PERSPECTIVES FROM FINLAND – Towards new learning environments

ISBN 978-952-13-5689-6 (pb)

ISBN 978-952-13-5690-2 (pdf)

Marko Kuuskorpi (editor)

PERSPECTIVES FROM FINLAND

– Towards new learning environments

In collaboration:
2014:1

Finnish National Board of Education

Publications 2014:1
 Publications 2014:1

Marko Kuuskorpi (editor)

Perspectives from Finland

– Towards new learning environments
© Finnish National Board of Education and
the authors

ISBN 978-952-13-5689-6 (pb)

ISBN 978-952-13-5690-2 (pdf)

Layout: Elvi Turtiainen Oy

www.oph.fi/english/

Painopaikka: Juvenes Print – Suomen Yliopistopaino Oy, Tampere 2014

Contents

The school of the future – now! ....................................................................... 4

Preface ................................................................................................................. 5

Kristiina Kumpulainen & Anna Mikkola. Researching learning across

space and time in extended learning environments ............................... 9

Harri Ketamo. Games as learning environments ........................................... 23

Merja Meriläinen & Maarika Piispanen. Live-roleplay as a tool

– using real world operation cultures as tools for learning ................... 47

Marko Kuuskorpi & Nuria Capellos Gonzáles. Physical learning

environments: learning in the future ..................................................... 63

Jukka Sulonen & Krisse Sulonen. The Grammar of a Modern School

Building. A comparative study on schools and the changing ways
of learning .............................................................................................. 78

Anne Malin & Päivi Palojoki. Multi-voiced planning for redesigning

home economics classrooms ................................................................. 102

Authors ........................................................................................................... 123

3
The school of the future – now!

We are currently having an interesting and passionate discussion about the

knowledge and skills that pupils and students need to acquire in school in
order for them to face the society of the future.

The contents of education and working methods involved are being discussed,
but equally important is to address the significance of learning environments
for learning – what the working environment of the 21st century school will be
like, that is, what the future school will be like. Studies suggest that the physi-
cal learning environment has a clear effect on learning outcomes and content-
ment in school. The contents of education, its forms and working methods
may change rapidly, whereas the built learning environment is markedly more
static. Old school facilities, which were designed based on the idea of a cor-
ridor and classrooms, do not necessarily support the present and future educa-
tional practices and working methods in the best possible way. In most cases,
the future school already exists, that is, it has already been built – how flexibly
the existing facilities can be modified plays a key role in accommodating new
and changing needs in the school activities. Instead of controlling learning and
schoolwork, the facilities should support them.

The articles included in this publication present a number of perspectives on

physical and virtual learning environments that support future learning. The
articles are based on lectures given at the CELE 2012 seminar organized by
University of Turku and City of Kaarina.

On behalf of Finnish National Board of Education, I thank City of Kaarina and

especially principal Marko Kuuskorpi as well as all the authors for providing
this publication!

Jorma Kauppinen
Director
General Education department
Finnish National Board of Education

4
Preface

The CELE 2012 – conference “A RECIPE FOR SUCCESS – Transforming Learn-

ing Environments Through Dynamic Local Partnership” was organized in a
collaboration with the city of Kaarina and the University of Turku, the Depart-
ment of Teacher Education, Rauma Unit, Finland, 22 – 24 February 2012.

The articles of this publication are based on the presentations of some of the
keynote speakers and participants in the different workshops. We address our
warmest thanks to all the contributors for taking their time to share their ideas
and thoughts. We also thank OECD and the Finnish National Board of Educa-
tion for supporting the conference and the latter for publishing this book.

In the first article “ Researching learning across space and time in extended
learning environments” Kumpulainen and Mikkola argue that education has
to be changed to meet the challenges of 21st century learning and learners.
They ask “how today’s schools can be transformed to become environments
of learning and teaching that make individuals lifelong learners and prepare
them for the 21st century?” In this article Kumpulainen and Mikkola introduce
the notion of chronotope as a conceptual heuristic through which they ap-
proach learning as a holistic experience that stretches beyond formal and in-
formal spaces. They illuminate how space and time are organized in students’
technology-mediated collaboration learning practices. The empirical study was
conducted in 2011 in a Finnish elementary school of 240 students in grades
1 to 6 and 16 teachers, in the Helsinki district. The focus of the study was
in 21 fifth and sixth graders whose task was to produce scripts for a school
musical. The students worked with personal laptops, wireless Internet access,
and collaborative writing service, at school and outside. The chat data and the
revision history of the scripts were saved. The students also answered to an
online questionnaire illuminating their accounts of the technology-mediated
creative learning practices. The findings of the study provide evidence of the
emergence of a novel chronotope in which the students engaged in ubiquitous,
multimodal, and multidimensional, technology-mediated, creative learning
practices that broke away from traditional school-based practices.

Ketamo has developed learning games to mathematics. He has spent many

years exploring how to apply technological solutions to teaching in a

5
pedagogically meaningful ways. Developing has been based on the idea that
when studying is fun learning results will improve. Digital games based learn-
ing environments offer a great potential, not only for learners but particularly
for teachers and parents. This fact, however, has been forgotten when discuss-
ing how games motivate children and how this gamified motivation should
be applied in education. In his article Ketamo focuses on the two themes that
make games very interesting from the parents and teachers point of view: 1)
adaptation to individual learning needs and 2) how to apply detailed learning
analytics that gamified environments make possible.

Meriläinen and Piispanen view in their article “Live-Roleplay as a tool – using

real world operation cultures as tools for learning” pedagogical changes in dif-
ferent learning contexts in order to create a theoretical background for educa-
tors who are designing learning based on contextual pedagogical approach to-
wards learning. They state that the pedagogical knowledge has to meet the 21st
century skills as well as the curriculum contents to be able to create learning
situations, task, activities and environments that will develop 21st century civil
skills pedagogical content knowledge in school context. They also ask: what is
good pedagogic – how does learning take place?

In their article Meriläinen and Piispanen point out that “learning should be
seen as a conceptual change in the interaction with the environment”. In this
change a teacher has a crusial role. To meet the challenges of 21st century
they use civil skills pedagogical content knowledge (CSPCK) framework that
includes three primary forms of knowledge: 21st century civil skills knowledge,
pedagogical knowledge, and curriculum content knowledge. According to
them, all the above mentioned knowledge areas together will form a success-
ful and pedagogically meaningful learning processes produced by students.
Meriläinen and Piispanen highlight that learning should take place more and
more in authentic and enthusiastic learning environments.

Kuuskorpi and Cabellos González explore the question: what will tomorrow’s
physical learning environments be like? The authors tackle the problem of
defining the concept of a physical learning environment and consider differ-
ent aspects of this entity. The empirical study is based on a development pro-
ject called Forum for the Future, which took place in six European countries
during the years 2009–2011. In the project, students, teachers, administrative
school authorities and various expert groups such as policy makers, archi-
tects, interior designers, artists and information technology specialists were
asked to identify the components that make learning spaces that are of good
quality and modifiable. The process simulation method was used to provide

6
a prime example of a learning space that supports teaching and learning oper-
ations, while demonstrating flexibility, sustainability and modifiability. Accord-
ing to the study of Kuuskorpi and Cabellos González, expectations for physical
learning environments did not differ significantly between countries. All par-
ticipants in 2013 recognised that it is absolutely necessary to make changes to
the physical learning environment in order to respond to the challenges posed
by the needs of its users, different teaching and learning methods ranging from
individual study to large group work, changes in schools operational culture
as well as future technological advances and developments in social networks
and media. The authors conclude that it is necessary to take the main users
– teachers and students – into the planning process of spatial solutions when
developing the school into a dynamic physical learning environment.

The article by Sulonen and Sulonen emphasizes that when viewing schools
from pedagogic objectives and school comfort it is important that they are
places that inspire the users. The article is based on the results of a disserta-
tion on the subject. The writers aim is to answer two questions in the article:
1. How do the users observe and experience the facilities in their
school buildings and what kinds of spaces and things are
considered positive?
2. What can be concluded about the usability of school buildings that
are designed according to contemporary pedagogic views, as
learning environments operating according to modern objectives?

The writers divide the learning spaces to places of teaching, places of doing,
places of information retrieval, places of encountering, and places of retreat.
These spaces can have several roles and possibilities, and they can be used in
various ways of learning. The writers connect the grammar of a modern school
building with concepts formal and informal, and quality criteria. The research
data was collected in schools that were built between the years 2000–2005.
The method used was a guided tour, a walkthrough method that originates
from environmental psychology. The results showed that a physical environ-
ment affects learning, wellbeing and school satisfaction.

In a school building there are various learning spaces designed for different
kind of topics. In many schools one of these is a home economics classroom.
Also this classroom should meet the new standards for learning in the 21st
century. It is obvious that we should understand the changes in modern soci-
ety and the changes they have caused in homes. In their article “ Multi-voiced
planning for redesigning home economics classroom” Malin and Palojoki con-
centrate in two main questions:

7
 1. What kind of new demands pose a challenge for the planning of
home economics learning environments?
2. What kind of multi-voiced planning occurs in the home economics
classroom planning process?

The focus of this article is based on the criteria (technical, functional and be-
havioral) created by Malin (2011), and analyses of the discussions in planning
meetings in which different professionals (commissioners, planners and teach-
ers) took part. These meetings were recorded, and an analysis was conducted
of how the criteria were used in the planning process of new home economics
classrooms. When planning new home economics classrooms at least three
criteria should be acknowledged: technical criteria, functional criteria, and be-
havioral criteria. Multi-voiced planning proved to be very successful in many
ways. During the meetings four different kinds of voices could be recognized:
techno-mechanistic voice, esthetic-visual voice, functional voice and social-
functional voice.

The articles have been peer reviewed. We gratefully thank all the reviewers
for their co-operation.

24.10.2013

Marjaana Soininen Tuula Merisuo-Storm

Professor of Didactics PhD, Adjunct professor

Tomi Kärki Marja-Leena Rönkkö

PhD, Senior Lecturer of Mathematics PhD, Senior Lecturer of Craft
and Design

Department of Teacher Education, Rauma Unit

University of Turku, Finland

8
Kristiina Kumpulainen and Anna Mikkola

Researching learning across space and time in

extended learning environments

Abstract
This paper is grounded on an argument that understanding learning in dy-
namic and extended learning environments, which address 21st century re-
quirements, calls for reconsidering and further developing learning theories
and analytical concepts. As a response to this call, we introduce the notion
of ‘chronotope’ as a conceptual heuristic through which to approach learning
as a holistic experience that stretches across space and time. We shall enrich
our theoretical elaboration of the concept of chronotope via an empirical case
study of elementary school students’ technology-mediated creative learning
practices. Here, we focus on the social practices of 21 students who worked
with personal laptops, wireless Internet access, and a collaborative writing
service, in and outside school, to collaborate on creating a school musical
script. In specific, we illuminate how space and time are organized in students’
technology-mediated collaborative learning practices. It is contended, that a
chronotopic analysis provides a fruitful analytic tool for developing an under-
standing of the ways in which novel space-time configurations are constructed
in and for 21st century learning.

Introduction
It is widely argued that education needs to change for 21st century learners
and learning. The traditional concept of schooling, based on a re-production
model which includes one classroom, one teacher, one class, and one subject
at a time, is being increasingly questioned (e.g. Dumont, Istance & Benavides
2010; Facer 2011; Säljö 2012). Living and learning in a digital and globalized
society requires skills, competencies, and dispositions that cannot be ade-
quately addressed by narrow and product-oriented views of education and
schooling. The learning requirements of the 21st century, such as critical think-
ing and problem solving, collaboration and communication, creativity, and the
application of new literacy and media skills are challenging or even impossible
to promote in an educational environment that is restricted to a specific space
and time and that is purely teacher-led and controlled (Lemke 2004; Trilling &
Fadel 2009). The ultimate question is: how can today’s schools be transformed

9
to become learning and teaching environments that make individuals lifelong
learners and prepare them for the 21st century?

Development efforts in education have addressed the importance of extend-

ing traditional space-time configurations of schooling, and connecting school
learning with students’ whole learning lives, activities, tools, and identities situ-
ated within and across formal and informal settings, including virtual spaces
(Brown & Renshaw 2006; Facer 2011; Madge, Meek, Wellens & Hooley 2009;
McLeod & Yates 2006). Here, learning is understood as part of living in dif-
ferent socio-cultural contexts, not as something that takes place exclusively
in the restricted spaces of formal education (Hughes, Jewson & Unwin 2007;
Ramsten & Säljö 2012). Moreover, in these change efforts, school learning is
no longer seen as merely repeating what is already known, but as involving
transformations in which something new and formerly unknown is created
(e.g. Säljö 2012).

Understanding the dynamic processes of learning situated across space and

time, beyond here and now, is challenging traditional definitions of learn-
ing and education. How should we conceptualize learning that is able to
respond to and explain the increasing complexity, connectivity, and velocity
of our times? What transformations are necessary in education in order to bet-
ter respond to the learning lives and learning processes that young people
experience across different contexts? In this paper, we contend that to under-
stand learning in dynamic and extended environments, which address 21st
century learning requirements, calls for reconsidering and further developing
learning theories and analytical concepts. For example, at present, we have
very little understanding of how learners make sense of things and cumulate
their understandings as they move from one activity to another, from one set-
ting to another, and from one space to another (Lemke 2004). To respond to
this call, we introduce the notion of ‘chronotope’ as a conceptual heuristic
through which to approach learning as a holistic experience that stretches
beyond formal and informal spaces. We enrich our theoretical elaboration of
the concept of chronotope via an empirical case study of elementary school
students’ technology-mediated creative learning practices. Here, we focus on
the social practices of 21 students who worked with personal laptops, wireless
Internet access, and a collaborative writing service, in and outside school, to
collaborate on creating a school musical script. In specific, we illuminate how
space and time are organized in students’ technology-mediated collaborative
learning practices.

10
Chronotope as an analytic tool for understanding
learning in extended learning environments
All contexts of learning, classrooms and virtual spaces, are centers of multifac-
eted and complex activities: they are places where intensive social, cognitive
and cultural mediation occurs as knowledges and subjectivities meet, cross
and resist each other (Rex, Steadman & Graciano 2006). Each learning context
is nested by multiple worlds occupied by the same people, but in different
roles, striving for different purposes simultaneously (Shulman 1986).

It is clear that the complexity of researching learning across space and time
calls for a holistic frame and a diversity of approaches with different levels of
analysis (Erstad & Sefton-Green 2012). In this paper, we consider the concept
of chronotope as a means for examining the ways in which learners socially
construct their collective and individual movements through time and space
during their social activities (Bloome, Beierle, Grigorenko & Goldman 2009;
Brown & Renshaw 2006). Following Lemke (2004), our definition of space and
place is one that holdspalaa space becoming a place when, over time, it is at-
tached with socially meaningful affordances.

The notion of chronotope can be traced back to the work of Bakhtin (1981)
who defines the spatio-temporal matrix as being produced, shaped and re-
shaped by the discourses of the participants as they relate to spaces and
times beyond here and now. Chronotopes can be seen as typical patterns
of organization of and across activities in space and time. Chronotopes are
defining the features of a culture or a subculture, such as classrooms, as they
inform our design choices in shaping social-institutional spaces for a particular
use (Lemke 2004). They are marked by changes in the tempo of an ongoing
activity, and thus permit us to explain variation in the pace and the emerging
organization of an activity; the situated, dynamic processes evolve through
the interaction of past, present, and future (Ligorio & Ritella 2010; Brown &
Renshaw 2006).

The notion of chronotope provides researchers with a conceptual lens to in-

vestigate learner agency and engagement in social activity within and across
formal and informal settings (Bloome et al. 2009; Brown & Renshaw 2006;
Kumpulainen, Mikkola & Jaatinen 2013; Lemke 2004). It has been used to
illuminate learners’ agency as they collectively explore and negotiate their
experiences, understandings and relationships mediated by their past experi-
ences, ongoing involvement, future aspirations and goals that are intended to
be accomplished (Brown & Renshaw 2006; Kumpulainen & Lipponen 2010).

11
In these studies, chronotypes have been defined as spaces in which learners’
agency and identities are negotiated as they move both physically and psycho-
logically to different spaces and time scales in their practices and interactions.

A case study of the social construction of space and time in

a technology-mediated extended learning environment
The empirical study we draw upon in this paper was conducted in a Finnish
elementary school of 240 students (grade levels one through six) and 16 teach-
ers, in the Helsinki district. What is distinctive about this elementary school is
that it has been developing its pedagogical operating culture for a decade by
integrating arts and educational technology in the curriculum and pedagogical
practices of the school. Educational technology and media are pivotal arti-
facts in supporting creative and collaborative learning among members of the
school community, which resonates with 21st century learning requirements
and supports students’ engagement and agency in learning. As part of their
schoolwork, the students and teachers of the elementary school participate
in various cross-curricular collaborative projects every year, such as the musi-
cal project under study. The collaboratively produced timeline of the school’s
ongoing annual activities provides a collective landscape for the school com-
munity to follow its plans of action, including mutually agreed upon respon-
sibilities and deadlines.

In the fall of 2010, all 240 students participated in a communal musical pro-
duction; during a period of one year, they worked together with their teachers,
and collaboratively produced a number of poems, short movies, audiovisual
effects, animations, stories, and a composition of the musical melody using
various technological tools and devices. The outcome of the students’ work,
the fantasy school musical “Magic Forest Musical,” was performed on the an-
niversary of the school’s founding in May 2011. The musical production is a
good example of the creation of a local, school-based curriculum and of an-
nual plans collaboratively designed by the school community. It complements
and enriches the realization of the national core curriculum that specifies the
objectives and core contents of cross-curricular themes, subjects, and subject
groups for basic education in Finland (www.oph.fi/english/education/basic_
education/curriculum). The national core curriculum leaves room for teachers’
professional expertise in creating and enacting pedagogies for the promotion
of students’ learning in accordance with the set goals.

Our empirical study focuses on a three-month phase in the musical project

during which 21 fifth- and sixth-grade students (ages 11 to 12) took part in

12
writing the school musical script. They were allocated two one-hour sessions
every week to write the script at school, where the work was mostly realized
in a classroom equipped with audiovisual and Smart Board facilities. To enable
the students’ collaborative creation of the script in and outside school, we pro-
vided them with small, one-to-one computers (“netbooks”) that were set up
with a 24-hour wireless Internet connection and a personalized user account.
The laptops were equipped with a collaborative writing tool VisciPad (www.
viscipad.hiit.fi), with a chat channel. Furthermore, the students were able to
download and use any software or program of their choosing during the writ-
ing project. The students worked in 10 small teams of two to three students,
with each team writing one part of the script.

Data collection and analysis

The data for this study draw on the students’ online chat discussions during
the collaborative writing of the musical script and online questionnaire data
on the students’ experiences of their learning practices and their use of tech-
nological tools and media.

The social construction of the students’ chat interactions and the revision his-
tory of the scripts were analyzed at a micro-level to elucidate the space-time
configurations of the students’ technology-mediated activities. This included
investigating the temporal organization of collaborative activity: how the stu-
dents’ work on the musical script was distributed during the hours of the
day and per day. The chat data and the revision history of the scripts were
automatically saved on a server as a by-product of VisciPad’s normal opera-
tion. The service recorded time using millisecond granularity, hence enabling
temporal analyses of the data. The students’ online chat interactions were
also subjected to interaction analysis ( Jordan & Henderson 1995) in order to
examine the content and organization of the students’ socially constructed
technology-mediated, creative learning practices.

In order to construct a student perspective on the nature of technology-me-

diated learning practices, we administered an online questionnaire to all 21
students in the script group in May 2011, one week after the first performance
of the musical. The questionnaire consisted of ten open-ended questions con-
cerning the students’ experiences of using laptops and VisciPad for collabora-
tive creative writing in and out of school. We asked the students about the
purposes, advantages and challenges of using laptops and VisciPad. Also, we
asked them about where and when the best ideas for the musical came from,
what they did in parallel with writing the script, and what they thought they

13
had learnt from working with laptops and Viscipad and making the musical.
The students’ questionnaire data were subjected to qualitative content analysis
(Chi 1997; Krippendorff 1980). The content analysis began with the careful
reading of the students’ responses to each question and then, continued to
identifying explicit, dominant themes from the data.

Results
Space-time configurations of students’ technology-mediated
creative learning practices

In this section, we characterize the spatio-temporal organization of the stu-

dents’ technology-mediated learning practices; that is to say, we illuminate
how the students’ collaborative work on the musical script was distributed
during the hours of the day and per day. We also describe the nature of the
students’ chatting activity with a representative extract (Mitchell 1984).

