphasising the need for a nuanced conceptualisations of MTE learning and expertise., Felaktigt ISBN på publikationen: 978-1-0670278-3

This paper aims to explore how pupils' positioning, competencies and meaning-making emerge in hybrid learning activities when they create digital animations in different subjects. Children of today have never lived in an analogous world but in a hybrid reality where the physical and the digital are so intertwined that they cannot be separated (Wernholm, 2020). The qualitative project draws on the frameworks of social semiotics (Kress et al., 2001) and Designs for Learning (Selander, 2008), where teaching and learning are seen as a multimodal design. As part of the Design for Learning framework, the Learning Design Sequence model is used as an analytical tool. Data has been generated by filming when pupils, in pairs or small groups, create digital animations in different subjects. The children’s digital animations were also used to get them to tell their stories about what they had done and what their intentions behind certain actions were (cf. Wernholm & Reneland-Forsman, 2019). The researchers were sensitive and paid particular attention to the children’s nonverbal communication to ascertain genuine consent to participation. Preliminary results indicate that when pupils participate in hybrid learning activities by creating digital animations together, they position themselves in relation to each other and the tablet. Furthermore, they draw on their previous experiences and competencies to make meaning. Thus, this project contributes by providing implications for the early years of schooling by showing how the use of digital tools can put a variety of children’s competencies into play and support their meaning-making in different subjects.

I denna studie arbetade förskoleklasselever med division genom problemlösning och problemformulering. Data kommer från en undervisningsaktivitet uppdelad på två tillfällen. Aktiviteten planerades i samarbete mellan förskoleklasslärare och forskare och genomfördes i 11 förskoleklasser med 205 elever. Vid problemlösning urskilde eleverna relationen mellan helhet och delar, storleken på varje del, dela som division samt kontinuerlig och diskret mängd som aspekter av division. Vid problemformulering återkom dessa aspekter samt tillkom aspekten att täljaren kan vara ett rationellt tal. Utöver dessa aspekter av division formulerade eleverna till exempel uppgifter med en liknande kontext (kakor) men med ett annat matematikinnehåll (till exempel subtraktion). Då det finns få studier om problemlösning och problemformulering med yngre elever bidrar denna studie med kunskap av värde för både (förskoleklass)lärare och forskare.

In this paper, we reflect on the role of teacher education in preparing prospective teachers of mathematics for sustainable and rewarding careers as teachers. The basis of this reflection is the case of Alva, a teacher who, after a promising start, decided to leave the profession. Through a process of analysing Alva’s final interview before leaving teaching, we identify a set of interpretive repertoires relating to the notion of dissonance. These interpretive repertoires reveal several sources of tension for Alva some of which relate directly to the ‘ideal mathematics classroom’ promoted during Alva’s teacher education. By asking the question, what could have been different for Alva? We consider the potential implications for mathematics teacher education and for us as mathematics teacher educators.

Challenges previously identified in teacher education in Sweden include: i) a gap between theoretical education provided by universities and the practical experiences encountered during teaching practice in schools, and ii) a lack of teaching methodologies in general, especially those involving digital tools. Despite research indicating that collaborative creation of digital animations by students can facilitate participation and cooperative learning (Ebbelind et al., 2023; Patron et al., 2024; Wernholm et al., 2023), these challenges persist. This developmental project aims to address these issues by introducing students to a theoretical model for designing learning activities and providing them with opportunities to utilize this model in planning, implementing, and evaluating learning activities involving digital tools.The theoretical model utilised in this project is the Learning Design Sequence (LDS)-model (Selander, 2008), which is developed within the Designs for Learning theory that in turn is theoretically connected to a social semiotics perspective of multimodality (Kress, 2010). Teacher students, university teachers and in-service teachers participate in this developmental project. Initially, university teachers and in-service teachers attended a lecture and a workshop. During this workshop, they were given the opportunity to engage in the same activity, to create a digital animation, that the teacher students are later offered to participate in. Subsequently, students utilised the LDS-model to plan, implement, and evaluate a learning design sequence with pupils. Finally, the students wrote individual reflections and shared and discussed their experiences with their peers. Following these activities, interviews were conducted with the university teachers, in-service teachers and the students to explore their experiences. Additionally, the students were asked for consent to share their written reflections with the researchers. The participating university t

