Negotiating time-space contexts in students’ technology-mediated interaction during a collaborative learning activity

In this article, we build on the notion of the chronotope to investigate how students create and manage time-space contexts in their technology-mediated interactions during a collaborative learning activity. Drawing on a dialogic approach, the study defines chronotopes as socially constructed time-space configurations with a specific narrative character that represent cultural practices and values, and that operationalize the framing of the interactional situation and its actors. The empirical data derive from a case study of students’ technology-mediated interactions while collaborating in writing a school musical script. The findings show how chronotopes offer a useful conceptual heuristic for researching the creation and management of often contradictory time-space contexts in students’ technology-mediated interactions intertwined with institutional, relational, and personal spheres of activity.In this article, we build on the notion of the chronotope to investigate how students create and manage time-space contexts in their technology-mediated interactions during a collaborative learning activity. Drawing on a dialogic approach, the study defines chronotopes as socially constructed time-space configurations with a specific narrative character that represent cultural practices and values, and that operationalize the framing of the interactional situation and its actors. The empirical data derive from a case study of students' technology-mediated interactions while collaborating in writing a school musical script. The findings show how chronotopes offer a useful conceptual heuristic for researching the creation and management of often contradictory time-space contexts in students' technology-mediated interactions intertwined with institutional, relational, and personal spheres of activity. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Peer reviewe

Dialogic teaching and students' discursive identity negotiation in the learning of science

This study sought to understand how dialogic teaching, as enacted in everyday classroom interaction, affords students opportunities for identity negotiation as learners of science. By drawing on sociocultural and sociolinguistic accounts, the study examined how students' discursive identities were managed and recognized in the moment and over time during dialogic teaching and what consequences these negotiations had for their engagement in science learning. The study used video data of classroom interactions collected from an elementary science learning project and placed a specific analytic focus on four students in particular. The results reveal evidence of a rich variety of discursive identities exposed during dialogic teaching, thus demonstrating how the students' identity negotiations were configured according to the social architecture of classroom discourse. Addressing the temporal dimension of dialogic teaching points out critical shifts in the students' discursive identities, of which identification is argued to be pivotal when creating equitable science learning opportunities. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Peer reviewe

Taipumusta tarvitaan sairaanhoitajan uratien jokaisessa vaiheessa

Olemme mukana Urareitti-hankkeessa ja sen myötä olemme päässeet toteuttamaan suomi toisena kielenä -opetusta mielenkiintoisilla ja uusilla tavoilla. Työskentelemme suomen kielen kouluttajina sairaanhoitajien autenttisessa työympäristössä ja ryhmän koko on yksi! Jo se, että sairaaloiden ovet ovat avautuneet terveysalan ”ulkopuolisille”, on saavutus

Understanding educational change : Agency-structure dynamics in a novel design and making environment

This study investigates agency-structure dynamics in students and teachers' social activity in a novel design and making environment in the context of the Finnish school system, which has recently undergone major curricular reform. Understanding that agency is an important mediator of educational change, we ask the following questions: How are agency-structure dynamics manifested in the social activity of students and their teachers in a novel design and making environment? How do agency-structure dynamics create possibilities and obstacles for educational change? The data comprise 65 hours of video recordings and field notes of the social activity of students aged 9-12 years old (N = 94) and their teachers collected over a period of one semester. Our study shows how the introduction of the novel learning environment created a boundary space in which traditional teacher-centered activity patterns interacted and came into tension with student-centered modes of teaching and learning. Our study reveals three distinctive agency-structure dynamics that illuminate how the agentive actions of both teachers and students stabilized existing teacher-centered practices and, at other, times ruptured and broke away from existing patterns, thus giving rise to possibilities for educational change.Peer reviewe

Researching the materiality of communication in an educational makerspace : The meaning of social objects

This chapter aims to contribute to theorising and empirical research on the materiality of communication in a novel technology-rich educational setting called a ‘makerspace’. It argues that the knowledge is pivotal for understanding and supporting communication and learning in a makerspace environment where the students independently navigate and integrate knowledge from different resources and domains using a range of material artefacts during their design and making activities. Material objects and materiality in general in educational processes are closely intertwined with power, politics and ideology and hence urge more research attention at least from the perspectives of educational equity and educational change. The chapter investigates how the materialities of an educational makerspace mediate the communication processes among students and their teachers during their design and making activities. In explicit mediation, intention is overt, and the materiality as a stimulus means is ‘obvious and non-transitory’.Peer reviewe

Expanding conceptualizations for the study of learning

Non peer reviewe

Cardiac Differentiation of Pluripotent Stem Cells

The ability of human pluripotent stem cells to differentiate towards the cardiac lineage has attracted significant interest, initially with a strong focus on regenerative medicine. The ultimate goal to repair the heart by cardiomyocyte replacement has, however, proven challenging. Human cardiac differentiation has been difficult to control, but methods are improving, and the process, to a certain extent, can be manipulated and directed. The stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes described to date exhibit rather immature functional and structural characteristics compared to adult cardiomyocytes. Thus, a future challenge will be to develop strategies to reach a higher degree of cardiomyocyte maturation in vitro, to isolate cardiomyocytes from the heterogeneous pool of differentiating cells, as well as to guide the differentiation into the desired subtype, that is, ventricular, atrial, and pacemaker cells. In this paper, we will discuss the strategies for the generation of cardiomyocytes from pluripotent stem cells and their characteristics, as well as highlight some applications for the cells

The emergence of leadership in students’ group interaction in a school-based makerspace

This case study is an examination of the emergence of leadership in students’ group interaction in a school-based makerspace. The data comprised video records of 20 primary school students’ group work within this context, encompassing student-driven creative engagement in science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) learning activities. Interaction analysis was applied to analyze the students’ leadership moves and to depict how students’ leadership was related to their collaboration. The analysis resulted in a typology of students’ leadership moves in a makerspace context, namely, coordination of joint work, exploring new ideas, seeking out resources, and offering guidance and supporting others, adding to the existing literature on student leadership and collaboration in novel learning environments. The study also illustrates how the students’ leadership moves in group interactions can lead to dominating and/or shared leadership, with consequences for students’ collaboration. The study points to the importance of more research and development of pedagogical practices that support students’ symmetric participation and opportunities to lead collaborative work and to promote advanced collaboration in school-based makerspaces.Peer reviewe

Interactive dynamics of imagination in a science classroom

Peer reviewe