Centre for Research on Networked Learning and Knowledge

Building

CONFERENCE PAPERS
____________________________________________________________________

Pedagogical design for trialogical approach on learning

Lakkala Minna1, Paavola Sami1, Muukkonen Hanni1, & Rämö Erkki2

1
University of Helsinki, Finland
2
EVTEK University of Applied Sciences, Finland

A paper to be presented at the symposium “From dialogical to

trialogical learning: Knowledge practices in higher education and
teacher training”
12th Biennial EARLI conference, Budapest, Hungary
August 28 – September 1, 2007.
___________________________________________________

Correspondence concerning this paper should be addressed to:

Minna Lakkala
Centre for Research on Networked Learning and Knowledge Building
Department of Psychology, P.O. Box 9
00014 University of Helsinki, FINLAND
Tel: +358 40 7254 889, Fax: +358 9 191 29 831
E-mail: minna.lakkala@helsinki.fi
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ABSTRACT

The present study explores the so-called knowledge-creation approach on learning, which
highlights the activities where people collaboratively develop new artefacts and products or
commit themselves into long-term processes of working and learning. We call this approach
‘trialogical’ to differentiate it from those models of learning which emphasize processes within
the human mind (‘monological’, the knowledge acquisition approach), and from those
approaches emphasizing social practices or interaction (‘dialogical’, the participation approach).
In the presentation, we will discuss the general design principles for enhancing the trialogical
approach to learning through pedagogical arrangements and supporting technology. The design
principles have been developed in a large research and development project, KP-Lab
(Knowledge Practices Laboratory), funded by the EU. We will apply the specified framework of
pedagogical infrastructures, which includes technical, social, epistemological and cognitive
components, to examine the design of one higher education course as an example of
pedagogical practices that are thought to promote trialogical learning.

INTRODUCTION

Modern information and communication technology (ICT) presents new challenges and
opportunities for understanding learning, and working with knowledge. Technology enables
new kinds of practices, but how should technology be integrated to serve advanced ways of
learning? According to Enyedy and Hoadley (2006), computer based media have, for a long
time, been seen either supporting “the information genre” or “the communication genre”. They
stated that ICT is apt for sharing information (and “monologues”) or for supporting social
interaction (dialogues as respective social activity). Modern technology with an emphasis on
creativity and new forms of collaboration has, however, given new means to use ICT as a tool
for collaboratively developing and creating something (cf. Miettinen, 2006). Consequently, new
technology is closely related to novel kinds of practices to work with knowledge but also to the
ways of understanding learning in itself.
Approaches emphasizing activities where people are collaboratively developing new
artefacts and systematically transforming their practices of working have been called the
knowledge creation metaphor for learning (see Hakkarainen et al., 2004). This metaphor refers
to various theories that are aimed at understanding how to best organize long-term collaborative
working processes for developing something together. These theories emphasize the element of
mediation and object-oriented nature of human activity, like the theory of expansive learning
(Engeström, 1987), the knowledge building approach (Bereiter, 2002), and the progressive
inquiry model (Muukkonen et al., 2005). We call this approach ‘trialogical’ (Paavola &
Hakkarainen, 2005) and differentiate it from those models of learning which emphasize
processes within the human mind (‘monological’, knowledge acquisition metaphor), and from
those approaches emphasizing just social practices or interaction (‘dialogical’, participation
metaphor) (cf. Sfard 1998). The trialogical approach aims at developing pedagogical models and
tools for organizing learners’ activities around shared objects of activity (like texts, conceptual
artefacts or practices) that are created for some meaningful purpose or reason. Within the
trialogical approach, also individually performed activities and social interaction serve the long-
term processes of developing some concrete, shared objects collaboratively for some subsequent
use (see Figure 1).
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Figure 1. An illustration of the trialogical approach on learning.