This paper presents a study on the ways Swedish 6-year-old students depict combinations when solving a problem-solving task on combinatorics. The task posed to the students was: How many different sandwiches with one slice of bread and one topping can you make with two types of bread and three types of toppings? The empirical material analyzed in the paper consists of documentations from 155 students from four different schools. The results show that students drew sandwiches or drew lines between pictures of the bread and toppings to depict the different combinations. Duplicates did not occur often, and when they did occur, students detected these and did not include these in their final answers. Six-year-old students used systematic strategies, often leading to a result that was in line with the problem, and thus they found all the solutions.

VI LÄRARE DEBATT: Regeringens uppdrag till Skolverket – att göra utbildningen i förskolan skärmfri – riskerar att ge negativa och allvarliga konsekvenser, särskilt för barn som är i störst behov av att möta en digitaliserad värld med stöd av utbildade förskollärare och barnskötare. Det skriver 27 barn- och förskoleforskare i ett gemensamt upprop.

VI LÄRARE DEBATT: Regeringens uppdrag till Skolverket – att göra utbildningen i förskolan skärmfri – riskerar att ge negativa och allvarliga konsekvenser, särskilt för barn som är i störst behov av att möta en digitaliserad värld med stöd av utbildade förskollärare och barnskötare. Det skriver 27 barn- och förskoleforskare i ett gemensamt upprop.

Författarna har i snart tio år tillsammans med lärare i förskoleklass studerat hur en kreativ, reflekterande och problemlösande matematikundervisning skulle kunna utformas. I denna text diskuteras hur en sådan undervisning påverkar elevernas syn på hur matematikundervisning går till.

Research on professional development generally focuses on teacher change as the core of professional development. However, there remains an undocumented variability in how teachers change that identity studies try to document. This paper focuses explicitly on two teachers’, Diana and Nicolina, participation in an educational design research project and how the project might or might not support change when viewed from the teacher’s perspective. Through the lens of identity and ethics, we look at how teachers express a sense of being, becoming and belonging concerning their professional development. Participation in the project gives Diana a safe space of being the teacher she wants. But for Nicolina, the project is a way of becoming, providing other options for her future career. Both teachers feel a need, imagine a different way of being, and believe it is possible through their participation, and by that, the project supports change if they decide to change.

In this paper, we report of the major themes that emerged from the presentations and discussions of the paper and poster contributions in TWG18a+b. We identified the following overarching themes as key to the research and conference conversations in the field of pre-service mathematics teacher education and the professional development of in-service mathematics teachers and asked in particular: How can we (1) generalise from research whilst maintaining complexity? (2) best reflect our roles as mathematics teacher educators and researchers? (3) research the relationship between teacher education, professional development and classroom practice? (4) productively cross boundaries in our research? (5) better reflect the role of context? (6) make sure that our research makes mathematics sufficiently visible? Finally, we discuss how we can build on one another’s work to further develop the field and suggest possible future developments and research directions.

The focus of this paper is on young students’ understanding of time which is hardly studied. In the presented study, Swedish 6-year-olds first worked on a task about estimating time and after that they posed their own tasks about time. The research questions concern what aspects of time come to light when 6-year-olds (1) estimate the time needed for specific activities and (2) pose tasks related to time When estimating time, the arguments given by the students were based on previous experiences, personal situations, and emotions. Sometimes more than one of these were used in the same line of argumentation. The tasks posed by the students were related to estimation of a set time, estimation of a time given a specific activity, using a timer, point-of-time, and time as a context. Our study suggests estimation and measurement of time as a suitable content to enlarge students’ understanding of time in addition to the more common focus on ‘telling the time’.

In this paper, we explore issues relating to how certain social phenomena, such as the experiences of teachers, can be researched. In doing so, we consider questions about the status of research texts, how they are created, and what purposes they serve through examining the relationships between the researcher, the reader and the text. We argue for the legitimacy of fictionalising educational experiences and having done so present a fictionalised dialogue between two prospective mathematics teachers from Sweden who independently decide to leave their teacher education programmes. We use the notion of dissonance to provide a potential theory for the decisions made by the two prospective teachers and discuss implications of this theory for the design of mathematics teacher education programmes.

