https://helda.helsinki.fi
Pedagogical Infrastructures of Design Studio Learning
Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, Pirita
2017-05-24
Seitamaa-Hakkarainen , P , Härkki , T , Lahti , H & Hakkarainen , K 2017 , ' Pedagogical
Infrastructures of Design Studio Learning ' , Journal of textile design, research and practice ,
vol. 4 (2016) , no. 2 , pp. 155-181 . https://doi.org/10.1080/20511787.2016.1325579
http://hdl.handle.net/10138/308634
https://doi.org/10.1080/20511787.2016.1325579
submittedVersion
Downloaded from Helda, University of Helsinki institutional repository.
This is an electronic reprint of the original article.
This reprint may differ from the original in pagination and typographic detail.
Please cite the original version.
Pedagogical Infrastructures of Design Studio Learning
Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, P., Härkki, T., Lahti, H., & Hakkarainen, K.
Abstract
In the design studio, within educational contexts, sketching, model-making and prototyping of
tangible objects are parts of the design process that support students in achieving final design
solutions. This paper presents research in which three design experiments involving design studio
settings, using a Learning by Collaborative Designing model for supporting knowledge-creating
learning for university-level craft teacher education, were undertaken. The design studios aimed at
guiding first-year students to appropriate professional processes and practices of design. The
Pedagogical Infrastructure Framework was applied to analyse the social, epistemic, cognitive and
material-technical aspects of three design-studio settings. Through meta-analysis of the three
experiments we asked: What can we learn from these design studio experiments about the
pedagogical infrastructure that supports creative design practices of working with design
knowledge, tools and technologies in a real learning setting? As a result of the experiments we
discuss the limitations and opportunities of these pedagogical settings, as well as considerations for
future development of studio-based settings as pedagogic innovations emerging for integrating
material-technical and socio-digital technologies, practices and spaces for learning.
Keywords: Knowledge-creating learning, design-studio setting, collaboration, textile designing
Introduction
The purpose of this article is to analyse collaborative design studios whose objective is to guide
students to appropriate professional processes and practices of design. The kind of pedagogical
infrastructures and scaffolds needed, in these studios, by novice designers, in this case universitylevel first-year textile teacher students, will be addressed. The process of designing and making
textiles is a complex, multifaceted activity that requires sophisticated professional thinking,
domain-specific knowledge and procedural skills (Seitamaa-Hakkarainen and Hakkarainen 2001).
Subsequently textile design is a creative activity and learning to design professionally requires
knowledge about the social practices and working methods that are essential for creative work. The
aim of the study presented is to highlight, for design educators, the essential underlying pedagogical
conditions that need to be designed and addressed in the learning environment to enhance the
design students’ desired collaborative design practices. In design studios the pedagogical
organization, the nature of design tasks and social setting are planned to enable development of
students’ collaborative designing skills and their understanding of multifaceted design processes.
We consider collaborative designing as a prototypical example of knowledge-creation learning that
goes beyond mere knowledge acquisition or social participation; it involves “trialogical” efforts of
advancing shared epistemic objects (Paavola and Hakkarainen 2014) in terms of externalization of
design ideas and constructing various types of tangible artefacts. Thus, research into students’
collaborative design in studio settings helps design educators understand how to develop their
pedagogies and educational methods for teaching the design and making processes.
Teaching creative practices in the design disciplines is most often based on a studio model that
usually emphasizes pursuit of challenging knowledge-creation projects and emphasises learning by
doing (Sawyer 2012). Traditionally, the studio is as much a place for designing as it is an
instructional method: it provides an environment imitating the professional designer’s work place
with plentiful materials and representations (Goldschmidt, Hochman and Dafni 2010). Studiobased projects can be open-ended tasks that emphasise students’ own artistic expression around
given themes or can be open-ended with more pre-defined collaborative design projects. The
purpose of studio-based learning is to provide students with the competencies to deal with the entire
design process. In accordance with authentic professional contexts, students are introduced into the
process of working with open-ended but focused design projects meeting external, design
constraints determined by a design brief (Chamorro-Koc, Scott and Coombs 2015, Lee 2009,
Sawyer 2012). Further, as the overall demand for collaboration between professionals has rapidly
increased, individual student work has often been accompanied by co-operative and collaborative
design work. Although educational projects do not involve all the constraints of real-life projects, it
is critical that students learn to understand the complexity of collaborative design work, such as
communicating initially fuzzy thoughts and challenges involved in transforming ideas into tangible
objects.
In this paper, we present our findings from three collaborative design courses conducted with firstyear university-level students in training to become textile teachers i.e., craft teachers. In Finland, as
well in other Scandinavian countries, craft education (consisting of textile and technical work) is a
compulsory school subject in elementary level (grade 1 to 6, ages 7 to 12) and at the lower
secondary level, grade 7. In grade 8 to 9 (ages 14 to 16), students can select craft education as an
optional subject. In craft education, multi-materiality is emphasized and designing and craft making
is seen as an exploratory, inventive and experimental activity. When designing, various textile
techniques are used to materialize students own design ideas; this is focused on both creating and
manipulating textile surfaces but also constructing fabric products (for example, clothes and toys).
Craft teacher education in Finland consists of five years of university studies and all qualified craft
teachers must hold a Master of Arts in Education degree. The subject studies include various textile
techniques (for example knitting, sewing and embroidery), clothing design and pattern making, as
well as different methods for textile surface designing (dyeing, textile printing, felting and
weaving). These studies embrace various aspects of textile designing: ideation and visualization of
ideas, exploration and experimenting with materials in order to create textile surfaces, as well as
constructing and making final fabric products. The studies also cover how to teach designing and
making, and student teachers have several periods of practice in training schools. Moreover, the
studies also emphasize digital technologies and digital documentation (for example, use of eportfolios and various digital inspirational sources), as well as use of different digital textile
technologies and applications (i.e. computer supported weaving, software applications for
embroidery), while designing and making.
Although textile teachers do not usually become professional designers, their future job description
involves teaching collaborative design and making of craft; they have to be able to teach
corresponding skills and practices in comprehensive schools and in various adult-learning settings.
Textile teacher students need to learn to express design ideas and to transform ideas into physical
representations and artefacts. A previous study (Laamanen and Seitamaa-Hakkarainen 2014)
indicated that textile teacher students have some difficulties related to creative design processes,
such as expressing design concepts and cyclically developing various design ideas in different
modalities and materials, instead they can get fixed on the first plausible idea. The emergent aspects
of creative thinking need to be supported by providing a collaborative environment to share and
develop ideas together as well as encouraging the students to learn to nourish their collaborative
design process with experimenting and trying out several ideas with materials. Thus, the design
educators need to be aware of how pre-defined design tasks, tools and materials affect designing
and how the organized physical and social settings support or hinder the teams’ creative
collaboration.
