Designs for Research, Teaching and Learning

A Framework for Future Education

Lisa Björklund Boistrup, Staffan Selander, Lisa Björklund Boistrup, Staffan Selander

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000528893
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Bildung
• Subtopic: Forschung im Bildungswesen

This book offers a coherent theoretical and multimodal perspective on research, teaching and learning in different non-formal, semi-formal, and formal learning environments.

Drawing on examples across a range of different settings, the book provides a conceptual framework for research on learning in different environments. It provides conceptual models around learning design which act as a framework for how to think about contemporary learning, a guideline for how to do research on learning in different sites, and a tool for innovative, collaborative design with other professionals. The book highlights concepts like multimodal knowledge representations; framing and setting; transformation, transduction, and re-design; signs of learning and cultures of recognition in different social contexts.

The book supports innovative thinking on how we understand learning, and will appeal to academics, scholars and postgraduate students in the fields of education research and theory, learning sciences, and multimodal and social semiotics. It will also be of interest to school leaders, university provosts and professionals working in education.

The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Chapter 1

Designs in and for learning—a theoretical framework

Staffan Selander

DOI: 10.4324/9781003096498-1

Introduction

I would like to start with two examples of different learning contexts. The first example stems from a period of time in my life when I couldn’t read novels (they all seemed to be about authors going to Paris trying to write a novel), and when my own writing seemed dull and heavy. It so happened that I attended a weekend course on doing glassworks, and to my own surprise, I found that the glass “told me” what to do. I worked intensely with the glassworks during these two days, and later that summer I went to the glass-factory in Kosta in southern Sweden for a course in glass-blowing. I also took a course in Stockholm during the fall on how to make leaded glass.

I deepened my knowledge and skills during the following years. I bought a glass-kiln and learned about where to buy glass, and the characteristics of Bullseye glass, as well as how one could, or could not, mix older glass and re-melt it. I learned about the tools I needed to cut the glass into lines or circles, as well as how to drill and grind glass. I also learned how to prepare glass for burning and about burning curves, and when it was thereafter possible to open the kiln without damaging the glass. Finally, I studied glass designers from different periods of time, and the ways they had developed their glass craft/art. I went to Murano in Venice, and I visited glass galleries, museums and educational sites in Australia, Sweden, and Denmark. I came to a point when the form of a line on the glass could fill me with happiness. I enjoyed the aesthetic experience, and I planned to melt glass to build something new. I actually became quite good—as an amateur.

I even thought of changing my occupation, to be able to work at least half-time with glass, but realized soon enough that it was too late in my life. I would never become a professional glass designer or glass worker. It would also take me too many years to develop enough skills as well as to develop contacts with galleries and a public, not to mention the special niche of art and craft critique. However, the experience with glass led me back to my own writing, and to reading novels again, and I realized that the “word” was my “true” element.

This is first and foremost an example of a mixture between a non-formal learning context, developed by chance and deepened by personal interest and curiosity, and a semi-formal learning context—the different glass courses and glass museums. It also seems obvious that the glassworks I could do were not only a result of my personal interests and skills, but also of my social environment and my financial opportunities: the availability of courses with experienced glassworkers, the documentation of glass design through history, the possibility to buy tools, a kiln and special glass, as well as to visit glass galleries and museums. My own interest did not develop in an empty space.

This learning experience could theoretically be discussed in terms of a “Non-formal Learning Design Sequence” (Figure 1.1) and a “Semi-formal Learning Design Sequence (Figure 1.2). The first framing of my learning was when I went to a glass course, with its special material and semiotic resources, its norms and values, and its situated challenges. In different sequences I learned about glass, glass design and glass craft—both during the courses I took and by way of my own exploration of the characteristics of different glass materials. My glassworks could be seen as representations of my knowledge and skills, but they were not formally valued, and I did not have to pass any formal test to be able to continue with them. I learned from my own mistakes, even though we had teachers showing us the elementary ways of doing things, and from the more or less enthusiastic comments from my classmates and from my family and friends.

Figure 1.1 Non-formal Learning Design Sequence.

Figure 1.2 Semi-formal Learning Design Sequence.¹

The main difference between the learning sequences in these two learning environments is that the non-formal learning sequence could start fortuitously, whilst the semi-formal learning sequence often has a clearer starting point (such as the setting of a museum exhibition) and is also framed by institutional aims and traditions, available objects, or the aspirations of the curator, for example. I think that it would be fair to say that most learning (as in these two different contextual framings) actually follows what we could call “rhizomatic webs” (see Chapter 2 by Lindstrand & Selander in this volume). A new idea, and new information, may lead to new questions; it may encourage us to continue on or change direction. Additionally, there is no curriculum to be fulfilled, and no necessary test to pass.