The focus of this article is on digital tools as part of mathematics education with six-year-olds. More explicitly, we study how the creation of digital animations, as a part of working on a problem-solving task, enables young students’ learning of combinatorics. In the article, the creation of digital animations implies that the students re-design, that is, recreate their solution procedure with a digital application. The aim with letting the young students create digital animations is diverse. We presume that such work enables problem solving as well as the learning of combinatorics, but also that it has potential to enable creativity and agency in learning. Video-documentations from three classrooms where students work on the problem-solving task were analysed from a multimodal perspective where teaching is seen as a design process. In that process, the teacher designs learning activities that give students access to different resources for their meaning making process. The results show that working with digital animations, when integrated in a learning design sequence, amplify students’ learning of combinatorics.

The present study aimed to explore ‘what’s happening’ and ‘what’s possible’, when young pupils jointly create multimodal texts in small groups. This was achieved by studying the process when pupils in a grade 2 classroom (i) created handwritten fairy tales, (ii) drew images, and then, (iii) transformed them into animated multimodal texts using a digital application during three small-group activities. Data comprises video recordings, pupils’ multimodal texts (writing and drawings), teaching materials, and lesson plans. This qualitative case study focuses on one group of three pupils aged 8–9. The study is theoretically grounded in the designs for learning perspective, with the Learning Design Sequence Model utilized as an analytical tool. The teacher’s design for learning—including her planned activities and the resources made available to the pupils—appeared to have a major impact on what happens and what becomes possible for the pupils in their design for learning. The teacher’s design also influenced what competencies the pupils could (and chose) to draw upon in the different activities. An important result was that the pupils positioned themselves and each other in quite different ways during the small-group activities, which partly could be explained by the different affordances of the resources provided, as well as the teacher’s design. The detailed descriptions of how the pupils’ positioning changed in relation to the teacher’s design for learning and the available resources add valuable knowledge to the field of educational research.

The use of computers and other digital tools such as tablets, smartboards and game consoles is rapidly becoming a reality in early-childhood educational settings and the early years of schooling. Thus, an important question is what potential digital tools and digital resources has - when integrated in educational practices - to increase pupils’ meaning making. Therefore, the aim of this project is to explore ‘what’s happening’ and ‘what’s possible’ when pupils (6–8 years) are part of teaching and learning practices involving digital tools, in this case when jointly creating multimodal digital animations to communicate ideas and tell stories in the subjects Mathematics, Science, and Swedish.The theoretical base is Designs for Learning (DfL) (Björklund Boistrup & Selander 2022), where teaching and learning are seen as a form of multimodal design. According to that perspective, the teacher designs learning activities, giving the pupils access to different resources to enable meaning making, while the pupils’ meaning making process is seen as a kind of re-design, based on, e.g., available resources, interests and previous experiences. In our analysis, we utilize the Learning Design Sequence (LDS) model, developed within DfL. To enable fine-tuned detailed analysis of pupils’ multimodal interaction, classroom activities with pupils working in pairs were video-recorded. Moreover, the pupils’ multimodal texts (writing, drawings, digital animations, etc.) were collected. The analysis revealed, e.g., that the different material resources provided in the teachers’ design for learning (e.g., paper, pencils, crayons, or digital tools) to a great extent steered what happened and became possible for the pupils in terms of negotiating, contributing, making suggestions, and making conscious choices of signs to use in their multimodal texts (both paper-based and digital).

Research show that the use of computers and other digital tools such as tablets, smartboards and game consoles is rapidly becoming a reality in early-childhood educational settings and in the early years of schooling in Sweden. Thus, an important question is what potential digital tools and digital resources has to increase pupils’ meaning making when integrated into educational practices. Therefore, the aim of this project is to explore ‘what’s happening’ and ‘what’s possible” when pupils in small groups create digital animations together. The theoretical base for the project is Designs for Learning (DfL), according to which teaching, and learning are seen as a form of multimodal design: the teacher stages, or 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. As part of the DfL framework, a model – Learning Design Sequence (LDS) – has been developed for teachers to use to plan and evaluate their teaching, and for researchers to use as an analytical tool in research studies.This project is carried out in three currently running studies in which the creation of digital animations when learning different subjects is studied, based on LDS. The chosen subjects are Swedish, Mathematics and Science. The project adheres to the ethical considerations regarding informed consent, anonymity, and the right to withdraw participation from the study without giving a reason. Data has been generated by filming when pupils create digital animations together. In one of the studies the pupils’ talk about their digital animations were also filmed. Thereby, fine-tune details of pupils’ multimodal interaction could be captured and analyzed. Also, pupils’ multimodal texts (writing, drawings, digital animations), teaching material and teachers’ lessons plans were collected. The results also indicate that the highest level, Ej belagd 240903, Digitala verktyg och digital kompetens i förskolans- och skolans undervisning

