Higher education is undergoing continuous changes and new learning tools and methods are implemented. Researchers in education do not always agree upon the effectiveness of some of the methods introduced into engineering education. The present thesis consists of two case studies on educational methods introduced at the Department of Energy Technology, at Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden. The qualitative research methodology has been used in case one and a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodology has been used in the second case. The sources of evidences consisted of: unstructured interviews, analysis of video recording, questionnaires, and analysis of a variety of documents. In the first case, an educational program in heat and power technology was analysed. The second case consists in an in-depth study of group dynamics in a Problem –Based Learning course. These studies showed that the learning approach adopted by students depends strongly on the way they view the particular learning tool or method. The first case study revealed the existence of two types of learners. Surfacelearners follow the structure suggested by the designers of the multimedia program. This category of learners focuses only on the material available in the program. Deep-learners go beyond the information and the structure suggested in the program and combine different learning tools in their learning. These students do not follow the structure of the tutorials’ of the multimedia program. This study showed that students who had a strong view how to learn with a multimedia program or a learning method benefited less from the learning tools available. Students with weak views on how to learn from educational program or leaning tool benefit less from the presentation and engage in more surface learning. Self-motivated learners use the multimedia presentation in novel ways and crosscheck the information given with other material. The second study showed that students have unclear and weak views on how to learn with student-directed Problem- Based Learning model. Four types of learners were identified in Problem-Based Learning project: Leaders, Key Actors, Common Students and Social Loafers. Leaders and Key Actors are self-motivated individuals and participate most in the projects. Students who viewed themselves or were viewed as leaders were held responsible to take most of the decisions and students expected them to work more than the average student. Students who viewed themselves as common team members expected a lower workload than leaders’. Key Actors are self-motivated students who do not view themselves as separate from other group members but who participate more than others. Leaders learned more group and social processes, that they did not fully take part in, while common students learned more from the project management aspects that they did not take part in. The study also found that Problem-Based Learning groups can become very cohesive, and can develop distorted views on how to learn with Problem-Based Learning, and un-common group dynamics phenomena such as groupthink can occur in Problem-Based Learning setting.

Student engagement has a trajectory (a timeline) that unfolds over time and can be shaped by different factors including learners' motivation, school conditions, and the nature of learning tasks. Such factors may result in either a stable, declining or fluctuating engagement trajectory. While research on online engagement is abundant, most authors have examined student engagement in a single course or two. Little research has been devoted to studying online longitudinal engagement, i.e., the evolution of student engagement over a full educational program. This learning analytics study examines the engagement states (sequences, successions, stability, and transitions) of 106 students in 1396 course enrollments over a full program. All data of students enrolled in the academic year 2014-2015, and their subsequent data in 2015-2016, 2016-2017, and 2017-2018 (15 courses) were collected. The engagement states were clustered using Hidden Markov Models (HMM) to uncover the hidden engagement trajectories which resulted in a mostly-engaged (33% of students), an intermediate (39.6%), and a troubled (27.4%) trajectory. The mostly-engaged trajectory was stable with infrequent changes, scored the highest, and was less likely to drop out. The troubled trajectory showed early disengagement, frequent dropouts and scored the lowest grades. The results of our study show how to identify early program disengagement (activities within the third decile) and when students may drop out (first year and early second year).

Recent findings in the field of learning analytics have brought to our attention that conclusions drawn from cross-sectional group-level data may not capture the dynamic processes that unfold within each individual learner. In this light, idiographic methods have started to gain grounds in many fields as a possible solution to examine students' behavior at the individual level by using several data points from each learner to create person-specific insights. In this study, we introduce such novel methods to the learning analytics field by exploring the possible potentials that one can gain from zooming in on the fine-grained dynamics of a single student. Specifically, we make use of Gaussian Graphical Models -an emerging trend in network science- to analyze a single student's dispositions and devise insights specific to him/her. The results of our study revealed that the student under examination may be in need to learn better self-regulation techniques regarding reflection and planning. 

