This article focuses on Swedish primary teacher education and the conditions for student teachers’ development of digital competence. Previous research has pointed to the importance of preparing teachers to use digital technology to support pupils’ learning. The aim of this study is to examine the development of course content to enhancing student teachers’ critical awareness of information and communications technology in primary teacher education. Data was collected from groups of primary student teachers consisting of anonymised course materials, a survey and course assignments. The results show that primary student teachers experience that digital technology facilitates the planning and organising of their teaching, digital technology can support the children’s learning and critical pedagogical reasoning is important when using digital technology in the teaching situation. The results have relevance internationally for teacher educators and highlight the importance of promoting a critical awareness of the pedagogical use of digital technology in the classroom.

Fallstudien uppmärksammar systematiskt kvalitetsarbete (SKA) i förskolor, i Sandvikens kommun under tidsperioden juni 2018 till april 2024. Under denna period initierades bland annat en programvara av förvaltningen med syfte att stödja rektorers och förskollärares systematiska kvalitetsarbete. Det insamlade materialet baserar sig främst på intervjuer med fokus på två rektorsområden i kommunen. En sammanställning av relevant forskning jämförs med resultaten från studien. Eftersom kommunens systematiska kvalitetsarbete omfattar flera organisatoriska nivåer framkommer utmaningar för hur dessa organisationer – i rapporten uppmärksammas förvaltning, rektorer, biträdande rektorer, kvalitetssamordnare och ansvariga förskollärare – samordnar sina olika perspektiv på kvalitet. Introduktion av en offentligt upphandlad programvara introducerad 2018 har ingått i kvalitetsarbetet och uppmärksammas särskilt i rapporten. Utifrån forskningsgenomgången belyser författarna utmaningar som har sin bakgrund i hierarkiska kommunikationsmönster. Det finns tecken på att kommunen har uppmärksammat sådana utmaningar och börjat arbeta aktivt med dessa.

The case study draws attention to systematic quality work in preschools, in the municipality of Sandviken during the time period June 2018 to April 2024. During this period a software was initiated by the administration with the aim of supporting the systematic quality work of principals and preschool teachers. The collected material is mainly based on interviews with a focus on two principal areas in the municipality. A compilation of relevant research compares with results from the case study. Since the municipality's systematic quality work covers several organizational levels, challenges emerge for these organizations - the report focuses on administration, principals, deputy principals, quality coordinators and responsible preschool teachers – in coordinating their different perspectives on quality. Introduction of a publicly procured software introduced in 2018 has been given special attention in the report. Based on the research review, the authors highlight challenges that mirrors hierarchical communication patterns. There are signs that the municipality has noticed such challenges and started to deal with these.

The study presented in this article shows some aspects of how children between the ages of three and five and their educators perceive and describe the educational environment in early childhood education in Sweden. The data is generated using pedagogical walk-throughs with the educators and camera tours together with the children. The study is conducted as a case study with three municipalities as cases and shows how materiality, places and relationships appear in the intersection of the educators’ and children’s verbal and visual descriptions of the indoor educational environment. We put diffractive readings to work to follow the entangled inter-connections and the intra-acting agency of the sociomaterial assemblages (Barad, 2007; Fenwick et al., 2011). These assemblages consist of different types of materiality, spatial conditions, the educators’ verbal descriptions, the children’s photographs and their verbal and bodily actions when using the cameras. The findings suggest that children and educators use, engage in and relate to the educational environment and materiality in both different and similar ways. Moreover, the children transform the educational setting organised by the educators as place changers, while materiality constructs places as placemaking materiality. 

This article presents a Swedish study on the potential of technology to transform teaching and learning practices in higher education. Sweden is at the forefront of technological innovation and digitalization and when it comes to technology in education this is not an exception. Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) has emerged as an important pedagogical aspect within higher education in recent years. The term TEL is used to demonstrate teaching experiences that intend to improve such support. Previous research has recognized bottom-up initiatives from academic staff with specialists in technology often addressed by individual enthusiasts. Also, most internal processes regarding digitalization are identified as top-down initiatives driven by policy rather than influenced teachers. Hence, the main aim of this study is to analyse academic teachers´ experiences with digital technologies that support students’ learning in higher education. To support this aim, following research questions are posed: 1) What factors facilitate TEL in teaching in higher education and why? 2) What factors limit TEL in higher education and why? Focus group interviews with 36 academic teachers from two Swedish universities were conducted. Results show that on the one hand teachers experience both benefits and limitations with TEL. On the other hand, important organisational aspects of using TEL are highlighted. The choices that academic teachers face and give expression to do not appear to be a matter of individual choice or stance in teaching situations. These results have relevance globally for all involved in teaching and learning in higher education.

This chapter addresses a Swedish case with a focus on conditions for innovative preschool teachers so called educational development leaders (EDL), with a special assignment to contribute to innovation and development of preschool practice. Reforms put preschool teachers and preschool leaders in a position to rethink former practices. Expectations for preschool teachers involves being innovative and to take a leading role to develop practice in a changing context. Our question reads: What conditions are required for educational development leaders (EDL) in Swedish preschools to act as innovative preschool teachers in a distributed leadership? This distributed role includes the other preschool teacher’s leadership and innovative work. The contribution of the study emphasises a strong relationship between the conditional and personal level of the conceptual model in chapter 1. By taking a holistically view, this chapter contributes to knowledge about innovative preschool teachers in their role as EDL.