DESIGN PRINCIPLES FOR TRIALOGICAL LEARNING

The present study is a part of a large EU-funded Knowledge Practices Laboratory project
(see www.kp-lab.org). The aim of the project is to develop the trialogical approach to learning,
and related pedagogical scenarios and technology. The following central design principles (DP)
have been defined to describe trialogical learning:
DP1. Organizing activities around shared objects
DP2. Supporting interaction between personal and social levels
DP3. Eliciting individual and collective agency
DP4. Fostering long-term processes of knowledge advancement
DP5. Emphasizing development through transformation and reflection between various
forms of knowledge and practices
DP6. Cross fertilization of various knowledge practices (vocational education –
universities; educational institutions – working life)
DP7. Providing flexible tool mediation

These design principles illustrate the general characteristics of the trialogical approach on
learning, defined on the basis of models belonging to the knowledge-creation metaphor of
learning in relation to the general aims of the KP-Lab project. A background for these design
principles can be found especially on the knowledge building approach (Bereiter, 2002), and on
the experiences of developing and doing research on collaborative learning environments (see
Muukkonen, Lakkala & Hakkarainen, 2005) but broadening these approaches with socio-
cultural perspectives (e.g. Engeström, 1987).
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Design principles, presented above, are on a quite abstract level as such but they are meant
to give an overall focus on the development of pedagogical models and related tools, and will be
updated during the project. We see that the most crucial and central principle in the trialogical
approach is the first one (DP1); that collaboration is organized for jointly developing some
concrete, shared knowledge objects for a meaningful purpose. The focus is on those processes
where people integrate their own personal work and group work for developing these shared
objects, combining participants’ expertise and advancement into the collectivity’s achievement
(DP2), and the importance of expressing agency and taking individual and collective
responsibility of the overall development efforts (DP3). The emphasis is on such long-term
knowledge-creation processes where shared objects are developed in a sustained way for some
subsequent use; we claim that real knowledge creation always requires continuity and building
on the individuals’ and collectivity’s previous efforts and achievements (DP4). According to the
knowledge-creation metaphor, it means that declarative, procedural as well as tacit knowledge
and practices are externalized, reflected, conceptualized and transformed during the process;
real knowledge creation does not advance in a straightforward way but is an ill-defined task
where new ideas and practices are produced, tested through concrete actions, and deliberately
and constantly evaluated and revised (DP5). In the KP-Lab project, the special focus is on those
courses and knowledge practices where students must go outside their own organizations and
are given assignments outside their own institution, in order to cross-fertilize the expertise and
practices of educational institutions and workplaces (DP6). Finally, the KP-Lab project
emphasises the development of flexible tools, based on modern web-based technology, for
facilitating and enhancing aspects highlighted in the other design principles (DP7).

AIMS OF THE STUDY

In the present pilot study, we illustrate and concretize the design principles by introducing
and analysing one course through them, conducted in the EVTEK University of Applied
Sciences. The course was not purposefully designed according to the trialogical design
principles; rather, it was chosen for investigation because the main characteristics in the
pedagogical approach and design of the course, developed by the teacher during several years,
comply well with the trialogical approach on learning. Generally, our goal is to test whether the
trialogical design principles provide a useful tool for examining the teachers’ pedagogical
practices and the participants’ experiences of the practices in the course. We investigated an
experienced teacher’s ways of structuring the students’ activities in a multimedia design course
and suggest recommendations that might be appropriate, based on the analysis, for developing
the course design and related tools further.

METHOD

Setting and participants

The investigated course was a four-month, undergraduate higher education course, ‘Media
Project’, conducted in the EVTEK University of Applied Sciences (http://www.evtek.fi/en/).
The goal of the course was to learn collaborative design practices and project-based working
methods in solving the practical problems of media technology. Students’ design assignments
were given by real customers, i.e., guiding students towards knowledge and skills needed in real
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working life. The teacher of the course had run the course several times during the last 15 years
and he was very experienced in designing and organizing processes of this kind. He constantly
maintains a large network of contacts with suitable customers and always has some assignments
provided by them, to be offered for the student teams.
In all, 39 media technology students participated in the course: most of them (N=30) were
from the 3rd grade level, others were from preceding or consequent grade levels. Most students
worked in small teams in carrying out their design assignment. The students had a freedom to
form the teams or work alone as well as to choose the customer and object of their project from
those that the teacher offered, or get those by themselves. Some students were paid for their
project work by their customer.
An intranet system, generally used in all courses in EVTEK, OVI-portal
(http://www.evtek.fi/en/student_services/oviportal/), was used as a forum for arranging
students’ course participation, announcements, materials and task assignments. All lectures and
presentations conducted in the course were videotaped and were available for the participants
through the Web afterwards. The teacher organized the delivery, sharing and monitoring of the
project teams’ documentation through a special, web-based project tool, NetPro
(http://netpro.evtek.fi/), developed in EVTEK. In addition, the students were provided with
various professional multimedia tools for creating the multimedia products designed in teams.