In order to address challenges in designing, we will examine the pedagogical implications of
design-studio learning of collaborative practices. Our meta-analysis of three different design studio
settings focuses on pedagogical infrastructures (Lakkala et al. 2008, Lakkala et al. 2010).
Pedagogical infrastructures consist of the epistemic aspects of design tasks, social organization of
learning settings as well as the tools and materials available. In this paper, firstly we describe the
pedagogical model of learning by collaborative designing (LCD) that has informed our work.
Secondly, the salient pedagogical infrastructure framework (Lakkala et al. 2008, Lakkala et al.
2010) is presented. Next, we utilize the pedagogical infrastructure framework to analyse the three
design-studio contexts’ associated learning activities and the tasks, tools and materials given to the
students. The contexts in question were the design process (within a studio) for the following
products: 1) a three-dimensional (3D) textile toy based on small child’s drawings, 2) a functional
3D textile puzzle for visually impaired children and 3) wearable 3D textile sea creatures for Sea
Life Helsinki. Finally, the implications for design education and the cultivation of students’ design
practices are presented.
Learning by collaborative design
Design artefacts, although concrete, represent a vast continuum of abstract and embodied ideas and
meanings. In designing, conceptual and material aspects are simultaneously present: the participants
develop their ideas and participate in knowledge-creating inquiries, as well as create design
prototypes, material things and products. In these kinds of settings, the process and the object of
designing emerge in collaboration; therefore the outcomes cannot be fully predicted – neither the
order of the process phases nor the final artefact. In general, the complexity of the design process
emerges from its cyclical and iterative nature, and thus, possible design solutions arise from a
complex interaction between parallel refinement of the design problem and design ideas (Lahti,
Seitamaa-Hakkarainen and Hakkarainen 2004). However, collaboration brings advantages as well
as disadvantages. Collaborative designing is a process of actively communicating and working
together to identify design constraints, create and share design ideas, deliberately make joint
decisions, construct and modify developed design solutions, and produce shared design objects, as
well as evaluate the outcomes through discourse (Hennessy and Murphy 1999, Lahti, SeitamaaHakkarainen and Hakkarainen 2004). In order to successfully address a design problem, a team
must simultaneously deal with the design task and organize their process of working (Chiu 2002,
Cross and Cross 1995, Lahti, Seitamaa-Hakkarainen and Hakkarainen 2004).
Designing is focused on creating and transforming design ideas into various material forms
(Ramduny-Ellis et al. 2010). An important aspect of collaborative designing is working early on
with shared design objects, such as visual representations, models, and concrete materials, e.g.
models and mock-ups. Some students prefer to present ideas in visual ways by drawing, whereas
other students like hands-on experimentation by creating and making tangible models that
materialize their abstract ideas in concrete forms. In providing such a starting point, educators need
to have skills and knowledge to support various formats of externalization and materialization in
and for collaborative designing. They need to encourage students to just play with materials in order
to provide new ways of working and managing the creative process.
In the design studio model, design activities are organized for the pursuit of professional design
tasks; there is, for example, a design brief that presents real-world design tasks. These tasks prompt
students to experience the complexity of the entire design process: defining the design constraints,
exploring and sketching design ideas, and experimenting with various materials. In our previous
studies, we have systematically analysed collaboration in virtual design studios (SeitamaaHakkarainen, Lahti and Hakkarainen 2005), in different authentic collaborative design contexts, for
instance, designing clothing for prematurely born babies (Lahti, Seitamaa-Hakkarainen and
Hakkarainen 2004) or creating tactile books for visually impaired children (Lahti 2007).
Conclusions from these previous studies highlight that the participants considered the solving of the
authentic design task very important and motivating, and they designed inspiring and innovative
products.
The pedagogical models that have been widely adopted in design education are experiential
learning (Kolb 1984), reflective practice (Schön 1987), Learning by Design™ (Kolodner et al.
2003) and project-based learning (Greeno 2006, Scardamalia and Bereiter 2006). All these inquirybased pedagogical approaches emphasize the importance of engaging students in solving authentic
and meaningful design challenges as well as learning by doing i.e. practice-based working. The
LCD model (Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, Lahti and Hakkarainen 2005) provided the pedagogical
framework for our previous studies. This model has its theoretical foundations in the pedagogical
approaches of knowledge building (Bereiter and Scardamalia 2003; Scardamalia and Bereiter 2006)
and constructionism (Kafai 2006).
The LCD model depicts the design process as spiral in nature; satisfactory design is approached
iteratively through successive design cycles. The centre of the LCD model is distributed expertise
and collaboration (see Figure 1). All participants work to develop the joint design object by sharing
their expertise socially. The model emphasizes that collaboration should occur in all stages of the
design process by creating shared design contexts, analysing design constraints, collecting and
sharing new knowledge, prototyping and providing feedback on the artefacts being designed. The
design process starts with participants performing a joint analysis of the design context. At this
stage, the external constraints, design task and client have a critical role in determining the various
physiological, emotional, psychological, social, and cultural aspects central to the process. During
the framing of the design context, various, sometimes conflicting factors that affect the design
process and define its requirements need to be considered.
Figure 1. Learning by Collaborative Designing (LCD) model.
An essential aspect of the process is materialization of the ideas through visualizing or making and
exploring design prototypes. By acquiring deepening knowledge, sharing that knowledge socially,
producing varying design ideas and evaluating those ideas, the design process progresses cyclically.
The efforts of the participants are organized towards developing shared, design ideas (conceptual
artifacts), embodying and explicating those ideas in visual sketches (graphic artifacts or
inscriptions), and giving the ideas a material form as prototypes or end results (e.g. fabricated
products). From the beginning to the end, the design process is mediated by the shared artefacts
being designed. Thus, constant cycles of idea generation and testing of design ideas by visual
modeling or prototyping, characterize the process. Whereas in our previous design studio
experiments, the LCD model provided a facilitating structure to students’ virtual designing and
collaboration, in this study, the model provided a pedagogical framework for collaborative
designing when students are working side by side in the same space.
