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Understanding the influence of teaching culture (tradition) within academic departments is crucial for new teachers navigating the complex landscape of higher education. This paper investigates the possible impact of the department’s teaching culture on the pedagogical approaches of new teachers, forming their teaching style, concentrating on insights gathered from interviews with experienced colleagues in a Swedish university department with a focus on engineering education. By exploring the department’s teaching traditions and identifying potential challenges faced by new teachers, this study offers valuable insights into enhancing teaching styles and fostering student engagement. Drawing upon both experiential knowledge and insights from pedagogic literature and courses, the authors provide practical strategies to overcome obstacles and promote operative teaching practices. Ultimately, the outcomes of this study aim to empower new teachers to create enriching learning environments that promote student motivation, engagement, and overall academic success, aligning with the findings of existing literature on pedagogy and student learning outcomes.

This paper reports a study of Swedish curriculum documents for compulsory school in order to unfold how novel programming content is communicated to the main policy enactors, that is, the teachers. Specifically, the study focusses on: (1) arguments for why programming is relevant and for what purposes, (2) what programming knowledge that is specified and (3) what guidance the curriculum documents provide to help teachers realise the programming content in their teaching. Text analysis was used as method of analysis. Two conceptual frameworks were used during analysis to identify and classify arguments for computer science in compulsory education, and to identify types of programming knowledge. Results reveal that the curriculum documents are sparse on details about what programming knowledge entails. Instead, programming is mainly presented as an interdisciplinary tool to achieve other learning goals. Guidance is given mainly in the form of cautious suggestions on how the work can be organised and through broad explanations and examples of how programming can be useful. However, some important and difficult strategic decisions are left entirely to the teachers without any clear guidance. The programming message in its entirety is communicated through several texts from different subjects. Altogether, this may complicate teachers’ process of transforming the curriculum into teaching and learning activities. In turn, there is a risk of inequality amongst schools and that the programming experience for the children becomes fragmented, superficial, misses out on key points, or is omitted, in part or in whole.

The 2018 Swedish school curriculum reform introduced programming as new subject content in mathematics and technology education. The aim of the study reported in this chapter was to explore how school technology teachers transform, that is, understand and contextualise programming in technology education. In addition, the study identifies factors that influence the teachers’ transformation process. Teacher interviews provide insight into the process, and the interviews were analysed using content analysis.

The results show teachers’ efforts to integrate programming in the context of technological systems and construction work rather than as an isolated phenomenon. This line of reasoning broadly resonates with the intent conveyed in the technology education syllabus but at the same time teachers express uncertainty about what domain specific knowledge children should have about programming in terms of practices and concepts. The teachers face several challenges during the process of transforming programming into teachable content. These challenges are, for example, related to their own professional knowledge and understanding of programming, the availability and quality of teaching materials and assessment procedures. The interviews also reveal a situation where the interdisciplinary cooperation between mathematics and technology, as envisaged in the school curriculum, is largely absent. The chapter concludes with a discussion of potential consequences for teachers’ reform work and school children’s understanding of programming.

In Sweden, as in many other countries, programming has been added to the curriculum in recent years. This paper explores how and under what conditions programming is transformed into teaching in technology education. Teachers in grade 7–9 were interviewed about what and how they teach about programming in the context of technology education, and what influenced the choices they made. Data was analysed using content analysis. The results suggest that teachers mainly see programming as a medium to explore and understand technological systems and construction work. The results further implies that teachers are uncertain of what programming means in terms of practices and concepts, and how programming knowledge can be assessed. The process of transformation presents teachers with several challenges, related to their own knowledge of programming, quality of teaching materials, and knowing pupils’ prior knowledge about programming. In addition, the results indicate that technology teachers work in isolation. In consequence, the intended interdisciplinary collaboration between technology and mathematics teachers on programming is largely absent.

In recent years, many countries have revised their school policy documents to incorporate digital competence, computational thinking and programming. This study examines and compares how and in what contexts Nordic curricula, Swedish and Norwegian in particular, embody aspects of computational thinking. Results show that only parts of the practices defined in the computational thinking framework used for analysis could be explicitly identified in the curriculum documents. The most salient computational thinking practice represented in both the Swedish and Norwegian curricula is programming, and programming is primarily recognized as a method and tool for learning other subject content and not as a knowledge domain in its own right. Implicitly both curricula leave leeway for teachers to implement a broader approach to computational thinking. However, this would need much time, teacher competence and effort, and what it requires seems to be under-communicated in the curricula, leaving schools and teachers with major challenges.

