Undervisning är en process som inbegriper lärande och utveckling. Inom professionsutbildningar är undervisning den kontext där akademi möter profession. Det betyder att studenterna förväntas lära sig ett innehåll för att klara sina studier och ta examen, men också kunna förstå och tillämpa innehållet i relation till sin framtida profession. I det avseendet är undervisningens utformning en aspekt som har stor påverkan på individen.  

Ämnesintegrerad undervisning är studentcentrerad i det avseendet att den engagerar studenterna och förutsätter deras deltagande, medan universitets- eller högskolelärarens roll blir att stödja lärandet. Det innebär att individen blir mer delaktig i sitt eget lärande och sin utveckling. 

Den här boken belyser den ämnesintegrerade undervisningens betydelse och möjligheter för lärande och utveckling inom professionsutbildningar. Författarna ger exempel på flera typer av ämnesintegrerad undervisning: problembaserat lärande, team-based learning, casemetodik och projektbaserad undervisning. Modellerna ger en struktur för lärandet och kan användas i olika former av undervisning, såväl fysisk som hybrid och helt digital. 

Universities are seeking novel ways to strengthen the collective educational competence of their faculty and promote educational merits. In this paper we describe and compare the experiences of two recently started initiatives for teaching excellence, the Program for Future Leaders for Strategic Educational Development at KTH Royal Institute of Technology (henceforth KTH) and the Teaching Fellowship Programme at the University of Twente. Both programs have recently completed one complete round of implementation. The programmes are similar in that the participants work on a project of their own for an extended time, while also being part of a community with regular meetings and supported by coaches. The main differences are the programme duration, number of participants, and whether the projects are in a specific theme or wholly formulated by the participants. In this study, both programs are evaluated using similar themes. We analyse this data, and reflect on the context, conditions and design of the programs and our lessons learned from these first experiences.

This study focuses on the progression between courses in a programme, meaning that thelearning experiences build upon and reinforce the previous ones. The idea of mutuallysupporting courses is a cornerstone of the integrated curriculum, and hence of the CDIOapproach. However, despite much use of the term, there is a lack of work to conceptualiseprogression. The aim of this paper is, accordingly, to provide a richer theoreticalconceptualisation of progression and to apply this in analysing the implementation in aprogramme. In this case, we focus specifically on the progression through a series of coursesbased on authentic engineering projects. Such courses, called Design-implementExperiences, are a prominent feature of the CDIO framework; Standard 5 recommends at leasttwo project courses with progression through the curriculum. The context for the study is the5-year Electrical Engineering programme at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. It contains aseries of yearly project courses starting in the first year and ending with the master thesisproject. The purpose is to support students to synthesise and consolidate their learning inprevious and parallel subject courses, and to develop professional engineering skills. Here,the progression between the three first project courses is described with detailed elaborationof three themes: communication, project planning and management, and ethics. The questionsguiding our investigation are: What is the nature of progression across these project courses?In particular, along what dimensions is progression planned, and how is that implemented inthe course design?

In engineering education, as well as in the society at large, there is an increasing focus on sustainability and sustainable development. The CDIO Standards and the CDIO Syllabus has been substantially updated to meet and drive these changes. Progressive engineering programs have by now made substantial progress in integrating environmental aspects of sustainability and sustainable development into the curriculum. However, the integration of social aspects is generally considered to be more difficult and is therefore lagging behind. This explorative research paper provides insights in efforts to integrate elements of gender equality, diversity and equal conditions (GDE) in three courses on bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral level. The focus is on the development and implementation of reflective assignments, where a theoretical framework is used for characterizing different levels of reflection. The work has been performed by use of an action research approach that has involved close dialogue and collaboration between researchers, pedagogic developers, teachers, students, and education leaders. The paper hereby contributes with multiple perspectives on GDE integration, and significant challenges are discussed. The paper also contributes with concrete examples of reflective assignments, learning activities, and literature that can be useful also in other contexts.

In engineering education, various stakeholders have been raising requests for change related to both content and form. At times, slow reactions and absent responses to these requests have been criticized, though some engineering programs have been quicker to adopt the desired changes. The aim of this chapter is to understand differences in responses by exploring various approaches across engineering programs and some of the consequences of these variations, in particular in terms of barriers to change. A sociocultural perspective—the concept of teaching and learning regimes—is used to identify and interpret these variations. The empirical research presented in this chapter was conducted at a research-intensive technical university and included semi-structured interviews, observations, and text analysis. The focus of the study was on how faculty members in three engineering programs handle connections to research and professional practice in the curriculum. The findings show varying approaches across the engineering programs and, consequently, varying reasons for resisting change in terms of including additional curricular connections to research or professional practice. In one engineering program, the respondents aimed to preserve a research-focused culture and thus to protect the program from the influence of external actors in industry. In another program, the respondents aimed to maintain relevance in relation to industry and to protect the program from research relationships that could jeopardize connections to industry. These varying approaches may thus be understood as constituting barriers to change as they aim to protect and preserve a particular culture or regime within a program. Consequently, the results of this study suggest that if curriculum changes are to be achieved, the proposed changes need to be recognized within the particular teaching and learning regime. These results align with previous research showing that suggestions for change need to coincide with the current local culture to be accepted. However, the present study advances the knowledge base in this area as it provides a deeper understanding of the local cultures or teaching and learning regimes in engineering education, which, in turn, increases our understanding of factors that influence acceptance of and resistance to curricular change.

