Technology educators often provide activities where pupils design programmed technological solutions (PTS) with various programming materials for developing pupils’ technological knowledge related to PTS and digital technology. However, few studies have investigated how pupils experience these activities. To fill this gap in knowledge, this phenomenographic study explores how pupils experience designing a PTS using BBC Micro:bit and identifies the technological knowledge these pupils need, in terms of critical aspects (i.e., aspects necessary to discern), to successfully solve a real world task—the design and coding of a burglar alarm. The data were gathered from sketches, interviews, and video-recordings of pupils aged 10 and 14. This study shows that the pupils struggled with two intertwined phenomena during the activity: the dual nature of the PTS (i.e., the structure and function) and the BBC Micro:bit material. The findings indicated that the pupils needed to understand what components to use based on their function and how to organise these components so they interacted with a code that used feedback control. That is, the pupils needed to code a conditional statement by combining blocks in the BBC Micro:bit editor. To produce working code, the pupils needed to know what the blocks represent, where to find the blocks in the editor, and how to interpret the shapes of the blocks. The results have implications for teaching technological knowledge, suggesting an importance of addressing these phenomena and critical aspects with respect to developing pupils’ conceptual and procedural knowledge related to designing PTS with BBC Micro:bit.

Designing programmed technological solutions (PTS) with programming materials has become a way to contextualise educational content related to PTS and programming. However, studies show that pupils have difficulties conceptualising central phenomena involved in the process, which affects their ability to design PTS. In order to understand these difficulties, this study investigates pupils’ ways of experiencing the process of solving a real-world task with a programming material. The study takes its point of departure from a previous study that identified two central phenomena, the dual nature (structure and function) of PTS and the BBC micro:bit material, when pupils, aged 10 and 14, were designing a burglar alarm with the BBC micro:bit. The data was revisited with the aim of analysing pupils’ sequential discernment of critical aspects of the phenomena (i.e. aspects necessary to discern in order to understand phenomena), and how this affects how the design process unfolds. The results show that the movement from the real-world context toward the BBC micro:bit context is challenging. Pupils need to be able to connect conditions in the real-world context both to aspects of the dual nature of their PTS, and to aspects of the BBC micro:bit material that represent the dual nature. This suggests the importance of appreciating the BBC micro:bit context and the real-world context in relation to the dual nature of PTS, and of addressing the sequential stages of the process in which aspects of phenomena and their interrelations are emphasised, to help pupils see the PTS in the changing contexts. © 2021, The Author(s).

Designing programmed technological solutions (PTS) with programming materials has become a way to contextualise educational content related to PTS and programming. However, studies show that pupils have difficulties conceptualising central phenomena involved in the process, which affects their ability to design PTS. In order to understand these difficulties, this study investigates pupils’ ways of experiencing the process of solving a real-world task with a programming material. The study takes its point of departure from a previous study that identified two central phenomena, the dual nature (structure and function) of PTS and the BBC micro:bit material, when pupils, aged 10 and 14, were designing a burglar alarm with the BBC micro:bit. The data was revisited with the aim of analysing pupils’ sequential discernment of critical aspects of the phenomena (i.e. aspects necessary to discern in order to understand phenomena), and how this affects how the design process unfolds. The results show that the movement from the real-world context toward the BBC micro:bit context is challenging. Pupils need to be able to connect conditions in the real-world context both to aspects of the dual nature of their PTS, and to aspects of the BBC micro:bit material that represent the dual nature. This suggests the importance of appreciating the BBC micro:bit context and the real-world context in relation to the dual nature of PTS, and of addressing the sequential stages of the process in which aspects of phenomena and their interrelations are emphasised, to help pupils see the PTS in the changing contexts. © 2019, The Author(s).