A total of 8657 messages were sent during the three-month collaborative writ-
ing phase of the school musical. The messages were distributed over every
hour of the day, from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., with almost 2400 from the end of
the school day at 1 p.m. and after. The data show significant use of VisciPad
outside the two weekly one-hour sessions allocated to collaborate on writing
the musical script at school. Almost 70% of the students’ script editing events
(n=56,578), and 43% of the chat messages (n=8657), fell outside the scheduled
lessons that took place on Mondays from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. and on Fridays from
11 a.m. to noon. In a similar vein, 14% of all script editing events, and almost
6% of the chat messages were sent during the weekend.

Next, we illuminate the nature of the students’ chat interactions during tech-
nology-mediated creative writing of the musical script (see Table 1 below).
The example represents typical interactions identified among the students
(Mitchell 1984). The chat interaction is characterized by playful and creative
use of language in which the students’ formal and informal activities live side-
by-side. The students’ socially shared work is not only designated to regular
school hours as the students seamlessly continue their engagement in joint
writing later in the day, in the evening, and even during the following days.
The students’ engagement in creative collaborative activity is stretched across
time and space. The timescale of the students’ activity is powerfully demon-
strated in the extract that shows the exact timings of the students’ chat interac-
tions (see the timing at the end of each turn). Seemingly, the students engage
in thoughtful discussions about the nature and progress of their joint endeavor

14
Table 1. The nature of the students’ chat activity

March 4 March 4
1: Minna: Mooi (11:46) 1: Minna: Hiii (11:46)
2: Aino: Hahaa….korjasin yhden 2: Aino: Hahaa….I corrected a spelling mis-
kirjoitusvirheen!!.D (16:18) take!!.D (16:18)
3: Outi: just jo, no ei se haittaa (20:03) 3: Outi: ye, well that’s okay
4: Outi: siis joo (20:03) 4: Outi: I mean yes (20:03)
5: Satu: moi löysin tänne joten jätin tekstijäl- 5: Satu: hi I found my way here so I left a
jen:)) (22:11) footprint:)) (22:11)
March 5 March 5
6: Outi: :) (11:37) 6: Outi: :) (11:37)
7: Elli: moi (12:50) 7: Elli: hi (12:50)
March 6 March 6
8: Tanja: tarviin ideoita! (12:14) 8: Tanja: I need ideas! (12:14)
March 7 March 7
9: Satu: huomenta;) Miten täl kooneella pystyy 9: Satu: morning;) How can I make a heart with
tekee sydämmen? (07:43) this computer? (07:43)
10: Elli: öööö Emt (09:23) 10: Elli: öööö dunno (09:23)
March 11 March 11
11: Elli: Biisi levyltä (12:19) 11: Elli: A piece of music from a record (12:19)
March 12 March 12
12: Aino: Moi sannanen ja kaikki muut! Täällä on 12: Aino: Hi Sannanen and everyone else! It is a
pikkasen yksinäistä. haloo!! (12:55) bit lonely here. haloo!! (12:55)
March 15 March 15
13: Suski: moi sannaaaaaaa....hyvin näyttää 13: Suski: hi sannaaaaa…. it seems that this is
edistyvän=) (19:31) progressing well=) (19:31)
March 16 March 16
14: Satu: kivalta vaikuttaa (17:01) 14: Satu: looks good (17:01)
March 21 March 21
15: Elli: Dankke (09:18) 15: Elli: Thanks (09:18)
April 4 April 4
16: Suski: hellou kivalt näyttääää!!! kuka 16: Suski: hellou, looks good!!! who teaches all
opettaa noille tyypeille ne kaikki temput??? the tricks to those guys??? or are they now
vai onko ne nyt jo niin taitavii et osaa ne so clever that they already know every-
kaikki??????? (19:24) thing??????? (19:24)
April 11 April 11
17: Outi: Enni PIKE! Opettaa niille noi kaikki ja 17: Outi: Enni PIKE! Teaches them all those things
mä pääsen kans niitten liikkatunnille and I can also join them for their PE lesson.
(09:20) (09:20)
18: Outi: No moi (12:31) 18: Outi: Well hi! (12:31)

15
of creating the school musical script; they evaluate their collective work (see
turns 2 and 13), give supportive feedback to each other (see turns 14-15),
and ask for help and ideas in creating text and in using the technology (see
turns 8 and 9). These social interactions are important elements of productive,
collaborative work and learning (Dillenbourg 1999; Koschmann 1996). The
students’ use of more informal discourses, such as emoticons (e.g. smileys)
and discourse markers (e.g. ‘hiii’, ’hahaa’, ‘ööö’, ‘halloo’, ‘hello’) reflects their
efforts in the creation of a mutual environment of trust (Vass & Littleton 2010).

In sum, the data show evidence of the students’ deep engagement in their col-
laborative writing across space and time. The data demonstrate the emergence
of a chronotope in which the students are engaged in ubiquitous, multimodal,
and multidimensional, technology-mediated, creative learning practices. These
blended learning practices appeared to break away from traditional learning
practices, allowing learners to navigate in different time zones, spaces, and
places with diverse tools situated in their formal and informal lives creating a
supportive ground for the students’ collaborative work.

Students’ perspectives on their technology-mediated creative

learning practices

Next, we will discuss the results of the online questionnaire illuminating the
students’ accounts of their technology-mediated creative learning practices.
According to the students surveyed, they considered the possibility of interact-
ing with friends through chat the most advantageous feature offered by the
use of laptops and VisciPad during the collaborative creative writing process.
The collaborative writing tool gave the students opportunities to suggest, in-
vent, and propose ideas for collective reflection, encouraging them to analyze
and to explore the past, present, and future of their creative processes as
demonstrated by this student response: “I think VisciPad was useful since I
could chat with my work partner at the same time. You could also see what
each one of us had written. It was great to have laptops at home since you
could immediately write down your good idea when it came to mind.” Many
students also mentioned having appreciated the possibility of working flexibly
in and outside school settings.

When asked about the purposes for which the students used their personal
laptops and VisciPad outside the classroom, they reported having used them
for a range of purposes, not the least of which was using them for writing the
school musical itself. “YouTubing” was the most frequent activity reported by
the students in our study in addition to playing games, “Facebooking,” listening

16
to music and chatting. Moreover, reading for school exams and talking with
friends in online discussion forums were included, among others, in the stu-
dents’ responses. In parallel with writing the musical, the students reported
having used the laptops in a variety of ways. Common uses included listening
to music, “Facebooking,” watching YouTube, chatting, playing games, brows-
ing and searching for information on the Internet, and reading e-mail.

When asked about the conditions and settings in which the students felt they
were at their most creative, the majority of the students interestingly reported
getting the best ideas for their musical script at home and at school. Some
students mentioned the social and collaborative nature of creative work, and
others emphasized getting the best ideas for their script when they were alone:
when it was quiet, or when they were doing “something else” other than writ-
ing the musical script. Apparently, the construction of creative ideas is fostered
in learning settings in which students are given enough time, flexibility, and
space to work with their ideas. The following extract further illuminates the
collaborative nature of the students’ creative activity: “Some ideas I got after
school at my friend’s house. And then, I shared them at school the next day.
Also, some ideas came after someone else got an idea.”

Discussion
In traditional schooling, space and time are usually strictly controlled and
circumscribed (Brown & Renshaw 2006; Leander 2002; Vadeboncouer 2005).
Inflexible curricula, textbooks, and teacher talk dictate, to a large degree, the
dominant chronotope of schooling, leaving little room for personalized and
creative learning practices (Engeström 2008; Facer 2011; Leander 2002; Mehan
1979; Säljö 2012). Moreover, today, many schools are equipped with digital
technologies, but the question remains how these technologies are integrated
into the curriculum, and how they are used to promote meaningful learning
that equips learners for life and work in the 21st century (Collins & Halverson
2009; Jonassen, Howland, Marra & Crismond 2008; Kemker, Barron & Hermes
2007; Lim & Chai 2008). In fact, organizationally, schools often minimize the
opportunity for long-term intellectual and identity development by discon-
necting the study of each subject from all the others, and by dividing the day
into periods defined by a clock rather than by the needs of learning (Lemke
2002). In this paper, we have argued that if we want to educate learners to be
prepared for life and work in the 21st century, we need to create new forms
of educational space-time configurations that resonate with students’ learning
lives in and outside school.

17
In this paper, we have illuminated the space-time configurations of elemen-
tary school students’ technology-mediated, creative learning practices over the
course of a school musical project in a Finnish elementary school community
where curriculum and pedagogical culture stress the learning requirements of
our times. The findings of our study provide evidence of the emergence of a
novel chronotope in which the students engaged in ubiquitous, multimodal,
and multidimensional, technology-mediated, creative learning practices that
broke away from traditional school-based practices. The students’ activities
involved periods of intensive writing, reading, drafting and reviewing, chat-
ting and exchanging e-mails, searching for information, taking a break, and
listening to music, in addition to solo and collaborative working. In all, the
students’ collaborative writing activity seemed to be fluid, and layered within
the context of heterogeneous networks of activities linked to their formal and
informal lives and to their use of artifacts. Thus, one could describe the identi-
fied chronotope of technology-mediated creative learning as involving prac-
tices that hybridize and inter-mix modalities and media (Hakkarainen 2009).
Moreover, the findings illustrate the poly- and inter-contextual nature of the
students’ technology-mediated, creative learning practices. Here, poly-contex-
tuality means engagement in multiple ongoing tasks (Engeström, Engeström
& Kärkkäinen 1995; Reder 1993), whereas inter-contextuality refers to a space
in which two or more contexts link with one another (Gee & Green 1998; Le-
ander 2002). In sum, the chronotopes of students’ technology-mediated crea-
tive learning practices are locally improvised in conjunction with mediation
from the socio-historically developed genre, technology-based instruments,
and educational practices (Prior 2005). Thus, the chronotopes identified in this
study are developmental achievements that emerged through sustained collec-
tive efforts within the entire school community (Ritella & Hakkarainen 2012).

It is important to acknowledge that technology-mediated, creative learning

practices that extend across space and time and that recognize students’ learn-
ing lives were fostered by the pedagogical culture of the school. Without a
pedagogical culture that extends students’ creative collaborative learning prac-
tices by stressing the importance of learners engaging in pursuing meaningful
activities with relevant resources and tools, valuing learner agency, authority
and accountability, breaking boundaries (Engle & Conant 2002), technology
is initially likely to represent a mere additional layer of activity used within
the traditional chronotope of schooling (Hakkarainen 2009). Whilst creating
innovative learning environments or learning communities, it is thus not just
a matter of implementing and putting into use new technology, but in many
cases, it is also a matter of transforming simultaneously existing social prac-
tices of learning and instruction. Co-evolution of the social and technological

18
infrastructures of schools should be the starting point for thinking about im-
plementing technology and new forms of extended learning activities (Lip-
ponen 2002).

Conventional pedagogies and learning environments, which produce restrict-

ed educational space-time configurations, rarely resonate with students’ whole
learning lives. Yet, the complexity of contemporary society calls for new kinds
of chronotopes to serve the multiplicity of needs of all 21st century learners.
Designing learning environments that respond to students’ whole learning
lives and that reconfigure spaces and places of learning is important in today’s
education where an increasing number of students feel disengaged and dis-
connected from formal education (e.g. Brown 1994; Brown & Renshaw 2006;
Rajala, Hilppö, Lipponen & Kumpulainen 2013; Walker & Nocon 2007; Wells
1999).

To build schools that encompass extended learning environments requires

the wisdom, collaborative creativity, and passion of teachers and school lead-
ers committed to putting their visions of education futures into action. These
transformation efforts also require the support of educational policy frame-
works – including flexibility in the implementation of the curriculum – that
let such innovations flourish (Facer 2011). A chronotopic analysis appears as
a fruitful analytic tool for developing a comprehensive understanding of the
ways in which novel space-time configurations are constructed in and for 21st
century learning.

19
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Harri Ketamo

Games as learning environments

Why should teachers and parents be interested?

Introduction
Our education system is not broken, but it is becoming obsolete. We’re
still running an educational model developed for the industrial revo-
lution, designed to prepare workers for factory jobs. (Kembel, 2010.)

The western school system is said to be in crisis. Running a school is very

expensive, dropout rates are far too high, and the total school hours are re-
markably small. The only medicine is said to be smaller group sizes with more
teachers, but that increases costs. At the same time, there are hundreds of mil-
lions of children who just have to accept huge group sizes and non-qualified
teachers to get even some education, the quality and scale are missing.

At the same time, Learning Management Systems (LMS) have not provided
what learners and educators have expected. The LMSs are neither motivating
environments for learners, nor beneficial for educators. So called Learning
Analytics are still in their very early stages, and reports like “learner xyz has
done 97 exercises from which 86% correctly” only tell an educator that learner
xyz has just done 86% of the exercises – the quality and scale are missing.

On a global scale, decreasing group sizes and hiring more teachers is not a
solution, we have to focus on learning and teaching processes. Furthermore,
by applying technology in a pedagogically meaningful way, we can balance
the quality and scale in education. The possibilities for new technological
solutions focus on two main themes: 1) the need for changes in the learning
environment and 2) the need for change in the learning process.

The changes in the learning environment highlight the need to scale up the
volume of e-learning. The global leaders in digital learning content produc-
tion have defined the future classroom consisting of 1) Cloud Computing, 2)
Learning Analytics, 3) Game-Based Learning, 4) Personalized Learning Envi-
ronments, 5) Open Content and 6) Mobile Learning. Because this list certainly
has a marketing message, we should not take this as the whole truth. However,
it certainly will show the driving forces of future classroom technologies.

23
Figure 1. Traditional classroom and self-studying process.

The traditional learning process highlights homework after school hours (Fig-
ure 1). The same goes for self-studying. Modern educational research has
shown that this is not the optimal way to maintain natural motivation. The
change in the classroom process is called Flipped Classroom, Reversed class-
room or simply The Flip. The idea in the Flip is that homework is done before
school and school hours are used for team work and sharing knowledge. At
the moment, Flip is maybe the fastest growing trend in K-12 educational re-
form. However, currently there are only a few solutions to support flip – it is
mainly done by teachers.

However, we have to keep in mind that the mental learning process will not
change, no matter what the technological and pedagogical environment is.
In terms of cognitive psychology of learning, people actively construct their
own knowledge through interaction with the environment and through reor-
ganization of their mental structures. The key elements in learning are accom-
modation and assimilation. Accommodation describes an event when learners
discover something radically new, which leads to a change in their mental
conceptual structure. Assimilation describes events when learners strengthen
their mental conceptual structure by means of new relations.

Games are expected to take education to the next level. This, however, is an
illusion. Games, without an understanding of the dynamics of learning, only
create illusions of powerful and motivated learning. As recognized in literature
review, the positive relationship between cognitive and motivational themes in
mathematics learning has been acknowledged, but there is no absolute proof
that increased motivation automatically increases the learning outcome (e.g.
Lapointe & al. 2005; Mason & al. 2004). Furthermore, by playing games a pupil
will certainly learn something, but can we know what?

24
Research framework
In this paper, several original studies, with the aim to develop semantic net-
works-based models, of recording learning processes in games and gamified
environments are summarized. These semantic models are used in computa-
tional background in different media products, namely Animal Class, Mathe-
matics Navigator, Learning Fingerprint and Math Elements. The media products
are developed as commercial products and they are funded and published by
private companies. The products have served as test beds for the semantic
computing research enabling collecting Big Datatype of samples with tens of
thousands of users.

The semantic network models approach learning from two basic perspectives:
Inductive learning and deductive learning. The idea in Inductive learning theo-
ries is that we build our understanding by connecting single concepts to form
a large conceptual understanding that is unique for everyone. Deductive learn-
ing theories highlight the reproduction of individual conceptual understanding
based on some common conceptual understanding. In the real world, neither
one of these exists without the other, but as a theory, they provide a solid
background for computational and semantic modeling.

Because the educational research and all analysis discussed in this paper are
strongly based on these Inductive learning and Deductive learning semantic
models (frameworks), in the following the approaches are described in detail.

The Inductive learning framework is based on the author’s previous work:

research articles have been published from the point of view of cognitive sci-
ence (e.g. Ketamo & Suominen 2010; Ketamo & Kiili 2010; Ketamo, Kiili, Arnab
& Dunwell 2013) and from a technological point of view (e.g. Ketamo 2009;
Ketamo 2011; Ketamo 2013a). The AI behind framework emulates the human
way to learn. The easiest way to illustrate this is through an example:

At first, the player teaches the relation between 1 and 1/2. The question, cre-
ated by the player is: “Is ½ smaller than 1?” The agent does not have previous
knowledge, so it will guess. In case it guesses “true”, the player’s evaluation
is “Correct.” The relation “½ is smaller than 1.” is formed in the conceptual
structure (Figure 2a). The same would occur in a case where the agent guesses
“False” and the player evaluates “Wrong”.

A teaching phase consists of a question creation and evaluationpair. Each

teaching phase adds new relations to the conceptual structure. Furthermore,
if the concept is not taught before, the new concept is also added to the

25
conceptual structure during the teaching phase. The following example briefly
describes the development of conceptual structures in the agent’s mind during
teaching phases. An understanding of how an agent’s conceptual structure de-
velops during playing is important in order to be able to interpret the results of
the study. Each teaching phase is recorded in a semantic (conceptual) network
within the game AI with one or more ‘is (not/option) related to’, ‘is (not) big-
ger’, ‘is (not) equal’, etc. relations. The following example is based on is (not)
bigger and is (not) equal relations. In the second teaching phase, the player
teaches a relation between 0.3 and ½, with the question “Is 0.3 bigger than ½?”
The player knows that the question is false, but the agent answers (guesses)
“True”. So the player evaluates “wrong” and the agent determines that the cor-
rect answer is either “0.3 is equal to ½” or “0.3 is smaller than ½”. The concep-
tual network in the agent’s mind grows by both of these relations (Figure 2b).

In the third teaching phase, a player forms a question in another way and
asks “is 0.3 equal to ½?”. Again, we know the statement is false. The agent can
guess that the statement is either “true” according to an “is_equal_to” relation
or “false” according to a “is_smaller_than” relation. The agent guesses “false”.
When the player evaluates the answer as “correct”, the agent determines that
the correct answer must be either “0.3 is smaller than ½” or “0.3 is greater than
½”. After adding relations to the conceptual structure, the agent knows that
the correct answer is “0.3 is smaller than ½” because it is the mode (average)
relation (Figure 2c).

In the fourth teaching phase, the player asks, “Is 70% smaller than ½?” and on
purpose, s/he teaches it the wrong way. The agent guesses that the statement
is “true” and the player evaluates the answer as “Correct”, which forms an
“is_smaller_than” relation in the conceptual structure (Figure 2d).

In the fifth teaching phase, the player starts to correct the conceptual structure.
S/He asks again,“ Is 70% smaller than ½?”. According to previous teaching, the
agent knows that the answer is “true”. Because the player now knows that it
is the incorrect answer, the player evaluates it as “incorrect”. In this case the
agent determines, that 70% must be equal to ½ or 70% must be greater than ½.
After adding relations, the conceptual structure has all the possible comparing
statements (Figure 2e) and basically behaves like an empty structure.

In the sixth teaching phase, the player asks for the third time, “Is 70% smaller
than ½?”. Because there is no strongest relation, the agent guesses “true”. The
player evaluates it again as “incorrect”. Again, the agent determines, that 70%

26
Figure 2. Semantic network and its development during the teaching phases.

27
must be equal to ½ or 70% must be greater than ½ and adds those relations to
the conceptual structure (Figure 2f).

In the seventh teaching phase, the player decides to change the question to “Is
70% more than ½?”. The agent guesses “True”, because ‘is_equal’ and ‘is_great-
er_than’ contain the same probability. The player confirms that the answer was
correct and one more “is_greater_than” relation was added to the conceptual
structure (Figure 2g). After that, the agent knows that the correct answer is
“70% is greater than ½”, because such a set of relations are the strongest.

While playing, the conceptual structure will grow to thousands of relations

and a single teaching phase only has a limited effect on the areas of the con-
ceptual structure already taught. Understanding this phenomenon is valuable
when trying to correct a wrongly taught part of the conceptual structure.
Naturally, wrong teaching could be corrected by teaching the correct structure
enough times. The game AI uses all the taught information to back its deci-
sions, and therefore it takes time to override the wrong relations in the agent’s
conceptual structure.

The Deductive learning framework extends the idea of learning objects

and learning object meta data, like SCORM, IMS and LOM (ADL, IMS Global,
IEEE ). In this extended approach, the content object is a unit containing the
smallest possible piece of content that can be used independently without the
support of any external content (Ketamo 2009a, Ketamo 2009b, Ketamo 2011).
Naturally, all meaningful learning contents are based on content objects that
strongly support one another. The content objects are described by: 1) detailed
rank ordered keywords (tags, concepts) that define the themes that the con-
tent is about and 2) a difficulty estimator that describes the estimated differ-
ences in difficulty expectations between tags. The difficulty level is not meant
to be strict and general throughout the whole network. It must be accepted
that there is a relatively high uncertainty about estimated difficulty contained.
However, the semantic network at a conceptual level is very strict and this
difficulty in estimation is meant to strengthen this part of the network. In the
following text, the keywords concept and tag (used in the terminology of the
semantic web) are used synonymously.