Vi förskole­forskare som särskilt fokuserar på digitalisering reagerar starkt på den bild av digitalisering i förskolan som dominerar i media. Det skriver flera debattörer.

The mathematics teaching young children encounter affects not only the mathematics they are given the opportunity to learn but also their view of what mathematics is, how mathematics is taught and how they view their ability to learn mathematics. In this paper, an Educational Design Research study on problem solving and problem posing with Swedish six-year-olds will serve as an example when we elaborate on how children’s participation in education may affect their views of what it means to be taught and to learn mathematics. We do so by comparing drawings, of mathematics classrooms made of children from eight classes of which four participated in the study. The results indicate a reform-oriented and more diverse view of content and form in the drawings of the children participating in the intervention., SMEER

This paper aims to explore how well-designed multimodal teaching affects pupils' meaning-making and ‘what’s happening’ and ‘what’s possible’ when pupils create multimodal digital animations of water molecules and phase changes of water. Previous research has shown that pupils’ participation in educational activities increases when they are allowed to use several forms of expression (Petersen, 2020). The project is qualitative and draws on the frameworks of social semiotics (e.g., see Kress et al., 2001) and Designs for Learning, DfL (Selander, 2008), where teaching and learning are seen as a multimodal design. The Learning Design Sequence model, developed within DfL is used as an analytical tool. Data has been generated by filming when pupils, in pairs or small groups, create digital animations in Chemistry. Afterwards, the children while showing their digital animations were asked about what they had been doing and what their intentions behind certain actions had been (cf. Wernholm & Reneland-Forsman,2019). The project adheres to the ethical considerations regarding informed consent, anonymity, and the right to withdraw participation without giving a reason. The researchers were sensitive and paid particular attention to the children’s nonverbal communication to ascertain genuine consent to participation. Preliminary results indicate that well-designed multimodal activities where pupils both create and reflect upon their digital animations appear to contribute to increased meaning-making in Chemistry. Thus, this project contributes with implications for early years of schooling by showing how using digital tools can create conditions for children’s participation and meaning-making in Chemistry., Digitala verktyg och digital kompetens i förskolans- och skolans undervisning

Med utgångspunkt i det praktiknära forskningsprojektet Problemlösning i Förskoleklass, fokuserar vi i den här presentationen på hur lärarnas olika deltagande i en intervention samverkar med forsknings-kvalitet. Studien genomförs enligt modell för designforskning med målet att utveckla både teori och praktik avseende lärande och undervisning i matematik. Genom de snart tio år som studien har pågått har de medverkande förskoleklasslärarnas deltagande i interventionen varierat, från passiva observatörer och därmed konsumenter av forskning till att ha ansvar för såväl genomförande av undervisning som datainsamling och därmed producenter av forskning. Dessa olika samarbeten har resulterat i data där frågan om autenticitet är aktuell i förhållande till om intern eller extern validitet är utgångspunkten. Dessa olika autenticitet diskuteras på presentationen i relation till forskningskvalitet.

På denna workshop kommer vi tillsammans utforska matematik, musik och relationen dem emellan. Utgångspunkten är ämnesintegrerad undervisning där lärande genom matematiska aktiviteter riktat till förskola och förskoleklass fokuseras. Efter en kort introduktion kommer deltagarna själva få delta i en rad olika aktiviteter. Dessa aktiviteter kan utmana och utveckla yngre barns förståelse för matematik och matematiska sammanhang med hjälp av musik som metod. Det matematiska ämnesinnehållet behandlar begreppsbildning, taluppfattning och rumsuppfattning.