Digitalizing school is a process that comes with challenges. It requires strategic leadership and transformational change to work processes. Nevertheless, some succeed, and it is useful to understand what makes for success. This paper studies the challenges of leading digitalization of education in a city which decided to implement an IT-supported method for teaching literacy in primary schools. The method required transformational change; teachers not only had to learn to use technologies, they also had to review their pedagogy. This study is guided by the Diffusion of Innovation theory and draws on interviews with school principals. We find that the critical factors relate to the communication channel, the social system within and across schools, and the time perspective.

The success of any educational system depends on how it is organised and the extent to which the stakeholders especially teachers accept and own it. The purpose of this study was to investigate pre-service teachers' (N = 58) professional identities using a qualitative approach where teachers were asked to produce a pen portrait of the perceived identities using open-ended questionnaires and drawings. The result from this study shows that the individual teacher's personal characteristics are paramount in shaping his/her personal identity. Teachers in our study generally described themselves as teachers who are working hard to help learners understand themselves and provide effective learning opportunities for students to excel and develop inherent capabilities. It is a great asset to have teachers who see themselves as agents of change rather than custodians of knowledge. It is important to have reflective dialogues with teachers to understand these personal characteristics that shape their identities.

This study explores Swedish mathematics teachers teaching and assessing practices as different hybrid teaching methods were implemented. Data were collected from 51 teachers in the Stockholm region using an open-ended questionnaire. Teachers experienced a developmental leap involving both pedagogical adaptation and the use of technological tools when adapting to hybrid teaching. Quality dialogues, structure and learner autonomy, as well as the integrity of assessment practices were issues of major concern, as most students experienced online and hybrid learning for the first time with limited preparation.

These adaptation processes led to an increase in transactional distance, which in turn affected students’ autonomy and achievement. The results also show that the reliance on summative assessment became the new normal practice inconsistent with the Swedish way of teaching and assessing student learning. To enjoy the full advantages of hybrid teaching, there is a need to put measures in place to reduce the transactional distance to help improve students’ autonomy and achievement.

Restrictions during the pandemic has forced teachers to replace traditional classroom exams with home exams, which are either proctored by digital tools or non-proctored. In this work, I describe the student response from using non-proctored digital home exams in two university courses in physics. In particular, the advantages and disadvantages of this approach will be discussed, since there are major concern about grading students based on non-proctored exams due to issues related to authenticity and cheating. Finally, I will reflect on the future use of non- proctored exams to evaluate knowledge in physics.

This laboratory experiment introduces rocket science from a chemistry perspective. The focus is set on chemical propulsion, including its environmental impact and future development. By combining lecture-based teaching with practical, theoretical, and computational exercises, the students get to evaluate different propellant alternatives. To complete the task, they need to use several important curricular concepts, such as the breaking and formation of bonds, redox reactions, and thermodynamics. They also apply basic computational electronic structure calculations to investigate the energetic content of hitherto nonexisting alternatives. Finally, actual chemical rocket propulsion is demonstrated through the assembly and testing of a model rocket motor, employing a commercially available kit. The full experiment was developed for upper-level high school classes and is completed in a 3-h lab period. The experiment, or parts of it, has also been successfully used both in undergraduate programs and continuing education for teachers. 

This chapter investigates how recent developments in European higher education resemble the current state of the most popular sport on earth: football. It begins by showing how both football and higher education, as organisational fields, have emerged as deeply embedded entities within national and/or local contexts, with only weak links to the transnational environment. It continues, however, by further showing that with global marketisation processes gradually coming to the fore, both fields have become subject to convergence pressures, including de-contextualisation as a result of the rise of global markets. 

IEEE/ASEE Frontiers in Education turned 50 at the 2020 virtual conference in Uppsala, Sweden. This paper presents an historical retrospective on the first 50 years of the conference from a scientometric perspective. That is to say, we explore the evolution of the conference in terms of prolific authors, communities of co-authorship, clusters of topics, and internationalization, as the conference transcended its largely provincial US roots to become a truly international forum through which to explore the frontiers of educational research and practice. The paper demonstrates the significance of FIE for a core of 30% repeat authors, many of whom have been members of the community and regular contributors for more than 20 years. It also demonstrates that internal citation rates are low, and that the co-authoring networks remain strongly dominated by clusters around highly prolific authors from a few well known US institutions. We conclude that FIE has truly come of age as an international venue for publishing high quality research and practice papers, while at the same time urging members of the community to be aware of prior work published at FIE, and to consider using it more actively as a foundation for future advances in the field.

