Early Years Physics teaching of abstract phenomena in preschool: supported by digital technologies

The aim is to, through three-year professional development (PD), develop knowledge about computer tablets use during teaching sequences to scaffold children’s (3-5 years old) experiences of abstract objects of learning in physics. The role of multiple representations has been given attention during the last decades (Ainsworth, 1999; Prain & Tytler, 2013), and use of digital tools in early years education (Hoban, 2007; Fleer, 2017; 2019; Fridberg, Thulin, & Redfors, 2018). The research and PD (where science teaching activities were jointly developed in design-groups) were based on design research, variation theory (Marton & Booth, 1997) and developmental pedagogy (Pramling Samuelsson & Asplund Carlsson, 2008). Three workteams video recorded while enacting science activities encompassing video-documented experiments and Slowmation production. Qualitative analysis, founded in critical realism, of children’s collaborative meaning making of physics phenomenon was performed. Specific attention was given to informed consent from parents and collaborative consent from the participating children for video recording, children could abandon participation at any time (Farrell 2016; Swedish Research Council 2017). With abstract phenomena it was hard for children to transform between the real world and representations. However, a sequence of teaching instances scaffolded by videos and slowmations with persistent focus on both the object of learning and the children’s perspectives gave opportunities for sophisticated reasoning to develop. We would highlight the importance of teachers using specific decontextualised language and that a professional development program of several years can established sustainable model-based science teaching, even of content initially viewed as difficult and challenging by preschool teachers.