The semantic network is computationally built according to tags defined in

content objects. Each content object (Figure 3) has several tags which form the
first layer of the network. When two tags are used as one content object, they
are considered to be related one time in practice. The more relations there
are between the tags that are observed, the more related the tags are in the

28
semantic network (Figure 4). These networks contain a detailed knowledge
representation of the content at a conceptual level. According to this concep-
tual knowledge representation, the relationship between content objects can
be mined easily. In other words, the semantic network offers the possibility of
easily managing relations between content objects. This kind of structure of-
fers numerous possible paths through the material.

The semantic network is built computationally according to predefined in-

formation, because of resources. Educational content, based on thousands of
content objects, includes hundreds of thousands of relationships between the
objects. If naming a relationship takes the development person approximately
one minute, forming a network of this size requires more than a year. How-
ever, naming the tags and difficulties takes a few minutes per content object,
which means that several thousand objects are described in a week. Building
a network takes several hours with current algorithms, but when it is built, all
the manipulations and searches needed for self-organization can be processed
in milliseconds.

Figure 3. Content objects (bottom) and their keywords (tags) form an inductive, from pieces to context,
type of network (Layer 1).

29
Figure 4. The semantic network, built according to tags, forms a knowledge representation (Layer 2) that
can be used, for example, to define the most proximate concepts.

In Figure 5, the relationship between content objects within one Navigator-

based course are visualized. The relationships are based on the method de-
scribed in Figures 3 and 4. The visualization shows the strongest dependencies
between content objects. The closer the objects are in visualization, the closer
they are, as a cluster, to each other. The clusters can be easily seen as being
the darker areas of the visualization.

Content management is based on this kind of complex semantic network,

but self-organization requires more detailed individual modeling. Individual
modeling is performed by allowing the system to make individual records in
the semantic network. Naturally, this increases the model as a data set, but in
practice this does not increase the complexity of the modeling: The individual
records are stored as node properties.

One of the key elements of this modeling is the self-organization of the con-
tent. Progression within a course is defined by ordering some concepts from
the semantic network (Figures 6-8) with an ‘is before’ relation. The course
starts from the beginning of this ordered set of tags.

30
Figure 5. Visualized relationships within one learning material

Figure 6. The course starts from the first concept, defined by ‘is before’ relations. The content object is
selected according to Layer 1 of the network.

31
When a user has correctly passed a content object, fuzzy estimators of com-
petences observed for each concept are recalculated as a geometric series, in
which the newest item weighs 0.5 (Figure 6) and the tail weighs 0.5. In prac-
tice, this weight parameter for the newest item is one way to have control over
the behavior of the system. Its value varies between 0.1 and 0.3 depending on
the size of the network and the type of course.

After observed competence exceeds a certain limit, the system searches for
the strongest path to the next fixed concept of the course (Figure 7 and Fig-
ure 8). All concepts that belong to the path and their neighborhood should
be passed before going on further. This path from the next fixed concept can
change during progress, if the system finds a more optimal path according to
estimated competencies.

Figure 7. The user has passed a second content object and the competence values have been recalculated.
The user now reaches the second fixed concept of the network.

32
Figure 8. The user has passed the second fixed concept and the competency values have been recalculated.

In the example, progress was made by correct answers in a simplified environ-

ment. In practice, the selection of the content objects, as well as the reorgani-
zation of the path between fixed points, produce the sometimes semi-chaotic
behavior remaining. This happens even though the system is deterministic
and the future dynamics are fully defined by the conditions of the semantic
network and competency records.

Adaptation to individual learning needs

Mathematics Navigator (MathNavi) and Artificial Fingerprint (AF) are gamified
mathematics learning materials meant for self studying or blended learning
activities. Adaptation of content is based on a Deductive learning framework,
presented in the previous chapter. The content – theory, examples and exer-
cises – of MathNavi and AF are based on the idea of content objects. A content
object is a unit containing the smallest possible piece of content that can be

33
used independently without the support of other content objects. Naturally,
courses are based on content objects that strongly support one another. The
content objects are described by: 1) detailed rank ordered keywords that de-
fine the structure of content and 2) single relations between objects in pre-
ferred order. This structure offers a possibility to organize numerous paths
through the material.

A learner’s performance could be estimated even in large complex domains

with very detailed and extensible user models, combined with a learnable sys-
tem. Of course, this kind of modeling takes some time: the system must learn
the performance level of the user. Empirically formed decision trees were used
when the system had not yet constructed detailed enough profiles about the
learners in order to dynamically adapt the content and exercises to their learn-
ing needs. This kind of use of empirically found rules, which can be applied to
support a user’s experience, was found to be valuable during earlier research
(Ketamo, Alajääski & Kiili 2009; Hiltunen, Ketamo & Sankila 2006).

Figure 9. User interface of MathNavi and a basic mathematics course (in Finnish).

34
The user interface of MathNavi is based on a menu-bar and three main areas
(Figure 9). On the left side of the interface, there is a table of contents and a
content-related competence profile of the user. The table of contents presents
two different views of the content: 1) a traditional book-like table of contents
and 2) an exercise adapted table of contents. The exercises are presented one
at a time in the right-bottom corner of the interface. The user cannot proceed
to a new exercise until the current one is answered by picking an answer from
a total of 4 alternative answers. The exercises are selected to support an indi-
vidual user’s learning needs. There are no fixed paths for learning: everything
is based on the student’s competence profile and estimated need for practice
and content. Guiding factors in exercise selection are: 1) course structure (a
traditional table of contents) and 2) the measured and estimated learning abili-
ties and areas of weaknesses.

The course is completed during three iterative rounds. The first round is aimed
at: 1) familiarizing the student with the course and MathNavi and 2) supplying
MathNavi with enough data of the user’s mathematical skills to begin optimiz-
ing the content with respect to the user. After the first round, the competence
profile (Figure 1, left) shows strengths and weaknesses. The first round in
the basic mathematics course takes approximately 3-6 hours (approximately
50 exercises). From this point on, MathNavi uses the competence profile cu-
mulatively to adapt the content to meet the user’s learning needs. During the
second round, MathNavi ensures that the student acquires reasonably meas-
ured skills in all of the required topics. The second round takes about 10-15
hours (approximately 100-150 exercises) After the second round, the estimated
skills compared to expected skills should exceed 90%. After this, the user can
continue the course (third round), but it is not required. Results from earlier
studies (e.g. Ketamo & Alajääski 2008; Kiili & Katmo 2005) show that if the es-
timated outcome exceeds 90%, the user has mastered the subject with reason-
able skills and statistically has a very high probability of mastering the subject.

The average improvement of t-test scores from the pre- to the post-test in the
experimental student group (n = 68) was 5.2 points on a scale 0-66 (approx.
8%), which is statistically a very significant improvement (t = -4.000, df = 67,
p = 0.000). The pretest and post-test scores, expectedly, show a statistically
significant degree of correlation (r = 0.765, p = 0.000). The pretest scores and
improvement scores show a low degree of negative correlation (r = -0.265, p =
0,029). The correlation analysis between the post-test scores and the improve-
ment scores reveals a moderate degree of positive correlation (r = 0.419, p =
0,000) and the scores of many students show a shift from the average scoring
category to the high scoring category and from the low scoring category to the
average scoring category.

35
However, the high scoring group’s relative gain was not as great as that in the
average scoring group, which was not surprising. Firstly, the test instrument
was meant to measure mathematic basic skills, and when a person has good
skills at the beginning, there is much less to gain compared to a person with
slightly lower skills at the beginning. Secondly, MathNavi does not teach, it is a
tutor that guides the learning process. Low skilled students are a challenge for
such systems, because the main reason for low skills might be a consequence
of several causes and just revising basics, even in meaningful order, is not
enough for them.

MathNavi is meant to produce individual learning paths, which was studied

with a pattern analysis and data mining methods. The generalized sequenced
/ pattern centered variables for the analysis were: 1) an average count of cor-
rectly answered exercises. 2) an average count of incorrectly answered exer-
cises. 3) the relative number of correctly answered exercises. 4) the average
time in seconds used per exercise. 5) the number of times when new content
(theory) was opened for browsing.

The pretest score and the relative frequency of correct answers in the first
quarter showed a moderate degree of positive correlation (r = 0.424, p =
0.000), and the relative frequency of correct answers in the last quarter and
the post-test score showed a low degree of positive correlation (r = 0.294, p
= 0.014). This is not surprising; it merely indicates that the tests and Math-
Navi operate within relatively similar mathematical contexts and measure quite
similar mathematical competencies. This is also parallel to the results which
show a positive correlation between the high relative frequency of correct
answers in MathNavi work and the high empirical probability of passing the
final examination.

The relative frequency of correct answers in the first and fourth quarter showed
a moderate degree of positive correlation (r = 0.506, p = 0.000). This is an ex-
pected result and it is in accordance with the respective moderate degree of
positive correlation (r = 0,512; p = 0,000) between the pretest and post-test
scores. The difference between the relative frequencies of correct answers in
the first and last quarters was statistically very significant (t = -6.355, df = 67,
p = 0.000).

The MathNavi working process offered no surprises; it mirrors the results of

the learning outcomes. In order to discover more details, a correlation network
(Figure 2) was defined using time ordered quartiles and certain generalized ac-
tions describing variables. All presented correlations are statistically significant.

36
Only correlations, which could theoretically be interpreted as being causal by
nature, are shown. Out layer correlations without theoretical interpretation of
causality, e.g. between content reading in the first quarter and avg. time used
in the last quarter, are omitted. Three interesting exceptional correlations with-
out statistical significance are shown by dotted lines.

Generalized actions describing variables are presented as row variables and

timeline quarters as column variables. Progress between checkpoints in each
row are all strictly monotonic, and the difference between the first checkpoint
and the last checkpoint is statistically significant in every case (rows): The av-
erage number of correctly answered exercises (t = 2.778, df = 67, p = 0.007),
the average number of incorrectly answered exercises (t =6.773, df = 67, p =
0.000), the average time in seconds used per exercise (t = -5.202, df = 67, p =
0.000), and 5) the number of times when new content was opened (t = -5.233,
df = 67, p = 0.000).

However, there are also very significant correlations statistically between each
step in each row (see Figure 10), which means that, in general, the high scor-
ers (in the pretest) remain in their category and the low scorers remain in
theirs. The scoring improvements seen in all variables are the consequences
of improvement of the whole experimental group – not only an improvement
of some subgroup. Because of strictly monotonic development in the variables

Figure 10. A correlation network of the learning process with MathNavi

37
and statistically very significant correlations between checkpoints, we can see
at a more detailed level that MathNavi guides the whole experimental group in
the right direction - as the results of the pre- and post-test outcomes indicate.

The correlation network is used to describe the phenomenon that causes

strictly monotonic development. When focusing on the first quarter, we have
to remember that it takes approximately 30-60 exercises before MathNavi can
estimate the weaknesses and strengths of a student. In the first quarter, there
are two important factors: Firstly, the students with lower pretest scores had
significantly more incorrect answers, which reflects negatively on the relative
correctness. On the other hand, the students with higher pretest scores or with
higher motivation towards learning have read more theory and used more
time for their work. This reflected positively on the relative correctness.

Because of monotonic development of the variables, the factors were fore-

seen when moving into the second path quarter: Those with a low relative
correctness rate were given more exercises and they also gave more incorrect
answers than those with a better relative correctness rate. Nevertheless, during
the second path quarter, the lower scorers received guidance from the Math-
Navi and could improve their relative correctness rate significantly. Those with
a better relative correctness rate in the first path quarter kept their style and
used even more time to read more pieces of theory and therefore they also
gained from the work - despite the smaller number of exercises.

During the third path quarter, the learning styles of some pretest lower scorers
changed: they began to spend more time on thinking over the exercises, but
they did not use MathNavi’s learning content in a similar way to the pretest
higher scorers. The changes caused weakened correlations (Figure 2, dotted
lines) between the relative correctness rate of answers and the average num-
ber of correctly answered exercises, as well as between the average time in
seconds used per exercise and the number of times when new content was
browsed for reading on the screen.

The fourth quarter is similar to the previous one: the students with a lower
relative rate of correct answers were supplied with more exercises, they used
more time on calculations and they gained from their work. Students with a
higher relative rate of correct answers were supplied with fewer exercises, but
the supplied exercises also supported their development relevantly.

38
Implementing and applying learning analytics
Games and other virtual environments can provide relevant and meaning-
ful information for individual learners, their parents, teachers and finally for
the educational system at a national level. In the following, we focus on 1)
in-game analytics for players, parents and teachers in a Math Elements math-
ematics game and 2) an analytics tool for national curriculum development
with data received from Math Elements and AnimalClaas mathematics games.
The tools and methods have been published in the author’s previous studies
(Ketamo & Kiili 2010b, Ketamo 2010, Ketamo 2013b)

The in-game analytics tool in Math Elements (Figure 11) is meant for parents
or teachers to quickly observe what learners have taught their pets. In Figure
11, correctly taught concepts are shown in the upper part of the skills area and
wrongly taught concepts in the lower part of the area. The quantity of teaching
is shown in Figure 11 withconcepts that are taught a lot on the right side of the
area and little taught concepts on the left side. The quantity of teaching also
means that the more relations a concept has, the more correctly it is located.
Concepts that have not been taught do not appear in the skills area.

Figure 11. In-game analytics tool

39
Figure 12. Frequencies on correct answers, wrong answers and avoiding the number: bottom = correct,
middle/low = incorrect, middle/high = avoided, top = unclear answers Unclear means that in some cases
the players have understood such a number correctly while in other cases they have not.

When focusing on dependencies between the teaching of a conceptual struc-

ture and pupils’ achievements measured with traditional paper tests, we can
find out that the taught conceptual structure is strongly related to paper tests
scores received after game play (0.4<r<0.7) with all tested content on math-
ematics and natural sciences. This is an important result in terms of reliability
of the game as an assessment/evaluation instrument.

In the game, the content at one level represents approximately one school
week in a Finnish school. The player can receive one to three stars when com-
pleting the level. The bronze prize represents satisfactory skills and the golden
prize stars represent good skills. However, the results of playing the game are
always a bit fuzzy: the player can just have good luck and receive the golden
prize with a silver prize performance. Furthermore, once in a while a nearly
perfectly taught game character can have non-optimal performance because
of one difficult task. So the evaluation/assessment with Math Elements at a
single level is only indicative, but completing a whole grade requires skills that
would be required to pass the same grade in a Finnish school.

When going in more detail, wrong answers or misconceptions are not the only
relevant factor explaining the learning outcome. According to data received
from playing the game, avoiding number (or concept) directly indicates poor
performance in such a concept. In Figure 12, some of the numbers and fre-
quencies avoiding the numbers when playing the game are presented. In fact,
we can see that once again the most avoided numbers are the odd nominated
fractions .

40
From the point of view of data mining, we could point out two interesting phe-
nomena: 1) the discovery of the origin of the difficulties in learning fractions,
decimals and percentages and 2) the relation between transfer in learning and
transfer in avoiding learning.

The difficulties in fractions are mediated by unequal nominators (Figure 13).

In Figure 13, on the left side, the relations between difficulties with certain
numbers are visualized as a map. The arch (edge) value describes the prob-
ability for a case when a person has difficulties with both connected numbers.
The analysis of the map shows that there are always unequal nominators caus-
ing the high probability for related misunderstanding.

Furthermore, when we extend the range of numbers by fractions with odd

nominators (Figure 13 right), we can see that in most cases the difficulties are
mediated by an odd and even nominator. The result is interesting, because
we can find different levels of related difficulties: The odd nominators are dif-
ficult to compare with even nominators, but the same occurs with only even
nominators.

Figure 13. Partial probability map for related difficulties in mathematics. Left: with even nominators. Right:
with odd and even nominators.

41
Figure 14. Partial probability map for connected difficulties with percentages, decimals and fractions The
difficulties and misconceptions are strongly related. When a person has learned a concept, the knowledge
will transfer (in terms of near transfer) from one game to another. In our experiment, the knowledge trans-
fers from one game to another at a significant level (r=0.2 – 0.5). The strength of the correlation depends
on a concept and its neighborhood. For example, number 0.5 is in general easier than 7/17. This causes
that the correlation for learning transfer is higher in the neighborhood of 0.5 than in the neighborhood of
7/17. Without the high count of difficult fractions in the most difficult game, the correlations concerning
learning transfer would have been remarkably higher.

42
The nature of this difficulty type might cause cumulative difficulties with func-
tions and series with variable as nominator: If a person cannot recognize the
growth of the numbers as numbers, how can we expect that he/she can un-
derstand the growth as a function.

Even more interesting is that difficulties in combining percentages, decimals

and fractions are strongly mediated by fractions. However, the strongest dif-
ficulties are mediated by different types of numbers, but fractions do have the
strongest role. Furthermore, the fractions with odd nominators (3,5,…) control
the map of connected difficulties (Figure 14).

However, avoiding behavior is even more clearly transferred from one game
to another than learning outcomes: If a person was avoiding some number
in the first game, he/she tends to avoid it in the following game (r=0.3 –
0.7). The result indicates that learning games in general can provide a frame-
work to transfer knowledge in a meaningful way. The results and implications
should be notified when designing educational games – also misconceptions
and avoiding behavior will transfer. If an educational game provides incorrect
knowledge or it makes a pupil to avoid some theme, the consequences can be
very negative in terms of learning.

Analytics for a national curriculum development: When summarizing the in-

dividual game achievements, schools and national level policy makers can
receive an analysis of competences and skills at a general level. They can ap-
ply this information in order to develop their teaching instructions or formal
curriculum. Our goal is not to rank countries, what we do is to provide infor-

Figure 15. World scale analytics

43
mation for developing the practice. The full analytics shows all the countries
on which we have data to analyze (Figure 15). Countries participating in PISA
are colored with scale green to red, showing their rank in pisa. Blue colored
countries are not in pisa, but we can also provide analytics for those countries.

Future signals
When coming back to ideas of Flipped Classroom as a paradigm shift, most of
the Flip models are based on video content and most implementations are for
secondary and higher education. In fact, games based on Flipped classroom
applications for the elementary school have not been implemented and ex-
perimented before. An important part of our experimental Flipped classroom
process is in the progress in skills and knowledge (Figure 16). The level of
knowledge is increased via Flip cycles that are partially overlapping. Naturally,
the time the progress takes is individual and that is what Flip is meant for –
individual learning experiences.

In our experiment, the progress (level of knowledge) is controlled by the

game. It is always good to become familiar with the future content, but a
learner cannot access the next level until the required knowledge has been
earned. The arts and crafts material enables learnerswith different progress to
share their knowledge and creative ideas with others, which is the optimal
way to deepen the social learning experience.

The experiments were started when writing this paper, and will be reported
during year 2014.

Figure 16. Math Elements flipped classroom process

44
Conclusions
Games and gamification are the new form of storytelling and social interac-
tion for the younger generation. Furthermore, learning has always been about
storytelling and social interaction. Given that children and young adults are
ready to do more work for their game characters than what they are ready to
do for themselves, we should be very interested in developing methods to take
full advantage of this for educational purposes.

According to our studies, users can relatively quickly and easily teach behavior
to a game character. In terms of conceptual learning, the developed AI emu-
lates the way people learn: learning is about concepts and their relations. The
semantic modeling makes it possible to model a learning process and thus un-
cover the frequencies, dependencies and patterns behind conceptual learning
and learning transfer. The most important finding on this is the role of avoiding
behavior. If pupils assume that they are not aware of some theme, they would
not even try to override their difficulties. Accordingly, they continue to believe
illusions of understanding without any effort to override these. This makes
conceptual change, as well as learning in general, impossible.

Finally, designing adaptive learning technologies based on detailed learning

analytics, we can build solutions and products that can reveal the blind spots
of learning. This can be achieved, even with today’s technology, without a
teacher. In other words, we are overcoming the challenge between scale and
quality in education: A Qualified teacher can apply technologies in order to
understand pupils and students’ individual learning needs in real time. Fur-
thermore, combined with Flip, this enables a real paradigm shift in a teacher’s
work. Non-qualified teachers can apply technologies to guide their work. No
longer do they have to be ashamed of qualification, when they can focus on
encouraging and supporting learners while technologies can guide and tutor
the learning process.

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46
Merja Meriläinen & Maarika Piispanen

Live-roleplay as a tool – using real world operation

cultures as tools for learning

Abstract
Anyone, who has ever been at school, has some kind of an idea what a good
learning environment looks like. It is an everyday environment for those who
attend school themselves, and it becomes close to parents through their chil-
dren. For some, it is just a distant memory. In any case, most people have an
opinion about it. Imagine: straight lines of desks, people sitting alone in a row,
a daily program split into four to five different lessons, etc. When we think of
today´s students – as Tapscott (2009) highlights – they are more open, more
active, more broad-minded and less prejudiced than early generations. None-
theless, our schools still look similar to those hundred years ago.