This article presents the design and evaluation of visualization concepts supporting After Action Review (AAR) in simulator mission training of fast-jet fighter pilots. The visualization concepts were designed based on three key characteristics of representations: re-representation, graphical constraining, and computational offloading. The visualization concepts represent combined parameters of missile launch and threat range, the former meant to elicit discussions about the prerequisites for launching missiles, and the latter to present details of what threats a certain aircraft is facing at a specific moment. The visualization concepts were designed to: 1) perceptually and cognitively offload mental workload from participants in support of determining relevant situations to discuss; 2) re-represent parameters in a format that facilitates reading-off of crucial information; and 3) graphically constrain plausible interpretations. Through a series of workshop iterations, two visualization concepts were developed and evaluated with 11 pilots and instructors. All pilots were unanimous in their opinion that the visualization concepts should be implemented as part of the AAR. Offloading, in terms of finding interesting events in the dynamic and unique training sessions, was the most important guiding concept, while re-representation and graphical constraining enabled a more structured and grounded collaboration during the AAR.

This chapter investigates the gender differences in managerial practices across three Nordic countries: Finland, Norway, and Sweden. It analyses two aspects: (1) perceptions regarding competition, and (2) motivations for undertaking academic work. The chapter is based on an empirical dataset which was compiled from national surveys (conducted in 2015 and 2016) of senior academic staff (professors, associate professors, and academic leaders), which aimed to assess the perceived effects of recent government-led reforms which focused on performance management and managerial practices.

The Swedish higher educational system is under pressure. The competition from international universities is getting fiercer, and the demographical projections indicate that the number of students entering the university system is peaking right now. At the same time, the financial support from the government is decreasing. In order to stay competitive Swedish universities are trying to find strategies for using the scarce resources in the optimal way. The problem is to strike a balance between quality and efficiency.Over the past ten years a lot of improvement has been made within the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) regarding quality and innovation in education. Pedagogical courses are mandatory for the staff, and the merits of educational experience have been emphasized in hiring new staff members. Even though problem-based learning, constructive alignment and peer instruction are common in most courses today, some other aspects of education and learning remains the same. One such conservative trait has to do with written examinations. Since the founding of the university in 1827, all written examinations have been done using paper and pen at the Royal Institute of Technology. It is interesting to note that even the school of computer science is using paper and pen for their final written examinations. The problems with using paper and pen are numerous and includes; problems with reading and grading because of poor handwriting, distribution of exams between teachers in the same course, written exams getting lost, etc. In comparison with other parts of the educational system, little has happened to improve quality and efficiency when it comes to written examinations.During 2013 and 2014 a number of teachers initiated a project for increasing the efficiency in written exams. There was a general understanding that the final part of the courses consumed too much time and effort in relations to the other parts. Hence, new software for digital examinations was identified and a license was purchased. This paper summarizes the experiences that the teachers have made during this trial period. The experiences are divided between three different perspectives; the teachers, the students and the administrators. From the teachers perspective the experiences have been very positive – less time have been allocated to grading written exams, the grades are perceived as more just and the saved time can be spent on increasing the quality on other parts of the course. From a student perspective the experiences have been positive – most students are positive in that they get the results much quicker, that they can edit their answers on the exam easier and that the grades are more just. The experiences from the final perspective – that from the administrators’ point of view – are far more complex. Some parts of the administrative system encouraged the projects, whereas other parts tried to stop it, using different measures.The paper concludes with some advice on implementing changes in written exams, based on the experiences from the Swedish case.

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.

Spontaneous sports areas significantly contribute to an increased degree of physical activity. However, there are issues related to gender equality in spontaneously used sports areas, as their usage is defined predominantly by men and boys. Though the reported problem areas differ, a pattern of gender inequality in using spontaneously used sports areas emerges, and spontaneously used sports arenas are used predominantly by boys and men, with a gender distribution up to 80/20 percent in several age groups. Women and girls feel unsafe there, particularly in the evening. Due to inadequate illumination of spontaneously used sports areas and a lack of time when girls could use them, their use becomes complicated. The system of resource assignment also tends to support male-oriented types of sports. 

