How do Swedish technology teachers assess programming education in grade 4-6?

This study examines Swedish teachers' teaching and assessment practices in programming education for students in grades 4-6, with a focus on the technology subject. It investigates whether existing governing documents provide sufficient guidance for effective teaching and assessment in programming, particularly regarding Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK). The study addresses challenges faced by teachers, including limited training and a lack of instructional guidelines, stressing the importance of bridging this gap to support effective programming instruction and assessment. It explores assessment practices in programming within the technology subject, referring to previous studies that identify various approaches. The discussion includes product and process criteria for assessing programming tasks and emphasizes the need for clearer links between programming assessment and core technology content. The methodology involves semi-structured interviews with experienced teachers who taught programming prior to its inclusion in the curriculum. Analyzing the interview data helps examine alignment between teachers' assessment practices and governing documents. Results and discussion focus on one teacher, Camilla, with six years of programming teaching experience. It describes how Camilla facilitates curriculum goals and aligns assessments with grading criteria. The article also summarizes specific areas assessed in programming education and compares Camilla's criteria with essential content knowledge from previous studies. Based on the findings, the study concludes that while Camilla demonstrates comprehensive understanding of assessing programming knowledge, improvements are necessary in primary school programming education in Sweden. The existing governing documents inadequately support effective programming instruction, particularly in terms of content knowledge. It suggests identifying key characteristics of quality programming education at each stage of compulsory schooling and engaging in discussions to establish a strong educational foundation. Key Words: Computer programming, PCK, assessment, teacher education, professional developmen

Славянские ведические храмы

Материалы III междунар. науч. конф., 22-23 мая 2003 г

Gemma Tejedor1, Anna-Karin Högfeldt2, Jordi Segalas1, Lena Gumaelius2

Two contemporary academic movements can be argued to be important for the integration of more field- practice- and cross disciplinary team-based learning experiences into the engineering education curriculum. Firstly, the growth of research in sustainability challenges in combination with the need for change in engineering education, which is seen to evolve from environmental focus to the inclusion of social and transdisciplinary approaches. Secondly, the evolution of engineering education in general: from traditional and instructive to student centered, constructive and practice oriented as well as from isolated and exclusive to an inter-twined part of society, where society’s need for “socially responsible future entrepreneurs, innovators and leaders”. This implies that all engineers need to be equipped with knowledge, skills, values and experiences in order to meet the needs of society. Challenge driven education (CDE) is an evolving concept that can bridge engineering and sustainability. In the challenge driven education, students are working on real-life and often real-time challenges in society and industry. The students work with open-ended, ill-defined problems that do not have a single right answer. With the challenge driven education approach, the aim is to position ideas, innovations and decision making in the forefront of the learning process. InnoEnergy is a transnational educational initiative supported by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT). From the investigation made on the integration of CDE in seven international and cross- border InnoEnergy Masters’ programs, the need appeared for a common understanding on CDE within the knowledge innovation community. The investigation aimed to explore: the perceived drivers and barriers for CDE; the different approaches for integrating CDE in the seven masters’ programs; and the perceived scope for CDE mapped to the achievement of competences for sustainability. Preliminary findings showed that there was a common core of successful initiation of the integration of the CDE approach, although differently in the seven masters’ programs, from different perceptions of CDE for sustainability within the community. Furthermore, the findings revealed a narrow view of sustainability, where the concept is implicitly integrated or “obviously” in some programs with a intend at finding more sustainable energy solutions. An InnoEnergy CDE White Paper has been elaborated, setting the goal for the future progress of challenge driven InnoEnergy MSc education. The paper contributes the definition behind this concept and a strategy on the future development, as well as some best practices of the work so far. Furthermore, the overarching learning outcomes for EIT programs and the UNESCO cross-cutting key competences needed for problem solving for sustainable development, have been merged as new expected outcomes, so that intended learning outcomes based on both perspectives are developed

Mapping the CDIO Syllabus to the UNESO Key Competences for Sustainability

In this paper a framework of key competencies for sustainability defined by UNESCO is used\ua0to evaluate the relevance of the CDIO Syllabus for promoting engineering education for\ua0sustainable development. The evaluation is performed in two steps. First, topics, terms and\ua0concepts in the CDIO Syllabus that corresponds to the different UNESCO key competencies\ua0are identified. The second step is a qualitative discussion where areas of strong mapping are\ua0highlighted and aspects that could be better visualized or strengthened in, or added to, the\ua0Syllabus are identified. Differences in definitions of various concepts between the CDIO\ua0Syllabus and the UNESCO key competencies and the overall relation between the two\ua0frameworks are discussed. It is concluded that the CDIO Syllabus is rather well aligned with\ua0the UNESCO framework, however several opportunities (not to say needs) for strengthening\ua0the Syllabus in relation to the key competencies are identified. The UNESCO key\ua0competencies are found to be useful instruments for scrutinizing and updating the CDIO\ua0Syllabus. Other opportunities for knowledge and methods transfer between the Education for\ua0Sustainable Development (ESD) domain and the Engineering Education domain are\ua0identified. The paper is proposed to be used as basis for updating the CDIO Syllabus into a\ua0version 3.0 for maintaining its relevance in a changing world

Outreach initiatives operated by universities for increasing interest in science and technology

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in European Journal of Engineering Edutaion on 2016, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/03043797.2015.1121468Since the 1990s, the low number of students choosing to study science and technology in higher education has been on the societal agenda and many initiatives have been launched to promote awareness regarding career options. The initiatives particularly focus on increasing enrolment in the engineering programmes. This article describes and compares eight European initiatives that have been established and operated by universities (and in some cases through collaboration with other actors in society). Each initiative is summarised in a short essay that discusses motivation, organisation, pedagogical approach, and activities. The initiatives are characterised by comparing the driving forces behind their creation, how the initiative activities relate to the activities at the university, size based on the number of participants and cost per participant and pedagogical framework. There seem to be two main tracks for building outreach activities, one where outreach activities are based on the university’s normal activities, and one where outreach activities are designed specifically for the visiting students.Gumaelius, L.; Almqvistb, M.; Arnadottir, A.; Axelsson, A.; Conejero, JA.; García Sabater, JP.; Klitgaard, L.... (2016). Outreach initiatives operated by universities for increasing interest in science and technology. European Journal of Engineering Education. 41(6):589-622. https://doi.org/10.1080/03043797.2015.1121468S58962241

Situating spatial ability development in the Craft and Technology curricula of Swedish compulsory education

Spatial ability has been shown to have a causal relationship with students’ success in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects. While an abundance of research has investigated how spatial ability development is and could be integrated to science, engineering, and mathematics curricula, little attempt has been made to date to situate where spatial ability manifests in technology curricula. This paper uses document analysis strategy to examine the locations of spatial ability related learning outcomes within the craft and technology curricula in Swedish compulsory education. This paper employs a qualitative inductive approach to analyse the policy document from the Swedish National Agency for Education. We argue that spatial ability development manifests in the Swedish craft and technology subject curricula along two dimensions. First, the curricula are underpinned by visual components, which are graphical, pictorial, and manufactured components. Second, along with the visual components, the curricula are delivered with the aim of constructing students’ conceptual and procedural knowledge. While technology curriculum dominantly cultivates students’ conceptual and procedural knowledge by interacting with the graphical and manufactured components such as sketches and objects, the craft curriculum is taught in a more diverse way where students are not only required to deal with graphical and manufactured components but also to involve in various pictorial components that convey cultural and historical meanings by craft products. &nbsp