The 2017 reform of the Swedish national curriculum requires that all compulsory school mathematics and technology teachers integrate programming into their teaching. The new programming policy poses a particular challenge since a majority of the affected teachers have little or no previous programming experience. This paper reports on a study of teachers preparing to implement the new policy. Insight into the preparation process was made possible through recorded group conversations and data were collected in March 2018, less than 4 months before the formal enactment of the new curriculum. The results, conceptualised by using a framework for intrinsic and extrinsic challenges, reveal several challenges that can potentially affect the uptake of the programming policy and the quality of implementation such as uncertainty about the subject content, unequal professional development opportunities, lack of teaching materials and recurring problems with school IT infrastructure. This study seeks to provide knowledge about teachers' concerns and expressed needs while negotiating programming as new curriculum content and thus aims to contribute to the understanding of teachers’ strategies to approach the 2017 Swedish educational reform that introduces programming. Such knowledge is valuable for the possibilities to better understand under what circumstances programming is included in school mathematics and technology. The results illustrate the complexity of curriculum reform implementation and may be of value for decision makers at all levels of school policy and also for providers of both in-service and preservice teacher training.

In March 2017, programming was introduced in the Swedish school curriculum. The reform was formally enacted in July 2018. Research shows that teachers enacting curriculum reform practices encounter various challenges. For this particular reform, few teachers had prior experience of programming, and research further suggests that programming is difficult to teach and learn. It is therefore important to study teachers’ perceptions and experiences of what they should teach, why, and how, as this can provide valuable insight into how new policies influence teachers’ work, and how new policies are implemented.

This thesis explores circumstances that may influence teachers’ integration of programming in school mathematics and technology education and consists of three studies. Study 1 and 3 draw on teachers’ perceptions and experiences collected before and after formal enactment of the reform. Study 2 draws on textual data from formal curriculum documents. The studies address three questions: (1) What challenges do teachers perceive prior to the introduction of programming? (2) What message about programming is communicated in the intended curriculum? (3) How do teachers transform programming into teaching content in technology education and what challenges do they face?

The results show that teachers face several intrinsic and extrinsic challenges during the process of integrating programming in their teaching. A perceived lack of professional knowledge and understanding of programming among the teachers emerged as a prominent challenge both prior to and more than two years into the reform. Additional challenges are related to teaching materials, time for preparation and professional development. In technology education, teachers mainly see programming as a medium to explore and understand technological systems and construction work. They are uncertain of what programming means in terms of practices and concepts, and about learning progression and assessment. The results further reveal that the curriculum texts are sparse on details about what programming knowledge entails. Important strategic decisions are left entirely to the teachers without any clear guidance. In addition, the results indicate that many technology teachers work in isolation and that interdisciplinary work around programming, as intended in the curriculum, is generally lacking. It is concluded that there is a risk of inequality among schools and that the children’s experience of programming becomes fragmented, despite good intentions. The current implementation model needs to be improved, and this thesis presents two possible actions.

In March 2017, programming was introduced in the Swedish school curriculum. The reform was formally enacted in July 2018. Research shows that teachers enacting curriculum reform practices encounter various challenges. For this particular reform, few teachers had prior experience of programming, and research further suggests that programming is difficult to teach and learn. It is therefore important to study teachers’ perceptions and experiences of what they should teach, why, and how, as this can provide valuable insight into how new policies influence teachers’ work, and how new policies are implemented.This thesis explores circumstances that may influence teachers’ integration of programming in school mathematics and technology education and consists of three studies. Study 1 and 3 draw on teachers’ perceptions and experiences collected before and after formal enactment of the reform. Study 2 draws on textual data from formal curriculum documents. The studies address three questions: (1) What challenges do teachers perceive prior to the introduction of programming? (2) What message about programming is communicated in the intended curriculum? (3) How do teachers transform programming into teaching content in technology education and what challenges do they face?The results show that teachers face several intrinsic and extrinsic challenges during the process of integrating programming in their teaching. A perceived lack of professional knowledge and understanding of programming among the teachers emerged as a prominent challenge both prior to and more than two years into the reform. Additional challenges are related to teaching materials, time for preparation and professional development. In technology education, teachers mainly see programming as a medium to explore and understand technological systems and construction work. They are uncertain of what programming means in terms of practices and concepts, and about learning progression and assessment. The results further reveal that the curriculum texts are sparse on details about what programming knowledge entails. Important strategic decisions are left entirely to the teachers without any clear guidance. In addition, the results indicate that many technology teachers work in isolation and that interdisciplinary work around programming, as intended in the curriculum, is generally lacking. It is concluded that there is a risk of inequality among schools and that the children’s experience of programming becomes fragmented, despite good intentions. The current implementation model needs to be improved, and this thesis presents two possible actions. 

In recent years, international school development initiatives have acknowledged the importance of digitalization in modern society, and school policy documents in many countries have been revised to incorporate digital competence, computational thinking (CT) and programming. The aim of this study was to examine and compare how and in what contexts Nordic curricula, Swedish and Norwegian in particular, embody aspects of computational thinking and programming. The texts have been analysed using a framework for computational thinking practices and a broader framework for digital competencies. Results show similarities with respect to the implementation of programming in the sense that it is primarily recognized as a method and tool for learning other subject content, and not as a knowledge domain on its own. Furthermore, it appears unclear to what extent and in what subject children should learn the fundamentals of programming. The results also indicate a fragmented approach to the wider notion of computational thinking, only parts of the practices defined in the CT framework used could be explicitly identified. In conclusion, the time and teacher competence required for providing students with functional skills in programming is under-communicated, leaving schools and teachers with major challenges.