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This study analyzed collaborative invention projects by teams of lower-secondary (13-14-year-old) Finnish students. In invention projects, student teams design and make materially embodied collaborative inventions using traditional and digital fabrication technologies. This investigation focused on the student teams' knowledge creation processes by examining how they applied maker practices (i.e., design process, computer engineering, product design, and science practices) in their co-invention projects and the effects of teacher and peer support. In our investigations, we relied on video data and on-site observations, utilizing and further developing visual data analysis methods. Our findings assist in expanding the scope of computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) research toward sociomaterially mediated knowledge creation, revealing the open-ended, nonlinear, and self-organized flow of the co-invention projects that take place around digital devices. Our findings demonstrate the practice-based, knowledge-creating nature of these processes, where computer engineering, product design, and science are deeply entangled with design practices. Furthermore, embodied design practices of sketching, practical experimenting, and working with concrete materials were found to be of the essence to inspire and deepen knowledge creation and advancement of epistemic objects. Our findings also reveal how teachers and peer tutor students can support knowledge creation through co-invention.

Teachers' active role in school development has been recognized as important in school culture transformation. Leadership practices, such as distributed leadership and organizational support, aim to engage teachers and foster their participation and contribution opportunities. However, studies have shown that teachers' earlier experiences and beliefs shape their participation activities. To facilitate school culture transformation and the development of pedagogical practices, it is important to understand how teachers position themselves as school developers. This interview study aims to explore what kinds of views teachers express regarding school development work and teacher collaboration, along with how these views influence their perceived opportunity to contribute to school culture transformation. Altogether, 35 teachers from three schools in Helsinki, Finland, were interviewed. The analysis revealed five teacher profiles and, thus, five different ways of approaching school culture transformation: (1) "Visioner," (2) "Responsibility Bearer," (3) "Participating Observer," (4) "Traditionalist," and (5) "Stressed Withdrawer." Teachers' orientation to school development work and received organizational support influenced teachers' perceived contribution opportunities. Furthermore, the identified profiles experienced the needed organizational support for school development work differently; for some, it was mainly common time for collaboration, while for others, it meant reorganized structures. The results indicate that diverse support is needed to engage the whole teacher community in school culture transformation and that school leaders need to pay attention to how the distributed leadership model benefits all teachers, not just the visionary ones.

The aim of this longitudinal study was to examine how adolescents' school burnout profiles relate to perceived learning difficulties and delayed graduation in upper secondary education. Adolescents (N = 485, mean age 15.7 years) living in a mid-sized city in Finland completed questionnaires during their upper secondary education in either the academic or vocational track. A person-oriented approach was used, and the results imply that students with perceived learning difficulties are at a higher risk of school burnout than those who do not report learning difficulties. Adolescents with a higher likelihood of belonging to the 'at risk of school burnout' profile also had a higher risk of delayed graduation than students in other profiles, as well as those without perceived learning difficulties. In addition, students in the vocational track were more likely to belong to the 'Not at risk of school burnout' profile than to the other school burnout profiles. Girls had an increased risk of belonging to one of the three profiles indicating burnout than to the 'not at risk of school burnout' profile. These findings suggest that perceived learning difficulties affect adolescents' lives longitudinally; thus, better identification of these difficulties and more effective support are needed.

The purpose of this study was to examine Finnish teachers' experiences of pedagogical activities carried out in collaboration with external stakeholders. For examining teachers' cross-sectoral networking practices, we interviewed 63 teachers across six schools in Finland's capital area, focusing on how external networks are utilized to enrich pedagogical practices. Content analysis was performed to examine who teachers collaborate with, how the partnerships are initiated and maintained, as well as what are the hindering factors limiting cross-sectoral collaborative activities. The analysis revealed external stakeholders at three network levels: 1) city, 2) school and 3) personal teacher level. Similarly, factors hindering cross-sectoral collaboration were related to 1) teacher's personal 2) schools' systemic and 3) institutional systemic factors. The results show that cross-sectoral activities are rarely collaborative in nature but appear instead as coordinated activities. Moreover, current organizational structures do not provide sufficient support to individual teachers to expand learning environments with external stakeholders.