Analysing and designing Programmed Technological Solutions (PTS) has been introduced as a part of technology education in an effort to bring elements of programming into the curriculum for compulsory school, in order to develop pupils’ understanding of how PTS work and are controlled by programming. However, what an appropriate understanding entails at this level remains to be articulated, particularly how this understanding looks from a pupil’s perspective. Such descriptions are paramount for allowing teachers to make pedagogical decisions on what specifically is to be addressed in the classroom. The challenges are increased by a dependency on programming materials, which give a structure to teaching and learning that is not necessarily in line with pedagogical needs. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to identify key elements that are important to address in teaching and learning technology in the processes of analysing and designing PTS. The knowledge domain of PTS, in relation to technological literacy, frames the results from three phenomenographic studies that investigate the ways pupils (aged 10-14) experience PTS when analysing and designing PTS in the contexts of the BBC micro:bit material and PTS from everyday life. The results show that understanding programming concepts and how to produce code are key elements, and most importantly, that there are other key elements embedded in the processes that it is necessary to direct attention to. These are: knowledge related to the dual nature of PTS; knowledge related to the programming material used in the processes; the relevance structures provided by the contexts in terms of experienced partwhole structure of PTS; and the use of systems thinking to discern the partwhole structure of PTS. Together these direct attention to the structural and functional nature of PTS, which must be understood in order to understand how PTS can be controlled by programming. Thus, these key elements are important to consider in pedagogical practice in order to promote learning with regard to PTS

Educational content with respect to programming and Programmed Technological Solutions (PTS) is commonly contextualised in practical activities such as analysing and designing PTS using instructional materials, e.g. BBC micro:bit. However, we still know little of how teaching regarding this content could be organised in order for students to progress in learning. The aim of this chapter is to analyse the synthesised results from two phenomenographic studies on ways students, aged 10–14, conceptualise PTS in order to shed light on PTS as a learning object, as well as what and how to teach about PTS in technology education.

The two included studies are conducted in a Swedish school context. The first study investigates the different ways students, aged 11–12, conceptualise PTS in the process of analysing structure and function in PTS. The second study investigates the different ways students, aged 10 and 14, conceptualise PTS in the process of designing and coding PTS. In the studies, the instructional material BBC micro:bit was used together with PTS from everyday life. The synthesised results have been further analysed from a learning progression perspective based on the phenomenographic view of learning. The results show variations in students’ ways of conceptualising PTS. In keeping with the phenomenographic perspective, learning can be described as students initially seeing PTS as an undifferentiated whole, which they gradually learn to discern from its structural and functional parts. However, in the processes, there is a complexity of conceptualising PTS in relation to the changing contexts of everyday life and the instructional material BBC micro:bit. Based on the results, it is suggested that students should initially learn to analyse the structure and function of existing PTS in different contexts. This will provide them with the necessary conditions to progress their learning in activities where they design and code PTS.

The aim of this paper is to review empirical research on ways to use Augmented Reality (AR) as a pedagogical tool in science teacher education and to identify possibilities and limitations. A literature search was conducted based on published articles in peer-reviewed journals between 2010 and 2023. Eighty-two research articles were screened at abstract and title level, 30 at full-text level of which 17 were included for further analysis. Three ways of using AR were identified: with HoloLens, AR in mobile devices (MAR), and game-based AR in mobile devices (MARG). The results show several pedagogical possibilities: AR can make otherwise difficult-to-access scientific phenomena visible which facilitates learning; AR increases student teachers’ motivation and interest in the subject content; student teachers learn to use the technology and are motivated to apply it in teaching with students; and AR in combination with group work creates conditions for discussions on subject content and ways of organizing teaching in school. However, there are limitations in using AR, mainly referred to as technical problems and a lack of competence to solve those problems. Furthermore, there is not yet sufficient breadth of subject content in relation to AR, and there are existing AR environments that cannot visualize abstract phenomena in a relevant way. In order to prepare future teachers to teach science and take advantage of AR in teaching, it is essential to implement AR as part of science teacher education where both digital and pedagogical competence should be in focus.

