How to teach active learners? A didactical approach: How to interact with children as active learners

Learning viewed as constructed and distributed in human relations situated in a social, historical and physical context and mediated through language and artefacts, challenges the positions of teachers. The main focus is on children as active learners, who might even have more knowledge than the preschool teacher in some areas. We will discuss some of the challenges facing pre-school teachers in line with this view of learning, illustrated by a project in a kindergarten in Norway. In this project children made a book about Trolls. The way the pre-school teacher planned and worked in the project is presented as a case-study. The specific ways of working are connected to a Didactical Relationship Model. The model is a tool for further development of sensitivity to a variety of learning situations, and extended learning both for the involved pre-school teacher and for the children. The ways of performing this project are described as informal teaching related to children’s communicative interactions among peers in specific learning contexts.