Browsing by Author "Oksanen, Leea Maritta"

Objectives. We live surrounded by increasingly diverse media and visual culture, which chal-lenges and enables different methods to teach and learn. The purpose of this study is to find out the fundamentals for using pictures taken by students. This study tries to find out, what meaning does the picture have for the students themselves and in addition, what pedagogical grounds can be given for the use of photographs in teaching. Methods. The participants of this qualitative study were 24 third graders with their teacher and two student teachers. The empirical research material was collected during November-December 2017 by observing the multidisciplinary learning modules and by interviewing six students, the teacher and the two student teachers. The interviews were themed semi-structured interviews. The material was analysed using theory-based and theory-driven content analysis. Quantification technique was used on parts of the material. Results and conclusions. The results of this study indicate that students might give different meanings to a photograph, which appeared as roles depending on the area of the field that was in question. These fields were Field of Working, Field of Thinking and Learning to Learn and lastly Field of Experimentalism. Category “other” comprised of; the misleader, the one who brings up problems and the one who emphasizes the importance of the group. After the third round of interviews we could add to the same category the one who commemorates the occa-sion and the one who is vague. The results also showed that the students are able to use photo-graphs to determine for themselves meaningful ways to learn. The study also produced one in-teresting method, which I think can be used in teaching, for example to improve multiliteracy.