Inquiry Article 3

Cult Stud of Sci Educ (2013) 8:5186
DOI 10.1007/s11422-012-9416-0
Making learning whole: an instructional approach

for mediating the practices of authentic science inquiries
Anu Liljestrom Jorma Enkenberg Sinikka Pollanen
Received: 2 March 2011 / Accepted: 8 April 2012 / Published online: 5 June 2012
Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012
Abstract This design experiment aimed to answer the question of how to mediate the
practices of authentic science inquiries in primary education. An instructional approach
based on activity theory was designed and carried out with multi-age students in a small
village school. An open-ended learning task was offered to the older students. Their task
was to design and implement instruction about the Ice Age to their younger fellows. The
objective was collaborative learning among students, the teacher, and outside domain
experts. Mobile phones and GPS technologies were applied as the main technological
mediators in the learning process. Technology provided an opportunity to expand the
learning environment outside the classroom, including the natural environment. Empirically, the goal was to answer the following questions: What kind of learning project
emerged? How did the students knowledge develop? What kinds of science learning
processes, activities, and practices were represented? Multiple and parallel data were
collected to achieve this aim. The data analysis revealed that the learning project both
challenged the students to develop explanations for the phenomena and generated high
quality conceptual and physical models in question. During the learning project, the roles
of the community members were shaped, mixed, and integrated. The teacher also
repeatedly evaluated and adjusted her behavior. The confidence of the learners in their
abilities raised the quality of their learning outcomes. The findings showed that this
instructional approach can not only mediate the kind of authentic practices that scientists
apply but also make learning more holistic than it has been. Thus, it can be concluded that
nature of the task, the tool-integrated collaborative inquiries in the natural environment,
and the multiage setting can make learning whole.
Keywords Activity theory Authentic science practices Learning by collaborative
designing Multi-age learning community Whole-task approach
Lead Editor: M. Mueller

A. Liljestrom (&) J. Enkenberg S. Pollanen
University of Eastern Finland, Kuninkaankartanonkatu 5-7, 57101 Savonlinna, Finland
e-mail: anu.liljestrom@uef.fi
123
52
A. Liljestrom et al.
Laajennettu tiivistelma
Oppimisympariston laajentaminen koululuokan ulkopuolelle, luonto- ja kulttuuriymparistoon seka ulkopuolisiin yhteisoihin ei ole suomalaisessa koulussa kovin
yleista. Oppiminen tapahtuu tyypillisesti luokkahuoneessa homogeenisessa oppijayhteisossa faktatietojen jakamisena ilman kriittista tarkastelua ja ottamatta riittavasti
huomioon oppilaiden ideoita ja ajatuksia. Tama tutkimus on osa laajempaa design-tutkimusta, jossa pyritaan vastaamaan edella mainittuihin haasteisiin kehittamalla pedagogista
mallia, jossa oppimisymparisto laajenee koululuokan ulkopuolelle ja jossa heterogeeninen
ja monimuotoinen oppijayhteiso jakaa avoimen ja strukturoimattoman oppimistehtavan.
Kehitettavassa pedagogisessa mallissa luonto- ja kulttuuriympariston ilmiot ja niita
edustavat kohteet ovat keskeisia oppimisen kohteita. Mallin lahtokohtana on, etta oppijayhteisolle tarjotaan fyysisia, kognitiivisia ja kulttuurisia tyovalineita, joiden kautta
oppiminen valittyy oppimisprojekteissa. Oppimisympariston rakentamisen periaatteet
syntyvien oppimiskaytanteiden, toimintojen ja prosessien tarkastelun teoreettinen
tarkastelu ja ymmarrys nousevat kulttuuri-historiallisesta toiminnan teoriasta. Oppimisprojektin toimintaa ohjaa yhteisollinen suunnittelun ja projektioppimisen periaatteet.
Tutkimuksen aineisto kerattiin noin kolmen kuukauden aikana kevaalla 2005. Kaipolan
kylakoulun 3.-6. yhdysluokan 17 oppilasta toteuttivat Jaakausiprojektin yhdessa opettajatutkijan, tutkijan, muun henkilokunnan seka aihealueiden asiantuntijoiden kanssa. Oppijayhteison vanhimmille oppilaille (5) annettiin avoin oppimistehtava suunnitella oppimisprojekti ja opettaa nuoremmille jaakauteen liittyvat asiat. Aihealueen asiantuntijat
osallistuivat projektiin keskustelupalstan kautta vastaamalla oppilaiden kysymyksiin seka
kommentoimalla heidan tulkintojaan jaakauden ilmioista. Toimintaa tuettiin mobiili- ja
paikkatietoteknologialla, joka ohjasi tutkimaan luontoymparistosta loytyvia jaakauden ilmiota ja kohteita. Oppilaat saivat myos itse valita tarvittavaa teknologiaa tutkimusten
tekemiseen seka tulosten esittamiseen.
Rinnakkainen ja osin paallekkainen tutkimusaineisto koostuu videoiduista oppimisprojektin tilanteista, alku- ja loppumittauksista, ryhmahaastattelusta, tutkijoiden
paivakirjasta seka oppimisprojektin monipuolisista tuotoksista. Induktiivisella ja
deduktiivisella kvalitatiivisella sisallonanalyysilla etsittiin vastauksia seuraaviin tutkimuskysymyksiin: Millainen oppimisprojekti syntyi ja muodostui oppimisymparistossa?
Kuinka oppilaiden ymmarrys kehittyi projektin aikana? Millaisia luonnontieteellisia oppimisprosesseja, -toimintoja ja -kaytanteita ilmeni?
Tutkimuksessa syntyneessa laajenevassa yhteisollisessa oppimisprojektissa suunnittelu,
tyoskentely ja joustava liikkuminen koulussa ja lahiymparistossa vuorottelivat. Mobiili- ja
GPS-teknologia toimivat tarkeina toimintaa integroivina teknologioina. Oppimisprosessi
haastoi eri-ikaiset oppilaat toimimaan luovasti ja kekseliaasti seka tuottamaan useita erilaisia konseptuaalisia ja fyysisia malleja jaakauden ilmioista. Toiminta toi oppilaiden
tyoskentelyssa esiin luonnontieteellisen tutkijan kaltaisia prosesseja, toimintoja ja
kaytantoja. Aineistosta voidaan havaita, etta oppimisprojekti haastoi erityisesti selittamiseen liittyvia prosesseja. Jaakauden sisaltotieto kehittyi yksittaisista erillisista kasitteista ja
listatuista asioista selitettyihin ja sovellettuun tietoon seka prosessien kuvauksia sisaltavaksi tiedoksi. Oppilaat alkoivat yha enenevassa maarin myos arvioida tietoa ja
ymmartaa, etta oma eika asiantuntijan tieto valttamatta ole niin yksiselitteisen oikein tai
vaarin. Yhteisollinen suunnittelu toimi kiinnittavana seka integroivana tekijana eri oppimistoimintojen ja luonnontieteilijan kaltaisten kognitiivisten prosessien valilla. Projektin
edetessa oppilaat loysivat uusia kohteita tutkittavaksi ja samasta kohteesta uusia
123
Making learning whole
53
nakokulmia tarkasteltavaksi. Tuotetun tiedon maara oli valtava, sen uudelleen jarjestely,
organisointi ja esille laitto oli tarkea tehtava projektissa.
Oppijayhteison jasenten roolit muokkautuivat ja sekoittuvat oppimisprojektin aikana.
Aluksi vanhimmat oppilaat kantoivat vastuun opetuksen suunnittelusta ja jarjestamisesta,
vahitellen projekti muuttui kohti kiinteampaa oppijayhteison toimintaa, jossa kaikki
osallistuivat suunnitteluun ja toteutukseen itse opetustilanteiden jaadessa taustalle. Oppijayhteison jasenet osallistuivat yhteisen projektin toteuttamiseen ja toiminta hajaantui
erilaisten alatehtavien tekemiseen, jossa pienryhmat saivat lahestya jaakauden ilmioita
omista lahtokohdistaan ja nakokulmistaan. Projektin lopuksi oppilaat esittelivat tuotoksiaan paikalliselle lehdistolle, vanhemmille seka teknologiapartnereille, jolloin he
nousivat oman lahiymparistonsa jaakauden ilmioiden asiantuntijan rooliin. Opettajan roolin keskeisena tehtavana oli ennakoiden jarjestaa ja rakentaa oppimisymparistoa seka tukea
oppimista, ei suunnitella oppitunteja. Opettaja joutui arvioimaan projektin aikana sita,
kuinka vahvasti han voi puuttua ja osallistua toimintaan seka kuinka oppilaita tulisi ohjata.
Opettajan rooli muuttui projektin aikana taustahenkilosta osaksi tasa-arvoista oppijayhteisoa, jolla oli mahdollisuus osallistua toimintaan ja jopa innostua yhdessa oppilaiden kanssa tyoskentelemaan projektissa. Oppijayhteison toiminta pysyi kuitenkin oppimisprojektin keskeisena eteenpain vievana tekijana, oppilaiden ideat, suunnitelmat,
sisallot, kysymykset seka ratkaisut ja niihin liittyvat toiminnot olivat monesti yllattavia,
joita tuskin opettajajohtoisessa toiminnassa koskaan olisi pystytty saavuttamaan.
Asiantuntijatieto on periaatteellista, hyvin organisoitua ja monesti valineintegroitunutta,
joten teknologia on usein keskeisessa asemassa asiantuntijan kaltaisten kaytanteiden ja
toimintamallien oppimisessa. Tutkimuksen aikana tuli esiin, etta teknologia itsessaan ei ole
niinkaan merkittava ja kiinnostava vaan sen valittamat kasvavat ja valineiden eheyttamat
oppimiskaytanteet, jotka muuttivat ja uudelleen muokkasivat oppimista ja sen kaytanteita.
Tama tutkimuksen tulosten perusteella voidaan paatella, etta oppimisymparisto, jossa
heterogeeninen oppijayhteiso voi yhdessa ratkaista kokonaista, avointa ja haastavaa oppimistehtavaa monipuolisten valittavien tyovalineiden avulla, voi johtavaa laajenevaan ja
monipuolisesti luonnontieteellisen asiantuntijan kaytanteita soveltavaan oppimiseen. Se
rohkaisee myos kehittamaan oppimista kouluissa kohti kokonaisuuksien aitoa oppimista.
Education in schools generally emphasizes the transmission of knowledge and the

