Lärarhantverket i slöjd

Betydelsen av lärarens kommunikation för elevers lärande

Abstract

This study is the fourth in a series where forms of communication and communicative resources have been investigated in relation to the teacher's way of acting and communicating in different teaching situations. The focus is now on how different communicative strategies affect the students' opportunities for knowledge and physical learning, as well as whether the instructor's choice of communication strategy has an effect on what the students actually learn. The study has the research question "How does the teacher's choice of communication forms and communicative resources affect the students' understanding and opportunities for learning crafts?"
Communication theory is the starting point for the study. More specifically, mastery, the importance of the learning goal, the dialog of the process, digital craft instructions, "the common third" and teachers' approach are covered.
The study is based on three different strategies: digital instruction only, instruction through fictional communication, and instruction through concrete guidance. The three strategies were used during two teaching sessions with the same craft technique, but with different products. The lessons were recorded with video. The experience is analyzed with several different focuses; introduction and instruction (lärarnas resp. den digitala), the two lärarnas' actions during the students' work, as well as the students' level of mastery. The analysis of the students' degree of mastery was done with a focus on three parts of the craft process - cutting with scissors, filing/sanding and enameling. The analysis included the development that had taken place in the pupils' craft skills during the two lessons.
The study showed that the choice of teaching strategy – i.e. the didactic decisions regarding the form of communication and communicative resources – plays a decisive role in teaching situations where instruction is given to enable learning in a craft. On the one hand, the lärarhantverket, i.e. the teacher's own craft skills and how it is expressed in the teaching context, is of great importance for the students' learning opportunities. In part, a clear connection emerged between specified learning objectives and learning outcomes, where the different forms of instruction led to different focuses on process and/or product production.
The study highlights the importance of the interplay between learning objectives, the choice of instructional and communication form, the instructional situation itself and the role of the lärarhantverket – factors which together affect the individual student's learning opportunities.