The aim of this study is to develop our working methods regarding the
subjects of Music and Domestic Science, as well as develop the necessary
tools to enable pupils to combine both theory and practice. Research relating
to learning for educational purposes shows great interest in terminology
such as “theory and practice”, which we have focused on in our presented
study. The study has an action research approach where we have applied
teaching actions in both Music and Domestic Science. The actions have been
carried out for school years eight and nine. The chosen actions were to make
transparent how pupils work with, and combine theory and practice in our
subjects. We have through filming the pupils during their work and
subsequent analysis of the material come to three main themes: pupils show,
pupils use terminology and pupils show and use terminology. The pupils
expressed themselves in some situations purely theoretical and in other
situations only practically. Our conclusion is that deeper learning was
possible for pupils that expressed themselves in terms that they normally use
in the subject and had the possibility to use utensils to explain what they
were doing. Cooperative learning, which the actions encouraged, was
considered to work well when the pupils showed both practical as well as
described what they did with already known terminology. The implications
for our continued lessons are that active work is needed both by teachers and
pupils in order to combine the theoretical with the practical work, as well as
the importance in that pupils know and can use subject-specific terminology.