Kemicentrum vid Lunds universitet : perspektiv på organisation och forskning vid Sveriges första storinstitution

Det är nu 40 år sedan Sveriges första storinstitution, Kemicentrum vid Lunds universitet, bildades 1967. Kemiämnena vid Lunds universitet, kemisektionen vid Lunds Tekniska Högskola och Alnarpsinstitutets mejeriforskning sammanfördes i ett gemensamt byggnadskomplex i norra Lund. Tidigare självständiga institutioner med lång historia och nybildade forskningsinriktningar vid LTH blev nu alla forskningsavdelningar vid en gemensam storinstitution. Denna bok ger en mångsidig beskrivning av Kemicentrum. Bland annat diskuteras vilka faktorer som kan förklara storinstitutionens tillkomst och omvandling över tid. Bokens huvudsakliga fokus ligger på Kemicentrums organisation och forskning

Reflekterande kommentar – En praktisk-teoretisk vetenskap för lärare som bas för kraftfullt professionskunnande

Forskning om undervisning och lärande har bjudit in Jesper Sjöström, professor i didaktik med inriktning mot naturvetenskapsämnena vid Malmö universitet och legitimerad ämneslärare, att reflektera över temanumret Kraftfull professionskunskap i ämnesundervisning. Han har uppdrag som samordnare för ämneslärarprogrammet i Malmö och för masterutbildningen i ämnesdidaktik. Han är också sittande ordförande i Skolforskningsinstitutets beredningsgrupp för forskningsansökningar inriktade mot praktiknära skolforskning. Under flera år har han intresserat sig för vad som förenar olika ämnesdidaktiker.

Didaktik i integrativa lärarprofessionsämnen

Artikeln diskuterar vad ämnesdidaktik (på danska: fagdidaktik) är och kan vara och presenterar ett ramverk för didaktik i integrativa lärarprofessionsämnen. I de senare undervisas ämneskunskaper integrerat med kunskaper för lärarprofessionen, främst didaktik. Ramverket, som utvecklats med inspiration från Klafkis didaktiska analys, består av tio analysområden för att utveckla ämnesdidaktiken inom olika lärarprofessionsämnen. Analysområdena kan även användas som vägvisare för den ämnesdidaktiska forskningen, som är olika utvecklad inom olika ämnesområden. Aktiv didaktisk forskning är nödvändig för att åstadkomma forskningsbaserade lärarutbildningar. I slutet av artikeln presenteras några sammanfattande tankar kring professionsdidaktik för blivande lärare och vilka implikationer det får för lärarutbildarnas kompetensutvecklingsbehov. Abstract.The article discusses what subject-matter Didaktik is and could be and presents a framework for Didaktik in integrative teacher education subjects. In these, subject knowledge is taught together with knowledge for teacher professions, mainly Didaktik. The framework was developed with inspiration from Klafki’s Didaktik analysis. It consists of ten analytical areas for developing subject-matter Didaktik in different teacher education subjects. The analytical areas can also be used as guides for research in subject-matter Didaktik, which is developed to different degrees in different subject areas. Active research in Didaktik is necessary to achieve research-based teacher education. The article concludes by providing some ideas concerning the knowledge base of the teacher profession, including its consequences for teacher educators’ professional development.  Keywords (English): teacher education, integrative Didaktik, knowledge base for teacher professions, general subject-matter Didaktik, pedagogical praxis, didactical research 

Embedding Chemistry Education into Environmental and Sustainability Education: Development of a Didaktik Model Based on an Eco-Reflexive Approach

The aim of this theoretical paper is to develop and present a didaktik model that embeds chemistry education into Environmental and Sustainability Education (ESE) using an eco-reflexive approach. A didaktik model is a tool to help educators make decisions and reflect on why, what, how, and/or when to teach. The model presented here is a revised version of the Jegstad and Sinnes model from 2015. It was systematically developed based on a critical analysis of the previous ESD (Education for Sustainable Development)-based model. This process is part of what is called didactic modeling. The revised model consists of the following six categories: (i) socio-philosophical framing; (ii) sustainable schooling and living; (iii) critical views on chemistry’s distinctiveness and methodological character; (iv) powerful chemical content knowledge; (v) critical views of chemistry in society; and (vi) eco-reflexivity through environmental and sustainability education. As in the model by Jegstad and Sinnes, the eco-reflexive didaktik model seeks to support chemistry educators in their sustainability-oriented educational planning and analysis, but from a more critical perspective. Based on an eco-reflexive Bildung approach, one additional category—socio-philosophical framing—was added to the revised model. This is because the previous model does not take sufficient account of worldview perspectives, cultural values, and educational philosophy. The eco-reflexive didaktik model is illustrated with boxes, and it is suggested that all categories in these boxes should be considered in holistic and eco-reflexive chemistry education. The purpose of such education is to develop students’ ChemoKnowings