Pedagogical infrastructures in the context of design learning
It is important to provide sufficient structural support to facilitate novice students’ collaborative
design process and unleash the students’ full potential during the complex design situation. In their
analysis of how technology-enhanced collaborative knowledge creation is fostered, Lakkala and her
colleagues (2008; Lakkala et al. 2010) identified interrelated technical, social, epistemic, and
cognitive support structures. These structures are the building blocks of the framework of
pedagogical infrastructure. The aim of the framework is to highlight, for educators, the essential
underlying conditions that need to be designed and addressed in the learning environment to
enhance desired collaborative knowledge-creation practices. The development of the framework
was inspired by Bielaczyc (2006), who noted that when implementing knowledge-building
pedagogy in schools, the central challenge lies in creating the appropriate social infrastructure
around the technical one. She was referring to the classroom culture, its established norms,
classroom practices and online activities involving the use of the technological environment
(Bielaczyc 2006). Lakkala et al. (2008) defined the pedagogical infrastructure as conditions
(activity, structures and artefacts) that were designed and implemented in an educational setting to
support the desired type of learning. Pedagogical infrastructure can be seen as pedagogical
scenarios, based on certain learning theories, as well as on descriptions of the organization of
collaborative learning settings, sequences of learning activities and the nature of complex tasks i.e.
who does what and when according to time, event and participant perspectives.
According to Lakkala et al. (2008), a technical infrastructure requires students to be provided with
the suitable technological learning tools for supporting collaborative inquiry. A social
infrastructure involves social arrangements (i.e. agreements and organizational structures) that
invite the participants to collaborate and create a common ground. For a proper epistemological
infrastructure, educators also need to encourage learners to treat knowledge as something that can
be shared and jointly developed (Bereiter 2002, Scardamalia and Bereiter 2006). Creating new
knowledge is seen to be a process embedded in shared practices (“knowledge practice”) that are
enacted (Hakkarainen 2009). Lastly, a productive cognitive infrastructure requires educators’
efforts to facilitate the advancement of students’ self-regulative competencies and meta-skills for
monitoring collaborative aspects of learning processes. Cognitive infrastructure should provide
concrete conceptual tools, such as guidelines, models, or templates, for supporting planning,
monitoring and reflection. The distinction between epistemological and cognitive infrastructures is
not, however clear-cut; the two are interrelated and prompt each other.
When talking about supporting a certain type of learning and related pedagogical infrastructures
Lakkala et al. (2008) as well as Bielaczyc (2006) both refer to a knowledge-building framework or
knowledge-creating learning. While ‘knowledge building’ highlights conceptual aspects of inquiry,
it pays too little attention to the role of tools and other physically embodied aspects of inquiry
(Hakkarainen 2009). Design projects, as presently considered, in contrast, engage the participants in
pursuing in parallel both conceptual and material artifacts and iteratively transforming conceptual
ideas in material forms in a way that, in turn, elicits further elaboration of ideas. In the following,
we will depict the three design studio contexts, their structures, activities and the subsequent tasks,
materials and tools given to the students.
Data Collection: Context for Collaborative Design Settings
This study is part of the multi-faceted Handling Mind: Embodiment, Creativity and Design research project funded by Academy of Finland. Out of the four research tracks involved, this study
represents one focused on embodiment, materiality and collaboration in designing. The purpose of
this track was to analyze design thinking in face-to-face studio-based practices and examine the
ways of carrying out on-the-spot material experiments (drawing, models) during designing. The
design task and organization for each session were carefully planned. Macro and micro level design
processes of design teams were analysed from video recordings. The arrangement of video
recording affected the practical ways of organizing the teams working. Two stationary cameras
were used to trace selected teams’ design processes from various perspectives (i.e. side view and
view from above). During their face-to-face design sessions, the teams worked in several rooms. All
materials produced (i.e. written notes, mind maps, sketches, mock-ups) were collected, and teams of
students from 2013 and 2014 course were interviewed. For the present meta-analysis, we also
included all design briefs, instructions for each session and all materials provided to students.
Although some results of the video analysis of each of the three cases were published earlier (Lahti
et al. 2016a, Lahti et al. 2016b, Härkki, Seitamaa-Hakkarainen and Hakkarainen 2016), the earlier
studies did not analyse pedagogical infrastructures of the studio-based learning settings.
The data was collected in three consecutive years 2012-2014, from the course Basics of Craft and
Design Studies. This course is a compulsory first-year course in a program for Craft Teacher
Education, University of Helsinki, Finland. The 10-week course consists of lectures and team
design sessions. The objective of the collaborative design task was for the participants to carry out
an entire design project for the first time in their university studies. The theoretical lectures dealt
with the nature of design problems, theories of design processes and the role of visualization.
During the lectures, the LCD model was introduced. The students met each other during the weekly
two-hour lectures, followed by face-to-face teamwork sessions (2 hours). The predefined time
schedule determined the arrangements (time, space and place) of the course. Immediately after this
course, the students continued in the second course, Sewing Technology, where they made their
designed products.
Approximately 34-38 textile teacher students participated in the course each year. For practical
reasons, we invited each year 9-12 voluntary students (three to four teams) to participate in our
research project. In the year 2012, only one design session was videotaped. That pilot study
determined how we proceeded with data collection. Each year, the teams’ work was organized as
collaborative design sessions constructed around open-ended and authentic design tasks. Since this
course is the first course for students entering into textile teacher education, the students neither
knew each other very well nor had collaborated previously.
All teams got similar kinds of assignments, but the general theme of the design task was different
each year. Each design task had special premises that needed to be considered while planning the
courses, and thus the implementation of the courses varied slightly. Design tasks mainly focused on
a 3D fabric product design, although in some cases, the textile surfaces were also created. The
design assignment was divided into the subtasks that provided the framework of the design
sessions: design constraints, visualization and building a mock-up model. Next, we presented the
general structure of each case in Table 1, followed by a short overview of each of the design tasks.
Table1. Structure of design sessions and design tasks in each design studio.
Session
3D Textile Toy
(2012)
Brief + Collect a
child’s drawing
3D Textile Puzzle
(2013)
Brief + Orientate to puzzles in the
websites:
http://www.gamesmuseum.uwaterloo.ca/Virt
ualExhibits/ puzzles/manipulative/index.html
Design brief
http://www.leikkien.fi/epages/Kaupat.sf/fi_FI/?