Purpose: Universities strategically organize themselves around sustainability, including transformative goals in teaching and learning. Simultaneously, the role of online education has become more prominent. This study aims to better understand the purpose and process of creating online sustainability education (OSE) and to identify challenges and opportunities for implementing these courses and programs to achieve universities' broader transformative sustainability goals. Design/methodology/approach: This study uses a multiple case study design to research three universities in diverse geographical and institutional contexts (Finland, the USA and Colombia). Qualitative data was collected by interviewing program-related experts (n = 31) and reviews of universities' strategic documents. Findings: The findings suggest that despite important advances, further attention is merited regarding aligning the purpose of OSE with student learning outcomes, clarifying the values underlying the process of online program/course creation and developing transformative and process-oriented approaches and pedagogies to implement OSE. The authors also highlight emerging challenges and opportunities in online environments for sustainability education in different institutional contexts, including reaping the benefits of multilocality and diverse student experiences regarding sustainability issues. Originality/value: There is a paucity of studies on university-level sustainability education in relation to online environments. This research expands on the existing literature by exploring three different geographical and institutional contexts and shedding light on the relationship between the practical implementation of OSE and universities' broader sustainability goals.

The gap between students' formal, school-based learning and informal, social learning has been widely acknowledged. To overcome this gap, academic service-learning (AS-L) pedagogy involves deliberate efforts to interconnect formal and informal learning by enhancing students' transitions across multiple authentic settings and fostering their participation in various social roles. The aim of this study was to examine how AS-L is practiced among Finnish primary and secondary schools, what kind of stakeholder networks are involved, what the experienced outcomes are, and which factors enable the AS-L pedagogy to be embedded into the Finnish formal school context. The data consisted of semi-structured educator interviews describing nine cases of implementing AS-L practices in diverse Finnish school settings. Empirically driven, thematic data-analysis generated an overall description of the AS-L pedagogies examined. The findings confirm that AS-L pedagogy fulfiled the curricular aims, assisted in meeting the learning objectives and affirmed the fundamental role of external stakeholders in AS-L pedagogy. However, results also revealed challenges related to schools' operational infrastructures, lesson frameworks, and teacher collaboration hindering the interdisciplinary implementation of AS-L pedagogy, preventing synergies with subject-specific learning contents, and limiting stakeholder networks. Innovative teacher activity, in turn, was identified as a success factor in applying AS-L pedagogy. The results indicate that interconnecting formal and informal learning requires schools' systemic change, and furthermore, legitimising teacher's transformative efforts fosters development and implementation of novel pedagogical practices.

Atmospheric emissions from anthropogenic hotspots, i.e., cities, power plants and industrial facilities, can be determined from remote sensing images obtained from airborne and space-based imaging spectrometers. In this paper, we present a Python library for data-driven emission quantification (ddeq) that implements various computationally light methods such as the Gaussian plume inversion, cross-sectional flux method, integrated mass enhancement method and divergence method. The library provides a shared interface for data input and output and tools for pre- and post-processing of data. The shared interface makes it possible to easily compare and benchmark the different methods. The paper describes the theoretical basis of the different emission quantification methods and their implementation in the ddeq library. The application of the methods is demonstrated using Jupyter notebooks included in the library, for example, for NO2 images from the Sentinel-5P/TROPOMI satellite and for synthetic CO2 and NO2 images from the Copernicus CO2 Monitoring (CO2M) satellite constellation. The library can be easily extended for new datasets and methods, providing a powerful community tool for users and developers interested in emission monitoring using remote sensing images.

