Sharing practice, problems and solutions for institutional change

This chapter critiques the roles of different forms of representation of practice as part of an institutional change process. It discusses how these representations can be used both to design and to share learning activities at the various levels of decision-making in a university. We illustrate our arguments with empirical data gathered on change processes associated with an institution-wide change programme: the introduction of a new virtual learning environment (VLE). In particular, we describe a case study of the introduction of the VLE tools in a business course. We focus on two particular forms of representations to describe the essence of the innovation: a pedagogical pattern and a visual learning design. We argue that pedagogical patterns and learning design have emerged as parallel approaches to describing practice in recent years. Despite their very different origins, both provide complementary representations, which emphasize different aspects of the practice being described. We are attempting to combine these approaches. We briefly outline the Open University Learning Design initiative, of which this work is part, and describe its key underpinning philosophies. We believe our approach provides a vehicle for enabling a better articulation of design principles and the discussion of issues concerning the re-use of educational resources and activities

Designing pedagogical infrastructures in university courses for technology-enchanced collaborative inquiry

Peer reviewe

Networked learning environments

This chapter introduces the idea of networked learning environments and argues that these environments provide the totality of surrounding conditions for learning in digital networks. It provides illustrative vignettes of the ways that students appropriate networked environments for learning. The chapter then examines the notion of networked learning environments in relation to the idea of infrastructure and infrastructures for learning and sets out some issues arising from this perspective. The chapter suggests that students and teachers selectively constitute their own contexts and that design can only have an indirect effect on learning. The chapter goes on to argue that design needs to be located at the meso level of the institution and that a solution to the problem of indirect design lies in refocusing design at the meso level and on the design of infrastructures for learning

A context for collaboration: The institutional selection of an infrastructure for learning

This paper discusses the role of institutional issues in the deployment of infrastructures for learning and the ways in which they can impact on the range of choices and opportunities for collaboration in university education. The paper is based on interviews with 12 key informants selected from relevant staff categories during the deployment of a new institutional infrastructure in a large UK based distance learning university. It is supplemented by participant observation by the author who was part of a group of advisors tasked with working with the project team developing and deploying the new infrastructure. The paper investigates the development and deployment of the infrastructure as a meso level phenomena and relates this feature to the discussion of emergence and supervenience as features of social interactions in education

Unfolding experienced teachers' pedagogical practices in technology-enhanced collaborative learning

Peer reviewe

Learning Environments for Invention Pedagogy

Invention pedagogy requires learning environments that enable the creative activities of inventing and making in schools. Such environments include physical, virtual, and epistemic-social environments and related pedagogical conditions, which all need to be addressed when designing spaces and places for invention pedagogy. This chapter presents the ongoing co-development process of the Innokas FabLearn Labs, in which a network of technology-oriented and development-oriented teachers co-created a flexible and modifiable concept for designing a multipurposed learning environment. Through the framework of pedagogical infrastructures, the chapter illustrates how the essential underlying pedagogical conditions, i.e., epistemological, scaffolding, social, and material-technological infrastructures, were addressed in the development work to create well-functioning makerspaces in formal education. In addition, future directions for the development of the concept are provided.Peer reviewe

The development of pedagogical infrastructures in three cycles of maker-centered learning projects

Riikonen, S., Kangas, K., Kokko, S., Korhonen, T., Hakkarainen, K. & Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, P. (2020). The development of pedagogical infrastructures in three cycles of maker-centered learning projects, Design and Technology Education: an international Journal.The purpose of the present investigation was to analyze the pedagogical infrastructures in three cycles of seventh graders’ co-invention projects that involved using traditional and digital fabrication technologies for inventing and creating complex artefacts. The aim of the projects was to create high-end multi-material makerspaces by expanding Finnish craft classrooms with instruments of digital fabrication, such as micro-processors, wearable computing (e-textiles), and 3D design and making, for enabling creation of student-designed multi-faceted inventions. Through a qualitative meta-analysis of the three successive learning-by-making projects, we explored the kinds of pedagogical infrastructures required for fostering knowledge-creating practices of learning. Pedagogic infrastructures refer to the designed arrangements and underlying conditions of implementing an extensive study project in classroom practices needed for reaching the learning objectives. We analyzed the epistemological, scaffolding, social, and material-technological dimensions of the enacted pedagogic infrastructures. In accordance with design-based educational investigations, we collected a variety of data (classroom video recordings, teacher and tutor interviews, invention challenges, learning assignments, and working schedules) across three year-long developmental cycles. We discuss the limitations and opportunities of maker-centered learning settings as well as considerations for future development of makerspace as pedagogical innovations for integrating socio-digital and material-technical practices and spaces for learning.Peer reviewe

The development of pedagogical infrastructures in three cycles of maker-centered learning projects

The purpose of the present investigation was to analyze the pedagogical infrastructures in three cycles of seventh graders’ co-invention projects that involved using traditional and digital fabrication technologies for inventing and creating complex artefacts. The aim of the projects was to create high-end multi-material makerspaces by expanding Finnish craft classrooms with instruments of digital fabrication, such as micro-processors, wearable computing (e-textiles), and 3D design and making, for enabling creation of student-designed multi-faceted inventions.  Through a qualitative meta-analysis of the three successive learning-by-making projects, we explored the kinds of pedagogical infrastructures required for fostering knowledge-creating practices of learning. Pedagogic infrastructures refer to the designed arrangements and underlying conditions of implementing an extensive study project in classroom practices needed for reaching the learning objectives. We analyzed the epistemological, scaffolding, social, and material-technological dimensions of the enacted pedagogic infrastructures. In accordance with design-based educational investigations, we collected a variety of data (classroom video recordings, teacher and tutor interviews, invention challenges, learning assignments, and working schedules) across three year-long developmental cycles. We discuss the limitations and opportunities of maker-centered learning settings as well as considerations for future development of makerspace as pedagogical innovations for integrating socio-digital and material-technical practices and spaces for learning