ObjectPath=/Shops/leikkien/Products/S413A
Design
constraints
Mind Map
Fabric collage
Visualization
Build a 3D mock-up
Modeling
Pre-assigned
materials:
1) pen & paper
2) modeling clay
3) cardboard
4) wire & fiber
fabric
3D Animal Accessory
(2014)
Brief +
Visit SEA LIFE,
sketch and take
photos of sea animals
10 questions about the puzzle
Mind Map
Creative problem solving task
(Individual task)
Collaborative sketching task (Forms)
Build a 3D mock-up
Mind Map
Pre-assigned materials:
1) modeling clay
2) cardboard and masking tape
3) wire and fiber fabric
A free selection of
materials:
1) cardboard
2) masking tape
3) wire
4) fiber fabric
5) net
Collaborative
sketching task
Build a 3D mock-up
Pattern of toy
Feedback
Presentation to peers
Presentation to peers
Fabric collage
Presentation to the
client
Three-Dimensional Textile Toys: Students received the design brief during the first lecture. They
were asked to collect a drawing from a child and ask the child to explain what it represents (e.g. a
monster, a fairy tale etc.) or, alternatively, to ask a child to draw a picture and tell the story behind
it. In the first session, instructions for the making of a mind map and an additional source of
inspiration, a booklet about making tactile books for visually impaired children, were given to the
teams. In the second session, the teams made a fabric collage. For the building of a mock-up, each
team received different materials 1) pen and paper, 2) masking tape and thin cardboard, or 3) wire
and non-woven interfacing fabric. Later, most of the toys were donated to the children who made
the drawings. Figure 2 presents one example of a two-year old girl’s original drawing, mock-up
model made by wire and non-woven interfacing fabric, prototype and final textile toy.
Figure 2. The drawing (left) by a child as a starting point; the mock-up model, the prototype and
final product by Team Unto.
Three-Dimensional Textile Puzzles for visually impaired children; in the first session, the students
received a booklet about tactile books, information about visual impairment and some web pages
for orienting to 3D puzzles. Before the visualization session, each student individually completed
one classical, creative problem-solving task, during which they randomly picked numbers that
corresponded to shapes (e.g. cone, cube, rectangle etc.) and themes (for example, song, story and
transportation). In the beginning of the visualization session, students were asked to negotiate and
select which shapes and themes the team would be using. For building a mock-up the teams
received similar materials as in the pilot experiment, only paper and pencil were excluded. The
puzzles were donated to CELIA, a library for visually impaired people and those with other print
disabilities. Figure 3 presents an example of the outcomes: a clay mock-up of the puzzles’ pieces
and the final 3D puzzle by one of the teams.
Figure 3. Pieces of Landscape Puzzle (clay mock up) and final product.
Wearable Textile Sea Creatures: This assignment took students to meet a client, SEALIFE
Helsinki, who requested custom-made accessories, wearable sea creatures (replicas), for groups of
visiting day-care children to use. The main structure of this experiment was slightly different due to
the client’s involvement. First, the teams engaged with the authentic environment in SEALIFE
Helsinki with expert guidance about the world of sea creatures. Students were asked to collect
sources of inspiration by sketching and taking photos with iPads. The next session focused on
identifying design principles: final products should maximize use of recycled materials, feel
authentic, be easy to dress and easy to maintain. The visualization session started with a lottery
where each student received a name of a body part where the sea-creature accessories should be
worn, and then the teams were asked to select one body part. In the mock-up session the teams were
provided with a free choice of materials, as opposed to previous years where materials were preselected. After the mock-up session they were asked to make a fabric collage to represent their
designs. The client twice provided feedback on design outcomes: after the mock-up and at end of
the project when the creatures were donated to SEALIFE. Figure 4 presents an example of one
team’s effort.
Figure 4. Mock up model of shark and final outcome of one team in the SEALIFE project.
Method of data analysis
We based our meta-level analysis on the design assignments, sub-tasks including scaffolds,
practical arrangements of the design studios, the students’ outcomes produced during the design
sessions as well as the results documented in our previous articles (Lahti et al. 2016a, Lahti et al.
2016b, Härkki, Seitamaa-Hakkarainen and Hakkarainen 2016, Härkki, Hakkarainen and SeitamaaHakkarainen 2016). In addition, we utilized video recordings of the sessions and team interviews to
provide examples of our results. Our analysis categories are based on pedagogical infrastructures
(Lakkala et al. 2008; 2010) with some modifications. Table 2 presents components of pedagogical
infrastructure, definitions and essential design features of our setting.
Table 2. Pedagogical infrastructure: components, definitions and essential features of the setting.
Component
Definition
Technical
Providing of technology and
technical advice to the participants
and organizing the use of
technology.
Social
Essential features of the setting
Techno-material tools and their
functionality: tools for designing, as
sources of inspiration, for refining and
further developing design ideas.
Appropriateness of the tools and
Functionality of the tools provided materials for the desired activity.
and their appropriateness for the
desired activity.
Combination of designed
Shared process and object: the
individual or collaborative
collaborative learning activities and
outcomes.
activities and outcomes.
Epistemological
Cognitive
Arrangements to organize
students’ collaboration and social
interaction.
Shared responsibility: tasks
defined in such way that the
accomplishment requires shared
responsibility.
Ways of operating with
knowledge and the nature of
knowledge processing that the
assignments promote.
Concrete outcome: require that
inquiry includes the development
of concrete, tangible products as an
outcome of inquiry.
Designed tasks and support
structures providing models that
promote students’ competencies to
work in an intended way.
Nature of knowledge resources
used.
Provided cognitive models.
Physical and social arrangements to
organize social interaction.
Focused collaboration and joint teamlevel objective: co-designing of
outcomes and joint orchestration of
everyone’s contributions.
Pedagogical principles: Learning by
Collaborative Design model (LCD).
Nature of knowledge and iterative
process: creating new knowledge and
working on design mode. Several
iterative evaluation and refinement of
ideas.
Making epistemological advancement
visible: externalize and publish their
latest advancements in designing.
Concrete outcome: sketches, a mock-up,
etc. concretized the epistemic
advancement.
Nature of design tasks: design brief and
sub-tasks, design constraints and order of
design sessions.
Cognitive scaffolds for designing:
session structure provided; templates,
guidelines relevant for professional
design, information sources.
Results
The notion of pedagogical infrastructures is a metaphor for emphasizing how design and
implementation of collaborative learning settings is indirect, setting up background conditions that
mediate the intended social and cultural practices but do not strictly prescribe learning activities
(Lakkala et al. 2010). In the following text we will represent our results starting with the
epistemological and cognitive infrastructures, because these components strongly informed the
development of the courses. We continue to social and then technical infrastructures and provide
some examples from the data to highlight our interpretations.
Epistemological infrastructure
The epistemological infrastructure regarding pedagogical principles of LCD was apparent in all
cases: design tasks were authentic and teams were solving complex, ill-defined design tasks through
practices that explicitly and purposefully aimed at creating new design knowledge. Additionally,
students were engaged in real design practices, in one case, interacting with a real client.
