Preschool children's Collaborative Science Learning Scaffolded by Tablets

By describing a learning project in a kindergarten, the study will broaden the understanding of how new types of technologies, such as the use of tablets, can be used in kindergarten to strengthen the exploratory and participatory teaching of scientific phenomena. The potential tablets can have in strengthening learning, where children themselves have space to explore and reflect, is studied through an analysis of activities where kindergarten children learn about the different phases of water. As part of their learning, the children get to create time lapse photography and slow motion movies using tablets. The two research questions are: 1) How do young children communicate when working with the various phases of water? 2) Is this communication affected by different learning contexts and the use of tablets?

The results show that learning contexts where the children were allowed to be active during experimentation with water, and where they were also able to relive the experiments by watching time lapse films or producing slow motion films themselves, produced more advanced reflections on the scientific topic. In addition, the children were more creative and active in relation to problem solving. The study concludes that this type of learning process and joint discussions followed by experiments and the production of films is productive in work involving kindergarten children and science. 

The empirical material in the study comes from audio and video recordings of eight different learning activities in a kindergarten in Sweden. A group of nine children (from 3 to 6 years old) and their teacher were observed while they were working on a project exploring the different phases of water (melting/freezing and evaporating/condensing). A typical activity session started with a group discussion, before the children and the teacher conducted an experiment to change water from one phase to another. Afterwards, pupils got to watch time lapse films of the same change and they created slow motion films using Lego or playdough. The children’s communication during the activities was recorded and then analysed by the researchers. 

Fridberg, M., Thulin, S. & Redfors, A. (2018). "Preschool children's Collaborative Science Learning Scaffolded by Tablets". Research in Science Education, 48(5):1007-1026.