THE IMPLEMENTATION OF DIGITAL TOOLS IN TEACHING: A QUALITATIVE CASE STUDY AT A SWEDISH PRIMARY SCHOOL

Abstract

Many countries have recently implemented digital competence as an important part of their school curricula. In Sweden, the curriculum states: “Teaching should give students the opportunity to use digital tools in a way which promotes knowledge development” [3], making it mandatory to implement digital tools in teaching and learning. This poses challenges for schools and teachers: schools need to assist with infrastructure and make technology available, teachers need to acquire knowledge on how to use technology for educational purposes. Achieving technology integration to support teaching and learning in the classroom has been argued to be influenced by teachers’ attitudes and pedagogical beliefs [4], therefore the link between teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and their practices must be examined in order to fully understand the integration [1]. This study is part of the Erasmus+ project Functional Information and Communication Technology Instruction On the Net (FICTION) [2] and investigates science teachers’ attitudes towards integration of technology, and how teachers elaborate and implement digital technologies into their teaching practices. In winter/spring 2019 five teachers from a local primary school took part in three focus group interviews. The first interview defined the current situation, the second generated input on how to challenge each teacher based on their needs. Each teacher was given instructions for a specific technology to try out during teaching. The teachers recorded their experiences on video for the third focus group discussion, which included an evaluation of how they perceived the specific technology to improve their students’ learning. The data so far consist of audio and video recordings from the interviews and the teachers’ experiences of using the proposed technologies in their teaching. Some preliminary findings are that while schools invest in infrastructure and technology, the opportunities to use the technology often are hindered by administrative issues such as scheduling, lack of time for competence development and no choice on platforms and systems to work with. The link between the teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and their practice is based on these prerequisites, but also on the teachers’ willingness to try out various technological tools. The data show that the teachers’ pedagogical perspectives and work with, e.g., formative teaching, pleasurable learning, and quality assured teaching and feedback, affect the teachers’ willingness to integrate new technologies and tools in their teaching.