Från inledningen: Universitet och högskolor har enligt högskolelagen tre uppgifter: utbildning, forskning och samverkan. Numera utgörs ofta en betydande del av ett lärosätes totala verksamhet av uppdragssamverkan av olika slag. Så är det också på Högskolan för lärande och kommunikation (HLK) vid Jönköping University. Till skillnad från utbildning och forskning sker dock sällan någon dokumentation av eller utifrån sådana samverkansuppdrag. En viktig utgångspunkt bakom framtagandet av denna antologi är att även samverkansuppdrag bygger kunskap och behöver dokumenteras för att lärdomar ska kunna spridas både inom akademin och till samarbetspartners utanför högskolan.

The purpose of this study is to discern and discuss issues with relevance to the tension between contextuality and generalisation, which recurrently are identified over time in research reviews of teaching methods. The 75 most cited reviews on teaching methods listed in the Web of Science from 1980 to 2017 were analysed. Since our interest is the claims made in each article about the teaching method under study, the analysis concerned the abstract, results, discussion, conclusion, and implication parts of each review. Three main issues, cutting across the reviews over time, were identified: 1) the abundance of moderating factors, 2) the need for highly qualified teachers, and 3) the research-practice gap. It is argued that the three issues reflect tensions in original research. The implications of these findings are discussed in the article. One main conclusion is that such issues ought to be more explicitly attended to and elaborated in both primary and secondary level research. The importance of viewing validity as a multidimensional concept, including internal, external, and ecological aspects, is underlined. Further, ideas from realistic reviewing are used to discuss a contextually bound approach to causality.

Uppdragsutbildning bedrivs vid många lärosäten som en lite undanskymd verksamhet vid sidan om grunduppdragen utbildning och forskning. Vid Högskolan för lärande och kommunikation, Jönköping University har uppdragsutbildning under många år fungerat som en sorts fönster ut mot de verksamheter vi utbildar våra studenter för. Lärarutbildare som håller i våra uppdragsutbildningar vittnar om möten med yrkesverksamma som stimulerar och leder till reflektioner som inte är möjliga med studenter som ännu saknar denna erfarenhet. Detta ger även en fördjupad förtrogenhet med det som våra studenter kommer möta efter sin utbildning hos oss. I den här boken delar kollegor vid högskolan med sig av de erfarenheter de fått i olika möten med yrkesverksamma. Detta är något vi tar med oss in i våra utbildningar och kan ses som en kunskapsproduktion i termer av högskolans beprövade erfarenhet och vetenskapliga grund.

The current study – guided by the overarching research question What aspects of successful teaching unfold in students’ descriptions of the teachers that they perceive as being really good teachers? – is situated within a larger research project aimed at extending knowledge about successful teaching and teachers. It builds on 20 focus-group interviews with 102 students aged 16–18 in ten Swedish municipalities. Based on inductive qualitative content analysis carried out on manifest data level, eight aspects unfold that – from a student perspective – characterise excellent teachers and teaching. These are subsequently problematised from an opportunity-to-learn (OTL) perspective, and in relation to various theoretical understandings of what successful teaching encompasses. It is concluded that such teaching that students perceive as leading to knowledge-development and well-being is characterised by aspects that can be understood – in various ways – as relational, i.e. as unfolding through participative communication in the interplay and interaction that constitute the space between teacher and students. Throughout students’ descriptions it is also obvious that the teachers they perceive as the best are scaffolders and shepherds who manage to balance between simultaneously scaffolding and challenging students cognitively while paying attention to affective dimensions in order to safeguard their social development, self-confidence and self-esteem. 

