Mid Sweden University

Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to influence all aspects of school and education. Although AI is acknowledged for introducing both opportunities and constraints for school leadership, there remains limited research on how school leaders use and understand AI in schools. This paper examines how school leaders perceive and engage with the integration of AI for their learning processes and leadership practices. School leaders’ professional use, as well as how they model the use of AI in their educational settings, may in turn support teachers’ and students’ application of AI for teaching and learning, and it may benefit the school as an organization. 

The rapid development of tools and techniques in the field of Generative AI (GenAI) has affected many sectors. One of these sectors is definitely education, where teaching, learning, assessment, curricula and policy document need to be revised and updated. Many research studies also highlight the necessity for teacher professional development regarding Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED), as AIED is also a field under constant development and will need continuous upskilling during the coming years. There are now teacher training courses in fundamental AIED available, and more are under development. There seems to be a consensus regarding what an introduction course in AIED should comprise, but not regarding which topics continuation courses should follow-up related to continuous lifelong learning. With the heutagogical idea of asking the learners about what to learn, this question was posted to participants in a course on fundamental AIED. In a discussion forum, course participants gave their suggestions and commented on other course participants' postings. Moreover, the forum postings were supplemented with suggestions and comments from email conversations between the authors and course participants. According to the concept of Open Coding, forum postings and email conversations were analysed and divided into the categories of: AI didactics, GenAI tools for teaching, Prompt engineering, Audio generation and Voice cloning, Customisation of AI models, AI and disinformation, Applicable takeaways and AI sustainability and ethics. All of the categories were found to be relevant in a second Axial coding reanalysis. The category Applicable takeaways was found to be the axial category that ties all of the categories together for a meaningful course design. The conclusion is that a continuation course, as in introductory courses on AIED, must contain both theoretical parts with themes such as AI sustainability and ethics, but also concrete applications such as AI didactics to fulfil the aim of Applicable takeaways. Finally, it could be difficult to involve all the categories in just one or two continuation courses. However, as mentioned earlier, AIED should to be seen as continuous lifelong learning.          

In the current Artificial Intelligence (AI) spring, the rapid development affects different areas differently, and the same is true for professional development on AI. In some areas there is a need for a narrow and specialised training on specific AI tools and techniques. Regarding artificial intelligence in education (AIED), several research studies have highlighted the need for a broader professional development that involves all teachers and instructional designers. This study has investigated the design and implementation of a 7.5 ECTS standalone distance course on AIED and its first preliminary evaluation. The course participant group consisted of a high percentage of fulltime working teachers with a clearly higher average age than most courses at a department of education. The aim of the study is to explore the course participants opinions and their feedback in the very first version of this course. With the idea of iterative design science research, the results from this study will be used for input for the updates and redesign of the next course versions. Data were collected in a mix of discussion fora postings, course webinars and the official course evaluation. Findings show that the heutagogical design approach was appreciated by the course participants. Solutions to several assignments could be seen as takeaways for further discussions on how to implement AIED in the course participants daily workplace activities. This also seems to be the case for course participants working in other professions such as journalists, lawyers and in digital media. What was appreciated most was the combination of concrete workshops, reflection essays and group discussions in course webinars. Regarding the assignments it was appreciated that it was clearly stated to what degree AI-tools were allowed in the creation of solutions. Areas of development could be found regarding the relatively high workload, and the problem of organising course participants in communities of practice for group work and the exchange of experiences. The conclusion is that the main course structure with the four sections of 1) Introduction and tool testing, 2) AI in Education, 3) Multimodal AI, and 4) Discussion webinars as knowledge cafés should be maintained, but that all sections should be revised and updated in the next course version.           

