This study explores the interaction between students and teachers in subject-specific

vocational education, specifically focusing on the hair and make-up stylist classroom

within the handicraft programme in Swedish upper secondary school. The aim is to

understand the role and significance of the mirror in enabling teacher-student

interaction and mutual understanding. By integrating Conversation Analysis and

Variation Theory into a unified approach (CAVTA), the study seeks to provide

comprehensive insights into the ‘what’ and ‘how’ aspects of learning. CAVTA enables

the identification of the visible content in teaching and how it manifests in the staged

vocational education setting. The findings reveal the teacher’s strategic use of the mirror

to emphasise critical aspects of the Object of learning, in this study referring to the

application of eye shadow. This utilisation of the mirror serves as a valuable teaching

tool in the interaction between the teacher and student.

Student teachers who previously have gained academic knowledge or vocational skills often find it challenging to transform content knowledge into teaching activities that contribute to their future secondary students’ learning. Student teachers express a need for pedagogical tools, time to practice, and opportunities for reflection. Previous research has shown that this can be achieved through micro-teaching, which in our interpretation implies that student teachers practice teaching 1) with a limited subject-specific content 2) for a limited amount of time 3) in a low-stakes situation. The aim of this study is to investigate in what ways micro-teaching can support student teachers in designing and conducting subject-specific and pedagogical teaching activities. Our research method is inspired by action research, and conducted in four steps. The first step is to carefully plan how to implement micro-teaching for student teachers in our own teaching. The second step is the implementation. In a third step, we evaluate student teachers’ experiences from conducting micro-teaching through a survey and individual interviews. The fourth step involves analyzing the results, and adjusting our initial plan for implementation of micro-teaching, if needed. Together, these four steps make up the first cycle. We plan to conduct a second cycle before the research questions can be answered. At the time of writing, we are conducting a first cycle in different subjects. Since the study is still in its infancy, there are no results to report, but we expect to find both similarities and differences between the different subjects in how micro-teaching can support student teachers in transforming existing content knowledge into teaching activities.

In the vocational education classroom settings, teaching and learning are done in interaction between teacher and students. This study is a part of a larger VR-funded project (dnr 2017-03552) which explores vocational learning in technical upper secondary vocational education. In our study we aim to shed light on how learning takes place in a vocational classroom at the handicraft programme (hair- and makeup stylist) in actual teaching situations. When studying how learning takes place in a vocational and educational training classroom, we can reach more in-depth knowledge about the teacher-student interaction in a narrower scale.   

The purpose is to contribute with knowledge regarding how learning takes place and can be made visible with support of the concepts critical aspects features within variation theory (cf. Marton, 2015) and how learning is done in interaction (Sahlström, 2012) between the teacher and the student(s) in the learning settings.    

Methods/Methodology

Our empirical data consists of video material of lessons in the Handicraft programme. Conversation Analysis and Variation Theory (CAVTA) are the basis of this study described by Kilbrink and Asplund (2020). To reach a more comprehensive knowledge of the what- and the how-aspects of learning, Conversation analysis and Variation Theory are merged into one common approach (cf. Emanuelsson & Sahlström, 2008). CAVTA is used as the analytical tool when analyzing the video material. 

Expected outcomes

In the data we can see that it takes about 3-7 rounds of interactions where the student gets guidance step by step, before the student reach the learning content regarding the whole makeup procedure. The teacher comes back to the students learning process and negotiates continuously during the lesson. Learning occurs through negotiating when using artefacts, embodied movements, mirrors and tools.     

References 

Emanuelsson, J., & Sahlström, F. (2008). The price of participation: Teacher control versus student participation in classroom interaction. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 52(2), 205-223. https://doi.org/10.1080/00313830801915853Kilbrink, N., &

Asplund, S.-B. (2020). “This angle that we talked about”: learning how to weld in interaction. International Journal of Technology and Design Education, 30(1), 83-100. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10798-018-9490-z

Marton, F. (2015). Necessary conditions of learning. Routledge. 

Sahlström, F. (2012). "The truth lies in the detail": On student and teacher epistemic-stance displays in classroom interaction. In B. Kaur (Ed.), Understanding teaching and learning: Classroom research revisited. (pp. 79-90). Sense publishers. 

In interaction between students and vocational teachers, technical artefacts constitute an essential part for the development of vocational students’ future professional knowledge. Although vocational learning has been an under-researched area, there has been an increased interest within the vocational education research to examine the teaching and learning processes that take place when vocational students and teachers interact in vocational school settings. The presence of physical objects such as tools, machines and material in the teaching and learning processes within vocational education, which encompass a central aspect of a vocational subjects’ specific characteristics, is a dimension which is often overlooked. In the Handicraft programme (specialization hair- and makeup stylist) at Swedish upper secondary vocational education, a large part of the practical work that students are engaged in is to view their work through the mirror. Therefore, the focus in this study is what learning content is made relevant when teacher and student(s) are interacting in front of the mirror. The data for the study consists of video recorded lessons from the Handicraft Programme, and the study is based on CAVTA (Conversation Analysis and Variation Theory). Based on CAVTA, the process of learning includes what is being learned and how learning is done in interaction between the teacher and student(s) in the authentic and enacted teaching session. At the conference, we will present results from detailed analysis of sequences when the teacher and the students interact in front of the mirror and what vocational knowledge is made possible to learn in these interactions.