En stor del av dagens kommunala förskolelokaler är byggda för traditionella förskoleavdelningar om 18-24 barn. Det saknas dock relevanta forskningsresultat till stöd för kommunernas nybyggnation, vad gäller erfarenheter och framgångsfaktorer i att bygga förskolelokaler som stödjer samverkan mellan mindre barngrupper i enlighet med Skolverkets rekommendationer.

Därför har FoU-fonden för kommunernas fastighetsfrågor finansierat projektet ”Framgångsfaktorer för funktionella förskolelokaler”. Projektet studerar tre kommuners erfarenheter av framgångsfaktorer för att skapa och använda funktionella förskolelokaler som stödjer förskolans uppdrag och dagliga arbete. Denna delrapport utgör en första redovisning av projektets delstudie 1. Projektet planeras att slutföras under 2023 och då redovisas i en slutrapport.

Primär målgrupp för delrapporten är alla professioner som är involverade i processen att planera, bygga och använda lärmiljöer.

I denna rapport redovisas resultat från ett delprojekt med anknytning till forskningsstudien Framgångsfaktorer för funktionella förskolelokaler (FRAFFÖR). Studien genomfördes inom ramen för Mastersprogrammet i Utbildningsvetenskap med inriktning verksamhetsutveckling vid Högskolan i Gävle. Studien undersöker förskolans lärmiljöer och belyser faktorer som tillskrivs möjligheter och begränsningar för förskolans uppdrag i befintliga och nybyggda förskolelokaler. Med utgångspunkt i rumslig teori undersöks förskolans lokaler utifrån fysiska, föreställda och sociala dimensioner. För att söka svar på studiens frågeställningar genomfördes en kvalitativ fallstudie i ett förskoleområde. I studien ingår tre förskolor. Genom användandet av intervjuer tillsammans med pedagogiska gåturer undersöks personalens och barnens erfarenheter av lärmiljöerna i det studerade fallet. Studiens resultat visar att de fysiska rummens representation påverkar barnens föreställningar om vilka aktiviteter som kan äga rum. Ett annat resultat utifrån studien är att fysiska-materiella faktorer, flexibilitet och pedagogiska idéer och värderingar framträder som betydelsefulla aspekter vid utformning av förskolans lärmiljöer. En övergripande slutsats utifrån denna undersökning är att delaktighet och samarbete i flera led är en viktig framgångsfaktor i utvecklandet av lärmiljöer.

This report presents results from a graduate project related to the research project Success Factors for Functional Preschool Environments. The study was carried out within the master's program in Educational Sciences, focusing on school development, at the University of Gävle. The study is implicated as a case study in three different preschools, examines the preschool's learning environments, and sheds light on factors attributed to opportunities and limitations for the preschool's mission on preschool premises. Based on spatial theory, the preschools are examined based on physical, mental, and social dimensions. The three preschools are (1) a temporary modular, (2) a rebuild, and (3) a newly built preschool. The voices of the staff and the children about the learning environments are examined through interviews and pedagogical walkthroughs. The study results show that the physical spaces influenced the children's perceptions of which available activities could take place. Another result of the study is that physical-material factors, flexibility, pedagogical ideas, and values emerge as essential aspects in the design of learning environments. An overall conclusion based on this study is that participation and collaboration at several levels are critical success factors in developing learning environments.

BACKGROUND: Patient safety is a major part of nursing care and following patients' medication orders is considered one of the greatest responsibilities of individual nurses and nursing Failure to make safe drug calculations poses serious risks to patient safety. It is therefore important to strengthen nursing students' numeracy skills and conceptual abilities during their education. Research suggests that digital technologies play an increasingly important role in promoting nursing students' knowledge and medication dosage calculation (MDC) skills. The present review aims to identify and critically evaluate research investigating how the use of digital technologies informs the development of nursing students' MDC skills.

METHODS: A systematic literature review was performed within Scopus (Elsevier), Academic Search Elite (Ebsco), Cinahl (Ebsco), ERIC (Ebsco), Web of Science and PubMed. Research papers on MDC using digital technologies were considered for inclusion. Starting from 2843 sources, eighteen research articles met the inclusion criteria.

RESULTS: The results show that use of digital technologies can reduce nursing students' medication errors. Interestingly, web-based courses were the most commonly used digital technologies aimed at developing nursing students' MDC skills. However, such courses had limited impacts the development of these skills.

CONCLUSION: The present review concludes by mapping the current knowledge gaps and making suggestions for further research.

Swedish municipals have a mission to adapt the national curriculum to local conditions. This process is multifaceted and involves several levels. The purpose of our paper is to elucidate how preschool curriculum is enacted and transformed between these levels and to discuss consequences for pedagogical work. Interviews with key players and collection of documents comprises data for our paper. We approach our material through the lens of curriculum theory and policy enactment theory to shed light on how “quality” are enacted into preschool curriculum, with consequences for what is possible to achieve for preschool teachers on the operative level. Our results indicates that this process in not straight-lined; e.g. the transformation from qualitative data in preschools, to quantitative software data on higher municipal levels. Our paper contributes with knowledge regarding how government by goals is implemented in Nordic preschools.