Teacher shortages are a global phenomenon with a variety of causes. As teaching is predominantly a female profession, this perspective paper aims to explore and analyze the current discourse regard-ing teacher shortages from a gender perspective. It follows the question of whether there are any similarities and differences between teacher shortages from a gender perspective in Denmark, Germany, and Sweden. Social norms and restrictions may influence access to the teaching pro-fession and preselect applicants for the profession. The paper presents a concise review of existing literature on teacher-student motivation and teacher shortages from a gender perspective. It then provides a comparative view on the historical development of the teaching profession from a pre-dominantly male to a predominantly female profession in each country. The discussion reveals the necessity to broaden the gender perspective in order to attract and retain more young people in the teaching profession.

In higher education, different disciplines have different prerequisites. Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education often requires certain earlier course studies with specified grades in subjects such as mathematics and physics. In humanities, many research studies report on student failure due to insufficient second language skills in English. Fewer studies have reported on the importance of sufficient first language skills to cope with reading and writing in the intensive courses that are frequent in social science and humanities. The aim of this study is to investigate the potential relationship between students’ secondary school grades in their first language, and their learning outcomes in university programmes, given in the same language, at a department of education. The research question that guided this study was: what is the relationship between students’ grades in Swedish at secondary level and their level of completion of five-year university programmes. Data include N=2,583 unique students taking full teacher certification programmes at the university during 2016–2024 and was obtained and examined by SQLs from national databases Swedish Council for Higher Education and Ladok. Cross-mapping of data and basic statistical analysis, including linear multiple regression, was performed in SPSS. Results indicate that above average grade levels were connected with higher expected degree completion. A trend with increasingly higher grades in all admitted students during recent years was also observed. These results may concern educational stakeholders and policymakers that work with educational design and related implementations in university programmes. Implications from this study are further discussed, such as potential consequences of restricting university programmes to certain grade level prerequisites, and considerations to generic skills for degree completion of the students. 

This scoping review examines the integration of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)-specifically SDG 4, which concerns quality education-into national curricula at various levels of education between 2020 and 2025. This qualitative study uses the scoping review method to synthesise international research, identifying thematic trends, methodological approaches, and implications for curriculum development. The analysis reveals a strong focus on higher education, with articles from Asia and Europe dominating the discourse, while perspectives from early childhood education and the Global South are under-represented. Most articles favour qualitative designs, engaging with the SDGs as curricular content, institutional transformation frameworks, or community-based education tools. Despite these promising approaches, significant gaps remain in addressing behavioural change and equity across educational systems. Therefore, the study calls for more inclusive, context-sensitive, and interdisciplinary strategies to support the transformative ambitions of the 2030 Agenda.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications have the potential to transform personal, social, and professional activities, including education. Education spans various sectors: K-12, higher education, lifelong learning, and workplace training. It intersects with other fields that are deeply involved in AI research and study. According to published literature, AI in education encompasses both the use of AI to enhance learning experiences and training on the broad applications of traditional and generative AI. In summary, appropriate education on the application of AI across fields and disciplines is essential.

A Master of Education credit-based seminar course was offered online at a large, publicly-funded university in North America. Participants engaged with scholarly readings, discussions, presentations, and written assignments. Their essays covered topics such as instructor support for and with AI, AI-generated images and audio in universal design for learning, and AI for language learning. At the course's completion, participants reported a clearer vision of AI tool use in the classroom and strategies for overcoming potential disruptions or losses.

In connection with this course, an open, nationwide distance course was offered at a publicly funded university in Sweden: "Artificial Intelligence - Theories and Applications for Education and Work-life," a 7.5 ECTS introductory course. The course comprised four main sections: 1) The history of Artificial Intelligence, 2) Artificial Intelligence in education, 3) Multimodal AI, and 4) Discussion webinars as knowledge cafés. Participant essays covered topics such as guidelines for AI use in different educational contexts, assessment and detection software, ethical aspects of AI-generated images, and a SWOT analysis of AI in education. Preliminary course evaluations indicated that the mix of AI theory and practical applications was appreciated, but group work and the concept of communities of practice were challenging to establish in an online course with many participants working full-time. The needs of adult learners studying at a distance remain the same when using and studying AI.