Data collection and analysis

The data collected from the case included the teacher’s interview; interviews of the
customers and the students from two project teams (Diving-DVD: Educational DVD for the
trainers of teenage divers; and Shooting-DVD: a DVD introducing air gun shooting as a hobby);
students’ written self-reflections after the course; observations and video recordings of seminar
sessions and some design teams’ meetings; as well as the contents of the database in the web-
based systems. The teacher’s way of designing and structuring the activities in the course was
reconstructed from the participant’s descriptions and the database structure and contents, using
an investigative approach that may be characterized as exploratory case research (Yin, 2003).
Various data sources and analysis methods were combined, in order to provide a multi-faceted
and comprehensive picture of the course design.
The data analysis consisted of the following two main parts:
1) An overall reconstruction of the actual, patterned progress of the activities, based on the
explorative analysis of all information received from the examination of database content,
observed lessons and the interviews;
2) An evaluation of the course design in respect of the trialogical design principles, based
on the above-mentioned process analysis, teacher’s interview and students’ and clients’ self-
reported experiences (interviews and questionnaires).
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RESULTS

The progress of activities in the course

The actual course period lasted 14 weeks, from the middle of January to the end of April,
but the delivering of final documents and project products was extended because most project
teams needed extra time to finalize their products. There were four common, 2-hour seminar
sessions at the university during the course; participation in them was voluntary. The teacher
offered some project cases, based on the negotiations with the customers that he had contacts
with, some projects were arranges by the students themselves. The projects were typically either
about producing a multimedia product (e.g., an educational DVD about diving for a diving
association; a music video for a rock band) or making a piece of software or Web page
application (e.g., a program for following working hours in a small company; the Web pages of
a famous Finnish writer).
The final pieces of the project work were designed and constructed mainly in face-to-face
group meetings that the students themselves arranged with their project team members,
customers and/or the teacher. The project teams had a task to produce the following eight
document of their design process: Minutes of the team meetings, a project definition, a project
plan, requirements and solutions, a prototype, a final product, a final report, and a PowerPoint
presentation. In Figure 2 is a screenshot of the project deliverable area in NetPro, including
documents and delivery dates of four team project.

Figure 2. Project deliverable area in the NetPro system.

In addition to the project documents produced by the teams, each student had an individual
assignment to write a personal learning log at the end of the course, in addition to answering the
pre- and post-questions concerning the research. In Table 1 is described the overall structure and
progression of the course activities and outcomes.
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Table 1. The progression of course activities

Time Activities Achievements

January 10th Introductory lecture: The
teacher introduced the course
content and goals.
January 15th Expert lecture: A former
student presented “lessons
learnt” viewpoints and
guidelines for avoiding pitfalls
of the project work.
January 17th Seminar meeting: A researcher 17 projects were created. Nine projects were
introduced the data collection carried out by individual students. In each team,
procedure; the teacher one student worked as a project leader.
supervised the students in team
formation, finding the client
and choosing a project.
January - Project work period: Teams Until the end of the period, the teams had posted 23
April worked independently on their documents (M = 1.4 docs/team) in NetPro, which
projects among themselves and was 10% of all required documents (8 docs/team).
with the client as well as posted Nine teams had not posted any documents yet.
the specified project documents
into the NetPro-system. The
teacher participated in the team
meetings of those clients’
projects that were arranged by
him.
April 24th Seminar meeting: Project team 13 project teams had prepared PowerPoint-
presentations presentations and presented their projects.
May-June Extra project work period: Until the end, the teams had posted 78 documents
Teams continued their projects (M = 4.6 docs/team) in NetPro, which was 37% of
and posted the specified project all required documents. Three teams did not post
documents into the NetPro- any documents.
system.
Students posted their personal
learning logs in the OVI portal.
26th June Evaluation: The teacher posted 13 projects were finalized; 4 were still unfinished
the final evaluation results in but the teams continued working on them.
the OVI portal. 32 students posted individual learning logs.
The students posted their 32 students received their final credits: Lowest = 3,
individual learning logs and highest = 5, Mean = 4.1 (in a scale 1 to 5).
filled in a questionnaire 18 students filled in the course evaluation. The
(applied for all courses in overall mean grade given to the course by the
EVTEK) evaluating the course. students was 4.11 (in a scale 1 to 5).
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Project example: Diving-DVD. In the Diving-DVD project, the teacher carried out the first
negotiations with the customer. Then he arranged the first meeting with the three students who
chose that project, and two representatives from the customer organization (a Finnish diving
association). In January, the team had, in a tight schedule, three meetings with the customer
where they made agreements and plans of the content and format of the product (educational
DVD for the trainers of teenage divers) and the students received former videos and other
material for the product. In February, the students filmed teenage divers’ training session, and
had two meetings with the clients where they went through the video materials and continued
planning the product. In March, the team had two meetings with the customer where they
decided to film more material from a diving happening because the existing material was not
good enough (it turned out to be difficult to get video material about real diving practices under
water). In April, the students presented the first demo to the clients and tried to collect some
more film material. The final comments from the customer and decisions for the product were
made in two meetings in May, and the team delivered the final product for the customer in a
meeting in June. The project team received the highest grade (5) from the teacher.