The LCD model implicitly emphasized reflective process. In all of the three design-studio cases, the
given tasks and designed sessions guided students to iteratively assess and advance creative ideas
becoming more refined: teams started by defining design constraints, then continued with ideation
(idea generation and refinement) by working on subtasks. These involved iterative refinement of
conceptual ideas as well as embodied activities: concrete working with materials for making mockups, prototypes and final products. The teams needed to externalize and share their design ideas and
advancements in designing. In other words, epistemological advancement was made visible and
audible and required several cycles of reflection and revision, cycles that sustained improvement of
shared and concrete outcomes. Several teams noticed that design constraints and progressive
characteristic of the sub-tasks facilitated designing and advanced the development of collaborative
solutions. For example, one team described:
“The sub-tasks made it easier to advance our design. The second sub-task helped the
most, even though we first felt that it slowed us down. It helped us to find the right
track.” (Landscape team, 2013)
The students acquired important experience of progressive design processes from the very
beginning of their studies and they were able to create unique and practical design solutions for predefined tasks. In studio model learning, students faced challenges as part of guided problem-solving
(i.e. a specific set of constraints that define how students can proceed): in particular, they needed to
design solutions for authentic real-word problems while they were just learning about designing.
Some teams focused more on defining the problem and using information that was related to the
design brief and constraints; whereas some design teams focused more on generating solutions
(Lahti et al. 2016b). In some cases, the student teams encountered some difficulties such as
premature devotion to a design idea, which they needed to overcome. Anyhow, they were able to
work independently, and they organized the available time efficiently. They gained confidence in
their own ideas and developed abilities to communicate about them. Despite the complexity and the
challenges, it would be worth the effort if the students learnt to implement progressive design
processes in their future collaborative projects as textile teachers or designers.
Cognitive infrastructure
The cognitive infrastructure was embedded in the design brief and sub-tasks that included the
respective scaffolds assisted the intended actions. The structure of the learning setting, order of
sessions and sub-tasks formed sequences for continued work in the entire design process. Further,
each task required a tangible and concrete outcome (mind map, one or more sketches, a mock-up, a
material collage, etc.) that concretized the advancement made by the teams. Regarding the teams’
creative contexts two levels of epistemic criteria were set. First, the design briefs included
ambitious objectives, external design constraints, and second, the teams themselves implicitly
prioritized the external constraints and set internal constraints during designing. While the teams
iterated their design solutions from task to task, they also reflected upon how their prioritized
constraints were met. One team (Truck team 2013) explained the importance of authenticity
provided by the design brief and constraints in following way:
Vanessa: To me, it would be nice, that it would be actually made somewhere, for
something, for example we need to think why are we making it and for whom, at least
personally that is what motivates me.
Pamela: So that you can be part of making something real.
Pamela: And so that it'd be fun and useful so that we could be proud of what we've
done.
In each studio setting, when starting their first collaborative design session, students received some
external knowledge sources (a CELIA booklet, internet links, guided visit of SEALIFE) but the
ways and extent of their use were up to the teams. The design tasks in question included some
guidelines - aspects the teams needed to consider. For example, to support the analysis of the design
brief and constructing a mind map, some conceptual frameworks (e.g. Papanek model) were given
to them. Additionally, the task of fabric collage invited teams to consider the importance of tactual
senses, textural qualities and functional properties of materials (Härkki, Seitamaa-Hakkarainen and
Hakkarainen 2016). In other words, teams participating in these design studios learned various
conceptual tools and professional practices i.e. how professional designers work. The concepts of
‘design constraints’, ‘representation’, ‘modeling’, ‘externalizing’ and ‘user needs’ became part of
their professional vocabulary. Designing was not always a smooth process, and some of the subtasks caused conflicts, contradiction and even fixation; new instructions forced teams to reconsider
their previous initial ideas, to adopt or reject their ideas in order to find new creative ways to
proceed. In the team interview, one team commented on the tasks and sub-task in the following
way:
Ann: We were slightly out of it after the first time [first session], like, yeah we're
making this Landscape puzzle, and when we got the “form task” for the pieces as a
starting point and we were like no, no .. but we realized that we can get a better idea
and I don't know if we would have ended up like that. (Team Landscape 2013)
Social infrastructure
Social infrastructure is revealed in ways of forming the teams, organizing the physical working
space and the task instructions emphasizing individual or collaborative work. Although the task
instructions highlighted collaboration, the division of labor between team members was possible. In
collaboration, idea exchange may both facilitate and hinder idea generation, which is partially
dependent on the quality of interaction. Thus, appropriate social and physical settings facilitate
participation and sharing of ideas, organize the design process, and support the emergence of a
commitment to a common goal.
In our studio settings we started with fresh teams: the course starts at the beginning of the first term
of textile teacher education; therefore, the students had no prior experience of working together.
The teachers assigned volunteering students to teams. The joint team-level objective was also stated
clearly: the design brief expressly indicated that each team should come up with one design.
Furthermore, during design sessions, the teams were situated around a small table, worked in
separate rooms and had no contact with outsiders – these physical and social arrangements also
suggested that they should work in close collaboration. During video recording, an assistant
operating a camera was present, but they did not participate in the teams’ activities. However, the
presence of video camera did create (more or less) a pressure for the teams to focus on the task at
hand.
Focused collaboration was also supported by limiting all of the teams’ design activities to prescheduled sessions that were part of the courses mentioned above. Each session was limited to two
hours, a time also considered sufficient by the students. In the team interviews students told us that
they did not discuss the task outside of the video recorded sessions, but they had thought about the
task individually. From the video recordings we concluded that students concentrated on the task
and there was not much off talk. Figure 5 illuminates the organized physical working space. The
intent was to enable drawing on a shared piece of paper. Furthermore, Figure 5 shows how students
shared their individual spaces by intensively explicating their ideas by pointing, producing
figurative gestures or drawing, even on each other’s papers. We have conducted micro-level
analysis of students’ gestures and sketching, the results of which also illustrated the importance of
social and embodied interaction in focused collaboration (Härkki, Hakkarainen and Seitamaa-
Hakkarainen 2016). Creativity builds on the social interaction and by externalization and
materialization of the design ideas: the micro-level analysis revealed how creative ideas were
proposed, shared and explicated to each other, and how these ideas were negotiated, redefined as
well as rejected together. New ideas emerged from the visual clues of the drawings that triggered
and helped develop ideas further. Correspondingly, experimenting with materials evoked new
creative solutions.
Figure 5. Social and physical arrangement of the session.
Since each sub-task and session highlighted different aspects of design activities, the teams, in
general, followed the given instructions. However, even though the first session emphasized
documenting design constraints into mind maps, many teams also proposed design ideas and
solutions; the analysis of the design context also inspired ideation. In contrast, some teams followed
instructions literally:
Vanessa: And then we followed the instructions quite literally.