In collaborative design settings, designers communicate and explicate their ideas visually and verbally in order to reach a shared understanding. The verbal exchanges of group members engaged in a joint design task provide rich data regarding the design activities being undertaken by the group members. In addition, sketching and modelling are recognized as essential for designers to examine and produce design ideas at the very beginning of a re-design process. This exploratory case study focuses on collaborative design activities and problem-solution coevolution among the various design disciplines that students engage in during their product design processes. Nine students from three design disciplines (interior design, product design, and graphic design) participated in a workshop providing knowledge about 3D modelling, following which they undertook a re-design task to develop a new 3D form of a detergent bottle. The research data consisted of video recordings and sketches, and the analysis focused on the progress of the design processes and the differences between the groups. The results highlight that the creation of new 3D forms was based on intensive reformulation activities such as setting new problem expressions or modifying existing ones. This kind of re-design task, which presented constraints in terms of developing a new 3D form within the prescribed requirements, served as a good exercise through which to practice co-evolution because it drove the design activities towards a balance of transitions in the problem and solution spaces.

In this exploratory case study, we focus on empathy, an important aspect of contemporary design practices. We aim to explore how design empathy manifested in students' design processes. A three-month participatory design project was created and assigned to students (aged 14--15), with the following brief: 'co-design and make an e-textile product for kindergarteners according to their wishes and needs'. We examined 72 end-user-related design episodes from two student teams (six students in total), analysing students' end-user-related considerations, as well as different signs and dimensions of empathy. Our findings indicate that the students considered, discussed and referred to topics concerning end users during the process. Signs and dimensions of empathy were found in the various end-user-related discussions and empathetic considerations, through which end-user-friendly design products materialised. We conclude that students could practise empathic design by acknowledging end users in multiple concrete and abstract ways and designing and manufacturing meaningful products for end users. This offers new opportunities for engaging students in reflective (digital) design and making, targeting design-literate citizens in the 21st century. However, this novel field requires further studies in educational contexts other than higher education, which currently has the best research coverage.

Advances in immersive virtual reality (I-VR) technology have allowed for the development of I-VR learning environments (I-VRLEs) with increasing fidelity. When coupled with a sufficiently advanced computer tutor agent, such environments can facilitate asynchronous and self-regulated approaches to learning procedural skills in industrial settings. In this study, we performed a systematic review of published solutions involving the use of an intelligent tutoring system (ITS) to support hard skills training in an I-VRLE. For the seven solutions that qualified for the final analysis, we identified the learning context, the implemented system, as well as the perceptual, cognitive, and guidance features of the utilized tutoring agent. Generally, the I-VRLEs emulated realistic work environments or equipment. The solutions featured either embodied or embedded tutor agents. The agents' perception was primarily based on either learner actions or learner progress. The agents' guidance actions varied among the solutions, ranging from simple procedural hints to event interjections. Several agents were capable of answering certain specific questions. The cognition of the majority of agents represented variations on branched programming. A central limitation of all the solutions was that none of the reports detailed empirical studies conducted to compare the effectiveness of the developed training and tutoring solutions.

Objective This study compared the costs and nursing time associated with the delivery of continuous infusion of antibiotics via elastomeric infusion pumps (EIP) versus conventional intermittent infusion (CII) across different care pathways.Design Retrospective real-world data informed a cost comparison analysis that compared costs and nursing hours between infusion of antibiotics via EIP versus CII across eight care pathways in inpatient or outpatient care during infection episodes. Real-world data were obtained from patients treated within a year with parenteral antimicrobial therapy in Päijät-Häme Region, Finland.Setting Inpatient care with hospital admission and outpatient care at hospital at home in Päijät-Häme Region in Finland.Participants 3778 patients with a total of 4214 infection episodes treated with intravenous antimicrobial therapy.Interventions Eight treatment strategies with various combinations of EIP and CII administered in inpatient or outpatient care.Primary and secondary outcome measures Direct costs and nursing time.Results Skin and soft tissue infections accounted for the highest number of episodes treated with EIP overall (30.8%; 74 out of 240 episodes) and in outpatient care specifically (53.3%; 128 out of 240 episodes). Compared with inpatient care costs with CII (€4590 per episode), treating skin and soft tissue infections in outpatient care with EIP or CII incurred only 24% (€1104) and 35% (€1620) of the costs, respectively. Across all treatment strategies and infections studied, the use of EIP consistently required less nursing time. The highest nursing time in the outpatient care was observed in sepsis episodes treated with CII (37 hours with CII vs 7 hours with EIP per episode).Conclusion Delivery of antimicrobial therapy using continuous infusions with EIP instead of CII can significantly decrease the nursing time and cost in both inpatient and outpatient care. For skin and soft tissue infections and sepsis, the utilisation of EIP is a cost-saving option in outpatient care compared with the use of CII.