Forskning visar att användandet av förstärkt verklighet och virtuell verklighet i undervisningen kan skapa möjligheter att visualisera hur abstrakta fenomen ter sig och fungerar på ett mer detaljerat sätt. Detta möjliggör i sin tur att elever kan göra mer detaljerade observationer och analyser av fenomenen, vilket kan bidra till ökad begreppsförståelse och vilja att lära sig mer.

In Swedish primary schools, technology teaching may appear different depending on what educational setting the pupils meet. Many pupils experience the subject of technology as taking part in practical making-activities without recognizing the technological knowledge involved, and many teachers feel uncertain of what and how to teach technology, especially concerning sustainability. Thus, it is necessary to pinpoint these issues within teacher education. This paper presents the first iteration of a Design-Based Implementation Research (DBIR) study on a teaching module that provides student teachers with theoretical and practical knowledge in technology education. The purpose of the study is to capture and understand how student teachers transform acquired knowledge and skills into Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) for teaching technology in primary school. Special attention is on how student teachers evolve relations between technology education and sustainable development. The study is designed and implemented in line with DBIR based on principles of collaboration and has strong connections between practice and theory (Fishman & Penuel, 2018). The participating researchers, also the teacher educators, have together with teachers at a municipal technological resource facility jointly identified underlying premises such as policy document statements; topics and content of value for all participants; potential participating schools; and reviews of previous research. The study includes 12 student teachers enrolled in a science and technology course. Data is collected in several steps including student teachers’ written individual reflections, their project assignments, their lesson plans, and focus group interviews. Based on qualitative content analysis, components of PCK are traced to elucidate the transformation of student teachers’ PCK for teaching technology with a sustainability edge. The results contribute to knowledge of what efforts, such as teaching module design features and connections to sustainability, should be made to develop student teachers’ PCK for teaching technology in primary school.

Technology education in primary schools must integrate sustainable development to provide young learners with the basic knowledge, skills, and values to understand, appreciate and contribute to a sustainable future. This integration prepares them for the challenges of a rapidly changing world, promotes responsible use of technology and fosters a sense of environmental responsibility from an early age. However, for this to happen, teacher education needs to adopt strategies that empower student teachers to seamlessly integrate sustainable development into technology education and equip them with environmentally and socially responsible attitudes. The aim of this study is to explore what needs to be addressed in teacher education to prepare student teachers to teach technology integrated with sustainability. The study is part of a project where to develop a teaching module that will prepare student teachers to teach technology in primary schools, with special attention to how student teachers develop relationships between technology education and sustainable development. The study includes 12 student teachers enrolled in a science and technology course. Data were collected in several steps, including focus group interviews, and written individual reflections by student teachers. Based on thematic analysis, we identified what student teachers experience as crucial to being able to teach technology with a sustainability edge. The results show that preparing student teachers to teach technology with a sustainability edge requires a multifaceted approach that integrates knowledge of technology and sustainable development with personal values, pedagogical competence, critical thinking competency, and the adoption of transformative teaching practices.

In this exploratory case study, we investigated children’s ways of experiencing virtual worlds, such as Minecraft, and how this may affect their understanding of nature, scientific phenomena, and sustainable development; that is to say, Minecraft was explored as a boundary object in children’s making activities with Minecraft. The research questions that guided the study are: In what ways may Minecraft act as a boundary object between children’s formal and informal learning about science and sustainable development? In what ways may Minecraft act as a boundary object when children build relationships with nature? Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six children. A thematic analysis approach was used to analyze the interviews. This study shows that in the Minecraft context, the children gained a breadth of everyday experiences related to scientific phenomena and sustainability. Further, the findings indicate that children merged their experiences in the virtual world with experiences in the physical world. In this sense, Minecraft involves science and sustainability content that crosses the boundary between the virtual world and reality. Thus, we suggest that Minecraft bridged children’s physical and virtual relationships with nature; that is to say, Minecraft became a boundary object that allowed children to experience nature and encounter knowledge that they would not otherwise have been able to experience. © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

