The K-12 Maker Studio: Towards Teaching and Development of Design Literacy in Educational Maker Settings

This dissertation presents three years of research into the introduction of maker settings into formal education for students in Denmark aged 11– 15. The dissertation is concerned with design literacy as a possible path to prepare students for a world which is and will be radically changed by digital technologies. It is based on six publications: five papers and one report. In the dissertation, I provide an overview of my research, which has explored the possibilities of developing design literacy in the context of maker settings in formal education, guided by the following question: How can activities with maker technologies in formal educational settings contribute to the development of design literacy among adolescents? The answer to this question derives from observational and intervention studies in schools, a professional development course for teachers, two large-scale surveys, and post-project interviews with students. In total, three intertwined and overlapping research programs produced contributions to the emerging research field of making in education. This field explores the introduction of maker technologies (such as 3D printers and programmable electronics) and maker practices known from makerspaces to informal and formal education. The research presented here, contributes to the field of making in education in four perspectives: From a conceptual perspective, I have contributed to a turn towards design in the field of making in education by investigating design process knowledge, design judgment, and stance towards inquiry as aspects of design literacy. From a pedagogical perspective, I have studied the K-12 maker studio as an approach to teaching as well as teachers who implement such an approach. By unfolding challenges for teachers and development of competences, I have contributed to a focus on teachers in the field. From an assessment perspective, I have contributed knowledge on how to sustain and scale development of design literacy through K-12 maker settings by investigating tools for assessing larger-scale implementations of such maker settings in education. From an exemplar perspective, I have contributed exemplars of K-12 maker studio activities with in a design literacy perspective, of professional development of teachers, as well as of ways to research maker settings in education through such exemplars

Dual-probe spectroscopic fingerprints of defects in graphene

Recent advances in experimental techniques emphasize the usefulness of multiple scanning probe techniques when analyzing nanoscale samples. Here, we analyze theoretically dual-probe setups with probe separations in the nanometer range, i.e., in a regime where quantum coherence effects can be observed at low temperatures. In a dual-probe setup the electrons are injected at one probe and collected at the other. The measured conductance reflects the local transport properties on the nanoscale, thereby yielding information complementary to that obtained with a standard one-probe setup (the local density-of-states). In this work we develop a real space Green's function method to compute the conductance. This requires an extension of the standard calculation schemes, which typically address a finite sample between the probes. In contrast, the developed method makes no assumption on the sample size (e.g., an extended graphene sheet). Applying this method, we study the transport anisotropies in pristine graphene sheets, and analyze the spectroscopic fingerprints arising from quantum interference around single-site defects, such as vacancies and adatoms. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the dual-probe setup is a useful tool for characterizing the electronic transport properties of extended defects or designed nanostructures. In particular, we show that nanoscale perforations, or antidots, in a graphene sheet display Fano-type resonances with a strong dependence on the edge geometry of the perforation

Digital Technology and design processes II: Follow-up report on FabLab@School survey among Danish youth

This report is part of the [email protected] research program, which investigates the use of digital fabrication technologies and design activities among students aged 11-15 years in Danish schools. In order to measure the effects of the [email protected] educational program from 2014 to late 2016, this follow-up survey was administered to two groups: first, schools in which FabLab and design activities had been carried out in the [email protected] project throughout a 2-year period (FabLab schools), and second, a control group of schools that were not part of the [email protected] project (control schools). The survey reported here, is a follow-up to a similar survey conducted in the fall of 2014

Digital Technology and design processes: Report on a FabLab@School survey among Danish youth

This report contains findings from a survey on Danish adolescents aged 11-15 years conducted in the fall of 2014 among 1236 students. It is a part of the [email protected] research program, which investigates the use of digital fabrication technologies in Danish schools

Teknologiforståelse i fag

  The article is related to a national experiment, where a new school subject Technology Comprehension (UVM, 2018-2021) was applied and tested in 46 different schools. The aim of the study is to uncover the developers' experiences with the transformation of technology comprehension into prototypes with special focus on theme’s as interdisciplinarity, technology, subject language, and interaction etc. The article concludes that the competences must “fit” within the development potentials of the subjects. The study also points out a significant difference between how developers in arts, the humanities and the natural sciences experienced the project.Artiklen bygger på et interviewstudie med faglige udviklere i afprøv-ningsforsøget i teknologiforståelse i folkeskolen (UVM, 2018-2021). Målet med studiet er at afdække udviklernes erfaringer med trans-formation af teknologiforståelse til prototyper (undervisningsforløb) i eksisterende skolefag. Artiklen peger på baggrund af udviklernes for-tolkninger på fire potentielle barrierer for et reelt fagmøde og dermed for integration af teknologiforståelse i eksisterende fag: Manglende samtænkning af begreber og fagsprog, divergerende definitioner af teknologi, manglende overlap og relevans i tildelingen af delelementer af fagligheden og manglende plads til faglig udvikling

