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Session 2550

TekNO: Employing low-tech activities for the hi-tech employees of tomorrow

Per E. Andersson, Fredrik Lindkvist, Christina Jansson, Magnus Wallenborg Inga-Kari Fryklund

Uppsala University, Sweden / Confederation of Swedish Enterprise

Abstract

Technology is a core subject at compulsory (K-9) schools in Sweden but the outcome until now has been very dependent on each teacher’s interest and priorities, especially at primary school levels. Few of the teachers at this level have had any significant amount of science or technology included in their teacher training. There is also a lack of guidance and teaching material in the K-6 schools.

With the aid of the project described in this paper the participating schools and municipalities can get access to thematic visits, ideas, hands-on experiments, pedagogical support and net- working. The overall objective is to secure the future supply of skilled manpower in technical and engineering positions in the region. We aim to go beyond the traditional external con- tacts with science and technology at primary school level such as visiting science centers and presentations by researchers. The project prioritizes:

o spending more time in the classroom with the pupils – at least one week per class, o adapting activities to each individual class; its curriculum, prerequisites and previous knowledge, o visiting local industries/businesses that makes practical use of the particular area of tech- nology studied in the individual class, o having project managers who are themselves primary school teachers but with special interest in technology and engineering (no academics please!), o using IT as an aid in teaching; as a tool for communication, programming of gadgets, problem solving etc., o gender and equality issues e.g. by working, in most cases, with separate groups for girls and boys and let them try to solve problems with different angles of approach, o building networks among the teachers locally and regionally, and o conducting seminars and workshops with the teachers to increase confidence and know- ledge (academics invited).

During the first two years we have cooperated with some 70 classes and roughly 1,900 pupils in East-Central Sweden. The evaluations show that more than 95% of the teachers and pupils are very satisfied with this cooperation and would like to extend it further.

Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright 2004, American Society for Engineering Education

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Andersson, P. (2004, June), Tekno: Employing Low Tech Activities For The Hi Tech Employees Of Tomorrow Paper presented at 2004 Annual Conference, Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--12714