Developing 21st Century Skills in Swedish Compulsory School Technology Education: Three Teacher Perspectives
2016 (English)In: PATT 32 Proceedings: Technology Education for 21st Century Skills / [ed] Marc J. de Vries, Arien Bekker-Holtland and Gerald van Dijk, Utrecht, 2016, p. 411-418Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]
The concept of 21st century skills has several definitions. Sweden, as well as other countries, address 21st century skills under various labels in technology education, especially in terms of competencies connected to technological literacy. However, regardless of used definition, two of the most occurring items concern problem solving and critical thinking. Previous research in the field of technology education lacks descriptions of the relationship between 21st century skills and teaching about technology within the compulsory school system. By investigating Swedish compulsory school technology teachers’ views on problem solving and critical thinking capabilities, this study aims at identifying different aspects of the relationship between technology education and 21st century skills. Through the use of in-depth qualitative interviews, this study was able to determine different teacher perspectives addressing problem-solving and critical thinking activities in a classroom environment. The study also explored how the 21st century skills of critical thinking and problem solving were dealt by the teachers and how they perceived that the skills were implemented in their teaching. Additionally, the study shows that the interviewed teachers expressed utilised three perspectives on teaching about technology in a critical thinking and problem solving mode. These were; (1) the artefact driven perspective, (2) the system perspective, and (3) the holistic perspective. In conclusion, even though the present Swedish curriculum does not explicitly mention 21st century skills, the teachers incorporate critical thinking and problem-solving in different settings within the subject of technology. The authors found that the teachers mix the perspectives depending on the teaching content, especially when teaching about complex technology.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Utrecht, 2016. p. 411-418
Keywords [en]
Technology, technology education, 21st century skills
National Category
Didactics
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-132974OAI: oai:DiVA.org:liu-132974DiVA, id: diva2:1052725
Conference
PATT 32 Conference, Utrecht, Netherlands, August 23-26, 2016
2016-12-072016-12-072018-04-04Bibliographically approved