Browsing by Author "Cornér, Tuija"

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.