| 1. |
- Axelsson, Robert, et al.
(författare)
-
The Challenge of Transdisciplinary Research : A Case Study of Learning by Evaluation for Sustainable Transport Infrastructures
- 2020
-
Ingår i: Sustainability. - : MDPI. - 2071-1050. ; 12:17, s. 1-24
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- While transdisciplinary (TD) research is desired in order to solve real world sustainability issues, this may be challenging for both academic and non-academic participants. Supporting learning through evaluation, we analyzed a project aiming at sustainable transport infrastructures. After developing a TD research framework as a benchmark, two external independent evaluators interviewed all project researchers, representatives for end-users, and donors. The evaluators compared results with the framework, and evaluators and participants critically reflected on the results together. There were three inconsistencies relative to the framework: (1) limited understanding of TD research among project management, end-users, and most of the researchers; (2) no structured learning process among end-users; instead, they expressed very diverse opinions about what they expected from the project; (3) project leaders had limited understanding of the special challenges of TD research, did not fully understand the status of the project's social system, and thus did not act as facilitators of the required collaborative learning process. Non-academic participants saw themselves as customers and not as partners in the knowledge production process. We conclude that TD problem-solving research requires much time and needs facilitation and training. A preparatory phase with a lower level of funding would be helpful in preparing for TD processes.
|
|
| 2. |
- Pommerening, Arne
(författare)
-
Staying on top in academia: A primer for (self-)mentoring young researchers in natural and life sciences
- 2021
-
Bok (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The pace of change in academia is ever increasing, which makes it difficult for anyone to stay up to date with what may be the right long-term strategy, or even the next step in mastering a PhD or to secure a fruitful academic career. Academic mentoring has proved to be helpful to many young researchers in difficult situations and mentoring programmes have been launched at many universities. In its most basic meaning, mentoring is a goal-oriented off-line conversation between a more experienced (mentor) and a less experienced (mentee) person with the objective to empower the mentee to make important work-related decisions. The first chapter of the book offers an introduction to academic mentoring and provides an overview of what academic mentoring entails. In the following chapters, important topics are discussed that may come up in mentoring conversations. These include scientific thinking, doctoral studies, behaviour and disappointments, scientific storytelling, teaching, scientific presentations, early career years, research cooperation, job applications and basic data management. The discussions in each of these chapters were designed with a view to provide food for thought and to invite self-reflection as well as continued discussions with peers and mentors. The book is written in a highly accessible style whilst restricting each chapter to the most essential information so that reading them can be accommodated in any busy schedule. It is not limited to any particular university or geographic region, since the author has worked in a number of different countries and encountered many different academic cultures. The text is also a useful handbook and reference to go with mentoring programmes.
|
|
| 3. |
- Algers, Anne, 1961, et al.
(författare)
-
Teachers’ perceived value, motivations for and adoption of open educational resources in animal and food sciences.
- 2015
-
Ingår i: International Journal: Emerging Technologies in Learning. - : International Association of Online Engineering (IAOE). - 1863-0383. ; 10:2, s. 35-45
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Teachers' motivations behind their view on value and adoption of open educational resources (OER) were investigated based on 101 questionnaire answers from teachers in animal welfare, animal science and food science. A factor analysis uncovered the underlying dimensions for teachers’ motives and indicated that they were complex and linked to subject area. Underlying dimensions for the motives to adopt OER were identified at three levels; individual (e.g. altruism), institutional (e.g. collaboration with peers), and societal (e.g. reaching beyond borders of the academy). The underlying dimensions for the inhibitors for adoption at individual and institutional level were challenges regarding individual competences, quality assessment and teaching practices. When using activity theory, an affinity space could be identified for teachers in animal welfare with its own norms and expectations with regards to the open educational practices. The results suggested that sharing for the benefit of others and collective collaboration with other peers were stronger incentives for teachers in the specific subject of animal welfare than it was for teachers in broader and less contested subject areas. Animal welfare teachers also had low agreement with problems such as OER being deviant to higher education and for being difficult to adapt to teaching context, and these teachers also had a higher adoption rate than other teachers. Furthermore, this study provides evidence that OER challenges the boundaries of higher education and that an affinity space can enable OER adoption.
