Browsing by Subject "makerspace"
Now showing items 1-2 of 2
-
(2018)The purpose of this Master’s Thesis was to study the various types of objectives and contents created in a makerspace set in Finnish comprehensive school, and to find practices for developing similar innovative learning environments. The starting point was a research problem according to which the infrastructure of several comprehensive schools is in many ways inadequate in relation to the latest national core curriculum (POPS 2014), and therefore it fails to serve the acquisition of 21st century skills. The larger theoretical framework of this thesis is a socio constructivist learning theory, within which I review research done on learning environments and learning by making, with emphasis on design-oriented maker-culture. Previous studies have shown that inadequate physical learning environments may have negative impacts on learning and well-being in schools. Furthermore, there is strong scientific proof that emphasizing student-centered education and self-direction furthers learning. The research subject was the makerspace of a design education-oriented comprehensive school, whose concept has been selected as an educational innovation for the international project HundrED. The research approach selected was a case study and its qualitative data collected discretionarily through expert interviews. Visual anthropology as a research method enabled the use of visuality as part of content analysis. The analysis revealed that the makerspace aims at creating wide-ranging contents and objectives across school subject borders. Design methods are applied to the makerspace as part of both official and informal teaching. Data-based content analysis yielded a narrative image of the various stages of the creating process, pedagogical thinking of interviewees, and the still developing nature of the makerspace. The results of the thesis can be used particularly in creating new learning environments, which are making their way into basic education. Additionally, the results can be applied to designing and planning new schools.
-
(2020)New digital learning environments challenge traditional learning concepts by emphasizing student agency and collaboration (Ito, 2013; Kumpulainen, Kajamaa & Rajala, 2018). This study addresses the expressions of students’ transformative agency, and the role of tools in its emergence, in a novel design and making environment called the FUSE Studio. Research on trans-formative agency has traditionally focused on intervention research related to adults, and in particular on working life, and there has been little research on students’ transformative agency (Kajamaa & Kumpulainen, 2019). The types of transformative agency identified by Haapasaari and colleagues (2016) were used as the theoretical frame of reference for the study (Haapasaari, Engeström & Kerosuo, 2016). In addition, the concepts of the social object of Kumpulainen and Kajamaa (2019) and the double stimulation of Vygotsky (1978) were utilized when analyzing the role of tools (Kumpulainen & Kajamaa 2019; Vygotsky 1978). The data consisted of 75 hours of video material collected by filming the work of 9–12-year-old students (N=94) in the novel design and making environment in the fall of 2016. The data were analyzed using the types of transformative agency (resisting, criticizing, explicating new possibilities or potentials in the activity, envisioning new patterns or models of the activity, committing to new actions, and taking consequential actions to change the activity) of Haapasaari and colleagues (2016) as reference. The role of tools in mediating students’ transformative agency was analyzed in connection to the features of the types of transformative agency identified in the first research question. Expressions of students' transformative agency were found in the data for all six types. Students’ agentive actions were expressed both verbally and physically, often using the tools in the challenges. Students’ transformative agency manifested itself both in opposing activities, which manifested as playing or disruptive behavior, and in creating new activities that pursued students' own interests, which manifested as extending the challenges. The tools inspired and facilitated the emergence of students' transformative agency.Students use both verbal and bodily expressions to break away from the given frame of action set by the learning environment. Working with tools both inspires and facilitates students’ efforts of breaking away, which some-times leads to unexpected design and making activities.
Now showing items 1-2 of 2