development of low-level skills and their testing (Sawyer 2004). In Finland, teachers in
elementary and secondary schools are required to follow the guidelines of state and local
curricula, but are allowed autonomy in regards to the methods of instruction. Nevertheless,
for example, Maarit Arvaja (2005) reported that while Finnish school culture still values
the knowledge of facts and experts; there is uncritical sharing and appropriating; and
general undervaluing students own thoughts and ideas. Thus, the typical Finnish school
does not necessarily promote the development of a students thinking or any associated
science inquiry processes.
Kirsi Pyhalto, Tiina Soini, and Janne Pietarinen (2010) explored Finnish pupils pedagogical well-being in the light of critical incidents in their school careers. They found that
the most significant positive experience in the boys school path, in particular, were
interruptions in school routines, such as school excursions. However, students usually think
that field trips and excursions into the immediate surroundings of the school are for extracurricular enjoyment (Temmes 2005). Unfortunately, the field trips and excursions usually
take place in the end of the semester, and they are seldom implemented in a manner that
123
54
places the local community, real existing phenomena, and objects related to them at the
center of learning (Mueller 2011). Although the learning environment can and should be
expanded to outside the classroom (Finnish National Board of Education 2004, p. 16, 168,
and 174), teachers are generally very uncertain about their significance. It seems to be
difficult for teachers to integrate excursions with classroom instruction in a productive and
principled manner.
This situation is problematic because, as James Banks, Kathryn Au, Arnetha Ball and
Philip Bell et al. (2007) suggested, most of our learning takes place outside of school in
diverse situations and contexts, as well as in lifes everyday activities. Learning outside of
school not only offers new physical contexts for learning but also gives opportunities to
enrich existing learning environments. The phenomena of the world outside of school are
more complex and less structured than the picture that is transmitted about them in typical
school settings. The problem that educators face is how to construct instructional models
that integrate classrooms with their surroundings in order to provide semantically and
experientially rich resources for engaging students and carrying out the kind of instructional processes that lead to deep learning.
Allan Collins, Diana Joseph, and Katerine Bielaczyc (2004) argue that school education
should produce learners who love learning and know how to work out issues themselves.
Learning environments should be places where students create ideas, share them in the
community, design products, and, ultimately, publish findings for a wider audience
(Collins et al. 2004). Harnessing real world objects for learning opens up new possibilities
for emphasizing experiences that can be meaningful and engaging. A real world object is
an existing physical artifact or object in nature or a cultural environment, in other words, in
the real world. Typically located outside schools, these environments are unstructured, so
the regulation of learning is shifted from the teacher to the learners themselves. Furthermore, one way to capture the phenomena embedded in real world objects is to construct
digital representations of them by using information and communication technologies
(Vartiainen, Liljestrom and Enkenberg [accepted]). For these kinds of instructional strategies, in which the real world and its phenomena are a genuine part of the learning
environment, to be implemented, the culture of the school has to change.
The purpose of this study is to determine the possibilities and challenges that emerge
when the natural or cultural environments that lie outside the school constitute the main
context of a learning project. In this study, activity theory, the sociocultural interpretation
of learning, and authentic learning environments serve as theoretical pillars. These
frameworks provide the design principles for the construction of the learning environment
and the learning process and its implementation. Furthermore, learning by collaborative
design is the instructional model. The implementation of the learning project, its analysis,
and its interpretation are based mainly on the viewpoint that learning is a complex and
sociocultural process in which participation in a community of discourse, practice, and
thinking are at the center (Brown, Collins and Duguid 1989).
First, the above-mentioned viewpoints of learning are combined into a view that can be
coherently applied in designing and implementing the learning environment for authentic
learning projects. The empirical findings presented in this paper are from the first design
experiment where the focus is to identify and elaborate pedagogical models of designoriented pedagogy in the case where nature or the cultural environment constitutes the
main context for learning (Vartiainen, Liljestrom and Enkenberg [accepted]). In this first
experiment, the students worked collaboratively to investigate the phenomena of the Ice
Age. This topic was selected because the Ice Age has served as a multidisciplinary and
complex domain field for learning mainly because the natural environment outside the
123
55
school includes several visible traces of that time in the history of the Earth. The research
interests were the following: to depict the emerged learning project; to determine how the
students knowledge of the Ice Age developed; and to determine the kind of science
learning processes and practices that represented in this study. Finally, a discussion and
conclusions summarizing the results of the study are presented.
Theoretical framework of the study

According to the Finnish National Core Curriculum for Basic Education, learning is as an
individual and communal process of building knowledge and skills [.]. Learning results
from the pupils active and purposeful activity, in which they process and interpret the
material to be learned on the basis of their existing structures of knowledge (Finnish
National Board of Education 2004, p. 16). This approach represents a clearly socio-constructivist interpretation about how human beings come to know something. The National
Core Curriculum for Basic Education also gives guidelines for learning according to the
framework of sociocultural learning theory: According to the guidelines, through this
process, (learning) cultural involvement is created. [] Learning is situational, so special
attention must be given to the diversity of the learning environment. In learning, new
possibilities open up for understanding culture and the meanings that culture contains, and
for participating in social activity (Finnish National Board of Education 2004, p. 16).
However, Marjatta Mikkola (2011) found that in Finnish schools, the role of the curriculum
and the text book in guiding pedagogy constitutes a controversial situation with regard to
practical pedagogical activities. Her argument is that the curriculum and its interpretation
easily leads to performance-centered pedagogy, which appears to be subject-oriented,
knowledge centered, guided strongly by content, and easily measurable learning.
Learning, cognition and knowledge all are situated; hence, learning needs social
interactions, and it is changing the participation of cultural practices. Thus, knowledge is a
product of the activity, the context, and the culture in which it is developed and applied
(Brown, Collins and Duguid 1989). Science education should emphasize the kind of
activities in which a scientist perceives, reflects, and acts. Learning should model the
cognitive processes and practices in which scientists engage when they conduct research.
As Clark Chinn and Betina Malhotra (2002b) suggested, school education should be able to
engage learners in inquiry tasks that are qualitatively different from those usually used in
schools. School activities, practices, communities, and learning environments are quite
different from the world outside school in nature, workplaces, and so on. Although, students learn science by actively engaging in the practice of science (Smith, Maclin,
Houghton and Hennessey 2000). From a sociocultural perspective, science learning should
provide learners with learning environments, resources, and experiences that enable them
effectively to generate research questions, to design a study, to address research questions,
to observe, to explain results, to develop theories, and to study others research (Chinn and
Malhotra 2002b). Thus, there is a need to build learning environments where participation
in the practices around science is possible and where the students can do science, not only
think about it (Meyer and Crawford 2011).
In this paper, the learning environment is based on a social and physical context where
learners can interact with each other and use mediating tools. Hence, learning activities are
like dynamic activity systems: Communities of learners or particular student research
groups (subject) will choose tools that they need to manage and clarify the shared learning
task (object). This can lead to different representations of knowledge about the learning
123
56
task (outcomes). In this study, the learning community consists of multiage students, their
teachers, and outside members, who join to work towards more or less shared objects.
During the activity, varying roles (division of labor) emerge. However, the school culture
and members of the learning community also create rules (Engestrom 1987). Existing and
constructed learning environments are starting points and frame the learning activities.
Because learning activities, like learning environments, are dynamic, they can change if
necessary. In this study, the learning environment is not scripted beforehand, and people
are not expected to behave in certain ways. Instead, they re-create the learning environment
through their own ideas, tasks, and sub-tasks.
The following factors are central in the construction of the learning environment and the
learning practices in this study (Fig. 1).
1. Situated learning in diverse and heterogeneous learning communities where knowledge can be collective and distributed
2. Choosing authentic, open-ended, and ill-structured tasks for learning, which are relate
to the phenomena in question and in which the learning objects to be perceived are in
an authentic and natural environment
3. Offering the students physical, cognitive, and cultural tools to be utilized as mediated
tools during the learning process
Diversity and heterogeneous learning community

Bielaczyc and Collins (1999) defined a community of learners as a group of people that
share a common interest about the object of learning. With the ultimate goal of learning, a
community of learners seeks to respect others and work together. Its members represent a
variety and diversity of skills (know how, competencies, and expertise) and abilities,
thus enriching the skill set of the whole community. Knowledge is both collective and
distributed. Knowing is a collective property but everybody does not need to know and be
able to do the same things (Roth and Lee 2004). The most important functions in the
community of learners are elaboration on and sharing of ideas, thoughts, and skills, which
are appropriated for the whole collective. From this perspective, schools and classes can be
Fig. 1 Conceptual description of the main organized factors of the learning environment
123
57
viewed as types of community. However, school instruction has generally not utilized the
opportunity to develop collective knowledge.
The community of the classroom is rarely a place where there is evidence of interest in
the cultural aspects of knowledge or the specific know-how of individuals within the
community. From the sociocultural perspective, both are essential conditions for learning.
One can strengthen the opportunities for collective knowledge building by enabling the
formation of multi-age classrooms in which students of various ages come together around
shared interests and study collectively. In addition, the integration of members from outside the classroom supports the development of a community of learners. In these ways, the
school can be extended to the natural environment by making room for both social and
expert communities that already exist in the real world around the school, and by integrating formal and informal aspects of learning (National Technology Plan 2010).
A vital description of community of learners in practice is given by Wolff-Michael Roth
and Yew-Jin Lee (2006). In Moussac (France) village school, the multi-age children are
working together with the adults of the village. The youngest of children are not able to do
prescribed activities alone, but they can learn through participation in community activities. The students role is to grow up in community over the school years. Finally he, as the
oldest actor, can be called an expert in the community. The action-models and culture of
the community in question will be transferred to students activities year after year, and in
that manner the students are growing to be full members of the community. Few students
will leave the community, and there are not many newcomers. Memory of the community
develops, which will be a cohesive force (Roth and Lee 2006).
In building learning communities at schools, it is important to give community members
opportunities to use and share their knowledge and skills. As in everyday community life,
students have to be competent in finding out whatever they need to know at the moment
they need to know it (Roth and Lee 2004). Thus, the community members should
understand what the available knowledge is and how it can be distributed in the community. If necessary, it should be possible to expand the community to outside its core in
order to search for the expertise and know how that the present learning situations need. As
Roth and Stuart Lee (2004) found in the Henderson Creek project, learning in science is
not the only activity that fosters scientific practice. It extends to participating in community
science, where the students can participate in varying practices but in their own way.
Science is only one of different forms of knowledge. Therefore, science learning in school
should include all forms of community knowledge, all of which are equally important
(Roth and Lee 2004).
In this study, the learners work as a heterogeneous and diverse community to negotiate
meaning through constructive, dynamic and transforming activities. The learners focus on
shared problems, try to reach a consensus on possible solutions, and find a mutually
acceptable way of solving the problem. Sharing the object, organizing collaborative efforts,
and developing a shared script of joint activities will enhance reflective communication
the highest form of collaboration (Engestrom 1992).
Authentic open ended learning task
Science phenomena are usually studied at schools in tasks that are well-defined and
structured by teacher as an expert. Phenomena that real science communities study are
complex, multifaceted, and ill-defined; in these communities, the scientist-participants
create new understandings about the phenomena (Sadler 2009). Likewise the community
of schools should give opportunities to implement inquiry processes in which the learning
123
58
task is open-ended, and the learning outcomes are not determined in advance. Teachers do
not need to give all the guidelines and pre-determined aims of the study; nor do they need
to engage students in experiments where the teacher already knows the correct answers
(Mueller 2011). Learning processes should give opportunities to create and choose different kinds of paths. However, many science educators seem to think that scientific
knowledge is objective, universal, and excludes values and contextual factors. The content
of the Finnish national curriculum also supports this point of view. Roth and Lee (2004,
p. 266) criticized school learning and science educators who have adopted the conception
that every student needs to appropriate a knowledge of the basic facts and basic
principles. From their point of view, learning should be more like science literacy in the
everyday community where the goal of members is to be competent in finding out
whatever knowledge is needed at the moment (Roth and Lee 2004 p. 267).
In this study, the learning task was intended to bring into play multiple disciplines,
multiple perspectives and ways of working, and different habits of mind and community
(Lombardi 2007). The learning task was a design task. Learning by designing (Harel and
Papert 1991) provides one well-studied example of models of authentic instruction that
usually happens in collaboration. This learning is usually connected to technological
design in which the students act as software designers. Learning by designing has also
focused on designing artifacts (Lahti and Seitamaa-Hakkarainen 2005), learning science
(Roth 1998), or combinations of those two (Kangas, Seitamaa-Hakkarainen and Hakkarainen 2007). Richard Lehrer, Julie Ericson and Tim Connel (1995) have demonstrated that
learning by collaborative designing elicits the kinds of skills that are needed in defining
problems and breaking them into sub-problems, controlling and regulating projects, creating new knowledge, searching information, and representing, evaluating, and reconstructing the resultsthe very skills that are essential to scientific inquiry (Chinn and
Malhotra 2002a) and which, according to Janet Kolodner (2006) can, in principle, lead to
deep learning.
One way to apply the designing task is peer-tutoring and cross-age tutoring (e.g.,
Robinson, Schofield and Steers-Wencell 2005) in which students are responsible for
teaching the content of the topic or chosen area (Kafai and Harel 1991). Anyone who has
ever served as a teacher knows that the practice of teaching in itself is a good way to learn.
Teaching others compels one to consider what one knows, what learners know, what they
have to find out, and how the target content should be structured and delivered. In this way,
teaching itself can develop teachers (learners) metacognitions. Further, designers and
teachers who spend a great deal of time in designing, learning, considering explanations,
and constructing representations for conceptualizations seem to achieve an understanding
of them that is often deeper than they can express in the outcome, result, or designed
artifact (Harel and Papert 1991).
In this study, the formulation of the aim of the learning task was followed the principles
of authentic instruction and project-based learning. The learning task should be a driving,
challenging, and ill-structured problem. It should lead to authentic and situated inquiry,
engage working in collaboration, be supported by scaffolding and by technological tools.
Moreover, outcomes of the learning should be creative tangible products and shared
artifacts (Krajcik and Blumenfeld 2006).
Physical, cognitive and cultural tools
When learning is participating, it is a process of collective activities and practices towards
an object. Moreover, there is always some kind of mediator between subject and object.
123
59
The intermediaries can be either concrete tools or abstract tools, such as spoken language
(Vygotsky 1978).
Because expert knowledge is principled, well organized, tool-integrated and mostly
tacit, technology can be a significant tool for helping learners gain access to the cultural
aspects of expertise (Bransford, Derry, Berliner, Hammerness and Beckett 2005). Therefore, the development of expertise will be enhanced through the mediators of learning and
thinking processes and practices that are implicit in the learning task. Furthermore, the
expertise involved is a tool-integrated entity (Kim and Reeves 2007), which means that the
technology itself can mediate expert practices if it is introduced in an appropriate manner
and context.
When the learning community designs and carries on its own learning, the technology
used should be available in the learning environment. The members of the learning
community can decide when, what, and how they need to use the technology in their
inquiry practices. John Brown et al. (1989) argued that students should be exposed to the
conceptual and technological tools of the domain in question. Similarly, Andrea Hall
(2007) proposed that the teacher demonstrates or models the use of a tool to students, and
then they begin to work with the tool in their activities. This usually leads to situations
where the tool and activity modify and transform the thinking process (Hall 2007). In order
to ensure that the technology does not become main focus of the learning, students should
have opportunities as soon as possible to use the technology creatively in their own ways.
Although technology is not always used in an expert manner, it can be a significant
mediator.
One aim of this study was to find out which technology could support the collection of
perceived and meaningful information, in addition to sharing cognitions and serving as
collective memory (Salomon 1993). One role of technology has also been to make learning
processes and outcomes visible for the learning community, researchers, and a wider
audience. In that case, technology serves as a tool, mediating and connecting the learning
community and the experts. In this study, the main context of learning was the environment
outside the school. Therefore, it was also expected that the chosen technology could serve
as a bridge between the school and the natural environment. Thus, mobile technology with
the global position system (GPS) was selected for use in the study.
According to Sarah Bednarz (2004), location-based systems (e.g., GIS and GPS) are
ideal tools for studying the environment of a local community. Nancy Perkins, Eric Hazelton, Jeryl Erikson, and Walter Allan (2010) found that students who used GPS and GIS
technology in place-based studying significantly improved their spatial understanding and
grasp of the geographical primitive. In that case, students in eight middle schools in Maine
worked outside the classroom to conduct an inventory of trees in their schoolyard and later
processed the findings with collected physical and spatial data in the classroom (Perkins
et al. 2010).
In brief, mobile devices with GPS technology provide an opportunity to expand the
learning environment outside the classroom; they serve as a virtual bridge between the
classroom and natural environment. One positive example is the Moop M-learning interactive environment where mobile learning is realized through inquiry tasks based on
geographical location, which require creative problem solving. In the Moop environment,
students are active content producers in learning while gathering their own data. They
collect information (text, image, voice or video data) from the surroundings through Moop
and report the findings in the network-learning environment. The Moop environment
supports the process of inquiry learning and knowledge building as part of daily schoolwork (Mattila and Fordell 2005). On the other hand, Jari Laru, Sanna Jarvela and Roy
123
60
Clariana (2012) pointed out that although it promotes important types of argumentative
interactions during the inquiry learning process, learning with mobile devices outside the
classroom can lead to a superficial epistemological quality of knowledge. However, their
conclusion about mobile technology-supported learning is that, in any case, it affords many
opportunities for interactive learning processes and learner collaboration (Laru et al. 2012).
In this study, different kind of physical, cognitive, and cultural tools were used to
support the activities and practices of the learning community throughout the learning
process towards managing and clarifying shared objects.
Implementation of the empirical research