This article examines pedagogical changes in different learning contexts and

aims to create a theoretical background for educators designing learning
based on a learning theory in terms of Contextual pedagogical approach to-
wards learning. The 21st Century Civil Skills Pedagogical Content Knowledge
framework, introduced in this article, will help teachers to create learning en-
vironments where 21st century civil skills will meet the modern pedagogy and
core curriculum standards. With the help of the framework, together with the
model of Contextual pedagogical approach towards learning, one is able to
build a strong pedagogical foundation to create transformational 21st century
learning environments.

Inquiring new pedagogical innovations

In recent years, educators and policy makers have been focused on student
achievement and well-being. After the great Pisa success and glory, Finnish
researchers raised up a discussion about future skills, school activity and mo-
tivation, which arefields where Finnish students have not done so well. The
problem in the Finnish school, according to Välijärvi (2011), is that despite the
knowledge and skills Finnish students have, they do not trust their know-how
and their attitude towards learning is poor. It is worth asking, could you find
any answers by looking deeper into our pedagogical choices, operation cul-
ture as well as learning environments in the Finnish education system?

47
Meriläinen and Piispanen (2012) highlight, that learning should be seen as a
conceptual change in the interaction with the environment. They want people
involved to ask the following questions: What is good pedagogy – how does
learning take place? What kind of information is needed? What motivates to
seek information? What inspires and challenges students? How is the informa-
tion addressed, connected and adapted? What is the teachers’ role in learning
situations? How do they understand pedagogy? How do they adapt their own
theoretical thoughts about sharing information and their practices and opera-
tion culture when thinking of future pedagogy and skills needed in the future?
What do they mean by a good learning environment?

It is common knowledge that it is not only spaces, places and tools you have
to take into account in the educational changing process, but also pedagogy
which has to develop simultaneously. Understanding the 21st century peda-
gogy, knowledge and skills connected to it is in a central part of the teacher’s
professional development.

The quickly changing 21st century challenges teachers to see life outside the
school and recognize not only the core subjects but also the key skills needed
outside the school. The report, Learning for the 21st Century, identifies nine
types of learning skills, which are divided into three different key areas as
follows in Table 1.

In a school and in other different learning contexts, in a society which devel-

ops fast, the school should keep up to date in this development and should
help students to learn not only the contents which arise from the curriculum,
but also the skills and matters that one needs in the society both today and in
the future. (cf. Levin 2011, 4; Zhao 2011, 4). What should be more important
than a huge amount of detailed information, according to Meriläinen and
Piispanen, (2012) is multidimensional education, which comprises the know-
how of different skills to make good use of curriculum general information.
The learning should be seen as a conceptual change in the interaction with
the environment (cf. Zhao 2011, 2), which also contains the point of view of
emotion education. Noddings (1997, 28) indeed crystallizes the idea that a
loving and caring society is one of the most important 21st century mani-
festations of learning situations. Too often, it is forgotten that cognitive and
moral development go hand in hand and expand each other. When students
study to pay attention to each other’s feelings and opinions, they at the same
time extend their own thinking and learn to look at phenomena from different
points of view.

48
Table 1. 21st Century learning skills

21st Century Learning Skills

INFORMATION AND THINKING AND PROBLEM INTERPERSONAL AND SELF-
COMMUNICATION SKILLS SOLVING SKILLS DIRECTIONAL SKILLS
Information and Media Critical Thinking and Systems Interpersonal and Collaborative Skills
Literacy Skills Thinking Demonstrating teamwork and working
Accessing and managing Exercising sound reasoning. productively with others.
information. Making complex choices. Demonstrating and the ability to adapt
Integrating and creating Understanding the interconnec- to varied roles and responsibilities.
information. tions among systems. Exercise empathy and respecting
Evaluating and analyzing Problem Identification, diverse perspectives.
information. Formulation & Solution Self-Direction
Communication Skills Ability to Monitoring one’s own understanding
Understanding, managing, and frame and learning needs
creating effective analyze Locating resources
communications solve problems. Transferring learning from one domain
orally Creativity and Intellectual to another.
written Curiosity Accountability and Adaptability
using multimedia Develop Exercising personal responsibility and
implement flexibility in personal, workplace and
communicate community contexts.
new ideas to others. Setting and meeting high standards
and goals for one’s self and others.
Social Responsibility

Acting responsibly with the interests of

the larger community in mind.
Demonstrating ethical behavior in
personal, workplace and community
contexts.

If you look at students born in the late 90s and early 2000s, you can see a huge
gap between the knowledge and skills students learn in school and those they
need in typical 21st century communities and working places. Today’s educa-
tion system faces irrelevance unless we bridge the gap between how students
live and how they learn. Moving from content knowledge to learning and life
skills is essential when training students to be successful in their lives after
school.

49
From contents to 21st century civil skills knowledge
Teachers’ challenge in today’s education is to strengthen students’ natural ways
to learn and produce information in new learning environments. Teachers act
as the construction workers of the bridges of learning between a school and
other learning environments. It is their responsibility to make learning possible
to diverse learners.

We have got closer to the ideas about a multi-layered connection between

learning and environment: learning and environment are in connection with
each other through three different aspects: growth and learning can be about
learning from environment, in environment and with the help of it, and it can
be learning for the environment and for solving its problems (Piispanen 2008;
Åhlberg 1998). Ideally, there is each and every one of these aspects in learning
and in environment themselves – they are not just individual factors, they are
intertwining, supportive elements. Learning is thus seen as something happen-
ing in connection with individuals and their environment. Norrena, Kankaan-
ranta and Nieminen (2011) argue that there has to be a significant pedagogical
change in school routines and pedagogical operations to move from teaching
to learning and towards 21st century requirements. How will this change ma-
terialize in school contexts – what are those pedagogical changes in the field
of curriculum, planning and implementing and what are the roles of teachers
and students?

The figure of 21st Century Civil Skills Pedagogical Content Knowledge (21st
Century CSPCK) (Fig. 1) attempts to identify the nature of the vast pedagogical
knowledge required when turning learning from traditional to transforma-
tional i.e. integrating the 21st century civil skills into the authentic learning
contexts and the curriculum.

At the heart of the 21st Century Civil Skills Pedagogical Content Knowledge
framework, is the complex interplay of three primary forms of knowledge:
21st Century Civil Skills Knowledge (21st Century CSK), Pedagogical Knowl-
edge (PK), and Curriculum Content Knowledge (CCK). It is essential to find
the point of intersection of the 21st Century Civil Skills Pedagogical Content
Knowledge, where the three primary forms of knowledge meet each other
and use that essence as a starting point when creating innovative and enthu-
siastic learning situations. (cf. Mishra & Koehler 2006, 2009) As Meriläinen
and Piispanen (2012) highlight, the planning process is to be viewed from
at least three different angles as pictured in Fig.1. What we mean by that is
that the emphasis of learning should not lie on curriculum contents (subject

50
Figure 1. The 21st Century Civil Skills Pedagogical Content Knowledge (21st Century CSPCK) (Follows
Mishra & Koehler 2006, 2009)

contents) themselves, but these contents should act as tools for accomplishing
21st century civil skills by arranging learning situations and environments as
authentic as possible to support a vast and deep understanding of every day
phenomena. Also, the 21st century skills should not be seen as isolated skills
or learning targets, but they should be examined as visible parts of a learning
context. Together, all the three knowledge areas will create a successful and
pedagogically meaningful learning process produced by students.

The changing society challenges the teacher profession, teaching and learn-
ing environments as well as the school structures and operation cultures. This
change requires above all new ways to act and to network with colleagues
and other experts as well as parents. It also requires a new understanding
on the part of the administration staff – everyone who is working in the field
of education should be striving for the same goal and promote education to
move towards transformational educational settings. In this changing process,
it is essential to understand the connection between different knowledge ar-
eas and to widen pedagogical thinking to cover not only the curriculum and
content knowledge but also 21st century content knowledge and pedagogical
knowledge as mentioned in Fig 1.

51
The Kokkola University Consortium Adult Teacher Education Program has
been developing primary school teacher studies based on the 21st Centu-
ry CSPCK –framework. The research report of ICT use in European schools
(2013) supports the common knowledge about the lack of technology use
in Finnish schools. The focus should not merely be on the use of technol-
ogy but on the old fashioned, teacher centered operation cultures, where ICT
has no place from the point of view of the students. We argue (Meriläinen,
Piispanen & Valli 2013) that even in the Finnish teacher education, instead
of learning important 21st century civil skills; the emphasis still is mostly on
subject knowledge, concepts and planning of subject teaching. It is obvious
that we need to effect curriculum-based changes to meet the challenges the
surrounding society and its habits will bring to our school system. The focus
in the development project carried out in Kokkola University Consortium in
2012-2015 (Piispanen & Meriläinen) will lie on the following aspects, which
are to be considered closer in later research reports:

trans-disciplinary curriculum and assessment

21st century civil skills
individual learning paths
authentic learning environments
authentic learning activities and tasks
live role play in learning projects

No more isolation – learning in authentic environments

What does this mean in practice from the teachers’ point of view? Let us take
a little closer look at the planning process. Where to begin, how to put the
emphasis on the needed skills, what is the connection between subject con-
tents and real life in practice, what does an authentic learning environment
mean? These are some of the questions that you as teachers will have to pay
attention to when moving from traditional pedagogy towards transformational
pedagogical settings. Flipping the sight from curriculum to society moves the
emphasis from teaching curriculum contents to learning real life phenomena
and skills that we need in authentic learning environments and learning situa-
tions. The planning begins from the premise of individual students and their
skills, knowledge, interests and enthusiasm (in contrastto traditional planning
where the planning is made to fit the school constructions; timing, text books,
classrooms, etc.) Blending ICT with study plans becomes natural when the
school tasks and activities begin to remain real life tasks and activities as you
can see in Table 2.

52
Table 2. Contextual-pedagogical study plan in a nutshell (5th grade)

Phenomenon (authentic/
outside the curriculum/
learning environment)
To plan a Summer Camp in
a Ranch
Students role (authentic –rises Task (authentic –supports 21st Century
from the phenomenon) civil Skills to develop)
Ranch owner / Camp director To create an enthusiastic camp program,
marketing plan, web & mobile pages
and radio/ television commercial.

In this model (Table 2.), as Meriläinen and Piispanen (2012) state, the teacher
holds the curriculum contents up to the surrounding world and connects them
to real life phenomena. This will help students to understand and link the cur-
riculum contents with the life outside of the school. The curriculum contents
act as tools for developing 21st century civil skills as explained in Figure 1. The
21st Century Civil Skills Content Knowledge Framework will focus on a variety
of different knowledge areas to develop both skills and content understand-
ing. The pedagogical knowledge has to meet both the 21st century skills and
the curriculum contents to be able to create learning situations, tasks, activities
and environments that will develop 21st century civil skills pedagogical con-
tent knowledge in a school context. 

Underneath (Table 3.) there is an example of a learning task, which will fit
into the 21st century civil skills pedagogical content knowledge framework.
The task is planned for 5th grade students and the contents come from the
5th grade curriculum (Finnish National Core Curriculum for Basic Education
2004).

53
Table 3. 5th grade curriculum contents related to given phenomena and tasks

PHENOMENON: To plan a Summer Camp on the Ranch

TASK: To create an enthusiastic camp program, marketing plan, web & mobile pages and radio/
television commercial
CROSS CURRICULAR THEMES:
Media skills and communication, Participatory Citizenship and Entrepreneurship and Technology and the
individual
Mother tongue and literature: Biology and Music Arts Mathematics
INTERACTION SKILLS Geography The pupils The pupil The pupil
The pupil will learn skills of ac- The pupil will build will learn will learn to
tive listening and communication will learn to their creative to evaluate understand that
in various communication situa- move about relationship their own and concepts form
tions; they will feel encouraged in the natural with music and others’ visual structures
to take part in discussions and environment its expressive expression
will try to consider the recipients and observe possibilities, and working
in their own communication. and investigate by means of approaches,
The pupil will learn to work nature outdoors composing such as visual,
with text environments in which The pupil will content, and
words, illustrations, and sounds learn to draw technical
interact and interpret solutions, and
SKILLS IN PRODUCING TEXT maps, and use to employ the
The pupil will learn to create a statistics, key concepts
variety of texts, both orally and diagrams, of art.
in writing pictures, and The pupil
RELATIONSHIP WITH LANGUAGE, electronic will work
LITERATURE, AND OTHER messages as independently
CULTURE a source of and as a
The pupil will gain a basic geographic community
knowledge of the media and information member in art
utilize communications media projects
purposefully.

Outcomes
A Marketing plan: When, what and where + budget
Poster size A0 to inform and wake interest
Web page to inform and contact (Wix & Go Mobile Wix)
Commercial to YouTube & Podcast
Facebook Group to connect participants
Camp program
Writing an action plan to make the plan and implementation concrete and understandable

54
Assessment
According to Finnish National Core Curriculum for Basic Education (2004, 260)

The task of assessment during the course of studies is to guide and

encourage studying and to depict how well the student has met the
objectives established for growth and learning. It is the task of as-
sessment to help the student form a realistic image of his/her learn-
ing and development, and thus to support the student’s personality
growth, too.

In transformational pedagogical settings, the assessment will be seen as learn-

ing itself in contrast to traditional pedagogy where assessment is seen as in-
formation of learning. In a Contextual-pedagogical approach to learning, the
assessing criteria will be visible and well known already in the beginning of
the learning process. It is important to begin the planning process by iden-
tifying the learning goals and criteria for successful learning. After that, the
task and activity designing process are easy to accomplish so that the tasks
and activities might help students to achieve these goals. Assessing will act as
a tool for guiding students through the learning path –the learning aims will
be achieved through the learning tasks based on assessing criteria. This is, as
Meriläinen and Piispanen (2012) state, particularly important in order that stu-
dents might understand and recognize what is expected from them and how
the assessment system is built.

Learners as investigators of real life phenomena

When transferring from traditional education to transformational, one has to
imagine new ways to think about teaching and learning. According to Chaltain
(2011), traditional schools assume that students bear the main responsibility
for learning, while in transformational schools the responsibility is sharedwith
the members of a learning team that includes, and extends beyond the teacher
and student. In terms of student achievement, a traditional school emphasizes
test results instead of students’ aspirations and life options which a transforma-
tional school, in turn, focuses on. In a transformational school, the target will
be in working to build passion for learning in all students.

In the phenomenon-based approach, the real reality is central instead of the

doctrine contents and the welling problems involved (Meriläinen & Piispanen
2012). Instead of one discipline, the examination is directed to the phenom-
enon from a transdisciplinary point of view. The learning is not restricted to

55
learning one truth. With the dialogue between the curriculum and surrounding
real life, one will look for answers by thinking, by concluding, by examining
and developing the 21st century civil skills simultaneously.

The phenomenon-based approach in the context of basic education is a way

to examine the curriculum in relation to the surrounding society. The curric-
ulum and different subject contents will be examined transdisciplinary and
one can understand the connections between the curriculum and surrounding
society. As a result, you can recognize and see the operation culture of the
school reflecting the operation culture of the external world. (Meriläinen &
Piispanen 2012) The curriculum will come alive as authentic as possible with
real life tasks, roles and environments as mentioned earlier.

When examining the phenomenon-based approach, it is important to remem-

ber that it is not a question of a pedagogical method. Within the phenome-
non-based approach one (as a teacher) begins to adapt real world conventions
to daily routines and gradually the operation culture begins to be similar to
the surrounding society. At this stage, the 21st century civil skills pedagogical
content knowledge has materialized and students are able to develop 21st
century civil skills in a natural way as a part of their learning process in daily
school routines.

In a Contextual-pedagogical approach towards learning, special attention is

paid to the compatibility of a learning context and pedagogy. Both the context
and the pedagogy have crucial significance from the point of view of learning.
Figure 2. compresses the connections between learning contexts, pedagogy,
curriculum and phenomena involved in real life contexts.

56
Figure 2. Contextual – pedagogical approach to learning (Meriläinen & Piispanen, 2012.)

In relationship with the authentic contexts

Piispanen and Meriläinen (2013) argue that in a Contextual-pedagogical ap-
proach towards learning, special attention is paid to the growth of 21st Cen-
tury CSPCK knowledge. The skills, context and pedagogy will have crucial
significance in all learning situations. Where traditional pedagogy and multi-
disciplinary approach to integration emphasize pedagogy and curriculum as
tools for creating learning situations, the transformational pedagogy connects
the three knowledge areas together. The learning situations will be discovered
in the heart of the expanded knowledge acquisition as shown in Figure 2.

The pedagogical planning focuses on children and their uniqueness which in-
fluences the choices that a teacher will make concerning the learning context
as well as pedagogy, in contrast to traditional pedagogy where the choices are
often made for the teacher by the school structures, schedules, classrooms and
books.

57
The basic idea behind the contextual pedagogical learning environment ac-
cording to Piispanen and Meriläinen (2013) lies on problem based; investi-
gate learning in authentic learning environments with authentic learning tasks.
Learning can thus be seen learner centered, flexible, illustrative and suitable
for many kinds of learners (See Piispanen 2008; Sahlberg 2011; Zhao 2011). All
suitable places appropriate to learning can be seen as good learning environ-
ments. It is also possible for students to create their own environment during
the learning process. It is essential, in contextual pedagogical approach, to
examine the curriculum in a transdisciplinary way. In different learning pro-
cesses, the borders between different subjects will disappear and the focus will
be on everyday phenomena that children are familiar with. It is the teachers’
responsibility to see how the core curriculum is manifested in children’s lives
and to plan and organize learning situations motivated enough to make chil-
dren devoted to given learning tasks. The teacher’s job is to act as a curriculum
expert who is able to see the connections between the core curriculum and
real life, a pedagogical specialist who is able to create enthusiastic learning
situations, tasks and environments and finally the one who has a good student
knowledge and who is willing and able to plan learning tasks and activities
appropriate to each individual in one’s class. In the very end it is the teacher
who creates learning tasks from pedagogically meaningful points of view and
contacts real life specialists who are able to give authentic learning experi-
ences in authentic ways and act as co-operation partners in real learning situ-
ations. (See Kumpulainen & al., 2011).

It is essential to recognize, name and utilize the learner’s versatile know-how

in contextual pedagogical approach to learning. Children should be able to
use and show their best know-how and abilities as well as learn new skills
from peers and under the teacher’s guidance while working in authentic learn-
ing situations. Students’ individual needs are seen crucial in the contextual
pedagogical learning process. Different learners will have possibilities to work
at their best as well as show their best while working.

Bringing enthusiasm to learning

In the Contextual-pedagogical model of learning, the essential change con-
cerns the students’ role as knowledge constructors: the culture of working,
for the most part, alone with individual tasks is transferred to a culture of col-
laboration, which supports high levels of collegiality, team work, and dialogue
about given tasks. (Meriläinen & Piispanen 2012.)

58
Instead of just “accomplishing” the learning tasks, the students are directed to
be active and self-piloting collaborative learners. This means a huge change in
the traditional teacher-student roles: the teachers will no more be the know-
it-all persons, instead their role is to help students to address information, to
operate among the information and above all, lighting the learning enthusiasm
among the students. In this model, the teacher will see the student’s best po-
tential and takes risks to make that visible. When taking risks, the teachers will
push their boundaries as teachers –this is where colleague support is highly
needed. In a transformational school setting, teachers engage in professional
dialogue with colleagues; share ideas, knowledge, and techniques; and par-
ticipate in collaborative problem solving around classroom issues. To make
the student’s challenges visible will not commonly happen with the traditional
methods. It is essential to activate the students to work together so that the
given tasks might support the development of the 21st century civil skills (Ko-
stiainen & Rautiainen 2011, 190). As Meriläinen and Piispanen (2012) highlight,
the learning tasks should be closely connected to students’ real lives, interest-
ing, they should be challenging and enable students’ natural creativity and
know-how. It is of great importance to give students roles, which will motivate
and guide them to understand the tasks in authentic contexts. Instead of filling
the practice book, one could be a travel guide, whose task is to plan a journey
to the river of Nile, only to mention one example.

In the contextual-pedagogical model of learning, the 21st century skills are

not necessarily the key objects of teaching, but their presence and use in
different learning tasks will lay a solid foundation to deeper understanding,
learning, knowing and creativity. (Hargreaves 2007, 223-224; Kumpulainen,
Krokfors, Lipponen, Tissari, Hilppö, & Rajala 2011, 46; Sahlberg 2011, 4; Zhao
2011, 2–3). When planning a learning process, paying attention to these skills
with other two knowledge part areas (content knowledge and pedagogical
knowledge) will make it possible to create learning environments and learning
situations that will support the development of the 21st century civil skills con-
tent knowledge in the school context. These skills need to be developed con-
tinuously when processing learning tasks in versatile learning environments.