The evaluation of the course design through the “trialogical” design principles

The teachers’ way of designing and structuring students’ activities in the course is
described according to the previously mentioned seven design principles or characteristics of
trialogical learning, based on a preliminary, interpretative analysis of all observations and
database materials, as well as the analysis of the teachers’ interview. The description is
complemented, by using the students’ written answers to the post-questions and the interviews
of the students and clients in two project teams, to illustrate how the design features of the
course were manifested from the participants’ perspective. All excerpts from the interviews and
writings are translated from Finnish.

DP1. Organizing activities around shared objects.

This design principle as such was strongly characterizing the whole course assignment,
which meant designing a real multimedia product for a customer as a joint object of activity in
project teams. However, in contrast to the design principles of trialogical approach, the teacher
gave the students also the freedom to work alone; but each student still had collaboration at least
with a customer. The aim of working on a product was implicitly present and central in the
overall course organization: ”And because we simulate a real working life project, where the
starting point is not to set forth some given affair using a certain tool but to solve a customers’
problem, we use this opportunity and start to develop the product from that.” (Teacher
interview)
The teacher tried to foster expert-like, collaborative project work practices by providing
student teams with project work structure and documentation templates, and emphasizing
effective design practices, e.g.: ”Just this project phasing that is visible in NetPro: First the
project definition is made, so that it is clearly defined what it the aim, and it is written down.
[…] This definition can, in this preliminary phase, be made between me and the customer, and
then it will probably be adjusted when we get the student team together. Anyway, it has to be
made clear for the students what is the goal. Then the project plan is made, where this phasing
 9

is written down: how to go ahead from here, what is designed first, what is designed then, what
kind of intermediate results, that will be reviewed, are necessary, so that the final outcomes are
achieved.” (Teacher interview).
Also both interviewed customers emphasized these professional, systematic practices in
project work; for example: “We had a plan about the structure directly in the beginning, very
early. […] Then inside the sub-sections, what should have been done … it was missing
especially from the picture side. Because you cannot get pictures anymore afterwards, or you
should arrange the whole situation again, in order to get more pictures. That really was, I could
say, the only poor point in the project, a bit inadequate preliminary planning.” (Customer
interview).
In the two, more closely followed teams all participants thought that the collaboration had
worked well. Both teams worked on the shared design object mainly by having team meetings
flexibly at school and sharing tasks to be done between the students, and by having regular,
face-to-face meetings with the clients:
”Well, generally, when we have received, in a meeting, a task that has to be done, we have
checked when we have time to do it before the deadline, and then we have went to do it
into the school’s AV-laboratory.” (A student in a team interview)
”But the results seem to come out also through amazingly few contacts. This has not taken
much of my working time. So, everybody has [worked] rather independently … This is not
directly about this question, but [I] have acquired all the materials; those building blocks,
wherefrom is generated the final product.” (Customer interview)
Students’ individual, written self-reflections revealed that in some teams the students did
not actually receive an authentic experience of collaboration around shared objects. It appears
that in some teams the tasks were divided between the participants; therefore, each member
worked quite separately, without real collaboration; for example: “Different tasks were always
divided between the team members. For instance, even the documentation was not done in
collaboration.” (Students’ post-questions). Also those students who did the project work alone,
missed the collaborative working experience: “Studying was lonely striving except the start and
end sessions.” (Students’ post-questions).
One interesting observation was that the students did not seem to realise the meaning of
project documentation in the same way as the experts; for instance: “Well, perhaps the reporting
that has been planned for conducting the course, perhaps it is not as suitable for our product as
it is for some other product. There should be some flexibility in the reporting.” (A student in a
team interview). The project teams did not actually use the documentation as a practice for
supporting the collaborative design process, because most teams produced only some of the
documents, and even them usually behind the schedule, after the product had already been
produced.

