Teaching with the support of pre-produced materials : To approach natural science in preschool

This thesis aims to develop an understanding of the possibilities and challenges pre-produced teaching materials present to teachers and the learning opportunities children are offered in teaching that uses such materials. To do this a study of preschool teachers and children from three preschool departments in Sweden was carried out. The study focuses on the preschool teachers’ descriptions of their planned teaching as well as their realization of their teaching when they use the pre-produced teaching material titled “Science and Technology for All”. The teacher guides to this material, used by the preschool teachers, are also examined. The study is based on a qualitative analysis of interviews, video observations and the teacher guides. The theoretical foundation is based on a pragmatic view from the ideas of John Dewey and the theoretical concepts ultimate and proximate purposes and continuity is used in the analysis. The results of the thesis show that, even though the preschool teachers drew on the same teaching material, they displayed three different teaching practices, each of which created different opportunities to learn natural science for the participating children. The results highlight specific teaching actions that appear to either promote or hinder children's opportunities for learning natural science. The results also show that the teacher guides are vague and ambiguous, thus opening the possibility of different interpretations regarding what should be focused on in the teaching. The study concludes by stressing the importance of clear and unambiguous teacher guides. The results of the study are relevant for teaching in preschool, and other early-years educational settings for example the early school years. The results also have a general validity across a wide range of subject areas