Teknologiforståelse som dannelsesaspekt i Lærerens Grundfaglighed : Et møde mellem digitale teknologier og dannelsesteori i undervisningen

ResuméMed samfundets pågående digitalisering som et tidstypisk nøgleproblem bliver de digitale teknologier et centralt anliggende for skolen og dermed for læreruddannelsens dannelsesopgave. Denne artikel præsenterer, undersøger og diskuterer et forsøg, hvor teknologiforståelse afprøves som nyt dannelsesfelt i den alment dannende undervisning i faget Lærerens Grundfaglighed, og hvor det er de lærerstuderende og deres dannelse i forhold til digitale teknologier, der er i fokus. I artiklen præsenteres eksempler på de studerendes møde med teknologiens umiddelbare egenskaber, gennem et brugerinterface og deres møde med de bagvedliggende strukturer i form af et programmeringsinterface. Artiklen belyser alment dannende elementer af teknologiforståelse i en læreruddannelseskontekst og diskuterer teknologiforståelse som potentiel bro mellem dannelsesteori og praksis. Abstract (UK)This paper takes as its premise that society’s ongoing digitalisation can be viewed as what German educational philosopher Wolfgang Klafki termed an epochal key problem. Therefore, digital technologies are a central issue for the school and thus for teacher education. In the paper, we present, examine, and discuss an experiment, in which technology comprehension was tested as a new aspect of general pedagogy with a focus on students’ competences as well as their own, general education (bildung) in relation to digital technologies. The paper presents examples of students’ encounters with immediate properties of technology through a user interface as well as subsequent encounters with program structures in a programming interface. The paper presents aspects of bildung within technology comprehension in teacher education and discusses elements of technology comprehension as a potential bridge between general pedagogy and practice

Læsning af matematikfagtekster i gymnasiet - Identificering af gymnasiefremmede elevers læsevanskeligheder og udvikling af metoder til forbedring af læsestrategier

I januar 2010 satte Undervisningsministeriet hovedprojektet “Imødegåelse af negative socialarv i gymnasiale uddannelser” i gang. Rammerne for hovedprojektet er, at udviklingsarbejdet skalintegreres i den daglige undervisning. I dette regi er der gennemført et forsøgs- og udviklingsprojektkoncentreret om matematikundervisningen i htx. I projektet rettes søgelyset helt nøjagtigt mod dendel af matematikundervisningen, som er læsning af matematikfaglige tekster. Det søges klarlagt,hvorfor eleverne støder på forhindringer, når deres læsestrategi møder den matematikfaglige tekstselementer. I projektets praksisarbejde udvikles og afprøves forskellige metoder til overvindelse af disseforhindringer. Nærværende artikel redegør hovedsagelig for projektets metoder og resultater. Under the auspices of a ministerial project about how to counter educationally disadvantagedsocialbackgrounds in secondary school in which it was stipulated that developments should be integratedin ordinary teaching we designed and executed a project which focused on mathematicsin a tech nicalsecondary school and specifically on the reading of mathematical texts. We attempted to identify whystudents hit barriers when their reading strategy meets such texts. In the empirical part of this projectvarious ways of surmounting these barriers were developed and tested. Here we mainly describe ourmethods and results

Teknologiforståelse - en sammenhængende faglighed: En beskrivende analyse af 110 undervisningsforløb

This paper examines, based on 110 courses from the ongoing Experiment with technology comprehension (teknologiforståelse) (UVM 2018-2021), whether coherent professionalism has been developed and/or if there can be identified fractures between four core competence areas in an independent subject and as integrated in current school subjects. The study is based on systematic counts of didactic categories linked to 110 courses produced in the project. The result point to that coherent professionalism appears in those courses, but also that there can be identify fractures and different directions in the independent subject and as integrated in current school subjects.Artiklen undersøger med udgangspunkt i 110 prototypeforløb fra Forsøg med teknologiforståelse i Folkeskolen om der er udviklet en sammenhængende faglighed og identificerer herunder sammenhænge og brudflader mellem fire kompetenceområder i teknologiforståelse som et selvstændigt fag og som integreret i eksisterende skolefag. Undersøgelsen baseres på systematiske optællinger af didaktiske kategorier, der er knyttet til de 110. Dokumentstudiets tre hovedkonklusioner er 1) at det er vanskeligt at skabe en ny faglighed i eksisterende fag, stærk nok til, at udvikle et fagsprog og en integreret fagdidaktik 2) at prototyperne har skabt grobund for sammenhænge mellem de fire kompetenceområder, men at udvælgelsen af indhold, som kan føre til almen dannelse ikke er udviklet, 3) at det nye fag og faglighed ikke kan udpeges som et STEM-fag, men at der ses konjunkturerne af et multidisciplinært fag, med naturvidenskabsfaglige, samfundsfaglige og humanistiske elementer, dog uden de centrale grundskolefaglige tilgange til især det computationelle fagområde