Design for Learning: Enhancing Participation in Learning through Design Thinking

Teemu Leinonen, Eva Durall, Tarmo Toikkanen
Aalto University
Finland
teemu.leinonen@aalto.fi, eva.durall@aalto.fi, tarmo.toikkanen@aalto.fi

Kai Kuikkaniemi, Matti Nelimarkka, 
Helsinki Institute for Information Technology
Finland
kai.kuikkaniemi@hii.fi, matti.nelimarkka@hiit.fi, 

Teemu Mikkonen, Antti Syvänen
University of Tampere
Finland
teemikko@gmail.com, antti.syvanen@gmail.com

Abstract: The symposium presents design thinking as an alternative approach to conduct research and develop ICT-based participatory tools for learning in a variety of settings. The integration of ICT in teaching and learning, as well as its support to participatory practices, is defined as a wicked problem that can be best approached through the adoption of a design mindset. In this regard, this symposium presents 4 papers that explore ways to use design thinking and ICT in three different levels: (1) education policy-making, (2) facilitating participation in education (3) design of tools and methods that foster reflection about teaching and learning. The four papers presented in the symposium can be considered as use cases in which design thinking has been used to develop new services, tools and practices.

Introduction

	Design thinking refers to a way of problem solving where empathy, creativity and rationality are used simultaneously to analyse the situation and to find feasible solutions. Teaching and learning through technology can be considered a wicked problem (Mishra & Koehler, 2008; Leinonen 2010) whose solution requires the implication of diverse stakeholders as well as adopting a different mindset. In this symposium, we present design thinking as an alternative approach to conduct research and develop ICT-based participatory tools for learning in a variety of settings.
The integration of ICT into teaching and learning presents many challenges that go beyond issues dealing with technical implementation. Several researchers have observed the difficulties of ICT adoption in learning with limited effects (Cuban, 2001; Dynarski et al., 2007; Ross, Smith, Alberg, & Lowther, 2004). Framing the problems the educational community is facing as ‘wicked problems’ (Rittel & Webber, 1973) can help understanding that they are unique, ill-defined and do not have clear solutions. What’s more, due to complex interdependencies, in many occasions the ‘solutions’ entail more problems of equal or greater complexity.
The diversity of actors involved in learning through ICT brings another layer of complexity that should be acknowledged. In order to tackle this challenge, it is necessary that researchers, designers, developers, teachers and learners collaborate during the process of designing technologies for learning (Dillenbourg & al., 2009; Bonsignore & al., 2013).
Design thinking has been outlined as a meaningful approach for facing wicked problems (Buchanan, 1992). The main reason is because the idea that there is a good and unique solution for a problem disappears. The adoption of a design mindset helps understand that there can be many solutions for a given situation and that any design requires testing. In this regard, design can be considered as an inquiry activity. In order to design a successful solution, designers must take into consideration different levels of design and be able to approach issues dealing with the whole and the details (Hyysalo, 2009).
From this perspective, bringing design thinking to learning design and design expertise to the development process of technological learning solutions can contribute to the creation of more holistic solutions in learning through ICT. Thus, this symposium explores and presents ways to use design thinking and ICT in three different levels: (1) education policy-making, (2) facilitating participation in education (3) design of tools and methods that foster reflection about teaching and learning. In these areas design thinking has been used to develop new services, tools and practice that has been studied in real-world situation and in participatory design sessions.
The papers presented in the symposium have been listed according to the 3 levels mentioned. Therefore, in the level of policy-making, paper 1 presents research that analyses the role of teachers as designers of learning situations. The collection of empirical data about the teachers’ views and challenges to adopt a design mindset when planning their students' learning activities helps to develop solutions that approach this issue with empathy, creativity and rationality. 
In the second level– facilitating participation in education– paper 2 focuses on the design of tools for participation in formal education settings. The conclusions extracted from the experiments inform the design of tools that support participation while taking into account the particularities of different learning situations.
Finally, we discuss two cases that seek to offer tools and methods to teachers and learners for reflecting and adopting a design mindset in their daily practice. In this regard, paper 4 introduces Edukata, a design method that seeks to foster innovation through ICT among teachers, and presents the main research results of its implementation. On the learners’ side, paper 5 describes an experimental tool, Feeler, that combines Learning Analytics and Quantified Self in order to create awareness and reflection about students’ learning activity. Both cases (paper 4 and 5) are inspired by participatory design and follow a research-based-design method (see Leinonen, 2008 and 2010).
Some of the papers presented in the symposium are research results from the Tekes funded LEAD (Learning Design - Designing for Learning) project.

Papers

Paper 1. Teacher as a Designer: Design of active ICT use in Finnish preliminary schools

It has been proposed that teachers should function as a designer of learning within classrooms as the growing importance of pedagogical ICT use in schools has changed how teachers should view their students and their own teaching practices (Kalantzis & Cope 2010). Our paper explores what factors influence teachers’ capability to function as a designer for learning. We draw preliminary findings from a mixed method study comprising of an online 34-item Opeka questionnaire on ICT usage issues in teaching and a interview study of 9 schools representing 1 national top school in pedagogical ICT usage, 4 local ICT- top and 4 lower ICT-usage achieving schools in 2 municipalities in Finland. In each school the rector, ICT-support teacher and “regular” teacher where interviewed on personal, community and resource issues affecting pedagogical ICT usage. These themes were also found from Opeka teacher questionnaire (n=2390, summer/2013) with explorative factor analysis.