For instance, the entry of women and girls in spontaneous sports areas is facilitated by improved perceived safety through better lighting and maintenance. Spontaneous sports area design should also be inclusive and inviting to all genders. Inclusive being that the spaces are multi-functional and can support a great variety of activities, which attract very many different user groups such as dance floors which will attract more women are an effective way of facilitating this. Accessibility will be facilitated by clear and detailed signage and online information about the facilities and what they offer concerning activities. Local community is also viewed to be of importance in the involvement in planning and development of spontaneous sports places and this through women and girls. The adjustment to their needs and desires creates a rather equal and accessible sport environment.

Sustainable city planning is an ideal aiming at consideration to ecological and social as well as economic aspects so that development of today’s society won’t interfere with future generations’right to a decent life. In practical terms city planners have to reformulate the ideal to concrete targets and actions adapted to local conditions and available means. In Stockholm there are two ongoing city development projects with high sustainability ambitions; Stockholm Royal Seaport (Norra Djurgårdsstaden, NDS) and Stora Sköndal (SSK), both have as part of the sustainability work adopted so called sustainability goals and requirements tied to governing documents and processes to achieve these ambitions. The goal for this examination paper was to quantitatively and qualitatively compare the projects own goals, requirements and some other aspects of the sustainability efforts alongside with available results to ascertain what comparable elements there are, what project seems to have the higher ambitions and perform the best, and find aspects where the projects may improve. Notable conclusions are that the projects’ ecological goals overall are similar and comparable, while the social one’s aren’t as a consequence of both differing concepts of social sustainability and different organizations and processes. The improvement proposals address raising specific goals/targets as well as more general advice to expand the number standardized and measureable goals and requirements. Despite NDS having somewhat higher ambitions the first comparison of available results suggest that SSK manage to accomplish better results than NDS in key areas such as energy use and green spaces.

In this Research Full Paper we contribute to the research on constructions of technology education. Why are women and minority groups often under-represented in student cohorts in STEM programmes? Many studies have addressed this question, and much is known about the impact of representations of technology studies on the choices and motivations of these demographic groups in many countries. Many of the recent studies published in the English language address the North American education system. This paper investigates if perpetuation of gender norms might be evident in recruitment materials for Swedish upper secondary education. This research question is addressed through an analysis of how upper secondary education schools use images in presenting their university preparatory programs to prospective students. Swedish postcompulsory school education comprises a number of specialised upper secondary school programmes in Technology, Natural science, Social science and Economy. A significant display area of the web content regarding these programmes is pictorial information. In this study Technology Education is viewed as a societal construction and images representing the technology program are here used as a way of discovering both perceptions about them, and underlying themes that the choice of images might communicate. Three themes, Environment, Pedagogical approach and Human presence, emerge and serve as a foundation from which similarities and differences in the visual messages associated with these programs are investigated. Our major finding is that images used in association with Technology Education portray a paucity of social relations and a dominant culture of working/studying alone. These findings are of concern, as this type of profile has been shown to reduce motivation of women and minority groups to pursue such a career.

A CS degree is traditionally composed of many different courses which often build on each other. This means students need prerequisites from previous courses to succeed in follow-up courses. In this study, I will follow a group of students through their CS degree to better understand which prerequisites are necessary at different junctures of their education and how the students are affected when prerequisites are missing.

Studying students' prerequisites from one course to another is important to understand which areas can be improved to ensure a smoother progression. This poster presents a pilot to a longitudinal study investigating students' progression from CS1 to CS2 using a mixed methods approach.

