Learning by Making

Peer reviewe

Collaborative Design Practices in Technology Mediated Learning

The present article examines how practices of computersupported collaborative designing may be implemented in an elementary classroom. We present a case study in which 12-year-old students engaged in architectural design under the guidance of their teacher and a professional designer. The students were engaged in all aspects of design processes, such as analysing the design of existing houses, analysing the building site, determining building volume, design facades, and floor plans; they formed seven teams, each of which had its own house to design. The data-analysis relied on the Knowledge Forum database, consisting of students’ notes, pictures, sketches, and photos. The participants’ quantitative contributions to the database were analyzed with Analytic ToolKit which underlies Knowledge Forum. A qualitative content analysis was performed to the KF notes produced by the student teams; a theory and data-driven approach for categorizing the content of the notes was employed. The results revealed that the student teams considered various design constraints and familiarized themselves with their own building site and regulations regarding their permitted building volume. They constructed environmental models and scale models, and made the calculations of gross floor volume; scale drawings were inserted to KF’s Environmental Model view as pictures and texts. The results indicated that parallel working with conceptual (design ideas) and material artefacts (architectural models, prototypes of apartments, figures) supported one another. The intent was that involving students in modeling practices would help them build domain expertise, epistemological understanding, and skills to create and evaluate knowledge. Further, implications for designing technology-mediated collaborative design processes are discussed

Keksivä oppiminen : Teoreettiset perusteet

This chapter introduces a knowledge-creating learning framework that provides the theoretical foundation of invention pedagogy. Invention projects involve the deliberate pursuit of open-ended invention challenges through complex, iterative, and emergent processes. Because the envisioned epistemic objects, specific process stages, relevant knowledge, and final productions are not known at the beginning but are gradually determined through self-organized personal and collaborative efforts, the invention process tends to be nonlinear in nature. Pedagogic guidance, scaffolding, and orchestration of invention pedagogy require that both students and teachers learn to cope productively with uncertainty, improvise to solve open-ended problems, develop novel skills and competencies, and end up with objects and artifacts that may not have been foreseen—or even foreseeable—in the beginning. Teachers and their teams must learn to design and orchestrate invention processes, guide nonlinear pedagogic processes, and cultivate associated professional practices. The chapter examines theoretical background, epistemic objects, epistemic practices, and orchestration processes involved in invention processes.Peer reviewe

Balancing structure and flexibility : Teacher’s orchestration in collaborative long-term inquiry

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Hands on Design : Comparing the use of sketching and gesturing in collaborative designing

This study explored the remaining potential of gestures as creative tools for collaborative designing. We compared novice designers' use of sketching against gesturing in early ideation and rough visualisation. To preserve the kinesic character of gestures, we developed a detailed video analysis method, which revealed that the majority of sketching and gesturing was complementary to speech. Sketching was important for defining complicated structures, while gesturing was frequently used for all aspects of designing. Moreover, we identified that the level of collaboration – the level and immediacy of sharing one's ideas for others – is an important factor. As an underrepresented phenomenon in the design literature, the meaning of collaboration unearthed here leads to unmistakable conclusions regarding the nature of gesturing, to the process of learning design, and to the use of design tools. Most notably, gesturing offers a complementary creative dimension - kinaesthetic thinking - which invites us to communicate and share instantaneously.Peer reviewe

Bringing Practices of Co-Design and Making to Basic Education

The purpose of this study was to analyze five student teams’ (Grade 7) co-design processes that involved using traditional and digital fabrication technologies for inventing, designing, and making complex artifacts. A methodological framework for analyzing makercentered learning, by relying on ethnographic video data and participant observations, was developed. The study examined the extent to which young students are able to productively participate in creative design and making activities. The results indicated that four of the five student teams successfully engaged in the co-invention processes. The importance of a shared epistemic object of co-design was prominent on every team. Some teams experienced challenges in organizing collaborative processes and the team size appeared to have a significant effect in this regard. The successful teams were able to take on complex and multifaceted epistemic and fabrication-related challengesPeer reviewe

Designing teaching—teaching designing : Teacher’s guidance in a virtual design studio

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Design Thinking in Elementary Students’ Collaborative Lamp Designing Process

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The Quality of Design in 9th Grade Pupils’ Design-and-Make Assignments in Craft Education

The aim of the present study was to analyse the performance of grade 9 pupils (15-16 years old) on a design-and-make assignment, which was a part of the assessment of learning outcomes conducted by the Finnish National Board of Education (FNBE) in crafts. A sample of the students’ work on the assignments (N= 169) was analysed from the viewpoint of visualization and operationalisation of the design ideas. Further, the functional and aesthetic aspects of end products were evaluated. The method of qualitative and quantitative data analysis of the pupils’ design-and-make assignment is explicated in detail. The results showed that pupils had difficulties designing on paper; they executed only very basic line-work for the designed products, and only some details were illuminated in their visual representations. The poor quality of visual and technical designing revealed that the objectives of the National Core Curriculum in craft education have not yet been attained. Further, these results also indicate that the pupils’ skills in clarifying their visual designs do not necessarily directly relate to the functionality of what they have concretized in the end products. The implications of the study for craft education are discussed; brief recommendations are made on how craft should be taught at school and what should be emphasized in the courses’ content

Bringing maker practices to school : tracing discursive and materially mediated aspects of student teams' collaborative making processes

The present investigation aimed to analyze the collaborative making processes and ways of organizing collaboration processes of five student teams. As a part of regular school work, the seventh-grade students were engaged in the use of traditional and digital fabrication technologies for inventing, designing, and making artifacts. To analyze complex, longitudinal collaborative making processes, we developed the visual Making-Process-Rug video analysis method, which enabled tracing intertwined with social-discursive and materially mediated making processes and zoomed in on the teams' efforts to organize their collaborative processes. The results indicated that four of the five teams were able to take on multifaceted epistemic and fabrication-related challenges and come up with novel co-inventions. The successful teams' social-discursive and embodied making actions supported each another. These teams dealt with the complexity of invention challenges by spending a great deal of their time in model making and digital experimentation, and their making process progressed iteratively. The development of adequate co-invention and well-organized collaboration processes appeared to be anchored in the team's shared epistemic object.Peer reviewe