Pamela: Quite literally to the letter, indeed.
Vanessa: Yeah, it instructed us quite a bit.
Pamela: Yeah, but on the other hand, it made it easier in that way.
Vanessa: Yeah.
Pamela: Kind of like we didn't have all the possibilities.
Vanessa: Hmm…
Pamela: Certain things which we could do…
Sara: Yeah, because it's apparently new for all of us, designing something like this, so
if it's too expansive and if you don't have anything … [instructions] is really
missing… it can cause all kinds of pressure and anxiety.
We observed differences also in how teams organized their division of labour in different sessions.
For example, with the 3D puzzle design task, one team created their mind map in two phases: first
everyone individually listed important constraints, next they negotiated and organized their process
to create their common mind map. Some teams emphasized the importance of mutual understanding
more and accordingly encouraged each other, so that everyone’s voice would be heard. However,
the patterns of collaboration were affected by the mock-up task, typically teams divided the labour,
i.e., each person was responsible for constructing certain parts of the artefact. Thus, besides social
interaction, the task instructions, availability of materials and division of labour affects the nature of
collaboration.
Technical infrastructure
Binder et al. (2011) argue that sufficiently rich material resources and design tools are crucial to
support inspiration and social interaction in design teams. The material design artifacts, such as
sketches, drawings, collages, cardboard, clay or foam models and physical prototypes, play a
significant role in supporting collaboration between designers. External representations (graphical
and physical) in various phases of the process provide diverse prompts to test design ideas. Thus,
analyzing how the provided tools and materials actually supported or hindered production of
representations is crucial.
In our design-studio learning settings the concrete tools and materials for defining, refining and
further developing design ideas characterized the techno-material infrastructure. In different
sessions (mind map, visualization, material collages, building mock-ups, making prototypes and
final outcomes), teams worked with different tools and materials. The tools had a concrete nature:
paper and pencil for mind maps and sketching, modeling clay or wire and non-woven interfacing
fabric for building a model, and fabrics for material collages. All these tools and materials served
certain functionality and relevance for the desired activity, in a particular design phase. Paper and
pencil are ordinary tools for mind mapping and sketching, and they obviously supported those
activities. However, the appropriateness of paper, pencil and sketching for designing was not selfevident due to lack of experience in sketching as a medium for quick ideation. In these three
experiments, most of the sketches were rough, outline drawings confirming that some students were
not used to drawing their ideas. The drawings were, however, understandable within the team, and
they were annotated with crucial information. In the sea-creature project, students used iPads for
photographing sea animals, sources of inspiration, and also for searching the internet for more
information about sea animals. The other two projects could easily have utilized digital technologies
similarly, to collect sources of inspiration. According to our observations, the amount and
importance of sketching as a vehicle for idea development was less when digital technologies were
available.
In two experiments (textile toy and sea creature), teams were asked to make a fabric collage in order
to get directions for material selection. The teams were eager to make a fabric collage, especially in
toy designing: collages concretized their vague ideas and added another layer of details, materials as
colours and textures, even if the students anticipated that these materials would not be used for final
products. In contrast, the collages for sea-creature designing, made at a later phase, presented
preliminary ideas of actual material selection. In this project, students also manipulated and
experimented the textile surfaces: they tried to imitate sea-creatures authentic surfaces by creatively
applying colors, patterns and textile techniques.
The materials for building a mock-up provided interesting and varied results regarding the
appropriateness of the tools. In the pilot experiment, textile toy design, all materials except the
combination of paper and pencil supported the construction of the mock-up model. One team had
only a pen and some paper for designing the 3D-shape of their toy, and they had obvious difficulties
in transforming the child’s two-dimensional (2D) drawing into a 3D object. The team was helpless
and frustrated with the given materials. No other team experienced similar difficulties. Thus, we
decided to exclude this modeling option from the proceeding courses.
Similarly, with the 3D textile puzzle, the teams worked with pre-assigned materials. Modeling clay
was seen as a perfect material for substantiating ideas, and the team using it spent considerable time
decorating their puzzle pieces. In later phases, they translated those details to textile surface
structures. In the final interview, the team confessed that the detailed decorations were inspired by
the nature of the modeling clay rather than their sketched design. On the other hand, one team
criticized the idea of a mock-up; they insisted that understanding their somewhat complicated 3D
structure and the planned detailed fastenings would have required a prototype made of fabric. This
team encountered wire with opposing feelings: for one team member, it was the optimal modeling
material, while another team member considered it the worst possible. The team that used cardboard
and masking tape stated that cardboard was a good material since it guided them to omit
unnecessary details that could have caused complications later in the sewing phase.
With the sea creature designs, the teams selected the materials they wanted to work with from
cardboard, masking tape, wire, non-woven interfacing fabric and net. Due to the opportunity to
select the materials, no material-related frustration occurred. In general, the teams discussed
materials actively while sketching and making mind maps, but not as much when building mockups. They used figurative gestures actively to describe material properties. In Table 3, we
characterize how the materials utilized for mock-ups supported various aspects relevant to design in
two of the design courses.
Table 3. Mock-up materials supported various aspects.
Materials as tools
to create…
structure and
functionality
visual
tactile
auditory
expressive
meanings
3D Puzzle (2013)
Team1 Team2 Team3
X
X
X
X
X
X
Team4
X
X
X
X
Wearable Sea Creature (2014)
Team1 Team2 Team3 Team4
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
To conclude, materials and tools play an important role in designing. In design practice, materiality
is more than a technical property of the materials. Different techno-material design tools need to
adequately support designing in different phases. Interaction with materials is not only physical but
spurs thinking as well. Working with different materials than the end product, helped students to
construct 3D forms, test preliminary structural solutions and experiment with some details on the
surface (for example with the clay). However, in some point of the textile design process it is
important to start use and test these ideas with actual or similar kind of materials that will be used in
the final product.
Discussion
The pedagogical approach of design studios is the traditional and widely used educational model.
The central aim of studio-based working is to support a creative way of design thinking and
knowledge creation. In the first instance, the studio method is used to provide students with
individual experience of the entire design process. The design studio provides the socio-material
working place, a classroom with materials and tools that are part of well-equipped workspaces or
laboratories. The complexity of design tasks varies but always includes some sort of task
instruction: open-ended tasks with some formal constraints. Some of these studios might offer
expert lectures, field trips, pin-up sessions, critique sessions and teacher consultation during
classwork time. They can include user participation and formal juries. The pedagogical basis
focused on the nature of the design problem and learning by doing. The aim of the study was to
provide a meta-analysis of three design-studio cases from the perspective of the epistemological,
cognitive, social and technical infrastructures in the context of craft teacher education.