DP2. Supporting interaction between personal and social levels.

Features that can be said to conform this design principle were the following: the students
had a possibility to choose the project work according to their interests and situation, and to
actualize the division of labour in the teams so that their personal goals and the teams’ benefits
were realized simultaneously; the students had assignments both to participate in the joint
working process and its reporting, and to produce individual learning logs concerning their
personal experiences; the outcomes and experiences from separate projects were distributed
between all course participants through document sharing and oral presentations; and the
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students’ final course credits were a combination of the evaluation of team outcomes and a
personal learning log.
The teacher gave the students much freedom to choose a project and he explained it to be a
deliberate decision: ”I do not guarantee that I can find a theme based on my networks for each
student or team but I do not either force them to go along with such customer project. We can
also do it so that a student suggests me a theme if he has something in mind; if the student, for
instance, has a job, the theme can be related to the working place.” Some students valued this
opportunity; e.g.: “It was good that within the course I could carry out a project that I have
wanted to do for a long time. My programming skills improved very much, which is important
for me.” (Students’ post-questions).
The interviewed customers saw the importance of taking students’ individual
competencies in use in the team work: “Everything is different in a nice way. They all have
somewhat diverging objects of interest and they have been able to divide the work somewhat, so
that Joonas has been doing the music part and made the interviews. […] Pekka did very good
video clips; he has insight for that. And Kalle has sort of kept track of everything.” (Customer
interview).
Most students described similar positive experiences of the team work: ”Everybody did
things that they were best at and slight specializing was clearly visible. Nevertheless, all
important issues and decisions were discussed together among the whole team.” (Students’
post-questions). However, there was also a student who regarded the integration of personal and
social levels in her team unsuccessful: “Because the project tasks were so clearly divided
between different people, I did not feel to be able to do what I wanted to do. My tasks were
mainly the modification and documentation of material.” (Students’ post-questions).

DP3. Eliciting individual and collective agency.

It is not easy to concretize what this design principle might mean in practice. How can
agency be elicited by pedagogical arrangements? Is it better to let students try to cope with a
challenging task by themselves or to combine a challenging task with guidance and supervision
in those working strategies that the students do not yet manage themselves? In the investigated
course, the students had a demanding task to produce an authentic multimedia product for a real
customer, and the project teams were independently responsible for carrying out their projects
and fulfilling the customers’ wishes. Each project had one student as a project manager and the
teams had an obligation to constantly report the progression of the project through
documentation; in practice all teams delivered most documents behind the schedule.
The teacher described the course goals and outcomes, relating to this design principle, in
the following way: “But my own impression is, as far as I have participated in these so called
EVTEK’s customer projects, that the goal has been achieved; they have been able to produce
the intended product. Then surely very much also the learning goals concerning these metaskills
- disciplined project activity. Thus, my educated guess it that this has considerably advanced the
students’ expertise in true doing.”
Also the interviewed clients were satisfied with the students’ commitment, for example:
“Things have worked out well. Students have come to the meetings in time and have been
present, in spite of the customer organization, almost everybody. And it seems that also the guys
have been keen on working. In my opinion, they have had a right attitude towards the doing,
that lets make the material as good as we can.” (Customer interview)
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It appears that, at least in the most successful teams, their occurred collective agency: “On
my opinion, everything is well in order; we have all taken care of that we have everything that
has to be done.” (A student in team interview). Some students reported that in their team, one
did all the work and others did not take any responsibility. This may relate to the problem that
the teacher could participate actively only in those customer projects that were arranged by him
and could supervise them closely. In some other projects, the students experienced that they did
not get enough guidance from the teacher to support team functioning: “The collaboration
inside the project team did not work out; also the communication with the client was mainly
behind one team member, because the client was familiar for him. From the adviser provided by
the school I would have hoped more interest towards each project.” (Students’ post-questions).