|
|
| 4. |
- Larsson Jönsson, Helene
(författare)
-
Studiebesökens pedagogiska potential i högre utbildningar : intervjubaserad studie av Lantmästarprogrammet
- 2013
-
Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Inom ramen för en fyra-veckors projektkurs genomfördes en intervjubaserad studie om studiebesökens utnyttjande på Lantmästarprogrammet vid SLU. Studiens syfte var att få en inblick i kursledares och studenters uppfattning samt deras pedagogiska tankar om studiebesök. Studien består av tre intervjuer med kursansvariga lärare samt av en gruppintervju med åtta lantmästarstudenter. Intervjumaterialet sammanställdes till ett protokoll som sedan användes för att skapa nya frågekategorier. Intervjuerna visade att det fanns variation mellan olika studiebesök både vad gäller planering, genomförande och återkoppling. De intervjuade lärarna lade stor vikt vid att skapa ett bra förhållande mellan universitet och näringsliv. Lärarna hade många kreativa idéer och hade funderat/provat på att använda studiebesöken på ett sätt så att studenterna hade möjlighet att uppnå en djupare förståelse. Studentgruppen önskade en bättre planering och tydligare mål med studiebesöken så att de kan fokusera på rätt saker när de är ute på studiebesöken. Vidare ser studenterna gärna att de har någon sorts uppgift att ta reda på eller praktiskt utföra under studiebesöken så att de kan koppla ihop teori och praktik. Intervjustudien gav en bra inblick i hur lärare och studenter på Lantmästarprogrammet upplever studiebesöken och kan användas som underlag till vidare diskussion mellan lärare och studenter så att studiebesöken kan utvecklas så att de kan bidra till att ge studenterna en djupare förståelse.
|
|
| 5. |
- Melin, Martin
(författare)
-
A roadmap towards action education - The Nextfood approach
- 2022
-
Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In an age of accelerating change, where society seeks to develop pathways towards a more sustainable future, there is increasing recognition of the need for an educational response. Future change agents must be equipped with the competences needed to deal with the complex challenges of sustainability. Education plays a key role in addressing the threats from climate change and in supporting a transition to more sustainable production and consumption of food and other bio-based products.The Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, launched by the United Nations in 2005, aimed “to integrate the values inherent in sustainable development into all aspects of learning to encourage changes in behaviour that allow for a more sustainable and just society for all” (UNESCO 2005). Through education for sustainable development, students must become better equipped to link societal and economic activitiesto environmental issues and be better prepared for dealing with societal challenges.In a recent declaration, the European Education Arena 2025, EU-leaders prioritised the need to build on inclusive and high-quality education as a part of the Green Deal Strategy (European Union 2020). An education characterised by transdisciplinary, learnercentered and action-oriented approaches is mentioned as an important means to foster transversal skills. These skills are not confined to a specific task within adiscipline or dependent on a narrow field of knowledge. Critical thinking, creativity, entrepreneurship and civic engagement are among the capabilities most needed in our rapidly evolving society and work life.The NextFOOD consortium was established in 2018. Its members consist of university students, academics, field professionals, farmers and other stakeholders in society. The primary consortium activities are case studies of action-oriented education, sharing of experiences and research. In 2022, the NextFOOD roadmap (Fig. 1) towards a vision of action education was developed from reviewing the outcomes of 12 educational case studies and of several workshops organised by the consortium. The workshopparticipants identified factors that have been critical for them to transform traditional educational approaches to more action-oriented learning. They discussed the challenges they have faced and the strategies they have applied to overcome them. Based on these discussions, we were able to identify which steps seemed critical for success. The purpose of the resulting roadmap is to support the transformation of educational systems in the agrifood, forestry and similar sectors towards the action-orientation that is needed to build sustainability competences among the students (learners). It is to be used by course leaders, educational managers and teaching practitioners at the high school, vocational and university levels who want to drive such a change in educationThe roadmap depicts various signposts, each representing a step towards creating the foundation for educating the next generation of professionals in agri-food and similar systems. The roadmap was presented at the final consortium meeting of NextFOOD in April 2022 and the participants gave their feedback to the final version. As a user of the roadmap, you may likely experience detours and unexpected obstacles as you proceed with the change process. The roadmap is intended as a visual metaphor. It will help you to create ownership and spur creativity, if you adjust the sequence of the steps to your own situation.The usefulness of the roadmap can be enhanced through accessing the NextFOOD Research Protocol (Lenaerts, L., et al. 2019), the NextFOOD Master Manual (Lenaerts, L., et al. 2022) and the NextFOOD Toolbox (Nicolaysen, A.M. et al. 2020). The manual and the toolbox provide different tools (“how-to instructions”) as well as theoretical inputs. The NextFOOD document on “Educational Approaches (Lieblein, G. et al. 2019) provide a further conceptual base for the NextFOOD approach to action education.
