Background: As digital tools become prevalent in preschool settings, more research is needed on how preschool teachers and children engage with science content through these tools.

Purpose: This study aims to explore how preschool teachers and children interact when engaging with science content supported by digital tools during science activities. Guided by a sociocultural perspective, this study views science teaching and learning as a social practice that involves essential artefacts, such as digital tools, for interaction.

Sample: The qualitative data consists of eight video-recorded science activities involving eight teachers and 22 children across three Swedish preschools where digital tools were used. The tools included smartphones, tablets, a digital microscope, projectors and digital resources such as films and applications.

Design and Methods: Teachers developed science activities based on pedagogical considerations using content representation (CoRe). The use of CoRe supported teachers in articulating key ideas for teaching science content by prompting consideration of appropriate methods, tools and children’s learning needs. Scienceactivities involving digital tools were then video-recorded and analysed.

Results: Our findings show that teachers used digital tools to create learning environments for engagement, recreating and extending engagement, visualising abstract phenomena and facilitating communication about science content. Additionally, digital tools enable real-time engagement and support further learning by connecting previous experiences with new ones, thereby enabling sustained engagement across contexts.

Conclusion:Our findings confirm digital tools as significant mediators of science content and suggest further research on their role in supporting science teaching and learning in preschool science contexts. © 2026 The Author(s).

As online education becomes increasingly common in language learning, there is a pressing need to understand how students experience bichronous (synchronous and asynchronous) teaching formats in second language learning contexts. Drawing on qualitative group interviews with participants enrolled in an SFI (Swedish for Immigrants) program, the study identifies key benefits and challenges associated with this blended format. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data, revealing insights into the advantages and limitations of online sessions for language skills development. The findings indicate that bichronous online teaching supports language skills development, feedback practices, structured participation, flexibility, and autonomy. However, the students reported challenges to self-paced learning, peer interaction, and digital competence. Teacher presence, feedback, and session design emerges as crucial for students’ engagement and participation. These insights suggested an enhanced approach to online teaching, combining synchronous and asynchronous methods for second language learning. Recommendations for optimising online second language teaching were discussed, emphasising the importance of adaptive pedagogical strategies, technological support, and individualised approaches to meet diverse learner needs. Copyright © 2025 Rasha Al Massalmeh, Pernilla Nilsson, Jeanette Sjöberg, Marie Utterberg

High-quality teacher education plays a crucial role in the develop-ment of successful educational systems around the world. However,educational systems face challenges in relation to attracting andretaining excellent teachers. To meet teacher shortage, the Swedishgovernment introduced alternative programmes that are moreflexible than traditional teacher education. This paper aims to ana-lyse a one-year governmental teacher education initiative and pro-vide deeper insight into career changing student teachers´ as wellas newly graduated teachers´ transition into the teacher profession.Research questions asked were which students choose to becometeachers, why individuals from other professional backgroundschoose to change career and become a teacher, and what aspectsstudent teachers emphasise as crucial for developing their profes-sional identity as teachers of their particular subject content. Assuch, the results might give implications for the way student tea-chers are recruited to teacher education programmes and hownewly graduated teachers can develop professionally. © 2024 The Author(s). 

This article investigates the adoption of remote teaching practices within Swedish as a second language courses in adult education, with a focus on teachers´ experiences during and after emergency transition to remote teaching. With the aim of understanding how teachers adopt and adapt remote teaching practices, semi-structured interviews with six in-service teachers from governmental adult education schools in Sweden were carried out. Interviews were deductively analysed based on the knowledge components in the TPACK framework (Mishra & Koehler, 2006) to provide a comprehensive understanding of how teachers use their technological, pedagogical and content knowledge to facilitate a remote learning environment for language skill development. Findings reveal the complexities of remote teaching adoption in second language context. Yet, personalised teaching practice, adaptive feedback practices, and digital platforms for assessment and course content design, appear to be valuable to enhance remote teaching sessions. Additionally, contextual factors that shape teachers' remote teaching practice were identified highlighting the interplay between context levels. The findings broadly contribute to the wider conversations in technology-based teaching practices and inform enhancing remote teaching practice for second language teaching. © 2025 Author(s).

The rapid advances in AI technologies showed a disruptive potential in educational practices, presenting new challenges and generating new opportunities. This phenomenon has been exacerbated since the release of ChatGPT in 2022, which has permanently transformed various educational activities and sparked widespread scientific interest. Research suggests that ChatGPT can help students navigate the complexities of STEM subjects. However, only a few studies have directed attention to the use of ChatGPT in STEM subjects in upper secondary education. With the purpose of addressing this gap, the aim of this study is to explore how students experience ChatGPT for their STEM studies, encompassing their usage, perceptions, and general knowledge about this technology. Using a mixed methods approach, the data collected included a survey and semi-structured interviews involving upper secondary students. The results show widespread adoption of ChatGPT across STEM subjects among participants, particularly in biology and especially as a tool to support the understanding of concepts. Although students exhibited limited knowledge of AI, they demonstrated some effective prompting strategies to generate relevant content and tackle potential inaccuracies and hallucinations. The findings in this paper provide insights to support the exploration of students’ experiences of ChatGPT, presenting relevant topics to further research the applications of these AI technologies within STEM subjects, given their importance for future societal development. © 2025 The Authors