Paper 2. Live Participation in education: experiments and designs

This work explores computer mediated real-time participation tools in educational settings. There is strong existing work on different kind of live participation tools, such as backchannels and audience response. The existing work suggests live participation tools improve sense of community, the feel of contribution and improve learning outcomes.
In this paper we argue that these system should be tailored to each situation and context differently. System functionalities, such as threading, anonymity and voting can be used to support certain types of participation. Therefore, teachers should be allowed to customize and use these systems based on the pedagogy approaches taken. We illustrate this by describing experiments conducted in higher education, where students used different systems during the same class.

Paper 3. Designing learning activities using Edukata

Edukata is a collaborative design method for teachers and educators. It is based on an academic practice-based design research method that has been successfully used in design on various learning tools. The Edukata method produces high quality Learning Activities that have been empirically validated in thousands of European classrooms using teacher surveys, observation, video diaries and interviews. Evaluation shows that Learning Activities increase student motivation, strengthen 21st century skills, encourage teachers to use novel technology to support their teaching, and connect their classrooms to society.
This paper presents the history of Edukata, the empirical results showing its efficacy, and discusses the key features that allow it to change classroom practices.

Paper 4. Feeler: a proposal for reflection based on learning analytics and quantified self

Feeler is a design-in-progress tool that visualizes data from learning analytics and Quantified Self, such as physical activity and rest, with the aim of fostering reflection and awareness. By capturing and visualizing data about students’ states and habits, the project seeks to encourage learners to reflect, individually and grouply, about their lifestyle and look at their learning performance from a wider perspective. The intention is to offer the students a tool that helps them to gain knowledge about themselves in regards to learning and therefore, become autonomous learners. This project builds on participatory design and a research-based design process. The outcome of the research is to develop a working prototype that follows a slow technology approach that can be tested in learning contexts.

Authors
•	Paper 1, Teemu Mikkonen, Antti Syvänen, University of Tampere, Finland.
•	Paper 2, Matti Nelimarkka, Kai Kuikkaniemi; Helsinki Institute for Information Technology, Aalto University, Finland.
•	Paper 3, Tarmo Toikkanen, Aalto University, Finland.
•	Paper 4, Eva Durall, Teemu Leinonen, Aalto University, Finland.

Conclusions

The symposium will start with a general introduction about the session topic, “Design for learning: enhancing participation in learning through design thinking”. This presentation will last about 30 minutes and will introduce design thinking as a valuable element for approaching the design of learning activities. Throughout the lecture, parallelism between education and design will be established in order to to show how can education benefit from the adoption of design methods.
The symposium introduction will be followed by a presentation of the papers included in the symposium:
•	Paper 1: Design of active ICT use in Finnish preliminary schools: Teacher as a Designer and Collaborative Teacher Cultures.
•	Paper 2:  Live Participation in education: experiments and designs.
•	Paper 3: Designing learning activities using Edukata.
•	Paper 4: Feeler: a proposal for reflection based on learning analytics and quantified self.
Each presentation will describe in 10 minutes the research outcomes while indicating how the adoption of design thinking has contributed to the development of the designs for learning. It is expected that, altogether, the presentation of the papers will last 40 minutes.
The rest of the session, 1 hour and 20 minutes, will be dedicated to questions and discussion about the symposium topics.

References

Bonsignore, E., Ahn, J. & al. (2013). Embedding Participatory Design into Designs for Learning: An Untapped Interdisciplinary Resource? In N. Rummel, M. Kapur, M. Nathan & S. Puntambekar (Eds.), To See the World and a Grain of Sand: Learning across Levels of Space, Time, and Scale. Paper presented at the 10th International Conference on Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, University of Wisconsin, Madison, June 15-19 (pp.549-556). International Society of the Learning Sciences.

Buchanan, R. (1992). Wicked Problems in Design Thinking. Design Issues, 8(2), 5-21. (DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1511637).

Cuban, L., Kirkpatrick, H., & Peck, C. (2001). High access and low use of technologies in high school classrooms: Explaining an apparent paradox. American Educational Research Journal, 38(4), 813-834.

Dillenbourg, P., Järvelä, S. & Fischer, F. (2009). The Evolution of Research on Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning. In N. Balacheff & al. (Eds.), Technology-Enhanced Learning. Principles and Products (pp. 3-19). Netherlands: Springer. (DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9827-7_1).                    
Dynarski, M., Agodini, R., Heaviside, S., Novak, T., Carey, N., Campuzano, L., et al. (2007). Effectiveness of reading and mathematics software products: Findings from the first student cohort. (Publication No. 2007-4005). US: Institute of Education Sciences.            
            
Hyysalo, S. (2009). Käyttäjä tuotekehityksessä: tieto, tutkimus, menetelmät. Taideteollisen korkeakoulun julkaisu B. 2. Uudistettu laitos. Helsinki: Taideteollinen korkeakoulu. 

Leinonen, T., Toikkanen, T. & Silfvast, K. (2008). Software as Hypothesis: Research-Based Design Methodology. In the Proceedings of Participatory Design Conference 2008. Presented at the Participatory Design Conference, PDC 2008, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA: ACM.

Leinonen, T. (2010). Designing Learning Tools - Methodological Insights. Ph.D. Aalto University School of Art and Design. Jyväskylä: Bookwell. 

Mishra, P. & Koehler, M.J. (2008). Introducing Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge. In Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, 1-16. New York.

Rittel, H. & Webber, M. (1973). Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning. Policy sciences, 4(2), 155-169. (DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF01405730).            
                    
Ross, S. M., Smith, L., Alberg, M., & Lowther, D. (2004) Using classroom observations as a research and formative evaluation tool in educational reform: The school observation measure. In S. Hilberg and H. Waxman (Eds.) New directions for observational research in culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms (pp. 144-173). Santa Cruz, CA: Center for Research on Education, Diversity & Excellence.