Framing

Det saknas klassrumsstudier på yrkesprogram med fokus på yrkeslärande, som ofta sker i interaktion mellan lärare och elev i relation till praktiska lärandeobjekt (Asplund & Kilbrink, 2018; Pahl, 2014). Tidigare forskning visar på att spegeln kan vara en resurs i undervisning med fokus på det praktiska lärandeobjektet (Douglah, 2020) men det saknas studier som fokuserar på Hantverksprogrammet. I relation till ett VR-finansierat projekt om yrkeslärande inom teknisk gymnasial yrkesutbildning (dnr 2017- 03552), videofilmades undervisning inom yrkesämnet hantverksteknik på Hantverksprogrammet inriktning hår- och makeupstylist. Syftet är att bidra med kunskap om hur spegeln används som resurs i undervisningssituationer när lärandeobjektet är i fokus. Eleverna lägger olika makeuptekniker på varandra och agerar varandras modeller, läraren tillkallas eller väljer själv att granska det pågående arbetet där, i dessa fall, spegeln används som resurs för lärande i yrkesundervisningen. Lärandet sker i interaktion genom olika sätt att använda kroppen, blickar, gester och talet används för att få fram hur lärandeobjektet kan förstås och läras i processen eller undervisningssituationen mellan lärare och elev (Goodwin, 2000; Marton, 2014).

Denna studie ställer följande frågor: När och hur orienteras det mot spegeln i undervisningen? Vad i relation till lärandeobjektet synliggörs när spegeln används som en resurs i undervisningen?

Methodology/Method

Utifrån det videoinspelade materialet har 15 filmsekvenser identifierats där lärare och elever orienterar sig emot spegeln som resurs när de interagerar med varandra i relation till ett lärandeinnehåll. Sekvenserna har analyserats vidare och i den här presentationen fokuseras det på hur lärandeobjekten framställs och bearbetas på olika sätt. Som metodologisk utgångspunkt används CAVTA (Conversation Analysis and Variation Theory Approach), i analysarbetet används verktyg sprunget ur CAVTA. När de sammanförs syftar analyserna till att finna bredare kunskap gällande vad och hur aspekterna av lärande mot ett specifikt lärandeobjekt. (jfr Asplund & Kilbrink, 2018; Asplund & Kilbrink, 2020; Kilbrink & Asplund, 2020).

Outcomes

I de utvalda exemplen fokuseras det på spegelns funktion som en stöttning för eleven att kunna se hela makeupen tillsammans med läraren. Utdragen startar när de positionerar sig vid spegeln tillsammans. De multimodala demonstrationerna blir tillgängliga från ett gemensamt perspektiv där spegeln, lärarens förslag och instruktionerna möjliggör en gemensam förståelse för det som Goodwin (1994) benämner som «den professionella blicken» som en stylist använder för att se helheten i en makeup. Därefter kommer råd och förslag från läraren, och ibland är även eleven delaktig i vad som behöver justeras för att gå vidare med att göra klart makeupen.

This presentation focuses on the future-oriented movements that take shape when vocational teachers and vocational students negotiate how a practical task could, and should, be handled and solved in vocational teaching situations in vocational workshop settings. The data consists of video recorded lessons from four vocational programmes in Swedish upper secondary school, and the analysis is based on the theoretical and methodological framework of CAVTA (Conversation Analysis and Variation Theory Approach). By focusing on the longitudinal orientations towards a future doing that are set into play in the teaching situations, we will show how aspects concerning a specific vocational learning content that revolves around a vocational practical doing compete for the space by a vocational learning content of a more general nature. We argue that the specific and the general vocational learning content does not necessarily have to be in conflict with each other in the teaching situation. Rather, they can complement each other and open up for more in-depth vocational learning. As such, our study emphasises the importance for vocational teachers to develop teaching strategies to navigate between helping the students in their problem solving here and now, and contextualising the specific vocational learning content and making vocational learning relevant for future vocational occupation and working life.

In Sweden, upper secondary vocational education is organised as school-based as well as workplace-based learning, just like in other European countries. However, few studies focus on the programme-specific teaching and learning in the school-based part of the education. In a three-year project, we address this lack of research in different sub-projects. In this paper we present empirical examples from four of those sub-projects concerning teaching and learning in vocational education workshop sessions carried out in four vocational programmes. Video-recorded teaching and learning in workshop sessions have been analysed based on CAVTA (Conversation Analysis and Variation Theory Approach), with a specific focus on the learning processes that take shape when vocational teachers and upper secondary students interact with tools and materials in relation to technical objects of learning. Altogether, these examples show complex and dynamic interactive processes, which become visible in the analysis of the interaction between teacher(s) and student(s) while teaching and learning in vocational workshops.