|
|
| 6. |
- Vernay, Antoine
(författare)
-
A multidisciplinary scientific outreach journal designed for and made by middle and high school students to bring research closer to the classroom
- 2020
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- One mission of a researcher is to share their work and results with the general public but there is a real challenge in accurately and effectively sharing scientific results with a broad audience. Indeed, they are published in scientific journals that are mostly available at high costs; the vocabulary used makes it hard for people outside of the field to understand the concepts; and sometimes there is a language barrier for non-English speakers. However, to make informed decisions on a variety of scientific and societal topics, citizens need to have access to and keep up with these research results. To build critical thinking, this good practice should be developed from an early age. This paper describes the journal DECODER (French for “to decode”, journal-decoder.fr), which enables a researcher and a class to work together on their own shortened research article. The middle and high school students can have the role of active reviewers on the researcher’s shortened article or they can write an outreach article on a given topic in which the researcher is a specialist. Articles are then published under a creative commons license and are freely available on the journal website to benefit a majority. Our partner researchers work in space agencies, in academia, or in industry, in a variety of disciplines. The emphasis is set on multidisciplinarity to raise students’ awareness about research wideness and show them that research is not limited to STEM fields but also exists in economics and humanities. This points out the significance and ubiquity of transdisciplinarity in solving real world’s problems, especially for space exploration. In its first year and a half, the journal has already involved more than ten classes in five different schools and 18 articles have been submitted by ten researchers.
|
|
| 7. |
|
|
| 8. |
- Westin, Martin, 1974-
(författare)
-
Rethinking power in participatory planning : Towards reflective practice
- 2019
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- High hopes for democracy and sustainability are placed on participatory planning. Policy makers and scholars argue that broad participation can revitalise democracy and tackle sustainability challenges. Yet, critics claim that power asymmetries stand in the way of realising the potential of participatory planning. In the everyday practices of planning, this controversy comes to a head. Here, planners interact with citizens, politicians and developers around making choices about places and societies. Planners’ practices are contested and they are challenged by the complexity of power relations. They need conceptual tools to critically reflect on what power is and when it is legitimate. Reflective practice is a prerequisite for making situated judgements under conditions of contestation.Yet, the planning theories, which are most influential in practice, have not been developed with the intention of conceptualising power. Rational planning theory, which still is influential in practice, largely reduces planning into a technical power-free activity. Communicative planning theory, which underpins participatory practices, instead suggests that expert power ought to be complemented by inclusive dialogue. This theory criticises hierarchical power relations as domination, without providing elaborated understanding of other facets of power. Hence, the conceptual support for reflective practice is too reductive.The aim of this thesis is to rethink power in participatory planning by developing concepts that can enable reflective practice. I draw on power theory and explore the utility of treating power as a family resemblance concept in participatory planning. Applying this plural view, I develop a family of power concepts, which signifies different ideas of what power is. The usefulness of this “power family” is tested through frame analysis of communicative planning theory and Swedish participatory planning policy and practice.The result of the research is a family of power concepts that can enable reflective practice. Power to signifies a dispositional ability to act, which planning actors derive from social order. This ability can be exercised as consensual power with or as conflictual power over. The latter is conceptualised as an empirical process which, on a basic level, can be normatively appraised as illegitimate or legitimate.This thesis contributes to planning theory and environmental communication by problematising reductive notions of power and, as an alternative, rethinking power as a family resemblance concept. This theoretical contribution matters to planning practice as it can enable planners to develop their ability to be sensitive to what a situation requires, i.e. to acquire practical wisdom (phronesis).