In this case study we explore the use of Augmented Reality (AR) as a pedagogical tool to promote student teachers learning about plants in a biology course module within teacher education. Traditionally, when studying plants in science education, flora books are used. However, digital technology has contributed to new ways of exploring plants, and AR is suggested as an important tool. This requires teacher educators who are familiar with AR and the pedagogical implications of using AR when teaching about plants. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate student teachers’ experiences of using the AR app Seek by iNaturalist during an excursion to identify and learn about plants, as well as discuss the pedagogical implications of integrating the app into a biology course module. The student teachers took part in the excursion using the app to practice plant identification. Afterwards, semi-structured interviews were conducted with three student teachers. A thematic analysis approach was used to explore the student teachers’ experiences when using Seek. The findings indicate that Seek increases student teachers’ awareness of plants, which promotes their interest and engagement in plants. The easy accessibility in their phone makes them use Seek in their spare time. The increased interest and easy access support learning. By knowing the name of plants, the student teachers establish relationships with plants, which increases awareness of the importance of caring for nature. Hence, Seek could be seen as a pedagogical tool that promotes student teachers’ learning and interest about plants. © 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

Education for sustainable development (ESD) and digital competence are important issues in education that are rarely discussed in relation to each other. This chapter presents the collaboration and exchange of experiences of science and technology teacher educators in South Africa and Sweden, on the relationship between ESD and digital competence. Both countries have recently implemented digital competence in the curriculum for compulsory school, and teacher education in both countries is facing changes in preparing future teachers to teach digital competence incorporated with sustainability issues. The chapter's aim is to analyse and compare the curricula of the two countries to establish similarities and differences that could inform the discussion on the extent the involved teacher education institutions prepare science and technology teachers for teaching digital competence with respect to ESD, and what more should be done. The findings show that the compulsory curricula have broad coverage of digital competencies, but their relation to sustainability issues is vague. Further, the involved teacher education institutions need to broaden the coverage of digital competencies and incorporate this with ESD where sustainability issues are made explicit in relation to the potential, the challenges and the consequences of digital technologies on human, society and the environment.

Recently, sustainable development practices have increased attention as climate change and environmental impacts have increased. Interventions to encourage sustainability awareness are developing, so fostering them through education is crucial. Evidence-based studies conducted in this field have suggested the use of different digital tools to promote environmental learning gains and to foster better sustainability awareness among students. Following the PRISMA method, we found 21 articles published between 2013 and 2023 showing an interest in the use of digital tools in environmental education to foster sustainability awareness among learners. Findings indicate that virtual reality tools and climate change topics are the most trending in this research area. Further, the results show a positive impact of the use of digital tools on students’ concern for the sustainability of the planet. © 2024 by the authors.

Background: There is a growing interest in the complexity of socio- materiality-making activities in educational and everyday settings. Indeed, maker-centered learning is considered as a socio-materially embodied process in which artifacts and social and emotional dimensions are interconnected. The making process is also found in everyday life when children engage in specific applications – like Minecraft, where they perform activities in a virtual environment.

Purpose: Starting from analyzing some episodes recorded with a child aged seven, this paper aims to better understand the maker process in a virtual setting with implications for digital literacy and sustainable development education.

Design and methods: A socio-material approach is privileged to analyze the data collected. Specifically, we will explore the maker activity as a socio-materially embodied process.Sample: The research question will be answered with the support of a case study of one child playing Minecraft. Thinking-aloud modality, observation, notes, and pictures are collected. Then, the verbatim from the semi-structured interview is collected in the same session. The entire session is audio-recorded.

Results: The three dimensions that emerged are: Resources to make digital objects; Digital Objects became Social Objects; Making digital objects became ground for literacy. From this ana-lysis, we can retrace digital literacy in the Minecraft maker activity and some final considerations for teaching in STEM.

