Svanborg Rannveig Jónsdóttir

Svanborg R Jónsdóttir og Rósa Gunnarsdóttir. (2017). road to independence: Emancipatory pedagogy. Ritstjóri bókaflokks Bharath Sriraman. Rotterdam: Sense.

The RASKA 2 group consisted of eight art and vocational teachers on three school levels – elementary and upper secondary schools and university level. The research went on from 2016 to 2018.

Svanborg directed the European project Practical Entrepreneurial Assessment Tool for Europe (PEAT-EU) from 2016 to 2018.

Svanborg directed the European Project PEAT-EU (Practical Entrepreneurial Assessment Tool for Europe). It entails developing a course assessment of innovation and entrepreneurship education. The collaborating parties were from Spain, Wales, Sweden and Iceland. The project began in October 2016 and finished in October 2018. The outcomes of the project are published on the page Entre Assess. She was also a representative of the University of Iceland's School of Education in the project Find your inner inventor (2016-2019), a collaboration with Polish and Czech universities.

She has directed two research groups, RASKA 1 from 2013 to 2015 and RASKA 2 from 2016 to 2018. The groups consisted of practicing teachers who conducted action research on their own work and focused on creativity in studies and teaching. RASKA 1 (REsearch on CR(SK)eative schooling) ran from 2013 to 2015. It included three teachers in the School of Education and five teachers of Icelandic and mathematics in preschools, elementary schools, and upper secondary schools. The teachers examined their teaching in order to identify how they could strengthen the creative element in their work.

She was the School of Education's representative on the European collaborative project ADEPTT. It entails developing an instruction model/courses for teachers in innovation and entrepreneurship education. The countries with representatives on the project are: Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Germany, Wales, Norway and Iceland. The project finished in November 2013.

She was the editor of Netla (a peer-reviewed web journal on pedagogy and education), along with Torfi Hjartarson and Robert Berman from 2012 to 2014. She organised the funding of the Laboratory for Creative Schooling (RASK) at the School of Education in 2012 and has directed it since then. Svanborg has developed and supervised the Electives Specialiasation of Innovation Education in the Faculty of Education and Diversity in the School of Education and supervises the courses falling under innovation education in that division.

Svanborg, along with Rósa Gunnarsdóttir and Örn Daníel Jónsson, has been involved in and written course materials in innovation and entrepreneurship education: 2007 Tíra – skapandi hugsun, hagnýt nálgun, published by Iðnú. She was also a consultant for translations of a course that the National Centre for Educational Materials published: Invention trip – com'on! Innovation Education – exercises 2010 and a publication of The Directorate of Education 2018: Next level, Innovation and Entrepreneurship for grades 7-10 and Be your own boss, Innovation and Entrepreneurship for grades 5-7. The book, The road to independence: Emancipatory pedagogy, that Svanborg wrote, along with Rósa Gunnarsdóttir, is intended as a textbook for strengthening the educational theory of Innovation Education for teachers and other people interested in this area of study.

In 2005, she organised the founding of the Association of Teachers of and People Interested in Innovation Education (now the Association of Teachers of Innovation and Entrepreneurial Education). She was chair of the association until 2010. Svanborg organised the founding of the Association of Doctoral Students at the School of Education and was chairman of the board from its founding to 2010.

Svanborg chaired the Gnúpverjar's Youth Association 1987 to 1989 and participated in the work of Jóra Training Association (International Training in Communication) for five years. She was a member of its Board of Directors for two years. She was the principal of Gnúpverjaskóli 1991–1992, a member of the Board of Directors of the Teachers´ Association of South Iceland from 1995 to 1997, and was a member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Icelandic Handicrafts Teachers for two years.

Svanborg worked as a primary school teacher from fall 1978 to 2006. Svanborg introduced Innovation Education in Gnúpverjaskóli Elementary School (later Brautarholt and Gnúpverjaskóli and, since 2004, Þjórsárskóli). She has actively participated in development of this area of study in Iceland. Svanborg was a part-time teacher at the Iceland University of Education and at the School of Education at the University of Iceland from 2006 to 2011. As of 2012, she was an associate professor at the same school and from July 2019 a professor there. She has taught various courses in pedagogy and educational science.) She has focused on innovation education, creativity and artistic approaches in studies and teaching. For example, she has taught in continuing education courses for working teachers from 2003 and has given presentations, instructed and taught innovation education in many parts of Iceland as well as abroad to teachers, principals, teacher students, political associations, the general public, and organisations.

Svanborg finished the national standard lower secondary school examination from Flensborg Upper Secondary School in Hafnarfjörður, her matriculation examination from Menntaskólinn við Tjörnina in 1973, and her Diploma in Education from Iceland University of Education in 1978. She completed a diploma in design and woodwork teaching from Iceland University of Education in 2001 and an MA in pedagogy from the University of Iceland's School of Social Sciences in 2005. Svanborg completed a PhD in Pedagogy and Educational Theory from the University of Iceland's School of Education in 2011. Her research focused on Innovation Education in Icelandic compulsory schools. The title of her dissertation is “The location of innovation education in Icelandic compulsory schools”.

Svanborg Rannveig Jónsdóttir (born 7 February 1953) professor in arts and creative work in the School of Education at the University of Iceland.

Svanborg was born in Fljót in Skagafjörður. She is the next-youngest child of marine engineer Jón Einarsson (1917-2010) and Anna Halldórsdóttir (1913-1978), seamstress and housewife. Svanborg is married to Valdimar Jóhannsson (1951) farmer, and they have five children.