För 20 år sedan påbörjade författaren tillsammans med en kollega ett samarbete som fokuserade innehåll från kursplanerna för både matematik och musik. Lektionssekvenser som har arbetats fram under åren utvecklas nu till att även omfatta programmering i förskolans och skolans värld.

In this paper, we review all of the contributions to TWG18, focusing on the range of research interests, theoretical perspectives and frameworks, and methodological approaches. From this review, the research presentations, and discussions, the following future directions have emerged in relation to teacher education (TE): 1) Establishing and exploring research informed international design principles; 2) summarising relevant theoretical directions; 3) exploring teacher change from an ethical perspective; and 4) scaling up innovative approaches within TE. In relation to professional development (PD), the following future directions have emerged: 1) Exploring the different roles of participants in PD; 2) exploring what makes change difficult and how professional growth best can be supported; and 3) understanding how we can best build on previous research, and each other, in order to develop the field of mathematics PD research.

We met at CERME 11 in Utrecht in February 2019. Two early career researchers from different countries, different settings, and different theoretical perspectives. Andreas, a primary mathematics teacher educator from Sweden, was researching the process of becoming a mathematics teacher, whilst Tracy, a secondary mathematics teacher educator from the UK, was researching her own process of becoming a mathematics teacher educator. Although there were obvious differences in our backgrounds as well as our research foci and approaches, when we spoke we were struck more by similarities and resonances than differences. We found that we shared common research interests and were both motivated by the lack of research concerning the practices of mathematics teacher educators in relation to the development of mathematics teachers. Since then, we have been collaborating as researchers and this conference provides us with an opportunity to share our joint research story thus far, including empirical studies that relate to both prospective teachers of mathematics and mathematics teacher educators and the relationship between the two. In doing so we will present the core methodological and ethical challenges that we have encountered and how we have handled these, including the development of a methodology for studying the language-in-use of mathematics teacher educators through combining our different theoretical perspectives (Helliwell & Ebbelind, submitted). In September 2021, we presented findings from an initial phase of our research together where we examined the interpersonal aspects of the language used by one mathematics teacher educator in Sweden (Ebbelind & Helliwell, 2021). We arrived at several important questions about how participating in an initial teacher education situation may contribute to the development of prospective mathematics teachers. In a related study (Ebbelind & Helliwell, 2022a), we applied a further layer of analysis, this time from the per

The role of the teacher education programme in preparing mathematics teachers to teach mathematics is an under-researched area within mathematics education. In this paper, we analyse four components of empirical material, each captured from a teacher education programme based in Sweden. Using a methodological approach informed by enactivism and Systemic Functional Linguistics, we build on previous analysis of the language-in-use of one mathematics teacher educator to situate a further layer of analysis, this time, from the perspective of a prospective mathematics teacher. Our findings suggest the prospective teacher in this study, who had positive experiences of mathematics at school, learns to align linguistically with the mathematics teacher educator’s contrasting views of mathematics teaching and learning, and in doing so, creates herself a safe space.

The aim is to investigate how digital play with animations may contribute to children’s (six-year-olds) learning of combinatorics, in this case how three toy bears can be arranged in a row on a sofa (i.e. permutations for n = 3). English (2005) showed that a well-organised and meaningful context facilitates young children’s possibilities to explore combinatorial situations. This study builds on Palmér & van Bommel (2020) who investigated the role of and connection between systematization, representation and digital artefacts in children’s work with combinatorial tasks. Their study showed that the use of digital artefacts may enhance children’s understanding of combinatorial problems. This study builds on designs for learning (Kress & Selander 2010), including multimodal theories. A central model is the Learning Design Sequence (LDS) model. The study is qualitative in nature, combining the LDS model with multimodal analysis. Activities, in three different classrooms, where the children worked in pairs with the combinatoric task with paper/pens and with creating digital animations were video documented. Video-documentations (150 minutes) from three pairs of children were analysed qualitatively according to the LDS model focusing on the children’s understanding of the mathematical content. The study conforms to the ethical regulations for research in Sweden. All participating teachers, children, and guardians approved their participation. Creating digital animations enhanced the children’s understanding of combinatorics. The digital animations were more systematic with more permutations than the paper and pencil documentation. The study contributes with implications for how digital play with animations can be integrated in early mathematics education., Ej belagd