Embedding Chemistry Education into Environmental and Sustainability Education: Development of a Didaktik Model Based on an Eco-Reflexive Approach

The aim of this theoretical paper is to develop and present a didaktik model that embeds chemistry education into Environmental and Sustainability Education (ESE) using an eco-reflexive approach. A didaktik model is a tool to help educators make decisions and reflect on why, what, how, and/or when to teach. The model presented here is a revised version of the Jegstad and Sinnes model from 2015. It was systematically developed based on a critical analysis of the previous ESD (Education for Sustainable Development)-based model. This process is part of what is called didactic modeling. The revised model consists of the following six categories: (i) socio-philosophical framing; (ii) sustainable schooling and living; (iii) critical views on chemistry’s distinctiveness and methodological character; (iv) powerful chemical content knowledge; (v) critical views of chemistry in society; and (vi) eco-reflexivity through environmental and sustainability education. As in the model by Jegstad and Sinnes, the eco-reflexive didaktik model seeks to support chemistry educators in their sustainability-oriented educational planning and analysis, but from a more critical perspective. Based on an eco-reflexive Bildung approach, one additional category—socio-philosophical framing—was added to the revised model. This is because the previous model does not take sufficient account of worldview perspectives, cultural values, and educational philosophy. The eco-reflexive didaktik model is illustrated with boxes, and it is suggested that all categories in these boxes should be considered in holistic and eco-reflexive chemistry education. The purpose of such education is to develop students’ ChemoKnowings

A History of Spike-Timing-Dependent Plasticity

How learning and memory is achieved in the brain is a central question in neuroscience. Key to today’s research into information storage in the brain is the concept of synaptic plasticity, a notion that has been heavily influenced by Hebb's (1949) postulate. Hebb conjectured that repeatedly and persistently co-active cells should increase connective strength among populations of interconnected neurons as a means of storing a memory trace, also known as an engram. Hebb certainly was not the first to make such a conjecture, as we show in this history. Nevertheless, literally thousands of studies into the classical frequency-dependent paradigm of cellular learning rules were directly inspired by the Hebbian postulate. But in more recent years, a novel concept in cellular learning has emerged, where temporal order instead of frequency is emphasized. This new learning paradigm – known as spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) – has rapidly gained tremendous interest, perhaps because of its combination of elegant simplicity, biological plausibility, and computational power. But what are the roots of today’s STDP concept? Here, we discuss several centuries of diverse thinking, beginning with philosophers such as Aristotle, Locke, and Ribot, traversing, e.g., Lugaro’s plasticità and Rosenblatt’s perceptron, and culminating with the discovery of STDP. We highlight interactions between theoretical and experimental fields, showing how discoveries sometimes occurred in parallel, seemingly without much knowledge of the other field, and sometimes via concrete back-and-forth communication. We point out where the future directions may lie, which includes interneuron STDP, the functional impact of STDP, its mechanisms and its neuromodulatory regulation, and the linking of STDP to the developmental formation and continuous plasticity of neuronal networks

One cell to rule them all, and in the dendrites bind them

A commentary on Branch-specific plasticity enables selforganization of non-linear computation in single neurons by Legenstein, R., and Maass, W. (2011). J

Highly Nonrandom Features of Synaptic Connectivity in Local Cortical Circuits

How different is local cortical circuitry from a random network? To answer this question, we probed synaptic connections with several hundred simultaneous quadruple whole-cell recordings from layer 5 pyramidal neurons in the rat visual cortex. Analysis of this dataset revealed several nonrandom features in synaptic connectivity. We confirmed previous reports that bidirectional connections are more common than expected in a random network. We found that several highly clustered three-neuron connectivity patterns are overrepresented, suggesting that connections tend to cluster together. We also analyzed synaptic connection strength as defined by the peak excitatory postsynaptic potential amplitude. We found that the distribution of synaptic connection strength differs significantly from the Poisson distribution and can be fitted by a lognormal distribution. Such a distribution has a heavier tail and implies that synaptic weight is concentrated among few synaptic connections. In addition, the strengths of synaptic connections sharing pre- or postsynaptic neurons are correlated, implying that strong connections are even more clustered than the weak ones. Therefore, the local cortical network structure can be viewed as a skeleton of stronger connections in a sea of weaker ones. Such a skeleton is likely to play an important role in network dynamics and should be investigated further