DP4. Fostering long-term processes of knowledge advancement.

In the course, the students made the design product from the preliminary design ideas to
final realization. It turned out to be a challenging task to carry out in a short-term course. This is
a common contradiction between the idealistic principle for fostering long-term processes, and
real-life limitations in the institutional curriculum structure that is based on short-term courses.
The design process can perhaps be said to be a mid-term process rather than a long-term process
for the students. All teams were behind the schedule and three teams had not finalized the
product at the end of June. However, the teacher was flexible in allowing students to deliver
their project results also afterwards.
According to the teacher, at the curriculum level there is a continuation in the systematic,
long-term promotion of students’ project work expertise: ”The goal then was to have one
integrated project in every grade level; in the first year we have had an application development
course, conducted by another teacher, where students practice these project learning methods.
Then in the second year is the communication technology project, where most students already
work with clients, and in the third year the media project. Then in the fourth year is the diploma
work.” (Teacher interview). In addition, some of the projects in the present course directly
linked to some students’ personal long-term interests and hobbies, for example: “The idea
originated already one and a half years ago; a manuscript, a screen play and other documents
of it were produced during the course.” (A student, post-questionnaire).
The teacher himself had long-term contacts with many customers; in addition, he created
continuation inside the institution by inviting a former student to give a guiding lecture to the
students about project work; the alumnus had done his diploma work about “lessons learned” in
the projects carried out in EVTEK’s courses in previous years. It was a new element in the
course, added based on the wishes and feedback received from students in previous courses.
Also the interviewed customers mentioned a desire for long-term collaboration processes,
e.g.: “If they want to continue the collaboration, we are ready to continue the collaboration with
EVTEK, and preferably we continue with these same people. In other words, our goal is to get
more of this kind of topic presentation material. That we could work with the same persons, it
would be easier for us.” (Customer interview).

DP5. Emphasizing development through transformation and reflection between various forms of
knowledge and practices.
The entire, ill-defined design task of the students can be said to actualize this design
principle. The students had to use all previous knowledge and skills about multimedia tools,
design work and project work that they had learnt during their studies, in order to manage the
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work. In addition, they had a possibility learn from and work with experienced experts in project
work, and professionals from other fields. The teacher tried to foster deliberate
conceptualization, externalization and reflection of knowledge and practices by a requirement
for writing a reflective self-evaluation of both individual and team level experiences afterwards.
The teacher explained the course to be integrating in nature: “This is an integrating project
course and the aim is especially to apply, in practice, as many issues that show up as possible.
Everything that the students know in the third grade.” (Teacher interview). He considered the
role of the reflective reporting as important for the students’ development, in addition to the
participation in the actual project work: “Well, the goals of the course where achieved rather
well. In this reporting, the project team makes that final report, where it reflects its own activity.
In addition, I ask from every student a personal learning log where each student further affirms
what was his own role, how much work he did.” (Teacher interview).
One interviewed client compared the course task with apprenticeship work; he had also
emphasized the importance of externalization and reflection to the students: “I remember that at
some point I urged the guys to keep the project book; that all the meetings and appointments are
there. That way you get them visible, so that you learn when you write it down and you can
return to that afterwards. If you do not keep any such diary - what has been decided in which
meeting - it short of disappears in the air. A product like this and how much work it requires
after all; that it would be nice to have such for the later working career … so that when you do
things, they do not come about just like that.” (Customer interview)
From some of the students’ reflections we got an impression that they had been able to
experience the characteristic and challenges of the design work, e.g.: ”There is much to invent,
in a way there is all the time something to be invented, and you cannot apply to any situation
something that had to be done in the previous situation. Every second [of the video] that has to
be made ready, has to be thought. There is nothing that could be planned beforehand but the
problems have to be met and then they have to be solved.” (A student in a team interview).

DP6. Cross fertilization of various knowledge practices.