This paper analyses the longitudinal use of electronic portfolios (hereafter ePortfolios) in craft studies across six years (2013-18). Eight comprehensive school students participated in the study, tracing their craft process activities via photos, narratives, and tapings from the third to the ninth grade. The data involved self-assessment by the learners; peers and teachers were included in the textual content. The data also contained interviews, which were carried out in late spring 2019. The interview focused on students' conceptions of the ePortfolio method and the central elements in constructing it and, finally, improvements of the ePortfolio method. The ePortfolio data was analysed by applying Anderson and Krathwohl's taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing. The results revealed that students' knowledge types transformed throughout those years, from versatile to more limited area and students' cognitive process levels, from concrete to more abstract. The interview data supported these interpretations. The interviewees described the changes in their focus when tracing their learning processes; they considered visual and textual content, communication, and metacognitive knowledge as essential elements of ePortfolios. Suggested improvements of the ePortfolio addressed technical issues, platform demands, and practical functionalities.

School spaces, technologies, and educational activities shape each other reciprocally. This mixed-methods study (i) developed a methodological framework for tracing the interdependence between school spaces, digital instruments, and teachers' practices in their use, and (ii) created practice-based knowledge about the relations of teachers' perceptions of educational activities to school spaces in order to acknowledge architects and educational practitioners in designing learning environments that support educational renewal. We participated in the construction process of a new general upper-secondary school building in Finland, taking into consideration the school's operating culture and teachers' pedagogic needs (social aspects), as well as the mediation of school spaces by digitalization and national curriculum reformation (material aspects). The data were collected through a teacher survey (n = 31), teacher interviews (n = 10), and the analysis of group notes that teachers (n = 39) generated in a participatory workshop. The results revealed that teachers consider it critical in the design of new learning environments to foster a collaborative and multidisciplinary school culture that emphasizes learners' wellbeing and inclusion, as well as utilizing readily-available digital instruments with basic-level functionality. The developed methodological framework appeared suitable for visualizing (with radar charts) the sociomaterial interdependence of school spaces, digital instruments, and teachers' personal and collective pedagogical activities. We argue that teachers' perceptions of school spaces, digital instruments, and pedagogic practices entanglement consolidates learning environments design from an educational point of view and should be taken into consideration when constructing new school buildings.

The purpose of the present investigation was to analyze the pedagogical infrastructures in three cycles of seventh graders' co-invention projects that involved using traditional and digital fabrication technologies for inventing and creating complex artefacts. The aim of the projects was to create high-end multi-material makerspaces by expanding Finnish craft classrooms with instruments of digital fabrication, such as micro-processors, wearable computing (e-textiles), and 3D design and making, for enabling creation of student-designed multi-faceted inventions. Through a qualitative meta-analysis of the three successive learning-by-making projects, we explored the kinds of pedagogical infrastructures required for fostering knowledge-creating practices of learning. Pedagogic infrastructures refer to the designed arrangements and underlying conditions of implementing an extensive study project in classroom practices needed for reaching the learning objectives. We analyzed the epistemological, scaffolding, social, and material-technological dimensions of the enacted pedagogic infrastructures. In accordance with design-based educational investigations, we collected a variety of data (classroom video recordings, teacher and tutor interviews, invention challenges, learning assignments, and working schedules) across three year-long developmental cycles. We discuss the limitations and opportunities of maker-centered learning settings as well as considerations for future development of makerspace as pedagogical innovations for integrating socio-digital and material-technical practices and spaces for learning.