|
|
| 9. |
- Dahlgren, Lars Owe, et al.
(författare)
-
Grading systems, features of assessment and students' approaches to learning
- 2009
-
Ingår i: Teaching in Higher Education. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1356-2517 .- 1470-1294. ; 14:2, s. 185-194
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Bologna process aims at harmonising the higher education systems in the Europe. One of the most important tools proposed for such a purpose is the European Credit Transfer System. A significant element of this system is a common seven-step grading scale. It has previously been shown that assessment characteristics impact on students' approaches to learning. Furthermore, there is also empirical evidence that judgement criteria have an effect on students' learning. The focus of this article is on the relationships between grading systems, assessment characteristics and students' learning. Empirical evidence from a Swedish survey study indicates that multi-step grading scales may have detrimental repercussions on the nature of the assessment tasks and thereby indirectly on the students' approaches to learning. We suggest that the effects of grading systems need to be considered in the current discussion in order to support quality in learning.
|
|
| 10. |
- Faskunger, Johan, et al.
(författare)
-
Klassrum med himlen som tak : en kunskapsöversikt om vad utomhusundervisning betyder för lärande i grundskolan
- 2018
-
Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Kunskapsöversikten bygger på en genomgång av resultat och slutsatser från vetenskapliga och systematiska översikter där författarna sammanställt forskning som belyser hur skolprestationer främst bland barn i grundskoleålder påverkas av utomhusundervisning, av regelbunden fysisk aktivitet och/eller naturkontakt.Kunskapsöversikten visar att evidensen är tillräckligt stark för att konstatera att utomhusundervisning bidrar positivt både indirekt och direkt till skolprestation och skolresultat. Extremt få studier, endast någon enstaka, kan påvisa ett samband mellan utomhusundervisning och negativa effekter på elevernas lärande, pedagogernas arbetssituation eller på skolverksamheten i stort. Slutsatsen är att det finns tillräcklig stark evidens för att rekommendera mer utomhusundervisning i skolans pedagogiska verksamhet – eftersom inslag av undervisning i kombination med utomhusvistelse genererar en rad positiva effekter på elevers lärande, hälsa, fysiska aktivitet och deras personliga och sociala utveckling. Sammantaget visar översikten:att utomhusundervisning leder till en lång rad positiva effekter för elever i grundskoleålder, till exempel förbättrad inlärning (ökad kognitiv förmåga, koncentration, arbetsminne, och studiemotivation),att evidensen är tillräckligt stark för att det är möjligt att överväga implementering av fler utomhusbaserade inslag i undervisningen bland barn och elever i hela utbildningssystemet,att evidensen är tillräckligt stark för utomhusundervisningens positiva kognitiva effekter, vilket gör det möjligt att överväga en förstärkning av befintliga såväl som inrättande av nya nationella utbildningsinsatser som främjar utomhusundervisning, fysisk aktivitet, samt naturkontakt i grundskolan, till exempel genom att involvera landets lärosäten med lärarutbildning i ett gemensamt utvecklingsarbete på nationell nivå,att utomhusundervisning ligger i linje med moderna pedagogiska modeller för skolutveckling, undervisning och lärande.Stöd för ökad måluppfyllelse och god folkhälsaForskningen visar att utomhusundervisning med regelbunden fysisk aktivitet och naturkontakt både direkt och indirekt kan ha positiva och