The purpose of this study is to determine the possibilities and challenges that emerge when
the natural or cultural environments outside the school constitute the main context of
learning projects. The research questions addressed in this paper are the following:
R1
R2
R3
What kinds of learning projects emerged in the learning environment that was
constructed according to the conceptual model?
How did the knowledge of the Ice Age develop during the process?
What kinds of science learning processes, activities, and practices were represented?
Research strategy
This study is one in a series of design experiments. The ultimate goal has been to develop
an instructional approach for a learning environment that forms a continuum from the
classroom to the natural environment. By using design experiments or design-based
research methodology, learning scientists intend to develop empirically validated design
principles that will maximize the desired learning outcomes (Collins, Joseph and Bielaczyc
2004). This study is based on qualitative research data, which was collected from the
learning environment, activities, and practices in a complex learning process. In designbased research, such as this study, there is a large amount of empirical data that is typically
diversified and rich. In design-based research, the data collected is usually intended to be
overlapping and parallel, which increases the reliability of the study (Barab 2006).
The present study resembles the Hagan Creek ethnographic study (Roth and Lee 2004).
Both are more or less theoretically anchored in activity theory and science learning, which
are studied from the community perspective. In both studies, the learning environments
extended outside the school, and the data were wide and diverse. Moreover, the learning
communities in both studies consist of different participants, among which the researchers
were also core participants (see Roth and Lee 2004). In this study, both researchers were
learning environment designers and closely participated in the activities of the learning
community, which is a typical setting in design-based research. One researcher had the
main responsibility of serving as a teacher.
As David Jonassen (2000) explains, activity theory is primarily seen as a tool in which
the activity both defines the context and is defined by it. Activity cannot be understood or
analyzed outside the context in which it occurs. In this study, activity theory is the conceptual framework of the designed learning system in the context of natural and cultural
environments.
In this study, learning is viewed as the complex process of participating in a community
of discourse, practice, and thought (see Brown, Collins and Duguid 1989). Hence, the units
123
61
of data analysis are learning practices, actions, and activities in the learning community as
well as the outcomes of the learning process. The richness and complexity of parallel sets
of data represented a special challenge.
In order to provide a complete picture of the emerging learning environment and
implemented project, the descriptions of the complex learning processes are comprised of
all data sources that were subsequently structured and conceptualized. The researchers
behave like ethnographers. As Roth (2005) asserted, the forensic anthropologist and scientist have the task of reconstructing events and producing narratives that are based on the
material evidence available.
Research environment
The context of the study
The research was organized in a learning environment that consisted of a village school
and its natural and cultural surroundings. The school was located in a small village in the
middle of the lake district in Eastern Finland. Research data were collected during a threemonth learning project between February and May in the 2005 school year. According to
the original plan, the learning project was to take from 2 to 3 weeks. However, it lasted
almost 3 months. In the beginning, work on the task typically took several hours per day.
Later, it was performed in parallel with other school activities.
The school surroundings include many natural objects for study, such as lakes, forests,
and eskers that are marked by visible traces of the Ice Age. The last Ice Age in Finland was
115,00010,000 years ago; it is called the Veiksel. It finished about 11,500 years ago when
the climate warmed rapidly. Finland was ice-free 10,000 years ago. The Ice Age and the
melting ice shaped the Finnish soil, and many objects can be seen today. As such, the
natural environment, with traces of the Ice Age, was a part of an authentic learning
environment that the students could visit easily during the school day.
Learning community
The learning community was a multiage community where seventeen students between the
ages of 9 and 12 in the third to sixth grades studied together both inside and outside the
classroom. As is typical in village schools where students of different ages study together
in the same classroom, the learning topics were shared among the students. As childrenteachers, the students in the sixth grade were given the role of the teachers of the younger
students. These children-teachers were assigned a learning task to design and implement
instruction about the Ice Age for younger students. The younger students, third to fifth
graders, were classmates of the children-teachers and designated as novices who were
intended to develop something resembling expert-like behavior during the project. There
were five children-teachers: three were boys and two were girls. The younger students
comprised 12 students of whom three were girls. Four special students in the same group
were diagnosed with difficulties in behavior control or learning.
In this study, two researchers were the designers of the learning environment, and they
also participated closely in the learning community activities. One of the researchers had
the main responsibility of serving as the teacher. The roles of the teacher-researcher and
the researcher were to serve as models, coaches, and facilitators in the learning project
(Collins, Brown and Newman 1989). In the beginning, the teacher-researcher and
researcher tried to stay in the background during learning situations, thereby emphasizing
123
62
learner-centeredness in the activities. However, they provided some minimal scaffolding at