When trying to understand student success in computer science, much of the attention has been focused on CS1, leaving follow-up courses such as CS2 less researched. Prior studies of CS2 have often taken a deductive approach by focusing on predetermined variables such as CS1 grades, the impact of different paths from CS1 to CS2, gender and race. Although this has resulted in a better insight into these variables, we wonder if there might be another way of viewing which variables affect the students' success in the course. We have therefore chosen an inductive approach to better understand what these variables might be and how they interplay. This was done by analysing 16 semi-structured interviews with students enrolled in CS2 who have another speciality than computer science. The interviews focused mainly on the students' methods for succeeding in the course, experiences of the course and programming background. Through a thematic analysis of the interviews, we found the following five main success variables for CS2: programming competence, computer literacy, opportunity to receive help, ability to help oneself and teaching. These variables can in several cases be related to the ones previously addressed, however, they can also offer a different perspective on student success in the course.When trying to understand student success in computer science, much of the attention has been focused on CS1, leaving follow-up courses such as CS2 less researched. Prior studies of CS2 have often taken a deductive approach by focusing on predetermined variables such as CS1 grades, the impact of different paths from CS1 to CS2, gender and race. Although this has resulted in a better insight into these variables, we wonder if there might be another way of viewing which variables affect the students' success in the course. We have therefore chosen an inductive approach to better understand what these variables might be and how they interplay. This was done by analysing 16 semi-structured interviews with students enrolled in CS2 who have another speciality than computer science. The interviews focused mainly on the students' methods for succeeding in the course, experiences of the course and programming background. Through a thematic analysis of the interviews, we found the following five main success variables for CS2: programming competence, computer literacy, opportunity to receive help, ability to help oneself and teaching. These variables can in several cases be related to the ones previously addressed, however, they can also offer a different perspective on student success in the course.

Att låta studenter kontinuerligt ge feedback på varandras framväxande uppsatstexter är bra ur flera synvinklar. Studenterna blir insatta i andra problemområden och metodologiska angreppssätt än det egna, förståelsen för kvalitetskriterier ökar och vetskapen om att andra studenter kommer läsa ens egen text ökar ambitionsnivån. På civilingenjörsprogrammet i medieteknik vid KTH har vi använt ett socialt annoteringssystem, Google docs, för att stödja grupphandledning av kandidatuppsatser. Kombinationen av grupphandledning och användning av ett socialt annoteringssystem har visat sig vara mycket lyckosam. Kandidatuppsatskursen som gavs under 2012 kännetecknas av hög ambitionsnivå, hög kvalitet på de färdiga uppsatserna, mycket hög genomströmning och nöjda studenter.

Prokrastinering, eller att mot bättre vetande skjuta upp aktiviteter, är ett mycket vanligt problem som är särskilt vanligt inom akademiska studier. Gjorda studier visar att mellan 80-95% av studenterna prokrastinerar, att 50% prokrastinerar regelbundet och också ser det som ett stort problem, och att det inte är ovanligt att en tredjedel av den avsatta studietiden i praktiken ägnas åt prokrastinering. Vi har angripit problemet genom att införa en kursmodul som under läsåret 2011-2012 lästes av 230 studenter på programmet och där vi diskuterade fenomenet samt gick igenom strategier för att undvika prokrastinering. Denna presentation tar upp modulens uppbyggnad och en utvärdering av resultaten.

Prokrastinering, eller att mot bättre vetande skjuta upp något, är ett stort problem i samhället i allmänhet och för studenter i synnerhet. I denna artikel beskriver vi en utbildningsmodul om prokrastinering som vi introducerat på två civilingenjörsprogram på KTH, varav denna rapport behandlar datateknikprogrammet där 466 studenter deltog. Utvärderingen hade 100% svarsfrekvens, och visar att 95% av studenterna hade problem med prokrastinering varav 43% hade stora eller mycket stora problem. 88% ansåg att prokrastinering var ett bra tema att ha med i utbildningen, och 57% ansåg att momentet haft positiva effekter på deras studievanor. Endast 7% ansåg att momentet inte hade gett några märkbara effekter på studierna. Då modulen endast kräver ca 8 timmars arbete från studenternas sida anser vi att fördelarna är så stora att denna eller en liknande modul borde ingå i samtliga utbildningsprogram.