A third level of educational research is emerging, in addition to original research and secondary-level reviews. Whereas most third-level research syntheses focus on rather restricted topical areas, this study introduces a comparative and integrative overview of prominent second-order research on teaching, including many different types of reviews and aspects of teaching. The purpose of the study is to illuminate patterns in a second-order research topography in the widespread and multi-faceted field of research on teaching from 1980 to the present, in order to discuss its implications for research and review-making. The overview encompasses 75 most-cited reviews of research on teaching published in international, refereed journals from 1980 to 2018 in the Web of Science. The overview utilised a specific coding procedure covering methodology, review topics and context. The study shows that several research traditions have contributed to advances in the research on teaching over time. Reviews have become more formalised, but the distribution of different types of review formats and research traditions is relatively constant. The single most established review format is meta-analysis, but it is less dominant than might be expected in an era of evidence-based education. The reviewers mainly belong to educational psychology, applied linguistics/research on language teaching, or research on science teaching. Whereas most reviews of research on science teaching are qualitative, reviews performed by psychologists and language-education researchers are mainly quantitative or based on mixed methods as a way to rationally and cumulatively summarise and downsize unmanageable amounts of research.

Skolutveckling kan förstås på olika sätt, men oavsett synsätt är målet att skapa en god och likvärdig skolgång för alla elever. Vägen dit går genom någon typ av styrning eller självstyrning, ofta kopplad till en systematisk process. För lärare och skolledare handlar det om att förändra och förbättra undervisning och övrig skolverksamhet så att förutsättningarna för barn och elever att lära och utvecklas i linje med styrdokumentens mål styrdokumenten blir så bra som möjligt. 

I den här boken problematiseras olika aspekter av skolutveckling, såsom kunskapsuppdraget kontra det demokratiska uppdraget, lärares involvering i didaktiskt utvecklingsarbete och forskningsmetodens plats i läraryrket. Kapitlen fokuserar på olika nivåer, allt från lärarna i klassrummet till skolchefen i kommunen, som på olika sätt är involverade i skolutveckling. Beskrivningarna från olika skolformer visar att det finns likheter, men också strukturella skillnader när det gäller hur arbetet tar form beroende på i vilket sammanhang det utvecklas. 

Skolutveckling i teori och praktik är indelad i tre delar som har olika fokus. Den första belyser skolutveckling teoretiskt, den andra beskriver hur skolutveckling sker i olika skolformer och den tredje ger praktiska exempel på olika sätt att arbeta med skolutveckling och systematiskt kvalitetsarbete.Boken riktar sig till lärarstudenter och rektorer på lärar- och rektorsutbildning, men också till verksamma lärare och rektorer som vill fördjupa eller bredda sina kunskaper om skolutveckling och hitta inspiration i sitt eget skolutvecklingsarbete.

The aims and meaning of education and teaching are contested. This article empirically explores the aims that dominate present research about teaching as reflected in high-impact reviews of research about teaching (n = 75). Four types of aims are discerned: knowledge/cognitive aims, social aims, aims encompassing the development of personal characteristics and democratic aims. With some exceptions, the reviews analyse teaching with regard to knowledge and cognitive aims only and do not explicitly attend to the aims of schooling or guiding documents. The implications of these empirical findings are discussed in light of the educational philosophies of Dewey and Thorndike.

The current study aims to deepen the knowledge of students’ experiences of teachers’ assessment related instructional actions, with particular focus on problematic consequences of an intensified assessment paradigm. Its empirical material consists of 20 focus-group interviews with a total of 102 sixteen- to eighteen-year-old students in ten Swedish municipalities. Through inductive qualitative content analysis on manifest data level, six categories of aspects emerge that together describe students’ experiences of assessment related instructional actions. Clearly, assessment, learning goals, knowledge requirements, tests, and grades are dominant elements in Swedish students’ classroom life. Consequently, they often feel strong pressure and great insecurity. For the students, it seems to make no difference whether assessment purposes are summative or formative. Rather, it appears to be the total amount of assessment related instructional actions that causes stress, and decreased desire to participate and learn in school. The results are problematized and discussed through the lens of the concepts of dilemmas and complementary attitudes. It is argued that the last decade’s intensified assessment paradigm, with its numerous macro-level reforms and decisions with bearing on summative as well as formative assessment, has led to teachers adjusting pedagogical and ethical positions in the classroom. Consequently, counterproductive practices seem to have evolved.