the beginning by arranging for regular consultative negotiations with the children-teachers.
Later, these meetings were irregular (instructional fading), and they were organized to
include all the students.
During the first 2 weeks of the project, the researchers asked five geology and history
experts to join the learning community. These experts worked in the community via a
discussion forum where they commented on the ideas and explanations of the childrenteachers and answered their questions. The parent of one student became a member of the
learning community in the discussion forum. Parts of the learning community also included
the youngest students in the school and their teacher (pre-school to the second grade). They
were part of the learning community as they participated in some field trips and were
members of the presentation group, but the main data of this study do not consist of the
action of the youngest students.
Technological environment
Students had access to a rich array of technology, which included computers and mobile
telephones with GPS and positioning applications to support learning while moving into
the natural environment. Students were able to send the field notes of their observations
and save their routes by using the MapHit Track GPS application on mobile telephones.
The GPS coordinates were automatically attached to every field note and additional
information, such as the shooting time the date, and the coordinates, was recorded. The
field notes (SMS messages) were not more than 30 characters and were sent to and stored
in the school server. In the natural environment, the students could use their mobile
telephones to see coordinates, time, speed, and height above mean sea level. However, in
the natural environment, the students could not see their location on the map on the mobile
screen. The location of the field notes on the map could be seen only by using a computer
and the web-based MapHit application. During the nature trips, the students who stayed in
the classroom could monitor the others in real time from the web-based MapHit environment and thus follow the movements of their fellow students.
Field notes were usually written as abbreviations, and all field notes had to be edited and
saved afterwards by MapHit-editor on a regular computer. MapHit-editor is a web-based
application that requires a login with username. It does not have public access. After
editing and saving the field notes with MapHit-editor, the location and the data could be
viewed on the map as spatial information in a web-based public MapHit-application.
MapHit-editor also includes an administration application by which the teacher and the
students could define categories for the field notes. The teachers and students could also
decide which kind of signs they wanted to describe the categories. In a case when the
students collected a lot of information about the studied objects, it was possible to send
more than one field note from the same location. In the public web-based MapHit-application, anyone is able to see and search saved field notes. Every saved field note has a
specific web address that could be linked to the school web pages.
The children students had one days experience in using MapHit applications, mobile
phones, and GPS technology in the previous year when they studied a short time inquiry
project about the ants in the forest (Liljestrom and Seppanen 2004). These technologies
were new to the younger students.
The students could borrow or use their own digital cameras in order to collect their own
data in the natural environment. The mobile phones had built-in cameras, so the students
were able to take photos. However, they could not send them to the server directly from the
123
63
nature environment. For later use, the photos were transferred to the computer in the
school. The students used the school computers to search the Internet for relevant information about the domain area. Students were also offered schoolbooks from different
grades in addition to other books containing information about the Ice Age. The available
technology also included the school web pages and the web page editor (Savonmedusa)
based on the NC Content management system (CMS). This technology was already
familiar to all students because they had used it previously to construct web pages for the
school.
During the Ice Age project, it became possible to link a discussion forum to the school
web pages. This communication technology was new to the students. In addition, experts
participated in the discussion forum with the students, making comments on the childrenteachers ideas, evaluating explanations, and providing answers to their questions.
Furthermore, the students were able to use differently scaled, precise orienteering,
terrain, and topographic paper maps of the district near the school (printed by a local
company). Those maps could be used in parallel with the web-page maps. Additionally, the
students were able to use compasses when they were in the natural environment to
investigate the signs of the Ice Age. They also had an opportunity to take necessary
physical tools with them, such as ropes, ice augers, knives, stones, and sand, which enabled
them to explore the environment further. These tools were made available to the students.
The learning task
The students from the sixth grade, the children-teachers, were given the following
challenge:
Your task is to design an instruction about the Ice Age and implement it with your
younger classmates.
The task was loosely defined and unstructured. Students had varying knowledge about
the subject area. The children-teachers were not told how to handle the task. The teacher
did not even define the term Ice Age. They were told only that anyone could find several
traces of the Ice Age outside the school and that the instructions could take place there.
In the beginning they were told they have time few hours a day during next 3 weeks to
implement this task.
Data sources, methods, and analysis of the different types of data
The data consisted of pre- and post-tests, the teacher researchers diary, group interviews,
in addition to video data and products (visible outcomes) of the learning project, such as
digital photos, GPS field notes, web pages, and messages in discussion forum.
Pre- and post-tests
Students prior knowledge about the Ice Age was assessed by asking the students to draw
and write what they knew or thought they knew about the Ice Age. The same task was
offered 3 months later at the end of the project. This test aimed to determine prior
knowledge and how the knowledge of the phenomena of the Ice Age developed during the
project. The focus was not to determine individual expertise, but to find out how the
knowledge of the learning community developed during the learning project (see Rogoff,
123
64
Radziszewska and Masiello 1995). Expert and novice tests were applied, which asked
experts and novices to tell everything about the physical laws of some phenomena (Chi,
Feltovich and Glaser 1981). However, students could write and draw representations of
their mental models of the phenomena of the Ice Age (see Rennie and Jarvis 1995).
The pre- and post-tests were quite different from those that usually appear on school
tests, which typically contain questions about the content and usually have only one right
answer. Typical school tests seldom encourage students to produce prior knowledge or
give the opportunity to decide which representation s/he likes to choose to be the most
natural and descriptive. In this case the pre- and post-tests did not provide any guidance on
what was to be written or drawn. The students had as much time as they needed to do the
task. In the pre-test, students needed about 515 minutes, and in the post-test 1545
minuntes. Children-teachers had the opportunity to view all the students results in the pretests when they started to design their instruction about the Ice Age. Thus, the prior
knowledge of the learning community was made visible. After the post-test, everyone had
the opportunity to compare their answers to the pre-test if they wanted to.
The pre- and post-tests and their analyses had some similarities to a research in which
the greenhouse effect was studied by fifth graders (Karkkainen, Keinonen, Kukkonen,
Hurri and Vesala 2009). The first step of the analysis in this study was to read carefully all
the writings and drawings and figure out which of them related to the Ice Age. At that
moment, the analysis was a list of the units that had been written or drawn. The next step
was to count and quantify the units. The analysis of the students pre- and post-tests was
based on the following categories of utterances: (1) the number of utterances in relationship to the Ice Age; (2) the number that were explained and unexplained; and (3) the
number of misunderstandings. In addition, the quality and scope of the students knowledge in the pre- and post-tests were evaluated.
Out-of-school data
Out-of-school data, that is, the GPS field notes and the digital photos, were used to
capture observations that students made during the field trips. The students sent the field
notes by their mobile phones and afterwards edited and saved them in the web-based
position application (154 field notes, 65 of which were related to the phenomena of the Ice
Age). The researchers classified the field notes and later quantified them into five categories based on their contents: (1) field notes that included only the name of the observation; (2) field notes that included a qualitative description of the object; (3) field notes
that included quantitative information about the object, such as the results of measurement;
(4) field notes that included a construction related to the object; and (5) field notes that
were linked to web pages. The same field notes were classified into more than one category
if they contained more than one type of information. The categorization was intended to
give a picture of the kinds of observations students made and how they used field notes in
this project.
The students and researchers took a massive amount of digital photos with digital
cameras and camera phones. Although the analysis of the digital photos was not systematic, the photos were transmitted to the school server, and students could then use them to
construct teaching activities, web pages, and presentations. Because video data was not
useful and even impossible during the field trips, both the digital photos and the field notes
complemented the pictures and interpretations of the activities outside the school.
123
65
Web pages
The students also constructed web pages that showed how their thinking evolved. At the
end of the project, the web pages and the video data in the presentation provided an overall
picture of the project and its outcomes to the local press and technology partners. The webpages were part of the content analysis because the researchers wanted to find out what
kind of learning project emerged and what kind of science learning processes, activities,
and practices were represented.
Discussion forum
All messages by the students and the experts were archived in the discussion forums. There
were 17 themes or questions and 116 messages. In addition to the web-page data, messages
from the discussion forum were part of the content analysis and complemented the picture
of the learning project.
Research diary
The research diary was kept by the teacher-researcher to provide data of the day-to-day
progress in the learning process and to capture the reflections and decisions of the teacherresearcher and researcher during the learning project. Unfortunately, the teacher-researcher
did not save all the information about the time spent in this learning project.
Theme interviews
At the end of the project, semi-structured theme interviews were conducted with all students. The grades were divided into four groups. The interviews took about 45 minutes
with the children-teachers group and little less with the younger students groups. The
themes were learning, technology, and teaching. The aim of the interviews was the following: to determine how the students reflected on their own and evaluated the learning of
others in the project, to find out the experience using technology, and to evaluate the
actions and roles of the community members. The transcribed data on the theme interviews
were a part of the content analysis. Some quotations from the interviews are given in the
findings section below.
Video data
Because the main interest was to capture the ways in which the students (both younger and
older) responded to the learning challenge, video technology was a key tool that enabled
the students to hear and see their interactions and to monitor their activities.
The transcribed video data (about 10 hours) consisted mainly of the discourse of the
learning community although some parts of the transcription did not capture the discourse.
However, the video data served to reveal the learning processes and related practices and
activities. As described above, other empirical data were used mainly to complement and
test the interpretations of the video data, particularly in developing a picture of the
emerging learning project. The inductive content analysis of the video data, which supplemented the other data, provided answers to the first research question. The data was
structured into three sub-themes. Descriptions of these themes were written as narrative
constructs. The purpose was to construct a picture of the learning project that emerged.
123
66
Table 1 Research questions, data sources, and methods used in the data analysis
Research
question 2
(Knowledge
development)
Research
question 3
(Science learning
processes,
activities and
practices)
Group interviews
Diary
Messages in
discussion forum
Digital photos
x
Field notes
Analysis
Web-pages
Research
question 1
(Emerged learning
project )
Video-data
Post-test
Research data
Pre-test
Research question
Qualitative
inductive content
analysis. Field
notes were later
quantified.
Inductive content
analysis,
quantification of
data
Deductive, theorydependent content

analysis.
Categorization of
learning activities
based on cognitive
processes in
authentic inquiry.
The purpose was also to determine the kind of science learning processes, activities, and
practices that emerged (research question 3). A qualitative content analysis was conducted
to capture the learning activities and practices to find connections among the cognitive
processes. A deductive, theory dependent content analysis was used so that the categorization of the data was based on the processes of authentic science inquiry: generating
research questions, designing studies, making observations, explaining results, developing
theories, and studying research reports (Chinn and Malhotra 2002b).
Table 1 provides an overview of the ways in which the research questions, related data
sets, and procedures applied to the data analysis were combined.
Empirical findings
The learning process developed in a complex manner from an open-ended learning task
through collaborative designing, knowledge constructing, making several field trips,
teaching and tutoring activities and to the construction of the conceptual models of the Ice
Age. At the end of the project, there were even more open questions about the phenomena
of the Ice Age than at the beginning.
First, the emerged learning project developed during the study is described according to
three sub-themes (research question 1): developed learning project; learning in community
and changing roles; and data handling by the students. Second, the development of
123
67
knowledge is presented (research question 2). Lastly, the deductive, theory-dependent

analysis of the activities of the learning processes and practices is presented (research
question 3).
Emerged learning project
Developed learning project
The learning project began with a pre-test designed to ascertain the preconceptions that the
students in the third to sixth grades had about the Ice Age. After that, children-teachers
(students from the 6th grade), got the open learning task to design instruction about the Ice
Age and implement it with their younger classmates.
Very early in the project, it became clear to the researchers that the children-teachers
recognized that they did not know enough to teach the topic to the younger students. They
focused mainly on information drawn from the Internet, schoolbooks or textbooks, and
scientific texts. They seemed to have difficulties in limiting the scope of the problem.
Gradually, the children-teachers started to write questions and thoughts about the Ice Age
and draw heavily on the comments and answers provided by the experts. The uncertainty
that was embedded in the experts comments seemed to surprise the children-teachers and
push them toward developing their own interpretations, comments, and questions.
During this early phase of the project, the researchers noted that the use of the discussion forum was new to the children-teachers and that their ability to write in the
discussion forum was quite limited. Initially, the teacher often acted as a scribe for the
children-teachers who seemed to use the discussion forum for knowledge building. Each
message on the forum triggered new discussion. Gradually, the children-teachers took over
the discussion forum. One child acted as a recorder while the others were having a discussion. Video clips from this phase of the project show that collaborative designing was
enhanced in the situations where all the children-teachers read the messages in the discussion forum together. The approach also enhanced the production of ideas because
everybody could see the messages projected on the wall by the video projector. Thus, the
forum came to serve as their collective memory.
The researchers also noted that the children-teachers participated in the experts culture
via the discussion forum. This connection was important for developing expert-like
thinking and practices, which was evident in the ways that the children-teachers assessed
the validity of information and integrated it into the whole. It was also evident in their
design work: The children-teachers started their design by collecting what they knew
beforehand, sharing what should be done in the group, and making comments about others
ideas and thoughts (see Fig. 2). This collaborative knowledge building process was easily
perceived during the entire learning project.
Limiting the scope of the phenomena came to be one of the most difficult issues for the
children-teachers. The following quote from an interview at the end of the learning project
clearly provides a good illustration of their dilemma.
Child-teacher: But when there was quite a lot of information one should clarify and
organise it. Then things became very disorderly.
Another child-teacher: Then one could not figure what information would be
relevant.
Child-teacher: Yes (stressing.)
Researcher: But how did you solve the problem?
123
68
Another child-teacher: We write about the all or S (certain student) wrote.

Child-teacher: We took away what was not relevant.
Another child-teacher: S wrote as fast as he could.
Initially, the children-teachers discussed the need to go into nature to search for traces of
the Ice Age because many hidden traces of the Ice Age were located at a distance from the
school. In this phase, the teacher demonstrated how to use the mobile phone with GPS technologies for sending field notes about the traces to the server. The children-teachers
demonstrated its use with the younger students in the courtyard. Later, field trips were
made over the ice of lakes without any limitations. The groups were now organized, so the
children-teachers were no longer working as leaders. New kinds of observations were
made at that time, such as using a compass to determine the movement of the ice (See
Fig. 3).
During the field trips, students could send field notes about the objects to the server.
Table 2 shows the kinds of field notes the students sent and the categories the researchers
established according to the contents.
The field trips figured as a major indicator of the growing competence all students. The
students took the field trips generally in groups of five and always on skis. The longest
track was about 8 km, and required 35 hours to complete. The first trips were done in
February, and at that time, the children-teachers identified markers and objects. In addition,
they attended to the types of activities the younger students would be engaged in. In the
interviews at the end of the project, the children-teachers talked about the sense of
responsibility that they felt in constructing and overseeing these activities.
Throughout the study, the students, teacher-researcher, and researcher took many
photos, which the children-teachers used in their teaching as well as in the web pages and
presentations.
Researchers categorization of the field notes was based on the type of information
content (See Table 3). Altogether, 154 different field notes were collected and sent to the
server. Besides the name of the object observed, most of the data contained qualitative
information. Of those that contained quantitative information, more than half were
Fig. 2 Designing skiing trips