Conclusion: In conclusion, students’ informal activity in a Minecraft setting could become a potential green environment to ground digital literacy. However, this process needs to be scaffolded and amplified with an enriched level of abstract process, critical, and inquiry attitude. © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

The close connection between communities and learning as a social and collective endeavour has led many scholars to consider communities of practice as a driver for solving complex problems. This paper takes up the literature on community and the concept of quasi-community in sustainable development and analyses a concrete case study—the so-called “lake and former SNIA factory” in Rome, Italy. The aim of the article is to investigate the emerging socio-technical interactions considering a quasi-community involved in an interdisciplinary regenerative sustainable development project related to the lake. The research design includes semi-structured interviews and observation during the interdisciplinary fieldwork visit. A thematic analysis with an inductive approach is proposed to reconstruct the socio-technical network as a potential learning experience for the actors involved. In the end, some educational and pedagogical implications and recommendations in the context of education for sustainable development are developed. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland

This paper investigates how the coherent integration of three different tools for reflection during a science methods course can contribute to student teachers´ planning and enactment of science teaching i.e., their development of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). The Revised Consensus Model (RCM) is used as a theoretical lens for conceptualising links between teaching practice and the development of PCK. The results indicate how the student teachers´ initial PCK (pPCKinput) was manifested into ePCK during the planning and teaching, and further, through reflection, developed to a new and “richer” PCK (pPCKoutput). The three tools encouraged collaborative discussion and reflection about teaching certain big ideas linked to a topic. As such, the case presented in this paper proved to be a coherent way to encourage student teachers to collaborate, reflect and discuss ideas about their teaching practice and their professional development.

Lärarutbildningen ska ge lärarstudenter möjlighet att utveckla ämnesdidaktisk kunskap om bland annat ämnesinnehållet, kursplaner och bedömning, vilket de sedan ska kunna omvandla till praktiska handlingar i klassrummet. För att lyckas behöver lärarstudenter även utveckla sin förmåga att reflektera didaktiskt och kunna använda sin reflektion för att utveckla sin undervisning. Inom lärarutbildningen vid Högskolan i Halmstad har vi använt de tre didaktiska reflektionsverktygen Content representation (CoRe), Storyline, och Lesson Observation Tool (LOT) för att utveckla lärarstudenternas förmåga att planera, genomföra och reflektera kring undervisning i naturvetenskap med koppling till sin VFU. I denna artikel vill vi dela med oss av våra erfarenheter av denna arbetsmodell. Syftet är att ge en beskrivning av hur lärarstudenter och verksamma lärare kan ta stöd av de tre vetenskapligt baserade reflektionsverktygen för att planera, genomföra och utvärdera undervisning i naturvetenskap.

Teknik i skolan har utvecklats för tekniklärare, lärarstudenter och lärarutbildare i syfte att förmedla ämneskunskaper i teknik, kunskaper som kan sättas i relation till de förväntningar som skolans styrdokument uttrycker i termer av ämnesinnehåll och progression. Författarna bjuder in till en kunskapande resa som syftar till att dels ge ämneskunskaper, dels ge läsaren insikt i vad som kan undervisas om i ämnet teknik för grundskolan. Boken passar därför som en bas för teknikundervisningen i grundskolan. 

Boken tar utgångspunkt i två av didaktikens nyckelfrågor: Vad skall vi undervisa om? Varför väljer vi just det innehållet?

Varje kapitel belyser ett specifikt innehåll kopplat till teknikämnets kursplan och behandlar detta i relation till de ämneskunskaper lärare behöver för att kunna undervisa i teknik. Kapitlen inleds med en kunskapsdel för att sedan belysa hur man kan arbeta med teknikämnets både teoretiska och praktiska kunskapsinnehåll utifrån en progression.