Due to the epistemological nature of designing, teams were engaged in creating iteratively refined,
design artifacts and transforming those artifacts into various material forms towards increased
specificity. The authentic design briefs, the structure of the learning setting and the order of the
design sessions embodied the cognitive infrastructure. Additionally, each session pinpointed some
of the professional methods (brainstorming of design constraints with mind maps, visualizing and
materializing design ideas) that provided a scaffold (cf. Clark 1997, Wood et al. 1976) to designing.
To support visualization, we created sub-tasks aimed at promoting the refinement of ideas instead
of getting prematurely fixated on the first plausible idea. However, unanticipated and surprising as
it was to us, these sub-tasks confused some students who sought a more specific level of
interpretation for the task instructions; they wanted to know how literally or freely the instructions
should be read. On the other hand, some teams simply adopted very liberal interpretations.
Social infrastructure involved working in teams across a series of intensive two-hour design
sessions. These arrangements were partially due to our specific research interest related to
materiality, embodiment and social interaction during students’ working. All teams developed very
workable and creative design solutions and produced their intended outcomes. The ways of
assigning the teams and physical/spatial arrangements of working spaces facilitated participation in
sharing of ideas and organizing the design process and supported the emergence of a commitment
to joint team-level objectives.
The design studio is a physical place that consists of spaces, tools and materials arranged for the
design students’ convenience. The technical infrastructure in this study was based on concrete
materials, tools and technologies provided for the teams. Learning in the design studio emphasizes
simple but powerful creative thinking methods, such as sketching and modeling, which boost
creativity and facilitate idea expression. As new ideas emerge the drawings form visual clues that
trigger and help develop new images. Similarly, materialization of ideas evokes new ones.
Sketching outline drawings is usually considered an appropriate and important method to document
design ideas quickly, though professional digital sketching tools have also been available for a long
time. However, due to lack of support for quick rendering of ideas, they have not achieved
widespread recognition among designers. Those digital design tools are more commonly used when
ideas have received a certain level of specification (for example, Sketch Up, Thinkercad) and when
designs must be presented to clients or other stakeholders. Nonetheless, introducing digital tools
that support idea development is an area in which we see potential for improvement. IPads were
only used in the sea- creature project to document sea animals. Use of Pinterest and Google for
collecting sources of inspiration was a simple way to support teams’ attempts to render creatures as
authentic as possible. The main limitation of these design studio experiments was the narrow use of
digital technology. The techno-material infrastructure will be addressed below in detail with a view
to supporting novice textile teacher students' designing in the future.
In a traditional design studios, students produce paper prototypes and rough mock-ups. For the
building of a mock-up, we provided various, commonly used materials to enable testing of design
ideas with simple constructions. In general, materials helped teams to experiment with their ideas
(size, shape, 3D construction); some materials helped more than others. However, the main design
decisions were made during the ideation phase; in the later stages, no radically new ideas were
proposed but there was materiality supported specification and refinement of ideas for various
details. This was due to the teams’ commitment to common solutions from early on, and also to the
time restrictions. To summarize, various visual representations and materializations were created
during the sessions, and teams achieved very original, functional and aesthetically pleasant end
products that were donated to the end users or clients.
Our design studio constrained teams’ collaboration by space and time arrangements. Although the
design studio is a physical place (with the possibility to include virtual or blended learning) for
designing, most importantly it is a process of learning to design. The important notion is tension
between structure and flexibility within the design-studio setting, to best promote knowledge
creation in a balanced way. The epistemic nature of activities (task-accomplishment cf. sharing of
ideas) and the structuring of activities (rigid structures, scaffold-based inquiry) affect the degree of
flexibility for the teams. When the aim is to implement collaborative work in creative areas in
practice, we need to learn to tolerate openness yet, at the same time, provide sufficient structure. On
the one hand, novice students need support and guidance to participate productively in creative
collaborative processes; on the other hand, too much structure may undermine their own agency.
We wish to emphasize that development of students’ own agency during their education is critical.
Sawyer (2012) argued that knowledge creation is best thought of as an improvisational activity and
that the best teaching is disciplined improvisation: teaching that provides flexible space required for
learning, but guided within structures and frameworks - in a similar manner to professionally
performed improvisations in many areas. We also argue that while designing is a creative activity;
learning to design professionally requires learning the practices and methods that are the basis for
creative working. It is evident that design educators should not control students’ design thinking,
but at the same time, the educators should have a clear vision of how each task is interpreted by the
students and how the written instructions affect students’ designing. This appeared to be a very
critical point in the craft teacher students’ designing but also in regard to design education in
general. The emergent aspects of creative thinking need to be supported; however, especially we
need to support focused creativity – too-open design tasks can cause a fall into familiar patterns or
frustration in searching for conventional adequacy instead of creating new ideas (Sawyer 2012).
In the first years of the studies in Craft Teacher Education, design projects typically take about one
or two months to complete. Later, these projects become progressively more open-ended and
involve fewer constraints, longer periods of work, and a greater role for students’ own preferences.
The goal of project parameters or constraints is to limit students’ creative options, so that their
creative effort is focused on the specific learning outcomes that are desirable at that point in their
learning trajectory (Saywer 2012). One of the strengths of our experiments was to initiate
newcomers quickly to professional design tasks. The provided structures ensured that teams
progressed at the same rhythm and went through all necessary phases - critical aspects of the
process (e.g. sketching and material exploration). A weakness of the presented structures was that
some teams committed to ideas quite early on in the project; prompts and scaffolds were not used
productively to explore alternatives.
A question for the future is: how to better implement socio-digital tools in the learning environment,
especially digital tools to support visualization and materialization? In a virtual design studio,
introducing multiple tools for collecting sources of inspiration (such as Pinterest) or making digital
mind maps (or virtual post-it notes) is not a challenge. When the internet can provide rich
inspiration sources, it also might attract students to look for ready-made solutions, which limits
their creativity.
Finding digital tools to support collaborative visualization and ideation is difficult. Current digital
drawing systems may offer many benefits compared to traditional pen and paper sketching, even
though efficient application of digital tools often requires some expertise. The available
professional drawing tools are still quite expensive and do not support the need for rough sketches
in the early stages of designing. However, for the iPad, some recently published, quite simple and
inexpensive sketching applications exist. These applications used for quick drawings using fingers
and touch, support the sharing of drawings within virtual learning environments. Productive use of
many digital design tools requires advanced technical skills, a factor seriously limiting their use.