When learning is particularly directed to the learning processes, problem solv-

ing and meeting the challenges, the assessment system has to be planned
carefully. The emphasis is put on the assessment of the process instead of the
result as mentioned earlier in this article. The assessment criteria have to be
opened beforehand so that the students are able to set goals for their own
learning. This is how students will develop their thinking and planning skills
as well as self-direction skills, which are seen important in 21st century peda-
gogy and learning.

59
Finding unique ways to learn
It is a central matter to pay attention to the students’ individual needs in a con-
textual- pedagogical approach. A transformational learning process enables
diverse students to learn according to one’s own best ability and to bring one’s
individual know-how visible. The paths toward set learning goals will be as
unique as your students – the beforehand given goals and assessment criteria
will guide students step by step towards the set goals, the paths will naturally
become differentiated, never the less learning has taken place.

When the curriculum contents are connected and experienced in a trans-

diciplinary way in authentic learning conditions, students have possibilities to
consider the given tasks multiple and visualize these versatile ways. This gives
an opportunity to potentialize individual learning styles and unique tempera-
ments, which are mostly seen as problems in our school system.

The versatile examination of phenomena and the multiple choices of indi-

vidual learning paths will create the possibility to learn and understand phe-
nomena from the student´s individual perspective in collaboration with others.
The contextual – pedagogical approach directs the inspection to the teachers’
knowledge of information as well as to their pedagogical solutions which are
based on their ideas of the phenomenon called learning (Piispanen & Meri-
läinen 2013). In this learning approach it is central to help students to react
positively to the challenges and to help them to find and identify their own
strengths, which will help them to face and succeed in meeting the challenges
that sometimes seem too difficult for them.

If you think our future will require better schools, you’re wrong. The
future of education calls for entirely new learning environments. If
you think we will need better teachers, you’re wrong. Tomorrow’s
learners will need guides who take on fundamentally different roles.
(Knowledge Works Foundation and Institute for the Future 2020 Forecast:
Creating the Future of Learning.)

Conclusion
The life of 21st century students outside the school context looks totally
different when comparing it to the habits and environments we still have in
21st century schools. Almost every student today has instant access to infor-
mation through technology and the web, manages their own acquisition of
knowledge through informal learning, and has progressed beyond consum-

60
ers of content to become producers and publishers. As a result of that quick
change, traditional teaching and learning methods and environments are be-
coming less effective at engaging students and motivating them to study and
learn.

The quickly changing 21st century challenges teachers to see life outside the
school and recognize not only the core subjects but also the key skills needed
there. In the Contextual –pedagogical model of learning the focus in learning
is put on strengthening these skills. The curriculum contents will give the
tools for teachers to create learning tasks that will support and develop 21st
century skills when learning central content knowledge in authentic learning
situations.

Contextual-pedagogical model of learning connects the teacher’s pedagogical

expertise, student knowledge and the content knowledge and learning envi-
ronments as they exist in authentic conditions inside an outside the school
context. Neither the pedagogical knowledge nor the content (curriculum)
knowledge itself is enough when creating 21st century learning environments
that will support the 21st century civil skills content knowledge. It is a ques-
tion of a teacher’s pedagogical developing process where one begins to under-
stand the connections between learning and real life. This developing process
can lead at its best to transformational educational settings where the 21st
century civil skills, content knowledge and well-being will develop side by
side in authentic and enthusiastic learning environments.

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Marko Kuuskorpi & Nuria Cabellos González

Physical learning environments:

Learning in the future

Introduction
In recent years technological progress and educational programmers’ have be-
come interconnected in a desire to reshape the world in which students and
facilitators learn and teach with the ultimate aim of improving our collective
intelligence. Recent international studies on the future of teaching and learn-
ing have presented notable different perspectives on the world of education
from the one we may see today (see Alexander & Reynolds 2009, 176–192).
Rapid social changes together with a phenomenal advance in communication
and information facilities, in addition to the Internet mean that 21st century stu-
dents and teachers are seeking new facilities to cater for their changing teach-
ing and learning needs. During the last century socio-cultural changes, the
development of conduct systems, different pedagogical methods and the rapid
development of information and communication technology helped to shape
the teaching and operating cultures of schools and the expectations towards
learning environments. Now, however, research shows that educators, facili-
tators and teachers can no longer work in the same manner as their 19th and
20th century predecessors, but must adapt to a more modern way of learning.

This paper explores the question: what will tomorrow’s physical learning envi-
ronments be like? It also presents the conclusions of the research and product
development projects that in a development of the physical learning environ-
ment. The examples of learning environments will particularly focus on devel-
opment projects funded by the Finnish National Board of Education (FNBE).
The main goal of the study is to contribute to the quality of education and
to promote new methods, networks and tools, both locally and globally. Our
project also aims to provide flexible space solutions that can adapt quickly and
easily to changes in the curriculum, making a link between pedagogical theory
and practice adapting the demands of today’s school community to the rapid
and constant developments in ICT.

63
Conceptualising the physical learning environment
The concept of “learning environment” will become increasingly significant as
schools of the future become strategic centres for lifelong learning. The term
“learning environment” is used liberally in educational discourse because of
the emerging use of information technologies for educational purposes on the
one hand, and the constructivist concept of knowledge and learning on the
other (Mononen-Aaltonen 1998). A traditional definition of a learning envi-
ronment categorises learning according to five different contexts: local, social,
didactic, technological and physical (see Manninen 2007, 27).

But the term “physical learning environment” has proven difficult to define;
there has not been a common or established definition for the concept. The
OECD (2006) has defined “educational space” as “a physical space that sup-
ports multiple and diverse teaching and learning programmes and pedagogies,
including current technologies; one that demonstrates optimal, cost-effective
building performance and operation over time; one that respects and is in
harmony with the environment; and one that encourages social participation,
providing a healthy, comfortable, safe, secure and stimulating setting for its
occupants”. In its narrowest sense, a physical learning environment is seen as a
concrete classroom and, in its widest sense, as a combination of formal and in-
formal education systems where learning takes place both inside and outside

Figure 1. The widening of the physical learning environment (Nuikkinen 2009)

64
of schools (Manninen & al. 2007). Atkin (2011, 26–27) widens the definition by
including the constructed environment and the available information sources
to an entity that includes the outside world as part of the learning process.
Nuikkinen (2009, 52) summarizes the widening of the physical learning envi-
ronment, as shown in Figure 1.

The concept of the physical learning environment with respect to physical

structures relates to the physical space, equipment and tools within the school
(OECD 2012a, 18). Lehtinen (1997, 21) suggests that the concept has evolved
into an even more complex structure that includes teaching equipment, sourc-
es of information and events outside of schools, where students can take part
in the learning process both directly and virtually (see Atkin 2012, 26–27).

The term learning environment has evolved as a result of the recent chang-
es taking place in pedagogy, whereby actual learning has been transposed
outside of schools due to the developments in communication and informa-
tion technology. According Prensky (2010) new information technology has
already brought about significant changes in school and its learning environ-
ments. Yet the immense quantity of information available and easy access to
social networks have served to weaken the link between schools and learn-
ing and therefore modified the traditional teacher-student scenario (Kuuskorpi
2012, 181). The learning process is becoming more co-operative, transforming
the role of the teacher into that of a learner too.

From a practical standpoint the physical learning environment and the basic
structure of school teaching spaces do not seem to have evolved much over
the past century (Kühn, 2011, 19; Kuuskorpi, 2012, 180). This fact inspired
the research team to investigate the reason why, despite the recent changes
in pedagogy and the widespread use of information technology inside class-
rooms and school spaces, the physical learning environment has not man-
aged to keep up with this evolution. Several scholars have criticised traditional
school teaching for conveying too much theoretical information and prevent-
ing more profound learning (see Prensky 2010; Tappscott 2009). They claim
that inert knowledge is relevant for exams but not for real-world problems
which in many cases needs new kind of innovation and creativity. This idea is
posing new challenges and exerting pressure to bring about changes in phys-
ical learning environments.

In order to plan and construct effective physical learning environments, not

only technical specifications need to be elaborated; but qualitative aspects also
need to be considered (Atkin 2011, 25; OECD, 2012b, 63; Nuikkinen 2009, 64).

65
The concept of “quality design” has become essential all over the world. It re-
lates to school construction and, more particularly, in defining quality school
physical learning environment, measuring it and analysing the results (OECD,
2006). With regard to quality criteria for school buildings and design, the key
actors are obviously the students; requirements are determined by specific age
groups, in conjunction with societal needs and regulations relating to usability
and safety (Heitor 2005).

It has been demonstrated that international comparisons of education can

be achieved through comprehensive quality management and quality criteria
(Finnish National Board of Education 2008; OECD 2006). As a result, the em-
phasis is shifting from developing physical learning environments using norms
and regulations to comparing these environments on the basis of qualitative
improvement (OECD 2009).

A learning environment is an entity

With these considerations in mind, Kuuskorpi (2012, 182) considers four basic
elements to be the essential aspects of a physical learning environment: so-
cietal, informal learning processes, individuality, and formal teaching. These
elements form an interactive whole in which the physical learning environ-
ment plays a central role in reforming the school’s operational culture. At the
same time these environments should be analysed and developed in a holistic

Figure 2. Supportive learning contexts (Kuuskorpi 2012)

66
manner (Blyth, Almeida, Forrester, Gorey, & Hostens 2012, 56). Based on this
view the physical learning environment is understood to be the learning space
and its operational environment. Within it, flexible and modifiable learning
spaces and their related learning environments are formed through pairs of
dimensions. They are all interactive and totally supportive of one another, as
shown in Figure 2.

Our study stemmed from a project called Forum for the Future, which was
funded by the Finnish National Board of Education (FNBE) and it took place
over a period of three years 2009-2011. This project arose from a common
concern shared by groups of students, teachers and educational administrators
to implement changes needed in physical learning environments. Our main
priority was to contribute to the quality of education in our individual contexts
as well as internationally.

Six schools from Belgium, Finland, Holland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden
participated in the study. The selected schools for our project shared similar
common features such as infrastructure, educational level and socio-economic
conditions.

This study was set out to conceptualise the relationship between education,
the physical learning environment and the facilities needed by its users. Par-
ticipants were asked to identify the components that make up good qualitative
and modifiable learning spaces. It was commonly agreed that an improve-
ment in educational facilities, especially classrooms, was key in this matter.
The study also attempted to highlight the qualitative factors and user-oriented
design of physical learning environments. When we compared international
physical learning environment criteria and their associate recommendations,
we found that expectations relating to changeability, flexibility and sustainabil-
ity were also relevant factors for the participants.

Implementing the study

Information on the different perceptions of users and school authorities was
collected from the six European participant schools using various methods.
The first task undertaken consisted in a design for an ideal classroom. 250
students aged 14 and 15 from the six participating countries completed a de-
sign of their ideal model classroom, using a 1:50 scale which included sets of
furniture and equipment. Students were asked to arrange the furniture to suit
their learning needs according to how they would wish tomorrow’s classroom
to be shaped. They were also asked to suggest alternative space solutions.

67
In addition to the students’ task, 65 teachers from the six different countries
completed questionnaires related to the topic and 35 administrative school
authorities were also interviewed.

The study also took into consideration the views of a variety of expert groups
such as policy makers, architects, interior designers, artists and information
technology specialists. Processing the information gathered from these experts
was key to a successful development and planning process (Evagorou & al.,
2009). We therefore used ‘process simulation’, which is a targeted research
method used in specific circumstances such as when the physical learning
environment is inspected through a co-operative design process (Smeds et
al., 2007). This technique has been used in Finland to plan large-scale future
physical learning environments and is proving to be an effective design tool
because it enhances users’ capacity to have an effective impact on their work
environment. The process simulation method can be illustrated with the aid of
the following figure.

In addition to a phenomenological analysis, which can be effective when

dealing with verbal answers and pictorial responses, a hermeneutic approach
was also used to broaden the concepts and find points of convergence. Our
research was based on the notion that by describing the various perceptions of
school authorities and users, we could acquire an accurate overall impression
of a high-quality physical learning environment. One element of the study in-
volved the evaluation of the quality of the physical learning environment: this
was understood to be a value judgement resulting from the users’ everyday
experiences and their subsequent interpretation of them (Heidegger, 2000;
Marton and Booth, 1997).

Figure 3. The different phases of the process simulation method (Smeds & al. 2006)

68
Study findings
The results of the study highlighted several key factors relating to a quality
physical learning environment, namely the relevance of the teaching space as
a whole as well as their specific needs in relation to furniture and equipment.
It showed that the physical learning environment is pivotal to the users’ desire
to develop the school’s operational environment as well as their need to renew
its operational culture. The more meaningful and challenging the operational
environment is, the more the user is willing to improve the physical learning
environment. The needs of students, teachers and head-teachers call for prac-
tical solutions and these notably affect the physical learning environment.

The physical learning environment is regarded as a fundamental part of the

learning environment and its quality is a central factor in measuring society’s
appreciation of teaching and learning. Therefore, an inadequate interest in
physical learning environments sends out a message of unwillingness to de-
velop the current learning environment as a whole.

When a physical learning environment offers resources and possibilities that

support new teaching methods and learning goals, schools are much more
prompt to change their operational culture. The school as a central provider of
educational services was conceived as a platform responsible for the creation
of a natural institutional service, as well as a facilitator of health, wellbeing and
sustainable environmental services all delivered by qualified experts. Blyth
(2011, 15) highlights that school facilities should also be used by the commu-
nities they serve for services other than education. The different senses used
to describe the modifiability and flexibility of the learning environment at a
general level also emphasized the new meanings expressing interaction and
social teaching and learning processes. Libraries, public spaces, and youth and
health services were considered a natural part of a school building, providing
services to other members of the community as well. At the same time, schools
provide learning possibilities for children who are learning to use public ser-
vices. As part of the study’s simulation Kotimäki school in Kaarina was evalu-
ated. It has a public sports hall, library, health care and youth facilities on the
first floor (Figure 4).

The school as a physical learning environment was expected to offer a range

of versatile space solutions, which offer opportunities to use an array of differ-
ent teaching methods and consequently facilitate various learning processes.
At the same time relating indoor and outdoor spaces is another critical aspect
of school design, such that the school and surrounding community can take
advantage (Blyth, Almeida, Forrester, Gorey, & Zepeda 2012a, 78). However,

69
Figure 4. Layout of Kotimäki school (Kuuskorpi 2012)

the chances of current physical learning environments in schools were seen

still to be limited when it came to meeting the needs of formal and informal
teaching and learning.

Although different factors were emphasized on the other educational levels,

it is relevant to highlight that meaning networks connected to functionality,
social perspectives and versatility were also emphasized. These helped to de-
scribe the flexibility and modifiability of the teaching space both at classroom
level and cluster level - i.e. combination of several classrooms – as well as
at equipment and furniture level. However the results stressed the need for
a connection of the pedagogical space to the existing space as a whole, thus
areas of different sizes could be connected together and functional spaces
forming a more connected space could be used for a variety of purposes.

70
Architects, principals and teachers will need to take this holistic conceptu-
al approach into account to manage the building not in terms of individual
spaces. The respondents of the project wanted to use the physical learning
environment in a more versatile way, which made the combination of subject
study and more natural simultaneous teaching possible. Classrooms are more
flexible when they are connected into a central multipurpose space (Blyth &
al. 2012b, 57). The space estimated in the study’s simulation provides an op-
portunity to utilize the multipurpose space in the hall effectively (Figure 5).

Despite the differences within educational systems, the basic principles of the
use of physical learning environments and the concepts behind ideal teaching
spaces are very similar; even though previous analysis of space standards be-
tween different nations has indicated that each country has its own standard-
ising systems, context and costs for example. (Blyth et al. 2012b, 56–57). The
results gathered from their study indicate that pressure for change in teach-
ing and learning is felt at national level. As a result expectations for physical
learning environments do not differ significantly between countries. Moreover,

Figure 5. Simulated learning area (Kuuskorpi 2012)

71
Figure 6. School in 21st (Archeus achitects 2010, www.archeus.fi)

today’s well-educated and committed teachers offer a still largely unharnessed

resource for planning and implementing future learning environments.

Supported by views of supervision and accessibility, a rectangular space be-

came the natural choice for teaching. However, when the planning process
takes into account both supervision and flexible movement, multiple spaces
could be used in teaching and learning at the same time.

Once all of the submissions had been examined, a single model was select-
ed from all those presented by the participating students. A mock-up of the
selected model was made and tested by groups of students. The resulting
simulation provided a prime example of a learning space that supports teach-
ing and learning operations, while demonstrating flexibility, sustainability and
modifiability. The model is illustrated below.

Future technological advances and developments in social networks and me-

dia, (as well as different teaching and learning methods) will undoubtedly re-
quire dynamic teaching spaces. The design of the proposed model takes these
factors into account. The carefully conceived flexible layout and furniture ar-
rangement facilitates individual, pair and group work methods. The simulta-
neous enhanced interaction between the student and the teacher, on the one
hand, and the physical environment, on the other, optimises new information

72
Figure 7. The ideal learning space (Kuuskorpi 2012, 262)

flows. (Lehtinen & al. 1997). Respondents perceived the traditional classroom
as a passive area, which hindered the full use of space. They associated dy-
namic teaching spaces with flexibility and the possibility of creating different
furniture configurations. The latter can be achieved by ensuring that furniture
is mobile and that there is free and easy access to information technology. A
dynamic teaching space concept is summarised in Figure 8.

The results of our research did not discredit the traditional classroom as such.
Rather, it called out for urgent additional spaces of different sizes in optimal
locations to support teaching and learning processes. Spaces should offer var-
ious possibilities for teaching and learning to take place. These ranged from
individual study to large group activities and those that supported teacher
coaching and individual work. Working tables should be configured in a va-
riety of ways to meet different educational activities (Blyth et al. 2012, 74).
This flexibility fosters new types of teaching and learning, as illustrated above,
which are determined by the demands of the subject or activity. In order to

73
be successful, the physical learning environment needs to be equipped with
both modular workstations and areas with comfortable seating, hence sup-
porting individual learning. It should also be possible to adapt the furniture
to different configurations: this flexibility is vital for sustainable environments.
Similarly, teaching and information technology tools facilitate flexible teach-
ing. Therefore it should be easy to move equipment and wireless terminals
for different subjects and work methods. The key operational elements of the
teaching space are illustrated in Table 1.

Figure 8. A dynamic teaching space concept (Kuuskorpi 2011)

Table 1. The key operational elements of the teaching space (Kuuskorpi 2012)

74 74
Conclusion
Nuikkinen (2009, p. 278) argues that users’ expectations and the theoretical
concept of what makes a good school building do not match. In practice, to
a certain extent this runs counter to traditional planning, which on the whole
requires teachers and students – as users of the buildings – to adapt to given
environments (Dudek, 2000; Sanoff, 2009).

The research findings were clear: all participants in the study recognised that
significant changes must be made to the physical learning environment in
order to improve the needs of its users. Traditional pedagogical and physical
structures need to be remodelled in parallel so as to respond to the challenges
posed by changes in schools’ operational culture.

In order for a school to develop into a dynamic physical learning environment,

there needs to be a behavioural change in relation to planning and producing
spatial solutions. Change cannot occur without input from teachers and stu-
dents: the main school users. Teachers and students who conceived the study
applauded the significant shift away from the traditional classroom and said
how much they would like to work in a space like the one proposed here.

If a school provides a quality work environment for students, this will facilitate
the acquisition of skills that are important for society. The choice of school
equipment is important – it should be versatile, resistant, sustainable, environ-
mentally friendly and easy to repair. User-based innovative processes should
be at the heart of designing the physical learning environment of tomorrow’s
schools. This process should take into account the global needs of students,
teachers, school administrators and the community, and of course, the envi-
ronment. A judicious selection of products and services that minimises nega-
tive environmental impacts will also be of benefit to all.

In conclusion, it is necessary to point out that even the most rewarding physi-
cal learning environments or the most studied solutions can ever be complete
or final. Among constant changes and reforms the needs for learning spaces
also change. The need is best met if the solutions are flexible and variable.
Thus the learning space simulated based on this study is reforming in practical
daily teaching. One model designed by a user is illustrated below.

75
Figure 9. The ideal learning space reorganized (Kuuskorpi 2012, 263)

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Jukka Sulonen & Krisse Sulonen

The Grammar of a Modern School Building.

A comparative study on schools and the changing ways of
learning.

