Anna-Karin Högfeldt

Hello and welcome to my profile page! If you are interested in higher education development, then you have just found a like-minded person!

I work at the department of Learning in engineering sciences as the head of unit at Learning in STEM. Furthermore I work as a teacher and educational developer, and I carry out doctoral studies on part-time. The main aim with my work is to support academics at KTH to enhance education on all levels, to meet the needs of education transformation for the changing needs in society.

Through the academic development courses, my colleagues and I strive to make sure the KTH teachers have a broad selection of foundational and specialised courses for their competence development [here is an overview of the courses]. In this, we also make sure to follow the recommendations on higher education pedagogy training, from the Association of Swedish Higher Education Institutions (SUHF) recommendations [find them here].

My research studies are action and practice based, meaning that I’m involved in the development of courses and collaborative spaces, which are evaluated and improved continuously. Since 2011, I and several colleagues have developed networks and collaborative spaces for academics at KTH in their roles as program directors, directors of studies as well as ‘common teachers’. Several of these arenas are also designed as open spaces where academics, students and administrative staff can meet and discuss cross-border questions [see all arenas here].The colleagues which I have collaborated with in this development are from various departments and schools at KTH, the university management, the central
administration as well as the student union. In 2018 I was happy to receive the KTH pedagogical reward for this work, and I was extra happy to receive this reward together with one of the KTH’s Directors of Education.

The following three research projects are planned to be part of my PhD thesis:
● Nordic Five Tech (N5T) project, 2010-2016, with the aim of understanding the conditions for educational leadership from the program directors’ perspective.
Publication: Högfeldt, A. K., Malmi, L., Kinnunen, P., Jerbrant, A., Strömberg, E., Berglund, A., & Villadsen, J. (2018). Leading the teacher team—balancing between formal and informal power in program leadership. Tertiary Education and Management, 24(1), 49-65.
● Participatory action research project to implement Challenge-driven education, KTH, University of Dar es Salam and Dar es Salam Institute of Technology project, 2016-2019.
Publication: Högfeldt, A. K., Rosén, A., Mwase, C., Lantz, A., Gumaelius, L., Shayo, E., ... & Mvungi, N. (2019). Mutual capacity building through north-south collaboration using challenge-driven education. Sustainability, 11(24), 7236.
● Developing the landscape for academics’ involvement and participation in engineering education transformation, KTH 2011-2021.
Högfeldt, A. K., Gumaelius, L., Berglund, P., Kari, L., Pears, A., & Kann, V. (2022). Leadership, support and organisation for academics’ participation in engineering education change for sustainable development.European Journal of Engineering Education, 1-27.