As a contrast, my next example stems from a formal learning context—the school. The subject is educational sloyd, here with a focus on woodcraft.² When I went to school, sloyd was a part of the curriculum, stemming from the needs and skills in the pre-industrial society. I was 11–12 years of age, and the sloyd education focused on such things as the tools and the names of the different tools, and of course on the handicraft skills.³ Basic skills were taught first, and we had to learn (as it was seen at the time) formal, elementary things like sawing and planing before we were allowed to create something out of the material. While I was still planing—and it was important that my piece of wood should be absolutely plane from each side and angle—one of our classmates was allowed to make a chair.

After many weeks of planing, I was finally allowed to do carving, and during the rest of that semester I managed to make a little bowl. However, we were not taught anything about aesthetics or design related to three-dimensional forms and proportions, such as the relation between width and length, inner and outer proportions, or, for example, thickness in relation to cavity (Thorsnes, 2009). The idea was not that we should create or experience new possibilities out of our own interest, nor that we should find out new ways of exploring different materials. The important thing was to complete the curriculum, where one goal was that each individual should learn the same terminology and reach the same basic handicraft skills as everyone else. At the end, all our products were evaluated according to specific school-standards, including good order and good behaviour.

To sum up, our second example could be discussed in terms of the “Formal Learning Design Sequence” (Figure 1.3). In this model, learning is understood as an activity that is formally framed and assessed. The learning was also in this case carried out in sequences, but with a heavy emphasis on common goals and testing standards,⁴ but this is not to say that evaluation as such is wrong. Evaluation cannot be avoided in a social context; it always takes place in one way or another (Boistrup, 2015).⁵ Here, the point is that that evaluation in a formal context is different from that in a non-formal or semi-formal (as in a museum) context, which may have consequences for individual engagement in a specific knowledge area.

Figure 1.3 Formal Learning Design Sequence.⁶

In the formal Learning Design Sequence, we can notice a more clearly framed beginning, based on the purpose, and the curriculum and the standards of the school, as well as on the potential resources, norms, formal regulations, and so on. The “setting” starts with the teacher’s interpretation of the frames, and the pupil’s attention to—and understanding of—what is expected from them. The pupils can then, during the “First Transformation Cycle,” work with available (and accepted) material and semiotic resources, test different solutions, and sketch out possible ways to talk about, or show, their understanding. Here we can also focus on other aspects, for example, how the teacher or the pupils position themselves in the learning space, and how their social interaction is carried out.

At the end, during “The Second Transformation Cycle,” the pupils are expected to present their learning and new knowledge by way of a test, an essay, a film, or a PowerPoint; in other words, they produce a new knowledge representation. Their work is formally evaluated—sometimes also publicly discussed and reflected upon.⁷ With these two examples in mind, we shall now move on to the basic concepts in a multimodal and design-oriented approach to learning. However, I would first like to make a short remark on “basic knowledge.”

A detour on “basic knowledge”

The second example above also exemplifies the role of schooling in the industrial society, with the uttermost purpose to see that everyone, after education, could be employed in his or her “right” place in working life. Everyone had to acquire the same “core knowledge” or “basic knowledge,” and they were evaluated and ranked according to standardized tests, no matter their individual interests, talents, or ideas about future work.

However, there seem to be at least two epistemological and ideological roots and implications of the idea of “necessary basic knowledge” for everyone. We can identify “basic knowledge” as that kind of knowledge that binds a society together—like social rules and habits, religious beliefs (and their variations), or, for example, knowledge about democracy and how one could handle conflicts (Burman, 2021). During earlier periods of time in history, such as the Renaissance and the Middle Ages, those things were discussed in religion, philosophy, and literature. The aim of schooling during those times was to learn about such things as rhetoric and grammar, music and mathematics, and to learn about oneself and what characterizes “good judgement” as well as “a good life” (Selander, 2017).

As a contrast to this ideal, the idea of “basic knowledge” changed at the end of the 20th century: from an overarching, common knowledge and individual growth⁸ to the details of each separate school subject.⁹ So instead of seeing “basic knowledge” as that kind of knowledge that binds a society together (whatever that might be), the development seems to be accelerating towards a more and more fragmented and factual knowledge. Much of contemporary debate seems to be about “facts” and (the return of) “objective knowledge.” At the same time, we seem to lack a serious debate on what kind of knowledge would be needed to meet future demands with complex and tricky problems, and what kind of knowledge would give insights into, for example, conflicting interests and power relations, as well as those things that characterize a good life (Bauman, 2012; Collins & Halverson, 2009; Morin, 1999, 2008).¹⁰

So, if we are actually interested in “knowledge,” we might as well develop a new kind of individually and digitally based tutoring system—within new social framings. For example, the Nobel prize-winning Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf had a governess, and learned, among other things, five languages. Today, we can likewise learn many things from distributed information and hybrid education, for example, by way of game-like elements in teaching, games, and simulation programs. Therefore, we would need new insights into what we mean by “knowledge,” “...