In today's classrooms, science teaching expertise demands skilful balancing of varied and emerging science content alongside pedagogical knowledge, knowledge of students and a learning context that is continuously changing. Global challenges like climate change, social inequality, public health issues, environmental degradation and food insecurity, demand immediate attention at all levels. In science education, adaptive expertise is essential for teachers, enabling them to respond to novel challenges, integrate emerging scientific advancements, and address diverse learner needs. Hatano and Inagaki (1986) introduced the notion of adaptive expertise as the ability to apply knowledge flexibly and creatively in response to new situations. At the same time, Shulman (1986) introduced pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) as the professional knowledge of teachers which integrates knowledge of subject matter, pedagogy and context to inform effective teaching practices. This conceptual paper explores how the constructs of PCK and Adaptive Expertise can complement each other, emphasising their functions in enabling teachers to successfully navigate the complexities of contemporary science teaching and learning. The study discusses the development of Adaptive Expertise as a key focus for teachers to handle the uncertainty of a changing society, technology development, emerging sciences and a changing student population. Exploring Adaptive Expertise through the lens of PCK might provide a better understanding and support the professional development of teachers in an uncertain society and a rapidly evolving educational landscape.

This study explores how students perceive and interpret their teachers’ intended and enacted teaching about sustainability using the Refined Consensus Model of Pedagogical Content Knowledge (RCM) as a theoretical framework. Fifteen upper secondary science teachers and their students participated in the project. The science teachers used the Content Representation (CoRe) tool in the study to articulate their intentions regarding teaching and student outcomes. Data was based on the teachers’ completed CoRe documents (to capture teachers’ intentions with the teaching) and group interviews with the students directly after each lesson. Preliminary findings show that teachers teach diverse sustainability topics, such as energy, global warming, eutrophication, acidification, and overfishing. Analysis indicates strong conformity between teachers’ CoRe articulations, teaching, and students’ experiences. In a thematic analysis of the student interviews, three themes were identified regarding how students experienced their teachers’ underlying teaching intentions: fostering environmentally friendly values, developing solidarity with living beings, and promoting hope for the future. The study underscores the importance of conscious and well-planned teaching, focusing on the what, how, and why, and discusses teachers’ role in influencing students’ comprehension, values, and attitudes toward sustainability.

The pursuit of sustainable development is a necessity for life on Earth and the future of humanity. Education is important in this endeavour; therefore, creating knowledge about teachers’ teaching for sustainable development is essential. This study aimed to investigate how Swedish upper secondary science teachers adjust their teaching of the environmental dimension in sustainable development to the different vocational education programmes their students attend. Data were collected through individual semi-structured interviews with 15 in-service science teachers and analysed by thematic coding. The result showed that most teachers (but not all) adjusted their teaching to the students’ vocational educational programme; however, they did it to different extents and in different ways. The result presents teachers’ descriptions of and arguments for adjusting their teaching linked to the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) framework. The PCK framework is used as a theoretical lens in this study. Further research is needed to investigate how science teachers’ adjustments to students’ vocational education affect the students’ knowledge of the environmental dimension in sustainable development and how that affects actions in their future professional life. © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

This paper investigates how the coherent integration of three different tools for reflection during a science methods course can contribute to student teachers' planning and enactment of science teaching, that is, their development of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). The Refined Consensus Model (RCM) is used as a theoretical lens for conceptualizing links between teaching practice and the development of PCK. The results show how the student teachers' initial PCK (pPCKinput) was manifested into ePCK during planning and teaching, and further, through reflection, developed into a new and richer PCK (pPCKoutput). The three tools encouraged collaborative discussion and reflection about teaching certain big ideas linked to a topic. The case presented in this paper proved to be a coherent way to encourage student teachers to collaborate, reflect, and discuss ideas about their teaching practice and their professional development. © 2025 The Author(s).

Background: Research emphasises preschool teachers’ work with multimodal representations to assist children in developing their understanding of science content. However, this can be time-consuming and challenging in terms of preparation and materials. Slowmation is a multimodal representation where children represent and visualise science content through narrated digital animations. More research is needed on preschool teachers’ experiences of using slowmation to teach science. Purpose: This study aimed to explore preschool teachers’ experiences of implementing slowmation to teach science content in a preschool context. Sample: The study involved five teachers and 17 children (4–5 years) at two preschool departments. Design and methods: To reflect on what science content to include in the slowmation as well as to articulate their pedagogical considerations for using slowmations, the reflective tool Content Representation (CoRe) was used. Based on the CoRe, the teachers constructed slowmations with the children. Video-stimulated recall interviews (n = 2) were conducted, allowing teachers to express their experiences. The interview data were then analysed thematically. Results: The teachers’ experiences of implementing slowmation are summarised in terms of (re)framing the content, children’s engagement, repeated opportunities to engage with the content, and preparation and support needs. For instance, the slowmation due to its design, provides repetitive learning opportunities for children and addresses children’s interests and engagement. The results have implications for teaching science with slowmation in preschool settings. Further, the results indicate the importance of using a reflective tool such as the CoRe for teachers to reflect on what particular content to include in the slowmations as well as, why and how to use slowmations in preschool. Conclusion: Slowmation enhances children’s engagement and understanding of science, offering teachers valuable insights into children’s learning. Despite some challenges, its repetitive structure contributes to visualising and learning science content. Further research from a teacher’s perspective provides additional insights into the conscious use of slowmations in preschool science activities. © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.