and investigations about the Ice
Age
123
69
Fig. 3 The students investigate the signs of the Ice Age
comprised of data about measurements and results of studies. Hence, 65 of the 154 field
notes were later classified as representing phenomena of the Ice Age. Twenty-four pieces
of field note data on the Ice Age are linked to the Web pages.
The field note data were collected by mobile phones with GPS technology and then
modified on the Internet (see Fig. 4). Throughout the study, the students had difficulty with
the mobile technology. The system did not always work or work as expected; hence, the
students had to repeat the procedures many times. In the final interviews, the students
described their frustration with the mobile technology and their fears that these pieces of
equipment would disappear during the field trips.
After the first long ski trip, the children-teachers and the teacher decided to use a
discussion forum for the assessment of the experienced trip. They asked that all students be
involved in the forum. The children-teachers questions were as follows: What have you
learned during the ski trip? What did you notice about the period when the Ice Age was
born? What was the most interesting thing during the ski trip? What kinds of things
happened during the ski trip? There were 48 written replies from the younger students to
the questions posed in the forum. The replies were typically short, revealing that the ski trip
was experienced positively as fun. The observed glacial phenomena were mentioned
explicitly.
At the end of the project, the students presented what they had learned to the local press,
parents and collaboration partners. The teacher, together with the children-teachers, did the
design for this occasion. In the presentation, existing web pages formed an anchor. At the
beginning, the children-teachers talked about what happened in the process, and then all
the students communicated what they had achieved.
Learning in community and changing roles
The role of the oldest student to be as teachers influenced the progress of the learning
project. The learning task for the children-teachers was to design and teach the topic of the
Ice Age to the younger students. During the first field trips, the children-teachers searched
for signs or traces of the Ice Age, made investigations and measurements, and explained
123
70
Table 2 Examples of the categorization of the field notes
The item observed
by the students
Field notes sent by students
Categorization of
the field notes
Depression of the
terrain surface
None
Only name of the

observation
Huge boulder
About 8 m high, cubical boulder. We climbed up to the half

way. There is a fire place on the top
Quantitative
information
Qualitative
description
Glaciated rock
1 9 1.5 m broad, can see on the ice. The trails of the ice
direction are North-West to South-East. We investigated it by
the compass
Quantitative
information
Qualitative
description
Included
construction
Overgrown closedup pond
There you can see to the pond which had grown closed up.
Could it be a depression in the terrain surface?
Qualitative
description
Included
construction
Depth of the lake
Depth of the lake was, at the third measuring, 25 m
Quantitative
information
Boulders
Big and sharp boulders on the lake, near the shore
Qualitative
description
Tetriharju Esker
We skied over the esker, edge of the esker was craggy. The
esker was fun to ski
Qualitative
description
Table 3 Number of collected and sent pieces of field note on the Ice Age
f (%)
Number of
field note of
the Ice Age:
Field note
including
qualitative
description
Field note
including
quantitative
information
Field note is
only name of
the observation
Field note
including
construction
Field note
linked to
school web
pages
65 (100)
44 (68)
35 (54)
3 (5)
9 (14)
24 (37)
Fig. 4 The field notes were collected by mobile phones and modified in the Internet
123
71
how the Ice Age was born and developed. After these trips, the children-teachers made
summaries based on the photos, the research results, the knowledge they had constructed,
and the answers to the questions they received from experts in geologyall in preparation
for giving lessons to the younger students. An example of this process in action follows.
This lesson took place the 3 weeks after the beginning of the project:
Children-teachers asked questions of the younger students and gave explanations to
themall as a way of teaching about the phenomena of the Ice Age. Each Ice Age
phenomenon was taught separately. During the lesson, the children-teachers showed
photos from the trips and used the explanations and interpretations they had seen the
experts give to the forum. The lesson aroused a lot of new questions. Younger
students wanted to make comments and asked the children-teachers questions. For
example, one of the younger students asked the children-teachers to show the photo
that had been presented in class again. He began to wonder whether could one see
where the boulder had become disconnected. All the students then started to wonder
whether there was any possible detachment of smaller pieces. Other younger students
offered a new explanation about boulders: Ice was like a bus, which took up a
boulder and then after a while knocked it away. During the discussion, it became
evident that there were a lot of interesting objects and phenomena about the Ice Age,
and that the community of learners would like to clarify and explain them.
Originally, the idea was to terminate the learning project at about the three-week point,
but the learners interest was such that the researchers soon decided that there was a need to
continue the learning project for more than 9 weeks after the initially projected end.
Similar teaching situations occurred repeatedly throughout the project during which the
researchers were able to identify many cognitive processes and activities at work, including
asking, explaining, telling, tutoring, and negotiating. Although the teaching situations did
not always focus on the topical issues, the researchers observations and interviews clarified that answering the younger students questions about using technologies, guiding
them in the designing of web pages, and serving as technical support were essential both
for the growing competence of the younger students and for establishing the trust of the
children-teachers.
The children-teachers often illustrated the traces on the ground by using miniature scale
models (see Fig. 5). The idea of making these models emerged spontaneously from the
children-teachers very early during the learning project. Some of the models demonstrated
important phenomena, such as how the traces of the ice on the rock appeared. The final
interview and the post-test show how meaningful these miniature models were for both the
children-teachers and the younger students. Some of the younger students mentioned that
they learned better from the models than the actual visits in nature, and many students
produced extremely detailed pictures about the processes they had studied. Hence, the
power of the models became clear to the researchers.
In the final interview, the children-teachers were asked what it was like to be a teacher
and how they experienced the learning project. They told the researchers that it was very
hard work and that they would not like to become a teacher. Just before the interview, the
children-teachers had given a test to the younger students and concluded that the younger
students had not learned things as well as they had expected. In particular, they felt that
designing the learning project took a lot of time and unexpectedly brought them in touch
with the whole learning process. They wondered what other issues might have been
studied. They were surprised by how wide-ranging the learning project became. The video
123
72
material, on the other hand, demonstrated clearly that they were satisfied, proud, and
enthusiastic about what they had achieved.
The younger students took note of the wide freedom of the children-teachers and
claimed that they had functioned too much like bosses. On the other hand, what the
children-teachers did was highly valued. The children-teachers were praised as good
teachers; the youngest ones in the learning community, in particular, felt that the teaching
was of high quality. When the younger students were asked if they wished to act like the
children-teachers did, that is, be teachers of younger students during the next few years, all
were interested and began to plan what to do and how to do it.
The goal was to implement the learning project in a student-centered manner based on
the principles of authentic learning. It followed that the traditional role of the teacher was
challenged. The teacher had to learn how to stay in the background and, from this position,
try to enable the learning process. In the beginning, the teacher shared that she was as
frightened about her new role and the enlargement of the project in so many directions as
the children-teachers were of their responsibility in the project. The teacher claimed that
daily negotiations with children-teachers helped her to stay on track and, at the same time,
offer appropriate information when the children-teachers needed it. Another helpful aspect
of the project was the children-teachers willingness to work as peer tutors and experts.
At times when the teacher saw the children-teachers or younger students having difficulty in creating a design or experiencing problems with the technology, she adopted a
more traditional role. The following quotation from the teachers diary describes the role
dilemma that she experienced:
We (teacher-researcher and researcher) thought many times that it is not easy matter
to ponder how to proceed in the project. What was planned in the beginning is for
there to be change. Plans are dynamic. What is the role of the teacher? How to guide
the process in the right way? When should I intervene and how it should be done?
Analysis of the video data about the children-teachers mutual interactions revealed that
in many cases negotiations accelerated the children-teachers knowledge building process.
However, situations also occurred when the effect was opposite. For example, a process
that was well underway was interrupted for some time by an action or offer of guidance
from the teacher that was too direct. The teachers efforts to change her role were further
complicated by the students expectations that the role of the teacher should be to teach,
not to stay in the background. In the end, the teachers forbearance and willingness to let
the students take responsibility enabled her to assume a valued position as a member of the
learning community, which facilitated the learning communitys ability to decide together
how to proceed in the learning project.
The success of the role change became clear in the final interview when students
responded to a question about how they experienced the learning project compared with
the typical classroom-learning situation:
Fig. 5 Scale model of the glaciated rock simulation
123
73
Child-teacher: Of course it was different typically we are used to having the tasks
set by the teacher; now we had to guide and design the whole teaching ourselves. Nor
was there any instruction or help when we decide to make those scale models. We
figured it out ourselves!
Data handling by the student
The amount and variety of material collected during and after the trips was huge. A great
deal of information was also collected from the domain experts. After scaffolding by the
actual teacher, the children-teachers decided to organize the collected material for constructing the web pages. When they constructed web pages (27 different pages), the
younger students worked with the children-teachers. They easily developed a structure for
the pages by reorganizing and rewriting what had been provided so that the younger
students could apprehend the material. On the web pages were photos, text chapters,
descriptions of experiences during the trips, and links to 24 different field note. The
illuminated pictures about the processes were also put on these pages. In making the web
pages, the students became interested in solving mathematical problems, and writing fairy
tales and stories related to the phenomena of the Ice Age (e.g., calculating the velocity and
weight of the ice, writing stories of the giants stone and the life after the Ice Age).
Although the students said that making the web pages was a burdensome activity, the
work was valuable to them because they learned a great deal in the process of preparing the
pages. Children-teachers saw themselves as providers of genuine technical support for the
younger students. The principal teacher came to help only when challenges were serious.
The web pages became high quality and extensive informative packages about the Ice
Age. The documented information was written in a clear and understandable manner. The
stories about investigations deepened and contextualized the information content. The
scientific quality of these pages was also quite high, but it was written in their own way and
from their perspective. The writers seemed to know what they wrote. There was no use of
copy and paste. The chosen photos mediated relevant backgrounds and contexts with the
text.
Development of knowledge about the Ice Age
One way to assess the change in students knowledge, thinking, and understanding was to
compare the data from the pre-test with the data from the post-test. All students in the
multi-age classroom took part in the pre- and post-test. They were asked to write and draw
what they knew or thought they knew about the Ice Age at the beginning and at the end of
the learning project. The analysis of pre- and post-test analysis revealed knowledge about
the community and determined how the knowledge developed. First, researchers figured
out the units of the Ice Age from the pre- and post-tests, and then categorized and
quantified the units (see Table 4).
At the beginning of the study, the knowledge level of the students was unequal. Some
students wanted to leave the paper blank; however, when they were asked, everyone
produced something. In contrast, the students were very motivated to do the post-test. The
changes in their knowledge and understanding were very clear. The number of the
explained utterances increased significantly. For example, as the students constructed
process descriptions about the phenomena and the large concept maps, their critical
thinking developed. They moved from very detailed information about the Ice Age without
123
74
making any links to relevant topics, perspectives, or principles to nuanced understandings,

which was indicated in the use of words like perhaps and probably in the answers of
seven students on the post-test (see Table 4).
When the students compared their answers to the pre-test with those to the post-test, the
development in their thinking about the phenomena of the Ice Age was evident. A younger
student said the following:
Younger student: In the pre-test, I wrote fairy tales and now real things.
Qualitatively, one can conclude that the learning project provided challenging activities
that enhanced the students explanations and, therefore, their understanding.
Cognitive processes emerged during the activities, practices, and authentic inquiries.
As described earlier, the learning community constructed scale models and web pages,
organized field notes and digital photos, and implemented teaching events in the classroom, both in nature and in the computer environment. The students described and presented the results of their studies, wrote fictional stories, solved mathematical problems,
took the post-tests, and reflected on the project. Typical learning activities were telling,
explaining, tutoring, asking, and making new explanations.
Chinn and Malhotra (2002b) presented a theoretical framework for evaluating inquiry
tasks with regard to how similar they are to authentic science. They argued that the main
goal of science education is to help students learn to reason scientifically. Moreover,
science education needs to facilitate learning such that students can engage in inquiry
activities in the same way as authentic scientific inquiry does. In this study, the theorydependent content analysis and categorizations of the data are based on Chinn and Malthotras (2002b) theoretical framework of the cognitive processes in authentic science
inquiry. Attachment 1 shows connections among the cognitive processes and experts
authentic inquiry practices regarding the students practices presented in this study.
According to Roth (1998), Practices are patterned activities which people enact to get the
things done that matter to them [] Practices are complemented by resources, tools,
materials, words, information, and everything else that is necessary for engaging in
practice. (p. 3). Attachment 1 also presents typical learning activities in the Ice Age
project related to the students practices.
The analyzed learning activities were separated into connected activities that were
performed while the students studied boulders as sub-phenomena of the Ice Age. These
learning activities were classified according to Chinn and Malhotras (2002b) categorization of the cognitive processes that scientists undertake when they conduct their
investigations. Using these criteria, 62 learning activities that studied boulders as a subphenomenon of the Ice Age were separated and presented in chronological order (Fig. 6).
Figure 6 shows that the Ice Age project challenged students to act in the learning
activities much like authentic scientific inquiry does. It especially challenged them to
Table 4 Development of the
knowledge of the Ice Age
123
The number of utterances