New societal challenges have emerged, and the Sustainable Development Goals present a concise summary of the engineering grand challenges (National Academy of Engineering, 2007). Further, the global society face challenges such as digitalization, future sustainable development and industry 4.0 engineering education is expected to respond by educating engineers with the relevant knowledge and competences useful in dealing with these complex problems both in terms of technology, climate and society (Kolmos, 2021). Engineers need to see themselves as global citizens embracing the human challenges, and engineering institutions need to prepare graduates to be able to work on solutions to these complex problems. Future engineers need to understand the impact of new technologies both on an individual level as well as at a systemic and societal level. Not least to understand how technologies can contribute to solutions for future complex societal problems. The question is how engineering education will respond? What are the strategies for developing the academic disciplines and the future engineering competence profiles, and which changes emerge in curriculum when adapting to future emerging technologies and complex problem solving? Five Nordic Universities have participated in this study (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden). From each university four professors have been interviewed. The professors represent four different engineering disciplines: mechanical engineering, civil engineering, biotechnology and energy engineering. These disciplines are common engineering disciplines, offered at the selected universities. All engineering education in the Nordic countries follow the Bologna structure with three year Bachelor and two year Master education. The aim of this study is to study and compare how different faculties anticipate and predict future changes within their discipline. The findings indicate that there are differences among the four disciplines. The engineering programs with a more core science component such as energy and bio technology anticipate less differences in the future curriculum compared to mechanical and civil engineering. All disciplines anticipate that emerging technologies such as big data and AI will influence the curriculum, and especially production/mechanical and civil engineering also point out new learning objectives like systems understanding. Having in mind that engineering education is a broad field the aim of this study is not to highlight a single coherent outcome but to highlight approaches and understandings for how to prepare future engineering education from an engineering faculty perspective.

Connections to research and professional practice are both essential components of engineering education, although handled differently across engineering programmes. The aim of this paper is to identify discourses on these components across three engineering programmes to in depth understand these variations. A discourse analysis was conducted on interviews, documents and observations and the results show three distinct discourses: the relevance and usefulness discourse, primarily emphasising engineering professional practice and connections to industry; the research and independence discourse, primarily accentuating research connections and independence from external actors; and the dual coupling and sustainability discourse, mainly highlighting a combination of connections to research and professional practice, along with a focus on sustainable development. The overall function of the discourses is interpreted as enhancing the particular characteristics of each programme and resisting different types of influences that threaten to undermine the characteristics of each programme.    

The purpose of this paper is to challenge the idea of incompatibility between links to research and links to professional practice in engineering education. The concept of ‘academic drift’ is introduced, both related to drift towards theory and towards research links in the curriculum.  Empirical data were collected through a case study conducted at a department in a research-intensive technical university, including semi-structured interviews with academic staff and an analysis of course syllabuses. The results show that the respondents perceive no incompatibility between including links to research and including links to professional practice in engineering education. Indeed, they state that the two aspects are mutually reinforcing and overlapping. Their rationales for incorporating such coupled links to research and professional practice include increased motivation among students and preparing them for employment. In conclusion, including research in the curriculum does not necessarily lead to academic drift; conversely, the curriculum in engineering education can consist of a seamless blend of research and professional practice.

In an era characterized by a move towards a “knowledge society”, universities are central in fostering “knowledgeability”, that is the reflexive understanding of knowledge in knowledge societies. The objective of “knowledgeability” can be met through creating a stronger link between education and research. Furthermore, overall student performance, for example in critical thinking and problem solving, can be improved if research-related activities are incorporated into the curriculum. The aim of this paper is to use international examples to discuss the research- education nexus from four different perspectives, namely context, policy, implementation and quality, with case studies from higher education institutions in Singapore and Sweden. We suggest that different integrative technologies can be used to enhance the links, but it will be essential to consider the inputs of training, service and support in using new technology. Interestingly, the act of evaluating the link between education and research will increase awareness of this linkage by stakeholders involved in both education and research. In turn the link can be strengthened, contributing to increased quality in both education and research.

The focus of this paper is on how academic staff perceive their roles and responsibilities regarding work-related learning, and how they approach and implement workrelated learning activities in curricula across academic environments in higher education. The study is based on case studies, including semi-structured interviews and analyses of course syllabuses in two higher education institutions. The results reveal divergent approaches between environments with limited and extensive work-related learning, and we present four different strategies for including work-related learning in curricula: add-on by someone else, add-on about the profession, integration of teaching and learning activities and integration with additional value. These four strategies represent a very diverse understanding of the role of education, ranging from education for academia to education for work outside academia, and contain various perceptions of the roles, types of work-related learning activities and integration in the ordinary curriculum.