AbstractDigital fluency is a central 21st-century competence. Schools are responsible for ensuring that all students cultivate sophisticated sociodigital competences and mindsets needed for studying and collaborating through and around technology and overcoming digital challenges encountered. Although some schools have successfully integrated digital technologies into traditional schoolwork, students are not provided sufficient structured training in creative and academic practices of using digital technologies. This study explored changes before and after the COVID-19 pandemic in Finnish primary and middle school students’ perceived sociodigital study practices, competences, mindsets, and profiles. Participants were asked to respond to the Sociodigital Practices Inventory (SDPi), which assessed their sociodigital study practices, competences, and mindset. The participants consisted of 947 cohort 1 students (5th grade in 2019 and 6th grade in 2020) and 771 cohort 2 students (7th grade in 2019 and 8th grade in 2020). The results revealed subtle changes in students’ perceptions regarding schools’ digital practices; primary school students experienced an increase in basic practices while middle schoolers experienced a decrease in perceived advanced practices. Both boys’ and girls’ self-evaluated academic sociodigital competences increased from 2019 to 2020, while their artistic and technical competences decreased. Primary school boys’ sociodigital mindsets increased, while that of middle school girls decreased. The analyses revealed four latent profiles of digital fluency: Inexperienced, Enthusiastic, Humble, and Driven. We propose that it is vital to build a multidimensional view of students’ digital fluency by exploring interrelations between their sociodigital practices, competences, mindsets, and profiles.

The behaviour to use innovation and technology for teaching, learning, and research is influenced by different levels of culture, ranging from the supranational, professional, and organizational to the individual level. The current study focused on the organizational, professional, and individual levels of cultural influence on preservice teachers' intentions towards the use of open educational resources (OERs). This study is based on the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) and different levels of culture for innovation and technology usage. A survey was conducted on preservice teachers (n = 376) enrolled in the universities of Punjab (Pakistan). Structural equation modeling (SEM) was applied through smart-PLS. The results revealed that pre-service teachers were aware of the importance of OERs. It was found that preservice teachers' intentions played an important role towards their actual behaviour to use OERs. Personal level culture and perceived behavioural control influences the pre-service teacher's intentions to use open educational resources. The study has policy and practice implications for developing a social, cultural, and psychological environment to enhance pre-service teachers' intentions to use OERs. Future studies may be conducted on the effect of supranational and national culture on institutional policies designed to adopt OERs.

The present investigation examined cross-age peer tutoring in the context of organising a technology-enhanced STEAM project aimed at bringing elements of maker culture to a lower secondary school. We examined how 8th graders tutored 7th graders in programming skills. The participants were peer tutors (n = 15) studying in a technology-oriented class, along with their teachers (5) and the researchers (2). By interviewing the tutors, we studied skills that the tutors had experienced as being essential to overcoming the challenges encountered. To trace the tutors' social support network and the sharing of expertise, we asked the participants to draw a personal social network map. Three key tutors were identified, whose centrality in the network was socially validated by the number of peer tutors seeking their advice. Two case studies of key tutors' learning networks were carried out. The findings revealed that the tutors needed versatile technological, social, pedagogical, and reflective know-how in the project. It is concluded that cross-age peer tutoring provides significant support for implementing practices of making and STEAM education at school.

