This study explores how teachers transform and implement didactical models into practice, with the aim to identify the relation between teachers’ action and students’ learning. A crucial starting point are the application of research-based models, making them didactically relevant for education, i. e. that teachers can apply and reflect upon them (Duit et al. 2012). To manage such an ambition we draw from the methodology of learning studies (Carlgren 2012, Marton & Pang 2003).

However, in our study we exchange the variation theory (Lo & Marton 2012) commonly used in learning studies, instead adopting the Transactional Theory of Learning (TTL) focusing “more fully on the dynamic relations between psychology and culture” (Lehman et al., 2004, p. 705). It is a theory departing from Dewey’s transactional approach where learning can be understood in terms of individuals’ functional coordination with their environment (Garrison 2001).

TTL is a theory that aligns with the words of Rogoff (1995) where he consider the need for educational research to re-focus more on the intra-personal (the psychological), the inter-personal (the social) and the institutional dimensions (for example manners of teaching) as well as how the interplay between these three influences the learning processes in one specific direction and not another. TTL includes Wertsch’s (1993) concept ‘privileging’ in order to draw attention to the fact that participants in the meaning-making process when learning, valuate and judge certain encounters with the physical, social and institutional environment (including psychological and physical artefacts) as a reasonable and fruitful and ignore or disregard others. The privileging that takes place during meaning making directs learning in a certain direction and towards a certain learning content. With TTL, it is possible to study the teachers’ work as their students’ encounter with the world (physical and social) becomes fruitful; taking into account student’s earlier experiences, knowledge, values, etc. and the aim of the lesson(s). TTL also takes into account processes of learning in relation to the expected and learned outcome (Östman & Öhman 2010).

Our study focuses on developing professional teaching in programming and education for sustainable development (ESD). These subjects have been strategically chosen: all Swedish citizens are in need of digital competencies making programming a challenge to teach, and worldwide a consensus is growing that the pursuit of sustainable development is one of the major societal challenges of our times and as well as programming ESD is hard to teach.

Thus, for the planning and the execution of the content and process of the lesson the teacher in programming respectively ESD, will be offered the same learning process theory (TTL), but different teaching content models: subject focus (SF) models in programing (Östman 1996) respectively Political Tendency (PT) models in ESD (Håkansson et al 2018).

The purpose of the project is threefold:

I. To test the hypotheses that the design of Learning Study can be successfully used in combination with other theories and models than Variation theory.

II. To advance the empirical knowledge on how didactical models can be used in Learning Studies to become useful didactical tools to help teachers to plane and examine their practices and enhance student learning.

III. To analyse the value and efficiency of the use of the models and methods for teachers’ work and students' learning.

In order to study how teachers’ transform and implement didactical models into their practice to generate efficient learning, we use the following three points, commonly used in a modelling cycle: a) The collaboration needs to start from the participating teachers’ own practices, as a modelling process warrants the necessary engagement of the teachers as well as a professional validity of the project (Lo & Marton 2012). b) Any results found in the research process need to be reflected on, and enacted by teachers in their actual teaching. An important pathway for change is the recognition of salient outcomes within the research process. Salient outcomes are those that the teachers recognize as significant effects from using the research-based models. c) Reflection and enactment of research in relation to teaching needs to be cyclical and be repeated both within and across the different units of the curriculum (Clarke & Hollingsworth 2002). In analyzing teachers’ transforming processes and implementation of TTL, together with a didactical subject matter model we use Practical Epistemology Analyses (PEA) (Wickman & Östman 2002). PEA extensively used in research (cf., Kelly et al. 2012) in order to obtain a detailed description of what a person or peers do, or not do, when learning or accomplishing something. In analyzing the relation between teachers’ action and students’ learning we use Epistemological Move Analyses (EMA) that has been developed by Lidar et al (2006). The purpose of EMA is to clarify actions that teachers perform in order to guide students in their learning process and the effects of actions in terms of learning. Lidar et al (2006) identified several teacher moves in knowledge-oriented lessons such as confirming, re-constructing, instructional, generative and re-orienting. EMA consists of two steps, where the first is to conduct an analysis in accordance with the analytical method of Practical Epistemology Analyses (PEA).The second step is to use the results of the first step in order to identify the specific role of the teachers for students privileging and for what students learn. Using PEA and EMA in combination the study will offer empirically grounded knowledge on what matters for teachers’ professional development.

The overall purpose in this three-year project (we are in the beginning) is to study how teachers transform and implement into their practice scientifically-based didactical models to identify successful and less successful teaching methods and learning activities, and thereby improve teachers’ lessons and students’ learning possibilities. In conclusion: we expect to find how scientifically-based didactical models can be made public, sharable, storable and verified as well as improved, put it short how can didactical models become a part of teachers profession. Important question in that work, together with teachers, is for instance: 1. Which teacher moves (communication and/or practical arrangements) functioned and which did not in terms of helping the students to execute relevant privileging, resulting in fulfilling expected learning? 2. Why did certain teaching moves function and others not? Thus, what we vision for the future is that teachers will have access to a toolbox filled with a multitude of didactic models to be used (within a learning study) to solve a multitude of teaching and learning problems.

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