This thesis aims to explore possible alternatives to the current neoliberal development by developing, implementing, and analyzing one possible alternative way of framing participation. Working under the name of Fluke, I have co-developed a research project using participatory action research from the bottom-up that creates a more engaging and inclusive urban co-production process using play and games. By exploring this process from a practical perspective, I argue that playful co-design processes applied at the local scale have potential to allow people opportunities to ensure what Lefebvre calls the ‘right to the city’ — their right to be not only consumers, but also their right to become a co-producer of urban space. 

Situating our action research in our student housing neighborhood of Stockholm, Sweden, I hope to articulate that urban co-design processes have the potential to explore the boundless possible urban futures in an inclusive manner. Within our process, we developed playful urban planning tools like a place analysis Easter Egg Hunt, a playful visioning workshop, and a place prototyping game. Through this five-month period, over 300 residents participated in different manners with the co-creation of a temporary festival exploring the possibilities of urban space: Lappis Summer Dream Day. Through this participatory exploration, we co-produce alternative valuations of urban space that fulfill social and creative needs, not just the needs of capital, to co-create what Hou (2018) calls the ‘new commons’.

In order to improve student learning in an advanced course in aeronautics, lectures are replaced with more student-centred sessions based on peer learning. The course is organised in student teams, with the main task of delivering lecture requests for full class discussions. For the same reason, the written theory exam is replaced by a peer review of student reports. The new approach is found to result in a substantial increase of student–student and student–teacher interaction, leading to observable improvements in the course results. Finally, some feedback from the students is presented, being in great favour of the peer learning approach.

The shift to meeting students online has made traditional forms of interaction difficult or impossible to replicate. In response, we suggest that teachers become co-pilots for each other: joining lectures and extending the abilities of a solo teacher. By doing so, there are clear and distinct benefits for students, the teacher, and the co-pilot, with almost no barrier to entry and very little preparation required. Whilst there is a time cost, we feel this is well spent and acts as a gateway to more established pedagogical practices, such as peer observation and cooperative teaching. 

The concept of Curriculum Agility has been co-created in a series of sessions at CDIO meetings and conferences since 2018. Deliverables were a jointly generated definition, characteristics, a set of principles, and a self-mapping process on these principles. Using the Curriculum Agility concept offers guidance for CDIO programs and institutions in increasing the adaptability of their curricula based on the latest insights and developments in their discipline, continuously fulfilling the need of an ever more diverse student population and anticipating sudden societal changes. Curriculum Agility takes a holistic approach to considering conditions for proactive and timely curriculum development, including but not limited to enhancement of faculty competence. Although the success of CDIO implementation depends on this wider set of conditions that can drive, enable, or hinder change, this is currently not addressed in the CDIO standards. This paper proposes Curriculum Agility as an optional standard in the CDIO framework. It is a widely applicable, program-level concept including both educational and organisational aspects that addresses an important need in engineering education, and it is co-created within the CDIO community. Curriculum Agility is currently not sufficiently present or addressed in the existing standards. Therefore, this paper argues that Curriculum Agility as an optional standard and rubric will be a new useful tool in the CDIO toolbox.

This special session, within the conference theme of Incorporating Convergence into Programs, Curricula, and Continuing Education, focuses on Curriculum Agility in engineering education. It will introduce the concept of Curriculum Agility and its current trends, as well as further co-develop the concept behind it. This is done following an iterative design thinking approach, by co-creating guiding principles that engineering institutions can use to make their study programs more responsive, dynamic, and flexible. Curriculum Agility is particularly important in engineering education in order to keep pace with the rapid development of new technologies and materials. In addition, the concept aims to meet students' expectations and needs for more individualized study plans, as well as society's need for forward-thinking engineers equipped to contribute to finding solutions to current and future societal challenges. Thus, to anticipate and meet these challenges, institutions for engineering education need to have an organizational and management structure with the capacity to act within a much shorter timeframe than traditionally seen in universities. Curriculum Agility is a framework for introducing necessary changes in operations to be able to act responsibly and rapidly on change and expectations. This work presents seven principles for Curriculum Agility that have emerged from a series of sessions at international conferences and network meetings. The seven principles currently include: Stakeholder Involvement, Organization and Governance, Decision Making, Program and Course Design, Innovation of Education, and Pedagogy and Didactics. This special session brings educators together to discuss the 'what, how and why' with regard to Curriculum Agility. The overall aim is to further develop a shared vision on Curriculum Agility and build upon the intention of assessing it at different levels in the organization of engineering education institutions. The expected outcome of the special session is a collection of refined, redefined, and perhaps even newly defined principles for Curriculum Agility.