Pre-test
f (%)
Post-test
f (%)
Relation to the Ice Age
75 (100)
137 (100)
Unexplained utterances
28 (37)
23 (17)
Explained utterances
29 (39)
111 (81)
Misunderstanding
18 (24)
3 (2)
75
Fig. 6 The course of the learning activities and cognitive process in studying boulders as one phenomenon
of the Ice Age
explain the phenomena. This interpretation was confirmed both by analysis of the interviews at the end of the project and by analysis of the pre-and post-tests, which showed that
both the children-teachers and the younger students were increasingly able to explain Ice
Age phenomena.
Discussion
The aim of this study was to identify the essence of a science learning process, which
emerged in a designed learning environment, by investigating a particular case. Reflecting
principles of activity theory, the main factors of the environment design were as follows:
(1) situating learning in a diverse and heterogeneous learning community; (2) authentic,
open-ended and unstructured learning tasks; (3) physical, cognitive, and cultural tools used
as mediators. The learning in this emerged environment not only produced different kinds
of outcomes and visible and tangible products but also widened science inquiry activities
and practices. Figure 7 shows the emerged learning environment, the mediating elements,
and the outcomes in this learning project and study.
The learning community was considered similar to any designing community (Roth
1998). It was comprised of multi-age classrooms where heterogeneous students (from preschool to the sixth grade) and teachers worked together. The integration of outside
members (domain experts, parents, technology partners, and local press) gave support in
finding answers to the learning challenges. In this participation learning community, the
members did not expect to do the same activities and learn the same contents. Different
members had an opportunity to do diverse sub-tasks and varied practices in their own ways
(Roth and Lee 2004). The outcome was particularly visible in the diversity of the outcomes
and in the way they chose objects to investigate.
In the beginning, the older students were expected to be responsible instructional
designers and teachers in the continuously expanding learning project. The teacher tried to
stay in the background and organize the learning environment. The roles of the younger
students were expected to be those of regular students. Gradually, during the learning
123
76
project, the roles of all students and the teacher became more equal. Finally, learning and
knowing came to mean a process of joining a particular community (see Mason 2007).
The roles of the domain experts and other out-of-school members were important. The
domain experts answered the students questions and commented on the students interpretations via the discussion forum. The students were excited and surprised about the way
the experts interpreted the phenomena. There were many interpretations of the phenomena
in question. The learners seemed to adopt the scientific conception of the incomplete and
progressive nature of human knowledge. This conclusion was derived from the results of
the pre- and post-tests and the students different representations of the learning project
(outcomes). Local press, parents, and technology partners were the audience in the presentation of the learning project. In this situation, the students had the role of local
experts and they seemed to be very proud of it. They had created new, interesting, and
local knowledge. In this manner, the results were meaningful to not only the student
community but also the outside community, families, and the nearby village (Renzulli,
Gentry, and Reis 2004).
Creating and maintaining this kind of science learning project poses a challenge to
teachers expertise. One of the teachers tasks was to expand the learning project in the
direction of students ideas, proposals, and activities in order to organize an appropriate
learning environment. During the study, the researchers often wondered about the right
way to guide the students and to what extent to intervene. It became clear that the teacher
could not remain in the background in the sense of the purely student-centered work
described by Paul Kirschner, John Sweller and Richard Clark (2006). The teacher and other
adults participated in the learning and shared the responsibilities with students, as is typical
in a community of learners (Rogoff, Matusov and White 1996). This enables students
ideas to be in the center. Because the students new solutions and developments often came
unexpectedly, the teacher could not predict them in advance.
In this study, the learning task was supposed to be a driving, challenging, and illstructured problem. It was open ended, without a particular right answer or direction of
management (Krajcik and Blumenfeld 2006). At first, the oldest students created and
managed the task their own way; they were the bosses. They followed the conventional
teacher model because they needed to think about how to manage the groups and how to
Fig. 7 Mediating elements in the emerged learning environment and the outcomes of the learning project
123
77
teach and guide the younger students. The oldest students wanted to explain the phenomena in different ways and from multiple perspectives. At first, they needed to explain
the phenomena to themselves and after that to the younger students, which caused the
domino effect because the younger students needed to re-explain the unstructured
phenomena and find new sub-phenomena to explain. The mediating elements of the
learning environment helped to take real world and authentic objects and phenomena to the
center of the learning. In the real world, objects are difficult to perceive and phenomena are
usually unstructured, which forced the students to explain according to their own beliefs
and theories.
The students investigated objects in nature, sent located field notes, took digital photos,
and constructed different ways to arrange and represent the collected information. Thus,
they processed information iteratively. The information was repeatedly evaluated for its
importance and to whom it would be relevant. The community of learners deemed it
necessary to produce and re-build information in a visible format and share it with others
for reviewing and editing, in addition to exploiting it. The collaborative designing engaged
and fostered learning processes and interpretations similar to those Roth (1998) describes:
As in the world of adult designing, childrens designing is not a linear process of
applying individual ideas, the sum total of which will lead to some end product, the
design artifact. Rather, designing changes aspects of the setting; and changing the
setting changes cognition in fundamental and irreversible ways. (p. 247)
One can argue that the significant learning task engaged and enabled the students to act
in the direction of the shared goal. The task allowed the students to perceive, collect,
organize, and reorganize the existing knowledge, thereby creating new knowledge. Their
success became obvious when the students started to link the results of their investigations
to their existing knowledge and to develop ways of demonstrating their new understanding
as they did when they constructed miniature models. The expert behavior was mediated
and enhanced by the designs and activities in which students collaborated with the
peripheral participants, that is, real scientists or experts (Wenger 1998).
The mediating tools were intended to support the chosen activities and the practices
throughout the process of learning by collaborative designing. In collaborative work, the
basic cultural tool is language (spoken and written). One use of the collaboration tool in
this project was the discussion forum, which connected both domain experts and students.
The students decided on the kind of physical tools (e.g., rope, ice auger, and fork) they
needed and when they needed them. The learning community was offered different cognitive tools for finding information (e.g., books, maps, and the Internet), making observations and collecting information outside the classroom (e.g., positioning applications in
mobile phones and digital cameras) and organizing, constructing and presenting data (e.g.,
web pages editor, discussion forum, schools web pages, mobile- and web-based positioning applications). Those tools were significant factors in mediating and transforming
the learning activities and expert practices.
The mobile phones with GPS technology seemed to motivate the students to observe,
reflect, and conduct measurements and investigations in the natural environment. At the
same time, this technology supported the generation of quantitative and qualitative
information about the objects and made possible something close to authentic scientific
investigations. The technology gave the learners freedom to choose interesting objects and
the method of investigation. The technology also enabled the integration of learning
objects in the natural environment as a part of the entire learning environment. Activity in a
123
78
natural environment and studying objects were important factors in the construction of
conceptual models and cognitive processes about the phenomena of the Ice Age.
On the other hand, it was also interesting that the students did not see their observations
as meaningful and important, as the researchers expected. The students could not see that
their observations were as original or novel as they really were. Moving into the natural
environment was a valued experience in itself. The younger students, in particular, said
they would like to make the same trips over again (students utterances in the final
interview). In the interview, reflections about individual objects in nature were verbalized
spontaneously. Repeated visits to the natural environment during different phases to study
the same objects were a new experience for the students, compared with those that were
done earlier. The students found new perspectives on those objects. They had also no
difficulty in perceiving new and interesting objects for study.
The assessment and comparison of the prior and developed knowledge showed how the
students knowledge, thinking, and understanding changed. The aim was not to find out
exactly what contents of the Ice Age the individual student had learned or to compare the
learning of the different students. The focus was to make the developing knowledge of the
whole community visible. The change in the students knowledge seemed to move from a
detailed, unexplained factual form towards more principled knowledge that reflected more
expert-like or scientific behavior in problem solving, which is the kind procedural
knowledge for applicability that is typical in expert knowledge (Chi, Feltovich and Glaser
1981).
The data analysis indicated that the learning project sparked the kind of cognitive
processes and practices that are typical in authentic scientific research (Chinn and Malthotra 2002b). In particular, the explanation-oriented cognitive processes that Stella Vosniadou, Christos Ioannides, Aggeliki Dimitrakopoulou and Efi Papademetriou (2001) and
Idit Harel and Seymour Papert (1991) declared as powerful mechanisms in producing
conceptual change were increasingly common during the learning project. The analysis
also indicated that, in a variety of situations, the oldest students and subsequently the
younger students tried to construct explanations. Therefore, it can be hypothesized that
these kinds of learning processes represent science inquiry practices and enhance learners
theoretical thinking about science phenomena.
The results show that the long project enabled the students to enlarge, elaborate, and
deepen their knowledge. This might have been because of the iterative nature of the
project, which allowed time for the development of thinking strategies, making hypotheses,
weighing different solutions, and looking for the consequences of the investigations. The
project may also have derived its strength from having been implemented in a technologically rich environment where the technologies served the roles of partner and cognitive
and physical tools (Kim and Reeves 2007).
Conclusions
The goal of this study was to develop an instructional approach for mediating science
inquiry practices in a case where the natural and/or cultural environment outside the school
constitutes the main context for learning. Learning tasks, such as design-based tasks, often
pursue the construction of an artifact or a tangible outcome that can be assessed and revised
(Lehrer et al. 1995). The students learning task was loosely defined and whole, leading to
a complex and widening learning process, which would not have been possible if scale
models, web pages, and different presentations were the only desired outcomes. As an
123
79
instructional model, learning by designing worked as a unifying and cohesive force in the
complex learning activities that have been described. Furthermore, the model enabled a
cautiously expanding learning process.
The project challenged students to act in learning activities in much the same way that
authentic scientific inquiry does, particularly to explain and create models of phenomena. It
was easily ascertained that the products made by the students represented high quality
conceptual models of the Ice Age. Learning proceeded through social and collective
interaction among the students and with the natural objects, which produced new shared
and situated models of the Ice Age (Brown et al. 1989). In this project, learning was
achieved by participation in collective science processes in a heterogeneous and wide
community. All forms of knowledge were valued, not only scientific outcomes; therefore, learning in science was closer to everyday praxis (Roth and Lee 2004). The unique
knowledge and original outcomes that the students constructed in this environment are
both an opportunity and a challenge. The challenge is how to value these kinds of outcomes and how right or wrong they might be. The knowledge taught in school often tries to
be objective and context free. In this project, learning science included personal and
historical knowledge of places and objects that were combined in a meaningful manner
with science knowledge and skills (Chinn 2006). The shared, collective knowledge and
outcomes increased the cultural property of the learning community. The learning project
demonstrated that students can design and implement their own inquiries, thereby engaging
in and achieving ownership of their learning (Newmann, Wehlage and Lamborn 1992).
The learning project showed that the surroundings of school and other unstructured
environments could be centers of learning. The study demonstrates that students can
develop valued explanations, interpretations, and new theories of unstructured objects and
phenomena. The approach adopted in this study is completely different from typical
instructional models in Finnish schools.
During the learning project, it became clear that the technology itself was not as
important and interesting as the emerging mediated, tool-integrated learning practices that
resulted from its use. The technology transformed and re-formed the learning activities and
practices towards more expert like practices (Kim and Reeves 2007). Mobile phones with
GPS technologies can serve as powerful bridges (as they have since 2005) from school to
natural contexts and vice versa. Today (2012), smart phones provide excellent and novel
opportunities for that purpose.
The multi-age learning community in this study can be seen as an application or model
of community of learners (Rogoff, Matusov and White 1996). The roles of its members
were continuously shaped and integrated during the learning project. It can also be argued
that high confidence in the learners abilities raised the quality of the learning outcomes.
As members of a community of learners, teachers have a valuable opportunity to learn new
things and even get excited with their students. While acting as real partners in the
community of learning, teachers can mediate their pedagogical expertise without shutting
down the ongoing activities. When the teacher is a partner or collaborator, students can see
how he or she might be hesitant, unsure, and not know all the answers (Tabak and
Baumgartner 2004).
From the point of view of school curriculum, some problems remain. Traditional
subject-based school curricula offer limited opportunities for these kinds of learning
projects. School subjects usually have very strict borders and milestones. In this study,
these borders were constantly crossed. In this project, the students used the skills they had
developed otherwise. On the other hand, they adopted working models and practices that
could be recontextualized outside the original learning context (Van Oers 1998). If this
123
80
kind of learning project is to be implemented in schools, changes must occur in the culture
of schools. It is possible that the large-scale project learning carried out in this study can
only be undertaken in school settings where there is a willingness to provide the necessary
professional development and support for experimentation. This study aimed to demonstrate that this kind of learning project could both produce desired learning outcomes and
fulfill the principles of authentic science inquiry, as generally presented in the research
literature.
One can also conclude that if educators design instructional approaches that make
learning whole (Perkins 2009), then learning environments are comprised of the following
the factors: diverse and heterogeneous learning community, open-ended and ill-structured
learning tasks, and relevant physical, cognitive, and culturally mediated tools.
Also remaining is the challenge of creating suitable and economical ways to assess
authentic and project learning. Educators need to either develop new methodologies for
assessment in schools or let learning outcomes speak for themselves. In the first case,
assessments should include new tools in collecting and analyzing information (e.g., video,
smart phones, and GPS technologies) about the actual learning processes. This study
demonstrates that an open-ended, design-based, tool-integrated, collaborative and inquirycentered learning project that integrates learning in the classroom with learning in an
authentic natural environment can enhance scientific processes in students learning
practices.
Acknowledgments This study was supported by the Academy of Finland (under project no. 1217068),
Finnish Cultural Foundation Etela-Savo and EU financed project of Forest as a Learning Environment
(under project no. 24403). We thank the community of Kaipola school, both faculty and students, and the
experts of history and geology for their participation in the study. We also would like to extend special
thanks to Hilkka Seppanen, who co-designed and carried out the present project and collected data material
with the authors. We also want to thank Frances OConnell Rust, who encouraged us to write this article, as
well as Hal White and Henriikka Vartiainen who helped in improving the present article.
Appendix
123
Experts practices (Chinn and Malthotra 2002b)
Scientists generate their own research questions.
Scientists select and even invent variables to