Achieving technical expertise in digital designing requires extensive training. Further, many quite
simple but special digital applications (for example CStitch, iWeaveIt and Knitting iCharts) that
can be used to design certain kinds of surfaces, for example digital textile printing, embroidery
stitches and knitting patterns exist nowadays. These digital applications are widely used in textile
teacher education, but their applicability is restricted to detailed specifications of particular
production techniques. They are domain-specific tools that do not facilitate ideation. However, they
are quite easy to use and provide simple ways of experimentation in the later stage of textile
designing.
Overall, the present investigation addressed various critical aspects of design learning in studio
settings for craft teacher education. The pedagogic implementation of the three, studio cases
involved deliberate structuring, necessary for providing sufficient support for novices and orienting
them to participate in all critical aspects of designing, within the time limits. The epistemological,
cognitive, social and techno-material infrastructures supported teams who succeeded in designing
unique and creative textile based artefacts.
References
Bereiter, C. 2002. Education and mind in the knowledge age. New Jersey: Erlbaum
Bereiter, C. and Scardamalia, M. 2003. “Learning to work creatively with knowledge.” In: E. de
Corte, L. Verschaffel, N. Entwistle and J. van Merriënboer (Eds). Powerful learning environments.
Unravelling basic components and dimensions, pp. 55–68. Oxford: Pergamon/Elsevier Science.
Bielaczyc, K. 2006. “Designing social infrastructure.” Journal of the Learning Sciences 15(3): 301329.
Binder, T., De Michelis, G., Ehn, P., Jacucci, G., Linde, P. and Wagner, I. 2011. Design things.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Clark, A. 1997. Being there: Putting brain, body and world together again. Cambridge, MA: MIT.
Chamorro-Koc, M., Scott, A. and Coombs, G. 2015. “Bombs Away: Visual thinking and students’
engagement in design studios contexts.” Design and Technology Education: An International
Journal 20(1): 18-28.
Chiu, M-L. 2002. “An organizational view of design communication in design collaboration.”
Design Studies 23(2): 187-210.
Cross, N. and Cross, A. 1995. “Observations of teamwork and social processes in design.” Design
Studies 16(2): 143-170.
Goldschmidt, G, Hochman, H., and Dafni, I. 2010. “The design studio “crit”: Teacher–student
communication.” Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing 24:
285–302.
Greeno, J. G. 2006. “Learning in activity.” In R. K. Sawyer (Ed.) The Cambridge handbook of the
learning sciences, pp. 79-96. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Hakkarainen, K. 2009. “A knowledge-practice perspective on technology-mediated learning.”
International Journal of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning 4: 213-231.
Härkki, T, Hakkarainen, K and Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, P. 2016 (online first). “Line by line, part by
part - collaborative sketching for designing.” International Journal of Technology and Design
Education.
Härkki, T., Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, P. and Hakkarainen, K (2016). “Material knowledge in
collaborative designing and making. A case of wearable sea creatures.” FORMakademisk, 9:1, Art
5: 1-21.
Hennessy, S. and Murphy, P. 1999. “The potential for collaborative problem solving in design and
technology.” International Journal of Technology and Design Education 9(1): 1-36.
Kafai, Y.B. 2006. “Constructionism.” In: R. K. Sawyer (Ed) The Cambridge handbook of the
learning sciences, pp 35–46. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Kolb, D. 1984. Experiential Learning. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Kolodner, J.L., Camp, P.J., Crismond, D., Fasse, B., Gray, J., Holbrook, J. and Ryan, M. 2003.
“Problem-based learning meets case-based reasoning in the middle school science classroom:
Putting Learning by Design™ into practice.” Journal of the Learning Sciences 12(4): 495–547.
Laamanen, T-K. and Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, P. 2014. “Constraining an open-ended design task by
interpreting sources of inspiration.” Art, Design and Communication in Higher Education 13(2):
135-156.
Lahti, H. 2007. “Collaboration between students and experts in a virtual design studio.” Journal of
Design Research 6(4): 403-421.
Lahti, H., Kangas, K., Koponen, V. and Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, P. 2016a. “Material mediation and
embodied actions in collaborative design process.” Techne Series A 23(1): 15-29.
Lahti, H., Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, P. and Hakkarainen, K. 2004. “Collaboration patterns in
computer-supported collaborative designing.” Design Studies 25(4): 351-371.
Lahti, H., Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, P., Kangas, K., Härkki, T. and Hakkarainen, K. 2016b. ”Textile
teacher students’ collaborative design processes in a design studio setting.” Art, Design and
Communication in Higher Education 15(1): 35-54.
Lakkala, M., Ilomäki, L. and Kosonen, K. 2010. “From instructional design to setting up
pedagogical infrastructures.” In B. Ertl (ed.) Technologies and Practices for Constructing
Knowledge in Online Environments, pp. 169–185. Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference,.
Lakkala, M., Muukkonen, H., Paavola, S. and Hakkarainen, K. 2008. Designing pedagogical
infrastructures in university courses for technology-enchanced collaborative inquiry. Research and
Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning, 3:1, 33-64
Lee, N. 2009. “Project methods as the vehicle for learning in undergraduate design education.”
Design Studies 30(5): 541-560.
Paavola, S. and Hakkarainen, K. 2014. ”Trialogical approach for knowledge creation.” In S-C. Tan,
H-J. Jo, and J. Yoe (Eds.) Knowledge creation in education, pp. 53-72. Education Innovation
Series.Singapore: Springer.
Ramduny-Ellis, D., Dix, A., Evans, M., Hare, J. and Gill, S. 2010. “Physicality in design.” The
Design Journal 13(1): 48-76.
Sawyer, K. 2012. “Learning how to create.” In J. van Aalst, K. Thompson, M. J. Jacobson and P.
Reimann (eds.) The future of learning: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference of the
Learning Sciences (ICLS 2012), full papers, (1), pp. 33-36. Sydney: International Society of the
Learning Sciences.
Scardamalia, M., and Bereiter, C. 2006. “Knowledge building.” In R. K. Sawyer (Ed.) The
Cambridge handbook of the learning sciences, pp. 97-115. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Schön, D. (1987). Educating the Reflective Practitioner. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, P. and Hakkarainen, K. 2001. “Composition and construction in experts’
and novices’ weaving design.” Design Studies 22(1): 47–66.
Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, P., Lahti, H. and Hakkarainen, K. (2005) “Three Design Experiments for
Computer Supported Collaborative Design.” Art, Design and Communication in Higher Education
4(2): 101-119.
Wood, D., Bruner, J. and Ross, G. (1976). “The role of tutoring in problem solving.” Journal of
Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines 17: 89–100.