In this interactive workshop, facilitated by a team of editors from the European Journal of Engineering Education (EJEE), the Journal of Engineering Education (JEE), and IEEE Transactions on Education, participants had the opportunity to network with other scholars in the field, and learn about the journal publication process and how best to navigate it. It served as an informal opportunity for scholars at all stages of their publication journey to share their experiences, both positive and negative, directly with each other and journal editors. Participants co-created a document of shared insights about writing for publication, the key outcomes of which are presented in this paper.

Design is core element of general technology education internationally. While there is a degree of contention with regards to its treatment, there is general consensus that the inclusion of design in some form is important, if not characteristic, of the subject area. Acknowledging that design is important, there are many questions which need to be considered in order to guide policy and practice, such as whether a singular general design ability can be explicitly defined empirically beyond an implicit verbal definition, and whether it can be taught and assessed. In order to address these questions in a systematic fashion, a framework is needed in order to guide relevant investigations. Having such a framework would allow for theory to be generated, hypotheses to be tested, and assumptions to be challenged. In response to this apparent need, this article presents a theoretical discussion pertaining to the constructive alignment of learning to design, wherein theories of knowledge, variation theory, knowledge transfer, and assessment validity and reliability are reflected upon.

Students that fall behind during a course are a concern in any teaching situation. Falling behind has negative effects both for students, teachers and the university. Close monitoring of the learning and development can be effective, but is in general timeconsuming and expensive. The use of a web-based diagnostic system that can generate a large (infinite) number of questions could make monitoring both time and cost effective.

Professors and researchers from the areas of Mechanical Engineering and Audiovisual Communication of the University of Malaga participate in a European Erasmus+ project called ASTONRail. Among the activities developed during the execution of this project, an intensive course on different topics within the railway field was designed. Students from different universities attended classes on railway safety, infrastructure, operation, administration and management, rolling stock and technology. The session on rolling stock was given by lecturers from the University of Malaga and KTH Royal Institute of Technology. For this session, the methodologies used were Design Thinking, collaborative learning and flipped classroom. This paper will describe the project within which the activity was planned and its motivation. It will also present the development of the activity and the evaluation of the results achieved

Peer feedback has been widely used in computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) setting to improve students’ engagement with massive courses. Although the peer feedback process increases students’ self-regulatory practice, metacognition, and academic achievement, instructors need to go through large amounts of feedback text data which is much more time-consuming. To address this challenge, the present study proposes an automated content analysis approach to identify relevant categories in peer feedback based on traditional and sequence-based classifiers using TF-IDF and content-independent features. We use a data set from an extensive course (N = 231 students) in the setting of engineering higher education. In particular, a total of 2,444 peer feedback messages were analyzed. The CRF classification model based on the TF-IDF features achieved the best performance. The results illustrate that the ability to scale up the automatic analysis of peer feedback provides new opportunities for student-improved learning and improved teacher support in higher education at scale.

This article explores the shift in design education from traditional, hands-on practices to digitally-based approaches, particularly accelerated by the sudden and temporary remote teaching mandates that affected design schools during the global pandemic restrictions of the early 2020’s. It uses a case involving an interaction design class during such restrictions, where students engaged in, designed, and facilitated 15-minute remote collaborative activities called “Fire-up” sessions, to demonstrate how a short design doing task can provide surface what is at stake in the design of hybrid learning activities. Reflections of the students and teachers are used to take the pulse of remote and hybrid teaching arrangements that are physicality and materiality inherent in design education, emphasizing the perceived elasticity of physical and digital arrangements in these contexts. The paper offers three main sensitizing instruments to consider when arranging and engaging in hybrid design work.