Introduction
The society has changed in 50 years, and during the last 15 years the world has
turned from analogic to digital. School architecture has also seen great chang-
es, but at the same time the changes have been small and slow; the basic unit
of the school facilities is still, despite the changes in ideals and objectives, a
classroom fitted for 32 pupils. A similar phenomenon can be seen in the objec-
tives and reality of teaching methods and pedagogy (Vitikka 2009). Methods,
ideals and structures are in a constant but slow state of fermentation. With
the changes in methods, the usability of buildings is frequently on trial. In the
Finnish national core curriculum for basic education, from 2004, the objective
is an open and interactive operational culture that supports co-operation. In
addition, the learning environment should be flexible and versatile, it should
support collaboration and be aesthetical. In the outline for a new curricu-
lum, to be published in 2016, the same objectives are emphasised even more
strongly. (Finnish National Board of Education 2004 and 2012.)

The platform of the current Finnish government includes an objective to im-

prove the quality of basic education. It underlines, among others, the signifi-
cance of a safe and accessible school and a reduction in class sizes as well as
an equal opportunity for developing one’s creativity, skills and various talents.
The programme’s objectives also include strengthening the position of prac-
tical and arts subjects, sports, environmental education and value education.
(Prime Minister’s Office 2011, 31–33.) We can no longer speak about a school
of the future – the future is already here. A better concept would be “modern
school”.

Finland has fared well in the international PISA comparisons of the OECD in
2000, 2003, 2006, 2009 and 2012. PISA is an evaluation of the learning results
of 15-year-olds in reading, mathematics, natural sciences, and problem solving
skills. Despite the success, the research reports of STAKES (currently National
Institute for Health and Welfare) and WHO from 2004, 2008 and 2010 show
that comfort and student motivation in Finland’s schools are surprisingly low,

78
even by international standards, although the trend is upwards (Internation-
al WHO student survey, Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children [HBSC]
[started in 1982]; Harinen & Halme 2012). This slight conflict is a good reason
to examine the contribution of school buildings to school comfort and study
motivation.

The dissertation that is summarised here approaches the subject

through the following questions:
How do the users observe and experience the facilities in their
school buildings and what kinds of spaces and things are consid-
ered positive?
What can be concluded about the usability of school buildings that
are designed according to contemporary pedagogic views, as learn-
ing environments operating according to modern objectives?

This article discusses the questions based on of school building users’ experi-
ences, gathered from the dissertation results.

School building facilities have traditionally been divided into teaching facili-
ties, sports facilities, dining facilities, library facilities, student care facilities,
administration facilities, transport facilities, and maintenance facilities. The di-
vision is appropriate, but the places of learning could be divided in other
ways, for instance based on different views on learning or ways of teaching.

Different views on learning highlight different aspects of learning

and conditions for learning. A report from Finland’s National Fore-
sight Network brings out the following views on learning in context
with learning facilities (Oppimisen muuttuva maasto 2008):
Cognitive learning theory: the mind’s ability to construct concepts
and knowledge (”I am thinking”);
Functional learning theory: learning by doing, tacit knowledge, per-
son (”I am doing”);
Social learning theory: thinking together, learning in communities,
social media (”we are thinking”, ”we are learning”).

79
The joint InnoSchool project by the Aalto University and Helsinki University
examines the connections of formal and informal ways of teaching and cor-
responding learning environments (Krokfors, Kangas, Vitikka, Mylläri, 2010).
This expands the concept of a learning environment outside of the classroom
and school building, into the surrounding society and, through virtual learning
environments, even to the whole world.

According to Barrett, Zhang, Moffatt and Kobbacy (2013), the architectural

quality of a learning environment improves learning results by as much as 25%
and similarly a lack of quality deteriorates the results by 25%. Nuikkinen (2005,
68, 69) emphasises the importance of experiencing the environment compre-
hensively, with all senses and the body. Aesthetics are more than simple visual
observation; subconscious and bodily effects have a significant role in the way
spaces are experienced. (See also Nyman 2008.)

Based on these facts, the division of learning spaces could be as follows:

Places of teaching (general teaching facility, group work space), places of do-
ing (workshops, kitchens, subject classrooms), places of information retrieval
(library, media library), places of encountering (lobbies, dining halls, traffic
junctions, library), places of retreat (libraries, peaceful corners). The division
is not fixed – one place can have several roles and contain several possibili-
ties. At best, even a teaching space that is equipped in a very subject-specific
way can be used according to various views and ways of learning. Learning
environments should also be of a high aesthetical quality. This improves the
users’ appreciation towards their school and reflects the society’s appreciation
towards the school institution and its users.

The grammar of a school building

– background information for the study
The basis of this grammar includes the “metaphors” of the Norwegian architect
Cold (2002b), the concept pair “formal – informal” (Krokfors et al. 2010) and
the criteria for a quality school by the Finnish Nuikkinen (2005, 2009).

Metaphors
The Norwegian architect Cold has sought out real spaces and rooms as models
for functional, stimulating and beautiful environments. The spaces, or meta-
phors, that she has chosen, invoke images of spaces that could be found in ev-
ery school (Cold 2002a). Her metaphors with their examples are a greenhouse

80
(Kew Gardens, London), a street (Ålborg, Denmark), a bazaar (Ascoli Picino,
Italy) and an exhibition hall (Covent Garden, London).

The greenhouse invokes visions of retreat, peace, recharging,

nature, beauty, meditation and being alone.
The street is the greenhouse’s polar opposite: the nature of the
street involves going from one place to another, people, encoun-
ters, stimuli, bustle and social activity.
Above all, the bazaar reflects recourses, doing, action and invent-
ing. The bazaar is also connected with social activities and col-
laboration.
The exhibition hall reflects versatile activities. The nature of the
space changes according to the activities and includes the con-
cepts of modifiability, flexibility and versatility. Doing is social
co-operation.

Formal – Informal
Students are learning more and more information and skills in coincidental
everyday situations in environments outside of the school. Utilising this eve-
ryday learning in schools is described by the concept pair “formal – informal”
(Krokfors et al. 2010).

Traditional school learning, where the teacher provides the students with in-
formation in a classroom is formal learning in a formal environment. Informal
learning in an informal environment is spontaneous learning in unstructured
situations outside of the school building. Informal learning can also happen in
a formal environment, in the school building. This can be promoted through
design by planning spaces for coincidental encounters and informal activities.

Quality Criteria
The demands of a physical learning environment and the implementation of
these demands through construction are presented in the criteria for a high-
quality school, formatted by doctor and architect Nuikkinen together with the
Finnish National Board of Education (Nuikkinen 2005 and 2009, 94). The crite-
ria are based on the 2004 national core curriculum for basic education (Finn-
ish National Board of Education 2004) and thus can be regarded as normative
quality requirements. There are seven criteria, which are as follows:

81
 A high-quality school building:
1) functions flexibly and diversely, leaving room for versatile
ways of working and interaction situations
2) functions as a versatile centre of action and culture for its
environment
3) is an inspiring, concrete learning aid which induces to-
wards creativity and progressive inquiry and supports situ-
ational learning
4) is aesthetically pleasing and improves physical and social
wellbeing
5) fosters sustainable development
6) is functionally dimensioned
7) increases physical health and safety.

The criteria are meant to be used as tools in defining and examining objec-
tives in school building projects for basic education. Each criterion works on
its own but together they form an ensemble that caters to various views of
the architectural field. They also overlap so that when one criterion is fulfilled,
many other criteria may be fulfilled at the same time.

Summary of the Grammar

According to Cold, a school should include places for using one’s hands, us-
ing the brain, performing, encountering (community) and calming oneself
(solitude). The most important features of the quality criteria are openness,
flexibility, diversity and modifiability as well as interaction (see also Mäkitalo-
Siegl, Zottman, Kaplan & Fischer 2010). Flexibility and interaction are also
highlighted by Kuusikorpi (2012) and Sahlberg (2011). The main types of
school facilities can be adjusted to fit the modern requirements: places for do-
ing, places for information, places for encounters and places for retreat.
Some places can manifest the features of several space types. One of these is
the library. It is primarily a space for information, but also a space for doing,
encountering and retreat.

Research
Material Collection Method
The research material originally included 18 schools located around Finland.
The schools include basic education schools, high schools and combina-

82
tions of the two, and the numbers of students vary. The research is limited to
schools that were built between 2000 and 2005, which means that the users
have a few years’ experience of the building, and the buildings correspond to
the pedagogic requirements and architectural ideals that have prevailed since
the 1970s basic education reform until today. This article presents the results
from ten schools.

The collection method for the systematic user material was a guided tour, a
walkthrough. A walkthrough is a method of environmental psychology, which
has been used also in post-occupancy evaluation, POE (Preiser, Rabinovitz &
White 1988; Kyttä 2001). In Nordic Countries, the method has mainly been
used in residential area evaluation (deLaval 1997), but Cold has also evaluated
school buildings by using this method, e.g. Botby Högstadium in Helsinki,
Finland (Cold 2002a).

The walkthrough includes an on-site group walk and a discussion afterwards.

For this study, a group including various user types was selected from each
school, and 10 to 13 pre-selected places were walked through in each school
building. The groups were meant to represent the main users of the school
building in order to acquire as diverse an evaluation material as possible, in-
cluding various different views. The evaluated school facilities were selected
so that they included spaces for doing, information, encountering and retreat.
A test walkthrough showed that the number of places should be ten, or thir-
teen at the most, in order to maintain the participants’ alertness.

The walkthrough itself was carried out during the school day, at a suitable mo-
ment for the school. Before the walkthrough the participants were provided
with brief guidance on what was meant to be done and what kinds of things
could be noted. The aim was to observe concrete things with free and spon-
taneous notions and feelings. The walkthrough was guided, and the group
stopped in each place for five minutes at the most, when each participant
recorded their impressions on a notepad. The participants were asked not to
talk to each other during the walkthrough and to concentrate only on their
own observations.

After the walkthrough, there was a one-hour discussion, which was guided
but informal. Then purpose of the after-discussion was to receive viewpoints
which would complement the written material. The participants were able to
elaborate on the points they had made and things they had thought of after-
wards, perhaps based on the opinions of others.

83
The Method of Analysis
Here are some terms used in the analysis of the material:
Place: walkthrough observation place of which the users wrote down their
observations.
Sentence: observation written down by the user in the place.
Opinion: opinion/s present in the sentence, an elementary unit of the analysis.
Quality: a positive, negative or neutral value in the opinion.
Characteristic: subject and grading unit of the sentences (for instance light-
ning, acoustics, narrowness).
The users’ observations provided both written and recorded material. In the
material, the observers’ sentences were freely presented and not fitted into a
systematic, pre-provided structure. The method of analysis was classification
and interpretation.

The observations, or sentences, written down by the users include statements,

or opinions, about quality, which were organised in two ways: by values and
by characteristics. In value division, each opinion was interpreted as having ei-
ther a positive, negative or neutral value. The latter was only given if it was im-
possible to conclude a positive or negative value or if the sentence was clearly
declaratory. The opinions were also graded according to which subject, or
characteristic, they touched upon. The characteristics were defined according
to the criteria for a theoretically good basic education school, presented earlier
(Nuikkinen 2009). From the criterion, 19 more specific, relevant characteristics
were formed. The characteristics include factors related to the functionality,
comfort and durability of the facilities.

Characteristics related to functionality are: 1) versatility, modifiability and flex-

ibility; 2) spaciousness or tightness; 3) functionality, use, usability; 4) transpar-
ency, views; 5) healthiness, safety; 6) furniture, fittings, equipment.
Characteristics related to comfort are: 1) light and lighting; 2) sound and
acoustics; 3) scents, temperature and room air; 4) space and space volume; 5)
colours, textures and surfaces; 6) aesthetics and art; 7) atmosphere and moods;
8) tidiness.
Characteristics related to durability are: 1) building techniques; 2) teaching tech-
nology; 3) building; 4) building elements; 5) upkeep, maintenance, cleaning.

The analysis phase included 20 different place types from all observation plac-
es, representing the places for doing, information, encountering, and retreat.
The users’ opinions were approached from the viewpoints of both the char-
acteristics and places in two ways: 1) the order of characteristics and places
according to the total number of opinions (rate of interest), 2) the order of

84
Table 1. The classification principle of the users’ opinions
the number of all opinions the number of positive opinions
characteristics the rates of interest of figure 1 the rates of positivity of figure 2
characteristics characteristics
places the rates of interest of figure 3 the rates of positivity of figure 4
places places

characteristics and places according to the positivity of the opinions (rate of

positivity). The rate of interest shows which characteristics and places the
users quantitatively focused on, i.e. which characteristics and places aroused
feelings and which did not. The rate of positivity shows the characteristics and
places towards which the users felt positive or less positive. The classification
of the opinions is demonstrated in Table 1.

Results
The sample originally included 5,176 opinions. The characteristics which re-
ceived the least attention and special, school-specific spaces were left out of
the examination in order to get a more reliable picture. After the elimination,
there were 4,815 opinions.

Most of the characteristic-related opinions have to do with comfort (46%)

and functionality (51%). The portion of durability-related opinions is marginal,
only 3%. Of the comfort-related opinions 64% were positive, 33% were nega-
tive and 3% were neutral. In the functionality category, 58% of opinions were
positive, 39% were negative and 3% were neutral. Of the durability-related
opinions 80% were negative, 16% were positive and the remaining 4% were
neutral. This seems to reflect the principle according to which when things are
going well, they do not receive a lot of attention.

The examination only takes into account the characteristics which received at
least 50 opinions. Those under the limit were all related to durability.

Characteristics
Numerically, most opinions (the rate of interest of characteristics, Figure 1)
were given about the characteristics “functionality, use, usability”, the second
most about “dimensioning, spaciousness, narrowness” and the third most about

85
“furniture, fittings, equipment”. The least interesting characteristics were: “the
quality and condition of the building elements” (the least amount of opinions),
“healthiness and safety” and “general aesthetics and art”. The most positive
opinions (the rate of positivity of characteristics, Figure 2) were in the cate-

Functionality, usability: 14,9

Dimensioning: 12,84
Furniture, equipments: 12,78
Atmosphere: 10,62
Light, lighting: 9,06
Col, texture, surfaces: 7,08
Spaces, volumes, forms: 5,06
Acoustics, noise: 4,84
Flexibility, multi funct : 4,32
Transparency: 4,3
Inside climate: 4,2
Cleanliness: 3,68
Esthetics, art: 3,1
Healthiness, safety: 2,08
Building components: 1,12
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16

Figure
FIGURE 1. The ratesrates
1. The of interest of characteristics,
of interest % of all%given
of characteristics, opinions
of all given opinions

Spaces, volumes, forms: 86,56

Flexibility, multi funct : 81,82
Light, lighting: 78,59
Transparency: 76,82
Atmosphere: 73,26
Esthetics, art: 65,81
Col, texture, surfaces: 62,25
Furniture, equipments: 61,35
Functionality, usability: 58,39
Healthiness, safety: 49,04
Dimensioning: 42,21
Inside climate: 41,43
Cleanliness: 41,3
Acoustics, noise: 29,34
Building components: 17,86
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Figure
FIGURE 2. The ratesrates
2. The of positivity of characteristics,
of positivity % of all %
of characteristics, opinions
of all given aboutgiven
opinions eachabout
characteristic
each characteristic

86
gories “space, volume, form”, “modifiability, flexibility, versatility” and “light,
lightning”. The least positive feelings were aroused by “the quality and condi-
tion of building elements” (the lowest amount of positive opinions), “sounds,
acoustics” and “tidiness”.

Places
The rates of interest for different places are shown in Figure 3, where the
places are organised according to the number of opinions written about them.
In Figure 4, the places are organised according to the number of positive
opinions.

Table 2 presents a summary of selected place types with their rates of inter-
est and positivity as in Figures 3 and 4. The table also shows the place type’s
position in the figure. When the rates of positivity and interest were high, the
users were interested in the place and felt positive towards it. In the same way,
interest may be high but the experiences less positive. In extreme cases, the
place excites neither interest nor positive feelings.

Sports hall: 8,93

Library: 7,93
Dining hall: 7,83
Technical crafts: 7,52
Basic classroom: 7,19
Personnel cafeteria: 7,06
Textile crafts: 6,13
Music: 5,28
Entrance hall: 5,17
Lobby hall – KIVA: 4,86
Home economics: 4,8
Student welfare: 4,53
Physics, chem, nat-sc: 4,42
Visual arts: 4,2
Auditorium: 4,2
Cluster foyer - KIVA: 3,57
Ict: 2,39
Circulation area – KIVA: 1,52
Team work room - KIVA: 1,29
Teachers workspace: 1,2
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Figure 3. The
FIGURE ratesrates
3. The of interest of places,
of interest % of all%given
of places, of allopinions
given opinions

87
The results are averages and generalisations, which is why school-specific
individual cases have also been examined in order to eliminate possible dis-
tortion caused by the generalisation.

The places which had the highest rate of interest, i.e. the places which aroused
the most feelings (Figure 3) were the gym, library and dining hall. The lowest
number of opinions was produced by the teachers’ working area, separate
group work area, and informal lounges and workspaces connected with hall-
ways.

The most positive places (Figure 4) were the teaching facilities for crafts, arts
and home economics. The least positive were the facilities for information and
communication technology, separate group work areas, and class corridors.

When examining the school-specific individual cases, the most positive place
was the crafts room (94%), the next, natural sciences (91%) and music (90%)
teaching facilities. The most negative individual cases were class corridors,
separate group work areas and general teaching facilities.

Textile crafts: 73,56

Visual arts: 70,3
Home economics: 69,26
Music: 68,5
Personnel cafeteria: 68,24
Auditorium: 66,34
Teachers workspace: 65,52
Lobby hall – KIVA: 60,68
Sports hall: 60,47
Technical crafts: 59,39
Entrance hall: 57,83
Library: 57,59
Basic classroom: 56,36
Dining hall: 56,23
Physics, chem, nat-sc: 54,46
Circulation area – KIVA: 46,58
Student welfare: 45,87
Cluster foyer - KIVA: 38,95
Team work room - KIVA: 30,65
Ict: 27,83
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

Figure 4. The
FIGURE ratesrates
4. The of positivity of places,
of positivity % of opinions
of places, given in each
% of opinions givenplace
in each place

88
The more specific examination includes examples of four place types: the
places of doing, encountering, information, and retreat. These are: 1) the crafts
teaching facility as the most positive place (a place of doing), 2) the gener-
al teaching facility as an elementary unit of the school building (a place of
studying and doing), 3) the library as an important core area which could
simultaneously be a place of information, retreat and encountering, 3) the in-
formal lounge / workspace which could be, depending on the case, a place of
encountering or retreat, and sometimes also a place of doing.

A Place of Doing / The Crafts Teaching Facility

Of all the places in the study, the crafts teaching facility was felt to be the
most positive, while its rate of interest was average (Figure 2). The most pos-
itive characteristics of the place were “atmosphere, mood”, “light, lighting”
and “modifiability, flexibility, versatility”. The least positive characteristics were
“sound, acoustics”, “room air, scents, smells, temperatures” and “colour, tex-
ture, surfaces”.

As a school-specific individual case, the greatest positivity rate of a crafts

teaching facility was 93.9% (Table 2). Every user mentioned light, and many
mentioned breadth or spaciousness as a positive characteristic. “Comfortable,
nice, functional” were frequent words, and there were no negative opinions.
The lowest positivity rate for a crafts teaching facility was 51.4% (Table 2).
Lightness as a positive characteristic was mentioned by five users, soundproof-
ing as a negative characteristic by three (the dining hall is next to the room).
One user felt that the scents coming from the dining hall were a positive factor.
The space is versatile, also used for teaching music, which was seen as a pos-
itive by one user and as a negative by one. The opinions were generally split
– one felt the colours were cheerful while another felt they were depressing.

A Place of Doing and Studying / General Teaching Facility

The general teaching facility had an average positivity rate, but by rate of in-
terest it placed fifth in the total ranking (Table 2).

For general teaching facilities, the highest school-specific positivity rate was
78.95%. Nearly all users mentioned light as a positive characteristic. Large
windows and nice views were also seen as positive. A large couch in the
classroom and student’s works on display were frequent positive opinions. A
frequent negative opinion was the lack of cabinet space.

89
The lowest school-specific positivity rate for a general teaching facility was
12.5%. Tightness of space was a negative characteristic mentioned by all users.
Some mentioned this several times. Stale air was mentioned by three users.
The only positive opinion regarded the door between the classrooms.

A Place of Information / Library

The rate of interest for libraries was high, and as a place the library was the sec-
ond most interesting. By positivity rate, the library was average (Table 2). The
most positive opinions regarded ”modifiability, flexibility, versatility”, ”trans-
parency and views”, ”light, lighting” and ”space, volume and form”. The least
positive were “sound, acoustics”, “functionality, use, usability” and “dimension-
ing, spaciousness, tightness”. The highest positivity rate for a school-specific
library was 86.2%. Internal views and transparencies were mentioned by most
users as a positive, and noise as a negative. The place was felt to be comfort-
able and the furniture was well-liked. The lowest school-specific positivity rate
for a library was 20.9%. Noise and traffic were felt to be disturbing in nearly
every user’s sentences. Student users also did not like usage restrictions during
breaks. The lightness and height of the space were considered positive.