meningsfulla effekter på lärande, skolprestationer, hälsa och välbefinnande, samt på elevernas personliga och sociala utveckling.De statistiska effekterna (effektmåtten) ligger vanligtvis på en låg till måttlig nivå. Men på samhällsnivå skulle de potentiellt kunna få stor relevans ur ett folkhälso- och skolperspektiv genom att bidra till högre måluppfyllelse inom grundskola, förskoleklass och fritidshem. Detta under förutsättning att program och kompetenshöjande åtgärder för utomhusundervisning införs i bred skala och är långsiktiga. Forskningen påtalar att tidsmässigt längre och mer omfattande utbildningsprogram eller insatser uppnår större effekter både motoriskt, socialt och kognitivt än korta och sporadiska pedagogiska insatser.Stark evidens för faktorer som indirekt påverkar skolprestationerForskningen visar att regelbunden fysisk aktivitet med utökad rörelse och naturkontakt under skoldagen generellt leder till positiva effekter på inlärningsförmåga, skolprestationer och på en lång rad faktorer som är av betydelse för elevers utveckling men också för undervisningen. Betydelsefulla vetenskapliga argument finns för att utomhusundervisning – jämfört med när elever undervisats helt eller till stor del inomhus med mer eller mindre traditionella undervisningsstrategier – främjar faktorer som indirekt påverkar skolprestationer såsom förbättrad koncentration, arbetsminne samt personlig och social utveckling. Forskningen visar att detta i sin tur kan leda till ökad studiemotivation, förbättrad självkänsla, självkontroll och impulskontroll, kreativitet, samarbetsförmåga samt intention till en hälsosammare livsstil (motion och matvanor). Hög grad av fysisk aktivitet, liksom regelbunden naturkontakt under skoldagen och i undervisningen, uppvisar samband med skolprestation och med en lång rad faktorer som indirekt påverkar skolresultaten i positiv riktning hos elever.Mer undervisningstid i teoretiska ämnen leder inte till bättre resultatForskningen visar att ökad fysisk aktivitet under skoldagen eller utökad undervisning i Idrott & hälsa inte leder till sämre resultat i teoretiska ämnen. Den mesta forskningen tyder tvärtom på att mer fysisk aktivitet leder till positiva effekter på skolresultat i teoretiska ämnen för elever, även om mer forskning behövs inom området.Inte heller en ökning av antalet undervisningstimmar i teoretiska ämnen, på bekostnad av bland annat Idrott & hälsa, leder till bättre resultat i teoretiska ämnen. Flera forskare och systematiska översikter påpekar också att en ökning av inomhusundervisning i teoretiska ämnen till och med kan öka risken för fysisk och psykisk ohälsa hos eleverna.Mer longitudinell forskning behövsFör att öka skolans måluppfyllelse, förbättra skolresultat och främja sunda levnadsvanor bland barn och unga, visar kunskapsöversikten att det finns tillräckligt stark evidens för att överväga systematisk implementering av utomhusbaserad undervisning i skolan. En stor del av forskningsmaterialet består dock av tidsmässigt korta utvärderingar. Detta försvårar delvis möjligheten att dra mer långtgående slutsatser av hur utomhusbaserade inslag i den pedagogiska verksamheten kan bidra till en långsiktig och ändamålsenlig skolutveckling som påverkar skolresultaten i positiv riktning. Således behövs fler longitudinella studier utifrån en svensk skol- och undervisningskontext.Kunskapsöversiktens huvudindelningLitteraturgenomgången resulterade i att forskningsmaterialet kunde sorteras i tre huvudkategorier. I kunskapsöversikten redogörs för kunskapsläget utifrån var och en av dessa kategorier, nämligen utomhusundervisningens effekter på skolprestation, fysisk aktivitet och naturkontakt.
|
|