Universities exist as central players in the higher education reform movement. This chapter identifies types of shifts underway and upcoming student characteristics and needs. This occurs in a complex context of other changes, all leading to possible changes in education delivery and faculty role change. Adjustments to education delivery along with faculty role redefinition will allow for more access to learning outcomes. It will also prepare diverse graduates to live, work, and thrive in a changing, complex, global society. Student-centered pedagogy that adds teaching about learning through flexible, personalized learning opportunities takes the pressure off faculty alone to improve teaching quality and prepares graduates for a lifetime of learning.

Some technical universities offer programmes where students receive two degrees: one in engineering and one in education. This is a rather novel phenomenon that occurs in, for example, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Greece, and Israel. Degree programmes in education challenge the boundaries of what technical universities have regarded as their sphere of interest. We investigated two such programmes in Sweden, at KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Chalmers University, to study the reasons for offering these programmes and how competence has been built in this field. We also explored whether the programmes are given in cooperation with other partners and where in the organisation they belong. We investigated these questions by analysing documents and interviewing people who were involved as initiators or programme directors. Key motivations for introducing the programmes were found to be ambitions related to long-term student recruitment, by focusing on teachers and the teaching profession. One ambition that we identified was to improve mobility between engineering and teaching, in both directions. Other ambitions included increasing future teachers’ subject knowledge, and improving integration of different parts within teacher education to make it more holistic. The significance of the engineering context and the self-image of the technical university are discussed. 

The aim of this article is to contribute to an understanding of contemporary processes of negotiations concerning belonging and non-belonging to the Swedish social community. Taking on a theoretical approach on belonging inspired by Yuval-Davis and Jacobsen, the article analyses three individual stories of women who have migrated to Sweden. Out of this analysis, focusing on how these women claim their belonging to a Swedish social community at the same time as they in different ways are denied such belonging by others, we may conclude that although each of the stories told is unique and articulates an individual experience, there are striking similarities in how their claims of belonging, with its related implications for belonging, are not acknowledged by others. In a way, these individual stories tell us something about some of the crucial challenges regarding belonging in contemporary multi-ethnic Sweden, as well as Europe. 

 This article analyzes the formation of citizenship in today’s multi-ethnic Sweden with a particular focus on how migration renders visible existing citizenship ideals, defined in terms of similarity and difference on the basis of ethno-cultural background. Analysing three individual stories of women who have migrated to Sweden, with different biographies and stories of how they ended up in Sweden, the article focuses on negotiations of the boundaries and contents of citizenship in multi-ethnic Sweden. The point of departure for the analysis is a post-structuralist and discursive approach. In all, the stories address the crucial question of who should be included into the social community and on what conditions – and who should be left out? This particular question is also at the very centre of the political debate in today’s Europe. On the one hand, there are strong arguments about the ’death of multiculturalism’ and demands for new forms of ethno-culturally graduated citizenship – also in Sweden. On the other hand, in Sweden as well as in other European countries, claims for the development of a new and more inclusive societal community have been raised, expanding the rights of citizens to accommodating also those who have been excluded from them.

This Research Full Paper introduces a model for structuring playful, challenge-based learning activities drawing on a process of decontextualisation of a challenge to access its Computational Thinking intellectual and conceptual components and subsequent computationalisation of these components into computational artifacts that are recontextualised to render them attractive and accessible to school pupils. The case study follows a thick description approach to evaluating the engagement potential of the instructional design, as well as the didactic choices made during implementation. We conclude that Bebras cards and Dash robots provide considerable support for a playful engagement with computational concepts and engaging children with different scientific backgrounds in Computational Thinking. In particular, flexibility in how they are used and easy adaptation of challenge level make them useful in contexts with broad participation. Additionally we find that using robots to provide a link between the theoretical presentation of CT in the Bebras card and a physical representation and programming challenge is engaging and helps participants to focus on algorithmic concepts.

The question of inclusive education is not straightforward. Despite all its good intentions, inclusive education, in practice faces numerous challenges today. This study analyses these challenges in the Swedish special education context. The author explores special educators' experiences, possibilities and challenges when applying inclusive education. Findings reveal positive attitudes to the concept of inclusive classrooms. Nevertheless, teachers face more than a few grey areas that need to be put in place in order to achieve socially and cognitively inclusive classrooms.