Browsing by Subject "positiointiteoria"

Goal of the study. This is a qualitative case study of problem solving and interaction in a play pedagogical application called the "city game". Problem solving interaction is viewed through the concept of position. The research questions are: 1. What kind of problems emerge in the "city game"? 2. What kind of social positions do the participants have during problem solving activities? Many researchers of the learning sciences emphasize the importance of collaboration, peer-learning, agency, active participation, sense of belonging, and problem based learning methods in school pedagogy. The goal of the thesis is to understand how these pedagogical ideas appear in the "city game". By analyzing the problem solving situations and the positions of the participants, I examine the learning possibilities the "city game" might offer in school context. Method. The data of this study was collected in a play pedagogical school that is a result of a research project started by Pentti Hakkarainen, professor of pedagogics. The children in the class are 4–8 years old, and there are four adults working with the class. The studied game is called the "city game". It consists of the adults and the children together creating a city with five different service points, like a candy store, a bank, and a spa. Some of the participants participate in a role of customer service personnel, and the others (all of the adults and some of the children) wander around as customers and buy different services and goods. The data consists of a video recording of one play episode (1 ½ hours). From this video, I selected problem solving episodes and analyzed them in terms of quality of the problem. By the methods of interactions analysis I then determined the positions of the participants. Results and discussion. There were many different kinds of problems in the data. Some of them were well-structured (typical in school), and others more ill-structured or open ended (more typical in real life settings), and the solvers used many different kinds of strategies. Most of the problems emerged and were solved in collaboration by children. The children participated in the problem solving in various positions, and some of them were more active than the others. The adults scaffolded the problem solving, but withheld from actually solving the problem for the children. The play and its roles were obviously very motivating, as the children stuck to their roles very persistently, even in difficult problem solving situations. The play roles also affected the problem solving positions, for example, solving a problem was seen more as the responsibility of the service personnel, who were usually the most active solvers. In the light of the previous studies, the problems in the "city game" promote deep learning by understanding, and inner motivation. As a problem solving environment the "city game" promotes agency, active participation, sense of belonging, collaboration, and peer-learning, all of which have been confirmed to have very positive influence on children's learning and well-being. According to these results, the "city game" and other play pedagogical applications similar to it can be seen as a highly recommended learning environment in comprehensive school, as well as in preschool.