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Findings show the new environment creates a boundary space where teacher-centered patterns interact with and tension student-centered teaching. Three dynamics explain how actions may stabilize existing practices or rupture them, enabling educational change.",{"@graph":14,"@context":72},[15,34,55],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/","Research & 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is the main focus of the study?","Question",{"text":62,"@type":63},"The study investigates agency-structure dynamics in students’ and teachers’ social activity within a novel design and making environment under Finland’s curricular reform.","Answer",{"name":65,"@type":60,"acceptedAnswer":66},"How was the data collected and who participated?",{"text":67,"@type":63},"Data include 65 hours of video recordings and field notes collected over one semester, involving students aged 9–12 (N=94) and their teachers.",{"name":69,"@type":60,"acceptedAnswer":70},"What does the new learning environment change in practice?",{"text":71,"@type":63},"Introducing the novel learning environment creates a boundary space where traditional teacher-centered activity patterns interact with student-centered teaching and learning, sometimes producing 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 \nkristiina.kumpulainen@helsinki, .fi  \nUniversity of Helsinki, Finland  \nAnu Kajamaa  \n[anu.kajamaa@helsinki.fi](anu.kajamaa@helsinki.fi)  \nUniversity of Helsinki, Finland  \nAntti Rajala  \n[antti. rajala@helsinki.fi](antti. rajala@helsinki.fi)  \nUniversity of Helsinki, Finland  \nAbstract  \nThis study investigates agency-structure dynamics in students and teachers’ social activity in a novel design and making environment in the context of the Finnish school system, which has recently undergone major curricular reform . Understanding that agency is an important mediator of educational change, we ask the following questions: How are agency-structure dynamics manifested in the social activity of students and their teachers in a novel design and making environment? How do agency-structure dynamics create possibilities and obstacles for educational change? The data comprise 65 hours of video recordings and field notes of the social activity of students aged 9–12 years old (N = 94) and their teachers collected over a period of one semester . Our study shows how the introduction of the novel learning environment created a boundary space in which traditional teacher-centered activity patterns interacted and came into tension with student-centered modes of teaching and learning. Our study reveals three distinctive agency-structure dynamics that illuminate how the agentive actions of both teachers and students stabilized existing teacher-centered practices and, at other, times ruptured and broke away from existing patterns, thus giving rise to possibilities for educational change.  \nKeywords  \nagency; structure; school; making and design environments; educational change  \nK. Kumpulainen, A. Kajamaa & A. Rajala  \nDigital Education Review-Number 33, June 2018-[http://greav.ub.edu/der/](http://greav.ub.edu/der/ 26)[ 26](http://greav.ub.edu/der/ 26)  \nI. Introduction  \nThe education system in Finland has recently undergone national curriculum reform with the introduction of novel curriculum content, pedagogical approaches, and learning environments . The new core curriculum for the education of 7- to 16-year-olds emphasizes the development of students’ critical thinking and learning-to-learn skills, interaction and expression, digital skills and multiliteracies, working life skills, and entrepreneurship as well as social participation and influence . The new curriculum also includes learning environments and pedagogies based on experiential, integrated, and student-centered learning; modeling real-life inquiry; and problem-solving with relevant social and material resources (Finnish National Board of Education, 2014, Pietarinen, Pyhältö, & Soini, 2017) .  \nThe new Finnish core curriculum calls for major changes in the ways in which education has been organized in the past. The need for a more radical change is supported by earlier research that has indicated that Finnish teachers and their educational practices demonstrate traditional teachercentered and textbook-centered pedagogical approaches (Lahelma & Gordon, 2003; Norris et al., 1996) . Therefore, it is important to understand how the new curriculum is enacted and placed into use at the intersection of existing teaching and learning practices in Finnish schools and novel pedagogical approaches and learning environments being introduced. It is this transformation in the educational structures from teacher-centered instruction to more student-centered modes of teaching and learning that encapsulates our focus on educational change in this study.  \nRecognizing that educational change in schools is difficult (see also Osborne, Simon, Christodoulou, Howell-Richardson, & Richardson, 2013; Ruthven et al., 2017), and understanding that agency isan important mediator of educational change (e.g., Rajala & Kumpulainen, 2017), in our study, we investigate agency-structure dyn","cbCaitjzMY2ek6gw","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaitjzMY2ek6gw","pdf",461553,13,"English","# Introduction\n## Finnish curriculum reform and new learning environments\n## Research focus: agency as a mediator of educational change\n## Study context: the FUSE Studio design and making environment","[{\"question\":\"What is the main focus of the study?\",\"answer\":\"The study investigates agency-structure dynamics in students’ and teachers’ social activity within a novel design and making environment under Finland’s curricular reform.\"},{\"question\":\"How was the data collected and who participated?\",\"answer\":\"Data include 65 hours of video recordings and field notes collected over one semester, involving students aged 9–12 (N=94) and their teachers.\"},{\"question\":\"What does the new learning environment change in practice?\",\"answer\":\"Introducing the novel learning environment creates a boundary space where traditional teacher-centered activity patterns interact with student-centered teaching and learning, sometimes producing tension.\"}]","Understanding Educational Change - Agency-Structure Dynamics in a Novel Design and Making Environment | PDF",33]