investigate. There are many possible variables.
Scientists invent complex procedures to address
questions of interest.
Scientists often devise analog models to address the
research question.
Scientists often employ multiple controls.
It can be difficult to determine what the controls should
be or how to set them up.
Scientists typically incorporate multiple measures of
independent, intermediate, and dependent variables.
Cognitive Processes
(Chinn and Malthotra
2002b)
Generating research
questions
Designing studies
Selecting variables
Planning procedures
Controlling variables
Planning measures
Designing the
measurements
Designing the tools
Making measurement tools
Practicing sending field
notes by mobile phone,
Practicing editing and
saving field notes to
server map
Designing/discussing
which kind of field notes
is relevant
Designing categories to
field notes
Designing the miniature
models of processes of
Ice Age
Choosing the physical tools
for making the miniature
models
Designing web pages
Discussing in forum
Discussing in classroom
Studying maps
Studentstool-integrated
activities in the Ice Age
project
Children-teachers discussed the following in the forum: What objects can we study
around Vilkaharju Esker?
Students studied the features of real objects that were effects of the Ice Age (lakes,
boulders, eskers, glaciated rocks, kettles, kettle ponds.); they invented variables,
e.g., weight, height, deep, speed, perimeter, size, shape, scope, location,
elevation.
They studied the maps, designed the field trips, and tried to find places where
objects modified by the Ice Age could be found
Students designed the procedures of measurement and chose and even made
measure tools and how to represent measurements in web pages (e.g. How can we
measure the deep of the lake?).
Students measured many objects of the same (sub) phenomenon.
Students used mobile technology with GPS; they practiced using technology at the
beginning of the learning project and found out what kind of measurements they
could do using that technology.
Children-teachers designed miniature scale models, which showed a good picture of
processes that happened during the Ice Age (kettle, glaciated rock, esker and
glacial motion). They searched for and chose the physical tools for making those
models.
Children-teachers tried to figure out their own definition of phenomena of the Ice
Age. They had difficulty in limiting the scope of the phenomena. Real objects
outside of school were one way to find out what could be important to the
content. At the beginning, children-teachers generating research questions, such
as Where can we find boulders? How had those boulders become disconnected?
Can we find those places? What kind of processes were there when the glaciated
rock was born? During the project, all students generated new questions, such as
How was heavy the ice and how fast did the ice slip during one day? They
wrote the research questions and the interpretations for the discussion forum
together. They used the video projector for projecting the messages of the
discussion forum onto the wall.
Description of practices
Attachment 1 Cognitive processes and experts practices in authentic inquiry (Chinn and Malthotra 2002b) and examples of related activities and practices in the Ice Age
project

81
123
Scientists employ elaborate techniques to guard against

observer bias.
Scientists study other scientists research reports for

several purposes.
Observations are often repeatedly transformed into

other data formats.
Scientists constantly question whether their own results
and others results are correct or artifacts of
experimental flaws.
Observations are related to research questions by
complex chains of inference.
Observed variables are not identical to the theoretical
variables of interest.
Scientists must judge whether to generalize to situations
that are dissimilar in some respects from the
experimental situation.
Scientists employ multiple forms of argument.
Cognitive Processes
2002b)
Making observations
Studying research
reports
Explaining results
Transforming
observations
Finding flaws
Indirect reasoning
Generalizations
Types of reasoning
Attachment 1 continued
123
Editing and saving field
notes
Editing and saving photos
Arranging and organizing
data
Constructing web pages
(text, photos, links to
field notes)
Designing and organizing
and teaching activities
Designing and constructing
scale models
Writing fictional stories
Solving mathematical
problems
Presenting the results
Explaining results
Reading books
Browsing Internet
Studying maps
Discussing in forums and
classroom
Making observations,
studies, and
measurements
Collecting data and sending
GPS field notes in nature
Taking photos by mobile
phone and digital camera
project
Students edited and saved field notes to the server map; students classified 65 of the
field notes as representing phenomena of the Ice Age (qualitative and quantitative
data, see Tables 2 and 3). Part of the field notes included the constructions of
observations.
Students arranged and organized data (e.g., field notes, photos, interpretations) over
and over again when they constructed web pages and designed and organized
teaching activities. Children-teachers designed and constructed the miniature
models and used them to teach about the phenomena; they used. e.g., potatoes,
ice, sand, stones, forks and knifes for making models.
Children-teachers first, after that all students explained many times phenomena and
processes of the Ice Age.
Students wrote fiction stories of giants stones and life after the Ice Age, they got
the inspiration from the names of the villages places
Students wanted figure out how heavy the ice was and how fast the ice slipped
during one day.
Students gathered and combined the web pages (30 pages) and field notes (24) were
linked to pages
Lastly, students designed the presentation and presented the results to the local
press, parents and collaboration partners.
The Post-test gave students the opportunity to explain the phenomena of the Ice
Age. Many students constructed process descriptions and large concept maps
about the phenomena.
At the beginning the project, the children-teachers read books and browsed the
Internet. They tried to figure what was important and how to limit the scope of
phenomena. During the first and second week, the children-teachers asked the
geological and history experts questions in the forum. The experts also
commented on students interpretations. Students read books and browsed the
Internet when they gathered their results on the web pages.
Students sent field notes (154) to the server, 65 of which were classified as
representing phenomena of the Ice Age (qualitative and quantitative data).
Students (and teacher) took digital photos with the digital camera and the mobile
phone during the field trips. They used, e.g., an ice auger for making a hole in the
ice, and a rope for measuring the deep, perimeter and height of objects. They
discovered the movement of the ice by using the compass.
82
project
scale models, (theorizing
the results)
web pages (theorizing the
results)
Presenting the results
Making process photos to
web pages
Combining the multiple
perspectives of the
phenomena
Evaluating the results
Scientists construct theories postulating mechanisms

with unobservable entities.
Scientists coordinate results from multiple studies.
Results from different studies may be partially
conflicting, which requires use of strategies to resolve
inconsistencies
There are different types of studies, including studies at
the level of mechanism and studies at the level of
observable regularities
Cognitive Processes
2002b)
Developing theories
Level of theory
Coordinating results
from multiple
studies
Attachment 1 continued
Results and outcomes: texts, photos, field notes, and miniature models were
gathered and combined on the web pages (30 pages) and 24 field notes were
linked to pages. Children-teachers designed the index of the web pages, when all
students together gathered and combined the results of the project.
Most of the results in the web pages were situated phenomena that could be seen,
studied and measured. There were also many process descriptions of studies on
web pages. There were some phenomena of the Ice Age, which were not visible
near the school. Results of these were more like copy and paste information from
the Internet and books. There were also some pages about abstract phenomena,
such as life before and after the Ice Age and Was there life during the Ice Age?
The results of these pages could be mainly gathered from the discussion forum
where children-teachers discussed the topic with geological and history experts.
Children-teachers made four different miniature scale models of the Ice Age; they
taught the processes of the Ice Age to the younger students using these models.
Students took and combined photos of the processes on the web pages.
Lastly, students designed the presentation and presented the results to the local
press, parents and collaboration partners; they presented their results of studies
and combined multiple perspectives on the phenomena.
In the post-tests, students started to use words like perhaps and probably. As
experts, they could reason and make arguments, but they also noticed that in fact,
the experts and their own studies were not always scientifically reliable and
proven.

