School-community projects have become essential components of educational systems worldwide, aiming to engage students and local communities in collaborative initiatives. This article explores the implementation of school community projects, focusing on sustainability themes, by addressing two research questions: RQ1 examines the current knowledge about barriers and drivers in school-community projects, and RQ2 investigates how these factors have evolved in response to critical societal changes. Experts’ perspectives on open schooling projects conducted in 2022 and 2023 were collected using retrospective think-aloud interviews. The study adhered to ethical principles, ensuring participant anonymity and consent. The findings reaffirm previously identified barriers and drivers, such as the significance of leadership commitment, effective communication, and student engagement. However, our research unveils novel insights, highlighting the challenges posed by declining student well-being, eco-anxiety, and diminished interest in projects, notably among older students. Puberty, environmental grief, and post-pandemic effects are identified as contributing factors. Teachers emphasise the importance of hands-on activities within project curricula to mitigate these challenges, bridging the gap between theory and application. Collaborative decision-making and planning also play a crucial role, with difficulties arising from perceiving sustainability projects as solely science-oriented. Furthermore, our study suggests that while long-term partnerships with external stakeholders are valuable, it is essential to limit the frequency of projects to prevent burnout among participants. In conclusion, our findings underscore the need for  a holistic approach to project design, including mental health considerations and interdisciplinary collaboration, to maximise the positive impact of such initiatives in an ever-changing educational landscape.

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 upper secondary school's transition to digital education in spring 2020 showed Swedish schools'preparedness to redirect to distance learning (The Swedish Schools Inspectorate, 2020; The SwedishNational Agency for Education, 2020; ifous, 2020). The processes during the transition revealed thattechnology not only occupied the physical space and replaced the walls of the classroom, but also tookover every day learning practices. In this situation the teachers´ “cultural capital” (Bourdieu 2011) regarding technology became crucial to develop teaching that matched a context that wascharacterized by a high degree of digitalization.

In order to create in-depth knowledge of the conditions and practices that facilitated the transition,a data set has been constructed based on upper secondary school teachers’ stories about theirpersonal experiences of the transitional period. In total, the analysis is based on 52 stories. A surveywith partly open questions regarding the transition to distance education, answered by 1745 students,functions as a “mirroring” tool to these stories. The narrative approach (Riessman, 1993)methodologically serves to access qualitative aspects and different dimensions of practice in change.Theoretically, Kemmis (2019) describes the importance of paying attention to practices in motion andto provide for and support practices in the making, since human development and the individual'slearning are based on constantly changing practices.

The data material has been collected in two Swedish regional upper secondary school settings andhave been analyzed thematically based on the principle of researcher triangulation (Cohen et al, 2011;Lincoln & Guba, 1986). The results reveal three overarching thematic practices, collaborative,communicative, and creative, as crucial in the development work with digital and distance learning.The results offer indications that if these three practices work together satisfactorily for the teachers,the quality of the teaching, and, consequently, of the learning, will also develop. 

It has been shown to be problematic for teachers to use Krutetskii´s definition of mathematical abilities to recognize mathematically highly able pupils (MHAPs). Aiming to concretize what teachers can notice in pupils’ problem-solving processes, we connect a 10-year-old boy’s problemsolving process to some of the abilities defined by Krutetskii. The results give clear descriptions of what teachers can observe in pupils’ mathematical activities to notice their mathematical potential. We concretize, for example, how a pupil’s abilities to grasp a problem’s formal structure and to generalize can be observed. To be able to notice MHAPs, teachers need research-based support on how and what to observe in their pupils. Our proposed guide needs to be tested and validated to explore if it will help teachers to notice MHAPs s and subsequently support their learning.

This is a report on the discussions (and post-re ections) of the MADIF10 symposium ”Conceptualizing a local instructional theory in design research”. Linking the discus- sion to Koeno Gravemeijer’s keynote at MADIF9 and drawing on di erent ongoing research projects, the aim of the symposium was to discuss [examples of] the opera- tionalization of design principles in order to deepen the understanding of some theo- retical concepts in design research. The contribution of the symposium is the inter- pretation of how local instruction theory interrelates with other concepts in design research, for instance, the hypothetical learning trajectory. The role of the concepts as both design tools and as outcomes was presented and discussed.

From 2012 to 2016 all teachers of mathematics, in primary through to upper secondary and adult education, in Sweden are to be given the opportunity of receiving state-coordinated professional development (PD), generally involving around one meeting per week for a year. We examine the ways in which this programme and its content are research-based by analysing the design principles of the PD and its content via a review of the underlying documents. We find that the research base for the design of the PD decisions is formulated only partly explicitly in the documentation, as is the case for the content. Nevertheless, the principles still largely conform to internationally recognised research-based models for PD and teacher change. In the discussion we propose that a relatively open design process, involving many stakeholders with knowledge of both theory and practice rather than an analytical examination of previous research, has contributed to the adoption of this format for the PD programme.

This study investigates the impact of a national reform in Sweden introducing mathematical competency goals. Data were gathered through interviews, classroom observations, and online surveys with nearly 200 teachers. Contrasting to most studies of this size, qualitative analyses were conducted. The results show that teachers are positive to the message, but the combination of using national curriculum documents and national tests to convey the reform message has not been sufficient for teachers to identify the meaning of the message. Thus, the teachers have not acquired the functional knowledge of the competence message required to modify their teaching in alignment with the reform. The results indicate that for complex reform messages, such as the competency message, to have intended impact on classroom practice, special attention needs to be put on the clarity of the message. To have high-stakes tests, for example, does not alone seem to be sufficient. 

We investigate the mathematical reasoning required to solve the tasks in the Swedish national tests and a random selection of Swedish teacher-made tests. The results show that only a small proportion of the tasks in the teacher-made tests require the students to produce new reasoning and to consider the intrinsic mathematical properties involved in the tasks. In contrast, the national tests include a large proportion of tasks for which memorization of facts and procedures are not sufficient. The conditions and constraints under which the test development takes place indicate some of the reasons for this discrepancy and difference in alignment with the reform documents.