Places of Encountering / Informal Lounges or Workspaces

Places of encountering were divided into four types: the informal places –
formed intentionally or unintentionally – in context with general lounges, class
corridors and hallways. They also included group work areas in hallway ex-
tensions, which could be used freely. These places did not really interest the
users, and they were not felt to be very positive, with some school-specific
exceptions. (Table 2.)

In the examination of school-specific individual cases, the greatest positivity

rate was 88.89%. The place was a lounge area within a lobby. Positive char-
acteristics were lightness, colours, spaciousness, views and furniture, among
others. The sound environment was not felt to be negative despite the location
in a traffic junction.

The lowest school-specific positivity rate was 9.89%. The place was a group
work area in a hallway extension. The low positivity rate is partly explained
by the fact that public computers were temporarily removed from the place
due to vandalism. The place was considered untidy, narrow, restless, drab and
dull-coloured.

90
Table 2. The rates of interest and positivity of selected spaces

the rates of positivity

% of opinions given in each
the ranking in the figure 3

the ranking in the figure 4

% of opinions given in the

% of opinions given in the

the rates of interest
% of all given opinions

the most positive

the least positive

(from figure 3)

(from figure 4)

single case

single case
place

place

place
Places for doing
Textile crafts 6,13 % 7/20 73,56 % 1/20 93,94 % 51,43 %
Visual arts 4,20 % 14/20 70,30 % 2/20 80,00 % 52,38 %
Home economics 4,8 % 11/20 69,26 % 3/20 88,89 % 48,39 %
Basic classroom 7,19 % 5/20 56,36 % 13/20 78,95 % 14,29 %
Places for knowledge
Library 7,93 % 2/20 57,59 % 12/20 85,19 % 20,93 %
KIVA places
Circulation area – KIVA 1,52 % 18/20 46,58 % 16/20 54,84 %
Team work room - KIVA 1,29 % 19/20 30,65 % 19/20 64,00 % 9,68 %
Cluster foyer – KIVA 3,57 % 16/20 38,95 % 18/20 62,96 % 21,62 %
Lobby hall – KIVA 4,86 % 10/20 60,68 % 8/20 88,89 % 54,61 %
KIVA total 11,24 % 44,22 % b

Modern school building, discussion

General
In general examination of the sentences, two notions could be made: func-
tionality- related characteristics produced more opinions than comfort-related
characteristics, but comfort-related opinions were more positive than function-
ality-related opinions. Perhaps the more concrete functionality-related matters
are easier to notice, especially if there is something wrong. Environmental ob-
servation may also require experience. The interview material included state-
ments along these lines: ”I only now realised how fine a school we have.” Or:
“I have never noticed that skylight before.” It was also shown that the pupils’
ability to evaluate their environment should not be underestimated.

Places of Doing, Workshop

The bazaar in Cold’s metaphors is represented by a workshop. The workshop
also includes some characteristics of the exhibition hall as a versatile place.
According to user observations, the three most positive places were places of

91
doing: the teaching facilities for crafts, arts and home economics. The places
were generally felt to be spacious, roomy, well-lit and flexible. First and fore-
most the moods and atmosphere were considered a remarkably positive char-
acteristic. The general teaching facility, which is also partly a place of doing,
was not felt to be as positive, but based on the relatively high rate of interest,
it aroused feelings. In the places of doing, a clearly negative characteristic was
the sound environment, i.e. acoustics and soundproofing. However, this did
not hamper the atmosphere and mood in the most positive places of doing.

The quality of architecture does not explain all of the high positivity rates,
because the rates were high throughout, regardless of the architectural quality,
at the very least close to 50%. The nature of the subjects is “learning by doing”
and co-operation. Things are created with the appropriate tools and methods
using tangible materials. The teacher’s role in these subjects is more of a guid-
ing one, and most students receive personal attention in the form of guidance
and feedback. The work is often group work, and even individual work is
done together. The atmosphere is positive enough to overlook disturbing fac-
tors such as the sound environment.

Figure 5. The workshop requires desks and plenty of storage space

92
This observation supports the modern objectives of the integrating of subjects
and the ideal of collaboration. A new, modern teaching facility type could be a
more workshop-like space where multidisciplinary and multi-art form projects
are carried out. The workshop is also suggested as a modern space type by
Nuikkinen (2005, 89), with an aim to increase its utilisation rate. In this model,
the spaces of one subject classroom and one general teaching facility would

Figure 6. Textile classroom, a place of doing, which can be a versatile workshop

Figure 7. The project space is a large desk where the model developing as a result of the project is kept

93
be combined so that instead there would be two workshops. This would be
implemented by equipping the spaces not only with the subject classroom’s
special equipment but also the equipment of a versatile workshop. Multi-sub-
ject projects also require a space where the joint project at hand can be carried
out and stored while incomplete. The minimum requirements are large desks
and larger-than-average storage facilities (Figure 5).

An example of a multi-subject project work (Figure 7)

Teachers have integrated the subjects of Finnish, history, arts, crafts and math-
ematics, to which this project work is connected. The project work includes a
collaborative miniature model of a building where each student has a room of
their own. The students present the class with a personal plan drafted accord-
ing to a certain style epoch, after which they design and make the furniture
and textiles for their rooms. Plans with perspective sketches are drawn about
the rooms. The rooms include self-made light fittings and electricity. In the
Christmas celebration, the lights are turned on and the guests can admire the
students’ work.

The skeleton of the building is on a large desk at the back of the classroom.
During their spare time, the students can make small additions to the model.
It has been agreed with the cleaning staff that the “construction site” will not
be touched. The example is from the Pispa School in Tampere, Finland. The
students are 11-year-olds, in the fifth grade.

A Place of Information, the Library

The library is a place for storing, sharing and retrieving information. It is also a
place of retreat and encountering; as a metaphor, a combination of the green-
house and the bazaar. The concept of a library is misleading and originated
in a time when information was contained in books. The library of a modern
school includes, in addition to books, all the resources related to knowledge.
At best, the library is located in the school’s core area and open at all times
when there is activity at the school. This makes it easily accessible, and the
threshold of using the library is low. The aim is also to have an aesthetically
pleasing, inspiring and functional learning environment which enables infor-
mation management and learning. The library’s role as a place of information,
encountering and retreat sets requirements regarding flexibility and versatility.

In research results, the library’s rate of interest is high and its positivity rate
average, but in school-specific individual cases the extremes are far apart.
The opinions are either very positive or not positive at all. The library is

94
Figure 8. The library is a place of knowledge, encountering and doing

Figure 9. The library is in the school´s core area

95
considered an important and interesting place, and people want to use it if
possible. Qualitative weaknesses or restricted usage possibilities produce a lot
of negative feedback. In contemporary schools, many libraries do not fulfil
the modern school’s objectives because of space restrictions or an operational
culture which does not utilise the possibilities provided by the physical
environment. The operational culture is relatively easy to change, but space
restrictions are difficult to correct, as they demand larger resources.

KIVA as a Place of Encountering

Places of encountering, represented by the street in Cold’s metaphors, are lo-
cated in public areas, traffic junctions, stairways, lobbies and hallways (Figure
10). This article uses the concept of a KIVA place to describe a place of en-
countering in a public area, which is clearly visible either because of its space
or its fittings.

The word “KIVA” originally means the round, partly underground ceremonial
rooms built by the Pueblo people. The word is supposedly also present in the
Inuit language, and there is no exact translation for it. The term has been used
by the Canadian architect Greg Hasiuk in the schools he has designed in the
arctic Nunavut, in the northernmost territory of Canada (ZoomInfo 2007). The
school buildings designed by him include a central, circular, amphitheatre-like
gathering place connected to the traffic areas. Here as well, the KIVA is a place
for encountering. The functional content, however, is broader than in the Inuit
schools. The KIVA place caters for all forms of communication from loung-
ing to studying. KIVA is not very large, but it does not need to be very small,
either. It is a meeting place, but not necessarily a very central one. The most
important aspect is that the place is semi-public, easily accessible and comfort-
able. It provides an opportunity for social interaction and studying. It can also
be a place of retreat, either in connection with other activities or separately.

The research included four different types of KIVA places depending on the
location: bounded areas for other use either in the general lobby, in the class
corridor, in the hallway, or linked to these. The fourth type is a special group
work area linked to the above-mentioned areas. Generally, the rates of pos-
itivity and interest for these places were not particularly high, but the best
individual cases received a lot of interest and positivity. This implies that the
areas do not receive enough focus, that or there are no KIVA places in the
school building at all. At worst, provided opportunities have not been utilised.
On the other hand, in the individual cases which were felt to be positive, the
places were furnished comfortably and used for retreat, encountering and
studying. The users can regard even modest places as positive, as long as the

96
basic requirements for comfort are met. A KIVA place can be created without
significant financial efforts but it requires a desire in the operational culture
(Figures 11, 12).

Figure 10. KIVA place, a comfortable place of encountering in a central area of the school

Figure 11. KIVA place can also be in the dining area

97
Figure 12. KIVA place can simply be located at the end of a hallway

Summary
The most disturbing characteristics for the users of school buildings are tight-
ness of space and problematic sound environments. Tightness of space is a
special problem for general teaching facilities. Places that are uncomfortable
because of tightness of space have either been designed to be too small, or
there is a greater number of people using them than planned. Tightness of
space also affects versatility; many ways of teaching are impossible with too
large a student group. Bad room acoustics and soundproofing impairs the per-
formance of all users. The ability to concentrate is lowered, and teachers are
shown to experience voice problems (Sala 2012). More positive characteristics
include lightness, functionality, scents, comfort and cosiness. This speaks of a
longing for homeliness (cf. Piispanen 2008).

98
The basics of space planning in a modern school building are shaped by
changing pedagogic foundations. Based on the “way and place of teaching”
thinking highlighted by the InnoSchool project (Krokfors et al. 2010) and the
previously discussed pedagogic views, places that support versatile and social
activities and places outside of traditional classrooms will become more sig-
nificant. These places include workshops, versatile subject classrooms, librar-
ies, dining halls and the KIVA spaces. Based on these results, places where
learning equals doing - both together and alone - motivate users and are felt
to be comfortable even in the current situation. This is a good foundation for
developing spaces according to the modern school’s workshop-based think-
ing. School libraries and KIVA places do not generally meet the aims of the
contemporary school. Based on the findings, these are interesting places, and
the users would like to utilise them more than the current situation allows.

The results show that physical environment affects our learning, wellbeing and
comfort, but in the end it is the operational culture which creates the school’s
atmosphere. The intentional and unintentional effects of architecture, as well
as the building’s “soul”, are refined and shaped through the building’s use. A
good building promotes the development of that soul. A good building can be
produced, if the aims of the various parties involved in the project are parallel
and the different views are able to feed each other. This allows the parties to
speak the same language, and their grammar is also the same.

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tata-on-tutkittu/hanke/?h=109292&n=aineisto).

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pedagogiikkaan [Perspectives on the future of school pedagogy]. In Smeds R, Krokfors
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ympäristöt ja pedagogiikka. [InnoSchool – the caring school – learnig networks, environ-
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All photos © Krisse Sulonen

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Anne Malin & Päivi Palojoki

Multi-voiced planning for redesigning home

economics classrooms

Introduction
This article is a part of a research project which aims to develop home eco-
nomics classrooms so as to make them flexible and versatile learning en-
vironments where household activities might be practiced according to the
curriculum in different social networking situations. The results of this project
are published in Malin´s (2011) doctoral dissertation. The research used a so-
cio-cultural approach where the functionality of the learning environment was
studied specifically from an interactive learning perspective. The social frame-
work is a natural starting point in home economics teaching because it partic-
ularly lends itself to group work in classrooms. The social nature of learning
thus becomes a significant part of the learning process. We see learning in
home economics classrooms as experience-based, holistic and context-bound.
The learning environment, i.e., home economics classrooms and the material
tools to be found there, play a significant role in developing students’ skills for
managing their everyday life.

The criteria developed and tested here originated from two separate schools
where activities during lessons were video-recorded both before and after the
classrooms were renovated (Malin 2011). An analysis of both environments
based on the video recordings was conducted. In the study (Malin 2011) the
criteria for functional home economics classrooms were formulated. They in-
clude technical (health, safety and technical factors), functional (ergonomic,
ecological, aesthetic and economic factors) and behavioral (cooperation and
interaction skills and communication technologies) criteria. While designing
these criteria, the focus was on both the learning environment and the stu-
dents’ activities during lessons.

In this article, we give examples how different professionals (commissioners,

planners and teachers) use these criteria and pictures and lay-outs from the
two schools as a tool for planning new home economics classrooms. The aim
of this paper is to discuss the following questions:

102
 a) What kind of new demands pose a challenge for the planning of
home economics learning environments?
b) What kind of multi-voiced planning occurs in the home economics
classroom planning process?

Demands for a novel learning environment in schools

Functional and productive skills change as society and the context of everyday
activities change. Skills are more and more seen as context-dependent. This
challenges the conception of learning environments. As Rauste–von Wright
and von Wright (1994, 127) note, learning and the ability to learn should be
seen more as part of society. The Finnish Board of Education (Finnish National
Curriculum 2004, 16) has also emphasized learning as a tool for understand-
ing the contemporary culture and culture-bound meanings. The better schools
follow the demands of our changing society, the better tools the students are
able to participate in societal activities (see also Kuusikorpi 2012). Regarding
home economics education, Kivilehto (2011) has demonstrated the value of
applying science teaching methods aimed at deep-level learning and cogni-
tive enhancement. These kinds of new methods are highly dependent on the
flexibility of the physical learning environment.

The curriculum of Finnish comprehensive schools (Finnish National Curricu-

lum 2004) aims to develop students´ personalities in their entirety, rather than
simply increase their cognitive abilities. This holistic view is also important
regarding learning activities in home economics classrooms. The student is
comprehended as an active and responsible participant who interprets new
knowledge on the basis of the previous knowledge and experience. This
constructivistic process is based on cooperation with the teacher and other
students.

Another requirement of National Curriculum is interdisciplinary cooperation

between school subjects (Finnish National Curriculum 2004). Modern ICT
technology should also utilize (see also Kuusikorpi 2012). These novel tools
open up new possibilities for experimentation, research and experience. This
demand also relates the notion of the learning environment. A good learning
environment needs up-to-date learning materials and tools for accessing infor-
mation outside the classroom (The Finnish Comprehensive School Act 1998,
29 §; Finnish National Curriculum 2004, 8–10).

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The school building itself is an essential constituent of the learning environ-
ment. In Finland the functionality of school buildings emerged as an area of
pedagogical research as early as the 1970’s. The process of learning was seen
as being dependent on classrooms and their facilities (Mikkola 1974). How-
ever, the simultaneous development of classrooms and learning activities was
viewed as problematic because, even then, cooperation between the builders
of the school buildings and their users was poor. Due to the lack of this kind
of cooperation, innovative solutions in school buildings were extremely rare.
However, new ideologies emerged, at the turn of the new millennium. In Ta-
ble 1 we summarize how the different conceptions of learning as well as new
pedagogical ideologies have affected the design and architecture of school
buildings (see also: Nuikkinen 2005, 61–66; Piispanen 2008, 119.)

In 2001 OECD-countries jointly established a program for developing school

buildings (2001): the Programme on Educational Building (PED). In this pro-
gram the building of schools and the development of the physical school en-
vironment was seen as one of the corner stones for high-quality teaching and
learning in schools. The program studied how investments in the building of
schools could be best used to support the pedagogical and societal changes
in the local environment. Based on this work the OECD developed a set of
recommendations (2001) which proposed school buildings should be able
to adapt to the needs of the future and not only react to contemporary chal-
lenges, the school buildings itself should also support the learning process and
encourage innovations from students and teachers and, to conclude, a well
planned school should encourage the students´ involvement in participatory
learning. (OECD 2001, xii.) The challenges set by the local environment are
important. The schools of today operate in close cooperation with the local
environment, and this will continue to be the care for the schools of the future.
This encourages the participation of other members of society and decreases
the separation of schoolwork from the rest of the society. It follows that the
voice of the users of school buildings, teachers, students and other members
of the school community, should be better heard in the planning processes
(The Finnish Board of Education 2002, 48–49.)

When outlining the key elements of the socio-cultural conception of learning,

Rogoff (1990, 40) notes that the physical learning environment and the pro-
cess of learning itself can never be separated. They are inseparable and sup-
port each other. Learning is always dependent on the context of the learning
process. Consequently, a well-planned and well-functioning physical learning
environment in home economics classrooms can activate, motivate and in-
crease the quality of the learning of home economics. A well-planned learning
environment increases social interaction between students and between

104
Table 1. Comparison of Finnish comprehensive school curriculums and the characteristics of school buildings
(Malin 2011)

Changes in the 1976 1995 2004

Finnish compre- (Kouluhallitus1976) (Finnish Board of (Finnish Board of Education
hensive school Education 1994) 2004)
curriculum
The conception of Behavioristic Constructivistic Socio-constructivistic
learning
Perspective Emphasized students’ Students’ own learning The school context outside the
change from ability to remember activities emphasized. school emphasized
teaching to and repeat the lessons Contents of learning
learning learned as should be relevant
“the right thing” to students’ life and
environment
Educational Teacher-led teaching Teaching emphasizes Teaching emphasizes inter-
method methods social interaction within action between school and
the school community
Processing Individual learning and Cooperative learning and Collaborative learning and
knowledge and practicing emphasized practicing cooperative interaction emphasized
information skills emphasized
Space solutions Spaces guide teacher- Group work facilitated by School becomes more easily
in the school led teaching space solutions accessible to surrounding
buildings community
Demands of Closed learning From a closed learning Open learning environment
physical learning environment environment to an open established
environment learning environment

students and the teacher. Learning experiences can be better shared. Patrika-
inen (1999, 40) notes that the school architecture and the physical planning
of classrooms also affect teachers’ thinking and their pedagogical decisions.
Kantola (1989, 111) adds the important notion of the homeliness of the school
environment.

This rather mundane aspect, is however, important: because a well-planned

environment increases the wellbeing of the people working in the school,
they also take more responsibility for taking care of their cozy classroom. With
good solutions you increase wellbeing, and with bad solutions you decrease it.

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Learning in home economics classrooms is based on the National Curriculum
(2004), which emphasizes flexible and versatile pedagogical solutions. The
ultimate aim of home economics education is to learn essential skills and
knowledge to support the choices of everyday life at home. It follows that the
physical environment of classrooms should reflect changes in modern home
and acknowledges the variety of learners (Kivilehto & Malin 2001). Piispanen
(2007, 115) draws attention to different learning styles and the needs of these
different learners. They all need versatile support, as their prior understanding
and skills related to household activities vary a great deal.

The planning guidelines published by the National Board of Education (Aho

& Manninen, 2005) emphasize the development of students’ abilities to work
together and cooperate. A well-planned physical learning environment en-
courages this for, it also inspires teachers to plan various cooperative learning
activities for the students instead of individual activities (Hannula 1995, 36;
Pantzar 1998, 64). In addition, a good learning environment both facilitates
and invites students to work together cooperatively (Pantzar 1998, 64).

Since a well-designed physical learning environment gives crucial support to

high-quality learning within home economics, this article explores in more
detail how this two-way relationship develops. This article is based on a study
(Malin 2011) focusing on the planning of home economics classrooms. One
important part of Malin’s study was its focus on the interrelationship of socie-
tal changes, changes in housing, and changes in the curriculum and planning
guidelines.

The theoretical concept developed to study this was the tension arch (see:
Engeström 1995; Engeström & Virkkunen, 2007). This concept was useful for
revealing the interdependency of these different changes. Following the rea-
soning of Engeström (1995), all changes are precipitated by tensions between
old and new demands. This notion also applies well to be interests discussed
in this study.

Tensions observed during learning activities

According to the socio-cultural conception of learning, knowledge cannot be
transferred from one learning situation to another as an unchanged, static
entity. Knowledge and experience move and change, as the context changes.
It follows that new knowledge is built and produced as cooperation between
different activity systems and actors (Engeström 1995.)

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In this study, the two most important activity systems are home and school.
Students apply the knowledge, skills and experiences acquired at home while
they participate in home economics lessons. Of course, the quality of their
skills varies because modern homes are varied and extremely heterogeneous.
For example, prior experience of boiling water can be used because most
students share this experience from their homes. Teachers can use this fact
for deepening lessons on energy consumption, and they can compare, for ex-
ample, the energy expenditure of different household appliances (e.g. electric
kettle, microwave oven and ordinary oven). Experimenting with energy con-
sumption meters deepens students’ understanding of how different practices
affect energy consumption. But what kind of household appliances do mod-
ern students have in their homes?