Co-invention projects in elementary school engage pupils in complex, open-ended design tasks in a practical, hands-on way. Physical materials are an intrinsic part of design, involving trasformation of conceptual ideas into material forms, such as prototypes. These tangible objects mediate embodied thinking and act as material-social mediators of knowledge creation processes. However, the material properties of the designed artifact and pupils' varying skills and levels of material knowledge constrain the design process. While previous studies of materiality in design have mainly focused on adults, this study aims to analyze and describe the different roles of material prototyping in an elementary school collaborative design process. A co-invention process was conducted in a Finnish elementary school during spring 2017, with the task of designing solutions for everyday problems. The data consisted of six video recorded design sessions, where small teams of 5th graders prototyped their inventions. We analyzed the video data across macro-, intermediate-, and micro-levels. The results revealed that pupils used prototypes as mediators for ideation and collaboration. They tested their ideas with prototyping, and material manipulation occurred during collaborative ideation. Material representations supported the verbalization and demonstration of ideas. Some challenges also emerged; prototype construction was a slow and laborious process, the division of labor tended to be unevenly distributed, and the model took a dominant role over the designed artifact. We conclude that support from the teacher and the learning environment is critical for utilizing the full potential of material manipulation in an elementary school setting.

The aim of this study was to validate a teacher rating scale (TRS-EN) for assessing early numeracy skills and for identifying mathematically low-performing 3- and 4-year-old children. Fifty-six preschool teachers assessed children's (3-year-olds = 127; 4-year-olds = 145) numerical relational, counting, and basic arithmetic skills. Construct validity evidence through confirmatory factor analysis supported both unidimensional and three-factor (i.e. numerical relational, counting and basic arithmetic skills) models. Also, TRS-EN demonstrated excellent internal consistency in both age groups. The teacher assessment scores corresponded well with standardized direct early numeracy measures, and predicted children's early numeracy skills six months later. The results clearly demonstrate that the TRS-EN can be used to assist teachers in assessing early numeracy skills, and help with identifying mathematically low-performing children.

The purpose of the present study was to examine primary school students' learning experiences with immersive virtual reality (I-VR). Traditional education practices are failing to inspire new cohorts of young people who have grown up with digital culture based on active participation. Given this development, the pedagogic use of I-VR systems represents a promising way of fostering students' learning engagement. This study involved engaging three groups of 10-12-year-old students with an I-VR system as part of an environmental studies project. Data were collected from the students before, during, and after the project via surveys that included structured and open-ended items. Through qualitative content analysis, we analysed the students' experiences, comprehension of virtual reality, assessment of learning impact, and desire for educational I-VRs. In general, we aimed to contribute to more learner-driven development for the technology. The students' experiences were primarily positive and revealed various actualised physical, cognitive, and emotional affordances. Their comprehension of virtual reality was influenced by the devices used, mental immersion, and aspects of the current project. Furthermore, I-VR was experienced as having influenced learning motivation, methods, and content. Finally, the students imagined various I-VRs for learning, most of which included time travel to imaginary spaces.

Digital technologies have been increasingly embedded in students' everyday lives. Interest-driven sociodigital participation (ISDP) involves students' pursuit of interests mediated by computers, social media, the internet, and mobile devices' integrated systems. ISDP is likely to intertwine closely with young people's social networks that has been scarcely studied quantitatively. To close this gap, the present paper investigated students' peer selection and influence effects of the intensity of their ISDP and friendship networks. We collected two-wave data by administering a peer nomination to trace students' friendship networks with peers and a self-reported questionnaire to examine students' ISDP. Participants were 100 students in Finland (female: 53%; mean age = 13.48, in grade 7 in the first wave). Through stochastic actor-oriented modelling, the results showed that the students' friendship ties with peers influenced the intensity of their ISDP practices to become more similar. Yet, students did not select peers as friends based on similar intensity levels of ISDP. Utilizing influence effect found in students' ISDP and their peer networks, we suggest that connected learning (Ito et al., 2013) should be promoted to integrate students' informal and formal learning in order to bridge the gap between students' informal interest-related digital practices and formal educational practices.