83
123
84
References
Arvaja, M. (2005). Collaborative knowledge construction in authentic school contexts. University of
Jyvaskyla. Institute for Educational Research. Research 14.
Banks, J. A., Au, K. H., Ball, A. F., Bell, P., Gordon, E. W., Gutierrez, K. D. et al. (2007). Learning in and
out of school diverse environments: Life-long, life-wide, life-deep. Report from the LIFE Center and
the Center for Multicultural Education, University of Washington, Seattle. Retrieved November 10,
2008 from http://life-slc.org/docs/Banks_etal-LIFE-Diversity-Report.pdf.
Barab, S. A. (2006). Design-based research: A methodological toolkit for the learning scientist. In R.
K. Sawyer (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of the learning sciences (pp. 153169). Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Bednarz, S. W. (2004). Geographic information systems: A tool to support geography and environmental
education? GeoJournal, 60, 191199.
Bielaczyc, K., & Collins, A. (1999). Learning communities in classrooms: A reconceptualization of educational practice. In C. M. Reigeluth (Ed.), Instructional design theories and models: A new paradigm
of instructional theory (Vol. 2, pp. 269292). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Bransford, J., Derry, S., Berliner, D., Hammerness, K., & Beckett, K. L. (2005). Theories of learning and
their roles in teaching. In L. Darling-Hammond, J. Bransford (Eds.), Preparing teachers for changing
world. What teachers should learn and be able to do. (pp. 4087). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass A Wiley
Imprint.
Brown, J. S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational
Researcher, 18, 3242.
Chi, M. T. H., Feltovich, P. J., & Glaser, R. (1981). Categorization and representation of physics problems
by experts and novices. Cognitive Science, 5, 121152.
Chinn, P. W. U. (2006). Preparing science teacher for culturally diverse students: Developing cultural
literacy through cultural immersion, cultural translators and communities of practice. Cultural Studies
of Science Education, 1, 367402.
Chinn, C. A., & Malhotra, B. A. (2002a). Childrens responses to anomalous scientific data: How is
conceptual change impeded? Journal of Educational Psychology, 94, 327343.
Chinn, C. A., & Malhotra, B. A. (2002b). Epistemologically authentic inquiry in schools: A theoretical
framework for evaluating inquiry tasks. Science Education, 86, 175218.
Collins, A., Brown, J. S., & Newman, S. E. (1989). Cognitive apprenticeship: Teaching the crafts of reading,
writing, and mathematics. In L. B. Resnick (Ed.), Knowing, learning, and instruction: Essays in honor
of Robert Glaser (pp. 453494). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Collins, A., Joseph, D., & Bielaczyc, K. (2004). Design research: Theoretical and methodological Issues.
The Journal of Learning Sciences, 13, 1542.
Engestrom, Y. (1987). Learning by expanding: An activity-theoretical approach to developmental research.
Helsinki: Orienta-Konsultit.
Engestrom, Y. (1992). Interactive expertise: Studies in distributed working intelligence. University of
Helsinki, Department of Education, (Research Bulletin 83).
Finnish National Board of Education. (2004). National core curriculum for basic education 2004. Vammala:
Vammalan Kirjapaino Oy.
Hall, A. (2007). Vygotsky goes online: Learning design from a socio-cultural perspective. Learning and
socio-cultural theory: Exploring modern Vygotskian perspectives international workshop 2007, 1(1),
2007. Retrieved November 06, 2011 from http://ro.uow.edu.au/llrg/vol1/iss1/6.
Harel, I., & Papert, S. (1991). Software design as a learning environment. In I. Harel & S. Papert (Eds.),
Constructionism (pp. 4184). New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corporation.
Jonassen, D. H. (2000). Revisiting activity theory as a framework for designing student-centered learning
environments. In D. H. Jonassen & S. M. Land (Eds.), Theoretical foundations of learning environments (pp. 89121). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Kafai, Y., & Harel, I. (1991). Learning through design and teaching: Exploring social and collaborative
aspects of constructionism. In I. Harel & S. Papert (Eds.), Constructionism (pp. 85110). New Jersey:
Ablex Publishing Corporation.
Kangas, K., Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, P., & Hakkarainen, K. (2007). The artifact project: History, science and
design inquiry in technology enhanced learning at elementary level. Special issue of research and
practice in technology enhanced learning, 2, 213237.
Karkkainen, S., Keinonen, T., Kukkonen, J., Hurri, A., & Vesala, P. (2009). What is the greenhouse effect?:
Fifth graders ideas. The International Journal of Learning, 16, 415429.
Kim, B., & Reeves, T. C. (2007). Reframing research on learning with technology: In search of the meaning
of cognitive tools. Instructional Science, 35, 207256.
123
85
Kirschner, P. A., Sweller, J., & Clark, R. E. (2006). Why minimal guidance during instruction does not
work: An analysis of the failure of constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiential, and inquirybased teaching. Educational Psychologist, 41, 7586.
Kolodner, J. L. (2006). Case-based reasoning. In R. K. Sawyer (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of the
learning sciences (pp. 225242). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Krajcik, J., & Blumenfeld, P. (2006). Project-based learning. In R. K. Sawyer (Ed.), The Cambridge
handbook of the learning sciences (pp. 317333). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lahti, H., & Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, P. (2005). Towards participatory design in craft and design education.
CoDesign, 1, 103117.
Laru, J., Jarvela, S., & Clariana, R. B. (2012). Supporting collaborative inquiry during a biology field trip
with mobile peer-to-peer tools for learning: a case study with K-12 learners. Interactive Learning
Environments, 20, 115.
Lehrer, R., Ericsson, J., & Conell, T. (1995). Learning by designing hypermedia documents. Computers in
Schools, 10, 227252.
Liljestrom, A., & Seppanen, H. (2004). Yllatys, yllatys, muurahaispesassa on muurahaisiaMapHitluontohavaintopalvelu mobiilioppimisen valineena. Erikoistyoraportti. Retrieved March 15, 2012,
from http://www.maphit.com/luontohavainnot/Erikoistyoraportti.pdf.
Lombardi, M. M. (2007). Authentic learning for the 21st century: An overview. Retrieved November 15, 2007,
from Educause Learning Initiativ Web site: http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI3009.pdf.
Mason, L. (2007). Introduction: Bridging the cognitive and sociocultural approaches in research on conceptual change: Is it feasible? Educational Psychologist, 42, 17.
Mattila, P., & Fordell, T. (2005). MOOP- Using M-Learning environment in primary schools. In H. van der
Merwe & T. Brown (Eds.), Mobile technology: The future of learning in your hands. Proceedings of
the fourth world conference on mLearning (pp. 107111). Cape Town: mLearn 2005.
Meyer, X., & Crawford, B. A. (2011). Teaching science as a cultural way of knowing: Merging authentic
inquiry, nature of science, and multicultural strategies. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 6,
525547.
Mikkola, M. (2011). Defining pedagogical boundaries at schoolthe routes to inclusion and conditions for
collaborative learning. Jyvaskyla: University of Jyvaskyla.
Mueller, M. P. (2011). Ecojustice in science education: Leaving the classroom. Cultural Studies of Science
Education, 6, 351360.
National Education Technology Plan. (2010). Learning powered by technology. Retrieved November 07,
2011, from www.ed.cov/technology/netp-2010.
Newmann, F., Wehlage, G., & Lamborn, S. (1992). The significance and sources of student engagement. In
F. Newman (Ed.), Student engagement and achievement in American secondary schools (pp. 1139).
New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Perkins, D. N. (2009). Making learning whole: How seven principles of teaching can transform education.
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Perkins, N., Hazelton, E., Erickson, J., & Allan, W. (2010). Place-based education and geographic information systems: Enhancing the spatial awareness of middle school students in Maine. Journal of
Geography, 109, 213218.
Pyhalto, K., Soini, T., & Pietarinen, J. (2010). Pupils pedagogical well-being in comprehensive school
significant positive and negative school experiences of Finnish ninth graders. European Journal of
Psychology of Education, 25, 207221.
Rennie, & Jarvis, (1995). Childrens choice of drawings to communicate their ideas about technology.
Research in Science Education, 25, 239252.
Renzulli, J. S., Gentry, M., & Reis, S. M. (2004). A time and a place for authentic learning. Educational
Leadership, 62, 7377.
Robinson, D., Schofield, J., & Steers-Wentzell, K. (2005). Peer and cross-age tutoring in math: Outcomes
and their design implications. Educational Psychology Review, 17, 327362.
Rogoff, B., Matusov, E., & White, C. (1996). Models of teaching and learning: Participation in a community
of learners. In D. Olson & N. Torrance (Eds.), Handbook of education and human development: New
models of learning, teaching, and schooling (pp. 388414). London: Basil Blackwell.
Rogoff, B., Radziszewska, B., & Masiello, T. (1995). Analysis of developmental processes in sociocultural
activity. In L. Martin, K. Nelson, & E. Tobach (Eds.), Sociocultural psychology. Theory and practice
of doing and knowing (pp. 125149). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Roth, W.-M. (1998). Designing communities. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Roth, W.-M. (2005). Doing qualitative research: Praxis of methods. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Roth, W. M., & Lee, S. (2004). Science education as/for participation in the community. Science Education,
88, 263291.
123
86
Roth, W.-M., & Lee, Y. J. (2006). Contradictions in theorizing and implementing communities. Educational
Research Review, 1, 2740.
Sadler, T. D. (2009). Situated learning in science education: socio-scientific issues as contexts for practice.
Studies in Science Education, 45, 142.
Salomon, G. (1993). No distribution without individuals cognition: a dynamic interactional view. In G.
Salomon (Ed.), Distributed cognitions: Psychological and educational considerations (pp. 111138).
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sawyer, R. K. (2004). Creative teaching: Collaborative discussion as disciplined improvisation. Educational
Researcher, 33, 1220.
Smith, C. L., Maclin, D., Houghton, C., & Hennessey, M. G. (2000). Sixth-grade students epistemologies of
science: The impact of school science experiences on epistemological development. Cognition and
Instruction, 18, 349422.
Tabak, I., & Baumgartner, E. (2004). The teacher as partner: Exploring participant structures, symmetry, and
identity work in scaffolding. Cognition and Instruction, 22, 393429.
Temmes, E. (2005). Luonto koululaisten kokemana. In A.-L. Huttunen, & A.-M. Kokkonen, Suomen
kasvatustieteellinen seura Jyvaskyla 2005 (Eds.), Koulutuksen kulttuurit ja hyvinvoinnin politiikat.
Retrieved November 01, 2011, from https://jyx.jyu.fi/dspace/bitstream/handle/123456789/18898/
isbn9513923843.pdf?sequence=1.
Van Oers, B. (1998). From context to contextualizing. Learning and Instruction, 8(6), 473488.
Vosniadou, S., Ioannides, C., Dimitrakopoulou, A., & Papademetriou, E. (2001). Designing learning
environments to promote conceptual change in science. Learning and Instruction, 11, 381419.
Vygotski, L. S. (1978). Thought and language. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Vartiainen, H., Liljestrom, A., & Enkenberg, J. (accepted). Introducing a design-oriented pedagogy to
educate learners to meet the future needs. Accepted for publication Journal of Universal Computer
Science: Special Issue on Technology for learning across physical and virtual spaces.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Author Biographies
Anu Liljestrom is a doctoral student at the Savonlinna Campus of the University of Eastern Finland. She
has also several years of experience as a professional teacher in a primary school. She was the teacherresearcher and the responsible author in this study. Her research interests are authentic learning, learning by
collaborative designing, and learning communities.
Jorma Enkenberg is Emeritus Professor of Educational Science at the Savonlinna Campus of the
University of Eastern Finland. His recent research interests are object- and design-oriented pedagogy and
situated and authentic learning environments.
Sinikka Pollanen is a Professor at the Savonlinna Campus of the University of Eastern Finland. She is the
leader of the Forest as a Learning Environment project and was the background writer in this research
project. One of her major research interests is pedagogical models in different contexts.
123

Inquiry Article 3

Încărcat de

Informații document

Descriere originală:

Titlu original

Drepturi de autor

Formate disponibile

Partajați acest document

Partajați sau inserați document

Opțiuni de partajare

Vi se pare util acest document?

Este necorespunzător acest conținut?

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

Inquiry Article 3

Încărcat de

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

Cult Stud of Sci Educ (2013) 8:5186

Making learning whole: an instructional approach

Lead Editor: M. Mueller

Making learning whole

Education in schools generally emphasizes the transmission of knowledge and the

Making learning whole

Theoretical framework of the study

Diversity and heterogeneous learning community

Making learning whole

Making learning whole

Implementation of the empirical research

Making learning whole

learner-centeredness in the activities. However, they provided some minimal scaffolding at

Making learning whole

Making learning whole

Deductive, theorydependent content

Making learning whole

knowledge is presented (research question 2). Lastly, the deductive, theory-dependent

Another child-teacher: We write about the all or S (certain student) wrote.

Fig. 2 Designing skiing trips

Making learning whole

Fig. 3 The students investigate the signs of the Ice Age

Field notes sent by students

Only name of the

About 8 m high, cubical boulder. We climbed up to the half

Overgrown closedup pond

Depth of the lake

Depth of the lake was, at the third measuring, 25 m

Big and sharp boulders on the lake, near the shore

Making learning whole

Fig. 5 Scale model of the glaciated rock simulation

Making learning whole

making any links to relevant topics, perspectives, or principles to nuanced understandings,

The number of utterances

Relation to the Ice Age

Making learning whole

Making learning whole

Making learning whole

Experts practices (Chinn and Malthotra 2002b)

Scientists generate their own research questions.

Scientists select and even invent variables to

Making learning whole

Experts practices (Chinn and Malthotra 2002b)

Scientists employ elaborate techniques to guard against

Scientists study other scientists research reports for

Observations are often repeatedly transformed into

Experts practices (Chinn and Malthotra 2002b)

Scientists construct theories postulating mechanisms

Making learning whole

Making learning whole

S-ar putea să vă placă și