Learning activities during home economics classrooms might reflect the tools
used and needed in the past, and therefore they may be unable to provide
the skills needed for solving the everyday problems. Of today constantly the
qualities of the physical learning environments of home economics classroom,
should be assessed in relation to the time and context for which they were
intended. This kind of historical assessment helps contemporary researchers to
understand in more detail how the needs of society have varied and the way
the contemporary solutions and tools have developed (see, e.g. Engeström
2009).

For analyzing these relationships more deeply, the novel concept of the ten-
sion arch was developed (Figure 1). This concept was adapted from the re-
search tradition of developmental work research (see, e.g., Engeström 1995;
Engeström & Virkkunen, 2007), where it has been used for analyzing changes
during the history of work activities. Some of these changes may induce prob-
lems in contemporary activities understandable only by following the path of
development from the past. In Malin’s (2011) study the concept proved to be a
flexible frame of analysis for understanding changes in housing and the used
of household appliances. The tension arch also makes is possible to see how

Tension arch

CHANGE PROBLEM/TENSION SOLUTION

Figure 1. Tension arch as a analytic tool for understanding the development of activities in housing

107
novel solutions and innovations have developed within or between different
activity systems (Engeström 1995, 64, 66).

There was for example tension between the activity system of school and the
activity system of home because their tools and the physical environment did
not match (Tuomi-Gröhn 2009, 151). A part of the home activity system (e.g.
food prepared at home) had changed over time becoming more modern than
the activity system and tools used at school. This led to other disturbances in
the activity system: the tools (e.g. an old-fashioned oven or a modern micro-
wave oven) and rules (e.g. saving maximum energy) were in conflict. How-
ever, at the same time, these disturbances and tensions revealed the seeds of
development and ideas for solving these problems (see e.g. Engeström 1995,
139.)

The tension arch was also used to analyze changes in curriculums and planning
guides for classrooms in schools (Malin 2011, 24–25). Several problems were
identified, and the seeds of development were revealed. The analysis showed
that the same factors influence housing and the planning of home economics
classrooms. The environment should fulfill the criteria of healthiness, safety
and functionality. New factors revealed were social cooperation (especially
important at schools) and ICT technology (both at home and school).

Demands of home economics classrooms

The results from the analysis of tension arches were merged with the evalua-
tion method (POE/Post-Occupancy Evaluation) used in planning science (Ma-
lin 2011, 55–56). This method has been used, for example, in the evaluation
of the functionality of newly built school buildings (Preiser et al. 1988, 3). The
POE-method added a valuable bridge between the planners (architects and
technicians) and the users (teachers and pedagogical experts). Kyttä (2001)
notes that since POE-methods include the charting of users, behavior, other
methods, such as interviews, should also be used to evaluate the functionality
of the new facilities from the perspective of the users.

While further analyzing the functionality of the learning environment in home

economics classrooms, physical, pedagogical, social and psychological per-
spectives were found to be tightly intertwined (see also: Brotherus et al. 1999,
77; Nuikkinen 2005, 14; Björklid 2005, 27–30). This analysis crystallized into
the formulation of the criteria for planning home economics classroom: tech-
nical, functional and behavioral (see details: Malin 2011, 57–60). These criteria
were also intertwined in an interesting way, and all of them affected how the

108
students developed their practical skills, cooperation skills of and skills in
using and seeking knowledge. This observation further emphasized the need
for a holistic view of learning home economics: experiences from home, the
aims of the curriculum and the learning environment of home economics
classrooms all influence each other.

Technical criteria
In this set of criteria the rapid development of modern technology was em-
phasized. For example, a safety coupling helped the teacher to control all the
electrical appliances in the classroom. Setting the switch to the off-position cut
the power from all of the sockets. Automatic switches added to dishwashing
machines cut off the water after the washing program was finished. All these
examples saved the teacher´s resources for teaching and improved the work-
ing conditions of both students and the teacher. Interestingly, the automatic
controlling of ventilation and room temperature was not possible in any of the
schools in this study. This might, however, be possible in the future, since this
kind of technology is becoming cheaper and more available.

The focus on technical criteria helped to develop the planning of furniture.

This led to great esthetic changes: previously rather labyrinth-like, closed facil-
ities became more open and spacious. They also better matched the housing
conditions of the students, as modern homes have bigger, more open-plan
kitchens than before. This correspondence in the physical environment helped
to improve transfer of learning to and from the home (Tuomi-Gröhn 2007, 42).
The new classrooms the also better fulfilled the criteria for a contextual learn-
ing environment where networking and cooperation with the world outside
the school is more natural (Manninen et al. 2007, 31–33; Piispanen 2008, 71).

Functional criteria
This set of criteria revealed several tensions between school and home, espe-
cially due to discrepancies between the tools used in these two environments.
For example, at home students used a microwave oven to melt margarine and
they prepared food on a ceramic stove. However in old school kitchens they
had to use an old-fashioned oven to melt margarine because there was only
one microwave oven available for the whole group of students. The food was
prepared on ordinary cook tops with cast-iron plates, since there were no in-
ductions or ceramic cook tops available in the classroom. This led to problems
in transferring school-learned knowledge and skills to the home, because the
use and cleaning of the appliances had totally different principles (see: Tuomi-

109
Photo 1. A flexible set of working tables enables cooperation between students

Gröhn 2007). Due to the lack of modern appliances and tools, less possibilities
for problem-based learning and ecological ways of working were available
(Nuikkinen 2005, 51; Piispanen 2008, 115–116.). Old school kitchens were also
ergonomically problematic: for example the fixed height of tables was only
optimal of some students; the shorter and taller students suffered while baking
or chopping vegetables.

In many classrooms class sizes vary from 16–20 students. Therefore, it is es-
sential that the teacher can change the arrangement of tables in a flexible way.
This also fact emphasizes of the shape of the whole classroom; a smaller class-
room is suitable, if it is furnished in a flexible and open way. One example of
the novel solutions developed for this study is a set of working tables that can
be easily moved to the place they are needed. If they are not needed they can
be moved aside, and a nest of tables is formed (Photo 1).

Behavioral criteria
This set of criteria revealed tensions between the curriculum and the school
kitchen. The curriculum stipulates that students should be able to practice their

Photo 2a and 2b. Fixed cupboards were a physical hindrance to cooperation between students

110
 cooperation and communication skills and skills for seeking knowledge. Before
they were renovated, many school kitchens had fixed cupboards and hoods,
which were physical obstacle to seeing each other and talking (Photo 2a). The
way the kitchen unit was planned also affected the possibility of cooperation.
Students could work independently, but cooperation with others was not pos-
sible because they worked with their backs to each other (Photo 2b).

All three sets of criteria discussed above were applied while planning the new
classrooms for home economics. While these criteria guided the planning pro-
cess, new innovations and solutions were developed which also supported the
learning and curriculum demands. The typical changes needed in renovation
processes are:

the replacement of labyrinth-like furnishing with more open

and clear furnishing and fixed tables, cupboards and working
tables with flexible and movable furniture
adaption to the needs of modern ICT technology (e.g., smart-
boards, computers, tablets and internet-connections available)

Open solution

Teacher as counselor

– open space – open space

– no cooperation – real cooperation
between between learners
learners

Individual learning Cooperative learning
– closed space – closed space
– no cooperation – learners try to
cooperate

Teacher as controller Closed and fixed solution
Figure 2. Learning and cooperating in both open and closed facilities

111
All these changes support and facilitate inter-student cooperation between
students and the teacher. This central finding of the classroom research is sum-
marized in cooperation Figure 2.

Interestingly, the physical solutions applied to the learning environment af-

fect the role of the teacher. If it is a closed environment, then students move
around a lot, they call for the teacher and there is more noise and movement
in the classroom. The teacher has to control the students instead of facilitating
their learning. In an open solution, the teacher sees the activities of the 16 or
so students, and she can see before they ask when they need help. This led
to calmer atmosphere in the classroom, and the teacher could better focus on
counselling and supporting the learning processes of the students (Figure 2).

Multi-voiced planning process

How can this kind of novel learning environment be planned? The other aim
of this paper is to focus on the planning meetings of the various experts and
understand how well the criteria developed in this study helped to modernize
the planning of home economics classrooms. The concept of multi-voicedness
was used to analyze how well the different voices of the planners were inte-
grated into the planning process and which criteria were more difficult to put
into practice, thus inducing tensions (see Tuomi-Gröhn 2001, 30).

Paldanius (1997) claims that the traditional way of planning needs to be com-
plemented with various interactive and cooperative arenas of discussion.
These arenas help the voices of the users, planners and experts to be heard.
In this study these kinds of arenas of discussion are:

Collaborative planning, in which the pool of experts was expand-

ed. The researcher and the home economics teachers participat-
ed more in the planning process. Here the emphasis was jointly-
planned on a cooperative, dynamic, discursive way of working
together. As a result the environment better corresponded to the
values of the users, and at the same time it fulfilled the demands
of being an ecological, economical and well-functioning environ-
ment. (Horelli et al., 1998, 8; Healy 1997, 133.)

Communicative planning, which meant here the equal participa-

tion of all members of the expanded planning team. The techni-
cal experts planned, evaluated and researched various solutions
and innovations, such as the development of open spaces (e.g.

112
 no visual obstacles) and the development of flexible solutions
(e.g. movable working tables). The planning process proceeded
in slow steps, involving careful discussion of the problems faced
and solutions found (see: Aura et al. 1997, Engeström 1995.) The
participants were not simply trying to sell their own ideas; rather,
they were participating in a joint learning process were different
views and ideas were freely exchange (Kaaja 2001, 32). Here the
architect was a key person, as s/he had to glue the different ideas
together and reform them if needed (Aura et al. 1997, Healey 1997,
158–163).

The features of collaboratively shared expertise were evident in

some planning meetings, as the expertise of the planners and the
researcher was combined. The participants could see beyond their
own area of expertise and share the visions of the others. (Seit-
amaa-Hakkarainen & Lahti 2008, 197–199.) A shared tool proved
to be essential for this kind of planning. The researcher had made
sketch of the new classroom-plan, and this helped to focus the
discussion amongst the different experts. What was emerging was
a common language, rules and social cooperation between the
participants (Engeström, Engeström & Kärkkäinen 1995, 322).

The researcher could contribute to the planning meetings with use-

ful information (e.g. use of household appliances) which crossed
the borders of different areas of expertise (Engeström 2001, 23).
Tuomi-Gröhn (2001, 14) notes that this kind of dialogue forms a
learning community in which all the partners actively produce
new knowledge about the task at hand.

For example, in the following quotation the researcher is leading the discus-
sion towards the behavioral criteria and the needs of students practicing their
skills of cooperation and communication. In this situation the photographs
and sketch of the kitchen were artifacts of cooperation between the teacher
and the planners (Photo 3). (see Horelli 2002.)

113
Photo 3. Movable working tables where the students can practice their cooperation and communication
skills

Researcher:.. These (photos) are now taken from the schools I have
participated in planning. Here you see case 1, where we used this kind
of movable working table, you see the students can approach the table
quite well …
Teacher 4: … there you can see a solution where there are no cupboards
above the table, there seems to be the maximum amount of open space,
a cupboard is bad, you cannot see…

The concept of multi-voicedness has also been used in environmental plan-

ning. According to Horelli and Vepsä (1995, 98) it facilitates dialogue between
two different lines of planning: “the hard’ systems-approach and a “soft” ev-
eryday-approach. They emphasize the need for both approaches at the same
time, because the “soft”-approach may not be versatile enough to acknowl-
edge the complexities of planning and because the “hard” approach may lead
to solutions which fall to take the users´ perspectives into consideration. In a
study by Vepsä (1993) study similar voices were found as in this study. Those
representing the commissioner often used a techno-mechanistic way of speak-
ing, the architects focused the esthetic or usual aspects of the project, which
was reflected in their speech patterns, and the teachers and researcher raised
more functional voices. Social-functional voices were raised in the communi-
cative planning processes.

In this study, techno-mechanistic voices were common in planning studio A,

where the meetings proceeded according to a traditional protocol-based meet-
ing formula. The chair of the meeting opened the discussion, went through the
minutes of previous meeting with the voice of meetings technique. This voice
emphasized structural forms of planning and economy, and in the discussions
technical criteria and the laws relating to the building of schools were carefully
followed (see also Vepsä 1993, 6).

114
 Chair: This was related to commissioner´s wishes. Let´s proceed to
point 4 and discuss, as we have used to do before, issues raising
from architect, structural planners and users. Let us begin from
architect´s viewpoints…

The esthetic-visual voice was present in the planning meetings when the ar-
chitects spoke with the voice of planning. In this voice planning guidelines
and experiences from previous projects are emphasized. This also leads to a
certain formality of planning. “Getting things into order” was important, as the
home economics classroom was also viewed as a part of the whole school
system. Compared to Vepsä’s (1993, 6) results, the planners in this study were
more flexible in regard to making exceptions and experimenting with new
methods.

The functional voice was raised when the researcher used experiences from
her previous cases in other schools. The researcher challenged the planners
and representatives of the city to consider the possibilities of modern technol-
ogy. Her voice was also the “researcher’s voice”.

The social-functional voice emerged when the architect, the chair of the meet-
ing and the researcher together created an atmosphere where all participants
could freely express their opinions, which varied according to their educa-
tional and experimental background. Joint understanding was actively sought
by talking, listening and challenging the other participants. This voice also
raised the behavioral criteria under joint discussion. The chair of the meeting
encouraged the researcher to make her own sketch about home economics
classroom planning, while doing this she was using the voice of cooperation.

Crossing over the borders

The researcher crossed borders while facilitating the planning meetings with
her expertise and combined the different views of the other experts (Tuomi-
Gröhn 2001, 30–33). An important tool for this as a shared artifact was the
sketch of the classroom (Drawing 1). This artifact helped to form a common
language amongst the group of planners (Seitamaa-Hakkarainen & Lahti 2008,
197–199; Engeström, Engeström & Kärkkäinen 1995, 322).

According to Engeström (1993b) the driving force of innovative learning is

argumentation, where different practices and explanations meet. In this
study this kind of argumentation emerged while discussing the sketch, which

115
received support from the architect but opposition from the principal and the
chief education officer. In the following quotation the architect is arguing for
the plan.

Chief education officer: … I do not know, what that is? But I think
that these plans (the previous lay-out drawn by the architect) are
awfully clear, even though the shape is a bit tube-like.

Researcher: ...this may lead to the teacher always standing behind

some students, if we organize the classroom in that way

Chair: …you should think of the flexibility of use of classroom,

you should have a place for every student. In this other plan you
do not have that flexibility

Architect: I agree – in my view that one is more supportive of

teaching. Think of the environment; I would argue that is it easier
to plan it cozy because you will get the feeling of space in the
middle of the classroom

Chair: well, when I think myself, I have only heard these explana-
tions; I would take this option (planned by the researcher)

Chief education officer: at the very beginning I said this that this
was ok; we need to have flexibility; there might be bigger or small-
er groups of students

At its best all the partners in the planning meeting learned from the opinions
and visions of the others. It was also important that the architect was able
negotiate over and combine these various views (see also Aura et al. 1997,
Healey 1997, 158–163).

Architect: …it would be very good if you (researcher) would talk

because you now have information that nobody else in this group
has…

116
Drawing 1. Sketch of the classroom drawn by architects and proposed by the researcher

According to Engeström et al. (1995, 321–322) boundary crossing is demand-

ing, as there are different obstacles that the researcher should acknowledge.
For example, “group thinking” can be problematic. Members of a certain group
strive for unanimity, and by doing so they may override the ideas of the others,
and also decrease the motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of
action. Alternative solutions may remain undiscussed because free discussion
and innovation are blocked.

This kind of thinking may also lead to an overestimation of the value of

one´s own ideas and the suppression of those of others. “Groupthink” typi-
cally leads to an overestimation of the in-group, closed-mindedness and ste-
reotypes of out-groups, which all build boundaries instead of removing them.
Another possible mechanism preventing boundary crossing is fragmentation
of viewpoints and a lack of “shared mental models” among a community of
practitioners. (see: Engeström et al.1995, 321–322). Fragmentation may make
it impossible for experts from different contexts to understand each other and
exchange ideas about a problem because they are not speaking the same
language.

117
Conclusions
With the help of the criteria for the functionality of home economics class-
rooms developed here and the multi-voiced planning process, the home eco-
nomics classrooms in our study changed from being pedagogically closed and
complicated spaces to being integrated and open spaces where the flexibility
and versatility of the learning environment was emphasized. The teacher be-
came a facilitator and counselor instead of a classroom controller. This is also a
finding applicable other school subjects. Too often, old-fashioned classrooms
lead to individual learning-activities. In the schools of the future all means of
activating cooperative learning should be carefully examined.

The criteria for the functionality of home economics classrooms developed in

this study also prompted the discussions in the planning groups, and formed
the tools for boundary crossing. The researcher visualized the tensions iden-
tified in the past activities, and this sharing of pictures and sketches made it
possible to create novel solutions for these problems. The researcher’s actions
also opened cooperative and multi-voiced discussion between the participants
in the planning process. In our view, these kinds of shared objects should be
greater utilized in the planning of classrooms, in order to bring the pedagogi-
cal expertise of the teachers into the planning process. For example, teachers
could video record functionally problematic situations and objects, and then
these video-clips could be used for understanding the problem and seeking
various solutions. The actors (e.g. the teachers and students) could also com-
ment on their own activities seen in the video-clips, and this reflection could
also be brought to the planning meetings. This method of stimulated recall-re-
flection is useful because it jointly broadens the expertise of the users, i.e., the
students and the teachers. We propose that this kind of shared planning, with
students included as an equal partner in the planning meetings, is studied in
more detail in the future.

In conclusion, we have shown here the value of creating multi-voiced planning

activities that aim to cross the traditional boundaries of expertise. As a result of
these kinds of activities, problems were solved creatively and novel solutions
were developed, such as movable working tables. Some problems were solved
in a traditional way, such as the placing of the students’ tables for group work
and dining. There were also unsolved problems, such the teachers’ wish to
control ventilation and heating. During the planning meetings, some of the
participants (e.g. the teachers) became active discussants and commentators,
adding new ideas to the shared pool of knowledge on the possibilities of
the planning process. Some participants actively sought new information and
offered it for the use of the whole planning group (e.g. the architect and the

118
researcher). All this created shared expertise, as the participants were ’forced’
to explore the unknown solutions and learn from each other. (Tuomi-Gröhn
2001, 14–15; Tuomi-Gröhn, Engeström & Young 2003, 4).

Boundary crossing, as observed here, is also a learning process which resem-

bles the cooperative and participatory planning approach previously studied
by Horelli (2002) and Seitamaa-Hakkarainen & Lahti (2008, 197). The plan-
ning process reported here builds a model of shared expertise which can be
used and applied in future planning processes of home economics classrooms
(see: Tuomi-Gröhn & Engeström 2001, 22). The role of common language
was found to be important here; without common language, it is impossible
to develop common understanding, the lack of which may lead to unequal
power positions, which also hinder the shared creation of new ideas (Aura
et al. 1997). In many of the previous planning processes of home economics
classrooms, teachers and planners had worked in separate groups. This was
problematic because the teachers were not necessarily able to read and cor-
rectly understand the lay-outs and the technical symbols used. Conversely, the
pedagogical needs of teachers are often unfamiliar to more technically-orient-
ed planners. It is crucial for all future planning processes that the different ac-
tors are brought together and that they are guided towards boundary crossing
activities that create multi-voiced planning groups.

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Authors

Marko Kuuskorpi, Principal, Ph.D., Piikkiö comprehensive school, Kaarina

(marko.kuuskorpi@kaarina.fi)
Nuria Cabellos González, Official School of Languages Teacher and Educational Researcher,
Spain
Kristiina Kumpulainen, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Teacher Education, University of
Helsinki (kristiina.kumpulainen@helsinki.fi)
Anna Mikkola, MA, Researcher, Department of Teacher Education, University of Helsinki
(anna.mikkola@helsinki.fi)
Jukka Sulonen, MSc (arch) SAFA
Krisse Sulonen, Councelor of Education PM
Harri Ketamo, Ph.D., founder, SkillPixels Ltd
Merja Meriläinen, University lecturer, Ph.D., ME (merja.merilainen@chydenius.fi)
Maarika Piispanen, University teacher, Ed.D. (maarika.piispanen@chydenius.fi)
Anne Malin, University lecturer, Department of Teacher Education, University of Helsinki
Päivi Palojoki, professor, Department of Teacher Education, University of Helsinki

123
 PERSPECTIVES FROM FINLAND – Towards new learning environments
ISBN 978-952-13-5689-6 (pb)
ISBN 978-952-13-5690-2 (pdf)

Marko Kuuskorpi (editor)

PERSPECTIVES FROM FINLAND

– Towards new learning environments

In collaboration:
2014:1

Finnish National Board of Education

Publications 2014:1