Background: Medication-related problems (MRPs) are common during transitions of care and can lead to hospital readmissions. This patient safety issue is especially pronounced among geriatric patients. In a randomised controlled trial (RCT), the effect of a pharmacist-led follow-up programme after discharge from hospital for people ≥75 years in the north of Sweden was investigated. One of the components in the programme was telephone calls to study participants, to find and manage MRPs. Objective: To explore study participants' views on follow-up telephone calls by a clinical pharmacist in the RCT. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants who had received an intervention in the RCT. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and thematically analysed. Results: In total, nine participants were interviewed. Four main themes were generated: 1. Experiences of the telephone counselling by the clinical pharmacist, 2. Acceptability of receiving telephone follow-up from a clinical pharmacist, 3. Communication with health care providers, and 4. Medication management and views about medications. Conclusions: The study revealed varying perceptions of the clinical pharmacists' telephone calls, with participants expressing diverse experiences and preferences regarding the service. Most participants said they considered the content relevant and comprehensible in the conversations. The effect of the follow-up programme may have improved if the role of the clinical pharmacist had been explained in more detail to the participants and if the service would have had a more person-centred focus. More research is needed regarding how to best support geriatric patients with their medication treatment in transitions of care. 

Teacher shortage is reported to be a challenge worldwide. In a recent report,United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) reported the need for some 44 million new teachers in schools to reach the Agenda 2030 targets. Attracting, recruiting and retaining new teachers is difficult in relation to both geographical areas and in certain subjects, being a common challenge of many developed countries and is seen in many countries of the world. Teacher shortage and the lack of teachers has consequences as teaching in schools, students’ learning and therefore the quality of education is affected. The aim of this paper was to study teacher shortage in schools through a literature review in order to explore the causes of the teacher shortage described in current literature and understand these causes based on teacher attrition, teacher recruitment and teacher retention. The included articles of this literature review were peer-reviewed articles regarding teacher shortage from 2018-2023 which were identified using the Scopus database. Some 52 of articles met the inclusion criteria of this literature review. The articles represented 18 different countries all over the world. The chosen methods of the studies also varied, for example, qualitative and quantitative studies. The content of the included articles was thematically encoded and categorized by the described a)reasons behind, b) area/subject c) and discussed solutions. The themes were identified inductively; they were strongly linked to the data, and the steps of qualitative content analysis were followed to identify these themes. The overall conclusion is that teacher shortage is multifaceted and complex. There are many reasons behind teacher shortage and there are many aspects that interact on several different levels. In order to alleviate teacher attrition and promote teacher recruitment and retention, collective initiatives by many of the stakeholders involved will be necessary.

The Swedish government initiative Co-operation for the Best School Possible (CBS)(Samverkan för Bästa Skola, CBS) is aimed specifically at schools that are deemed to have the greatest challenges in terms of improving their knowledge results on their own or increasing equivalence within and between school and preschool units (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2022). The school development work is done in tripartite cooperation between the Swedish National Agency for Education (SNAE) (Skolverket), Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and school organisers. The aim of this study was to explore and analyse the final reports written by a HEI’s process supervisors following the completion CBS with seven school organisers.The following research questions were posed: 1) How do the process supervisors describe their lessons learnt from the co-operation process in the final reports? and 2) What challenges and opportunities are described in the reports? The results of the study show that the process supervisors face challenges in creating beneficial conditions for participation, anchoring, consensus and ownership within the school organisers and the school units. Opportunities for co-operation and learning are found through the process supervisors’ flexibility, responsiveness, adaptation and self-reflection. Aspects such as communication, joint learning and time appear to be central. Exchanges of experience via various arenas, forums and networks, both internal and external, could be important to support process supervisors. How cooperation processes among the HEIs process supervisors in their work with school organisers to support and advance continue school development will have impact om strengthening students' learning.