Designing a product based on authentic needs of a real customer and students’ interaction
and collaborative working directly with the representatives of the customer organization sets
strong conditions for cross fertilization in the course. The teacher himself is also an expert who
has much competence and know-how from the field through his 15-year experience in
organizing and supervising similar projects, and inviting a former student to give a lecture about
project practices brought an additional element into the cross-fertilization. The phases and
templates applied in the course resembled professional project work.
The authentic working with real customers was perhaps the most important aspect that the
teacher emphasized in the interview: “Well, the theme, that students make a real project … I
consider it important especially from the point of view of the professional development of these
engineering students. This has proved to be extremely important, that affairs are done in a way
that they are done in reality. I cannot, at the moment, imagine of any better way, than to do real
projects. In that sense, this is actually according to the present trend, this kind of collaboration
between an educational institution and working life, and people have started to realize that
more broadly in the educational field. Here we have practiced it already for 15 years.” (Teacher
interview).
One interesting aspect that emerged from the teacher’s interview was the new challenges
and requirements that this type of customer-related practice demands from the teacher and from
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the educational institution: You have to maintain a large network of customers, be in contact
with existing customers and seek new customers. Then you have to have time for organizing
project allocation in the courses, and supervise the various projects that are going on. The
teachers’ situation had improved recently by sharing teaching responsibilities with another
teacher. This kind of networking and project supervision requires new competencies from the
teacher, but also provides opportunities for learning and developing your expertise: ”You learn
enormously from the various fields of life; it is useful from the point view of general knowledge.
Then, of course, you learn about this production technology. […] My network expands all the
time and I can always … when there is a problem in the next project … I might remember that
in the previous years’ project this and this person dealt with this, and I can take contact there.”
(Teacher interview).
It appears that in the investigated course, there emerged real cross-fertilization between all
parties; also the customers learnt from the collaboration, in addition to providing their expertise
into students’ use: “The material is surprisingly good quality, and then all technical solutions
that have been done by editing. […] All these effects; I did not have any clue about these before
the project started.” (Customer interview).
Naturally, the students also reported that the real collaboration was a central benefit of
the course, but also challenging because it brought all real-life problems into the project work
(difficulties to understand each other and to share and explicate domain knowledge; customer’s
motivation and participation; changes in the schedule, plans and resources; etc.); for instance:
”The most positive aspect of the course is the company centered projects. Through them,
students get a slight touch about project management and working life.” (Students’ post-
questions).
”More experience about customer projects and especially about a bit more difficult
client (does not know what he wants; communication problems). (Students’ post-
questions)

DP7. Providing flexible tool mediation.

In their project work, the students used professional, multimedia tools for designing and
producing the multimedia products but in the KP-Lab project, the focus is on collaborative tools
that enable the sharing of joint objects and the collaborative process. The OVI and NetPro
systems enabled the sharing of information and project documentation between the course
participants and project teams, but they were not used for real elaboration, commenting or
editing of the design objects. NetPro was mainly used for keeping track on the documents
reporting the project progression. Project teams used mainly e-mail; one team had themselves
founded a web-portal for their project work and one team shared the developed video product
versions with the client through web-links.
In the interview, the teacher especially mentioned the need for tools that would enable the
sharing of the process with the customer: “Well, what we actually lack is a real extranet system.
I am concerned about it for our data administration, so that we could easily open up our
development environment for clients. It is a serious deficiency. […] It would be an ideal
situation that all the tools that students use for developing these products could easily be
available also for clients. At least a possibility to develop these kinds of specification documents
and other [documents] together; I see that it could make this method more effective.” (Teacher
interview)
 14

In one team, the students spontaneously created a practice for sharing various versions of
the videos with the customer through the Web, which was praised by the customer: ”Acting
through the net [is] definitely the most beneficial, because it relieves you from time and place;
then you can watch the video wherever. For instance, Mary (name changed) looked at the video
for the last time in the blue shooters camp of the Shooting sport federation in Paimio, there in
the lodging with other shooters through a lap top, looking what its like.” (Customer interview)
Generally, the students and the interviewed customers appear to have been satisfied with
the solution of using mainly e-mail for virtual interaction and having face-to-face meetings for
collaborative work. Nobody mentioned in the interviews or answers to post-questions any
desires to have special tools for developing and sharing the design object together through
virtual spaces.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

The analysis of the course provides an overview of the methods that an experienced
university teacher systematically and purposefully employed to support the course which have
many of central elements of trialogical learning in an established pedagogical practice.
Central in the trialogical approach is a meaningful common object that is to be developed
together in a group. According to the results received from the course, when this is
complemented by the feature that design assignment comes from a real customer, it makes the
design challenge purposeful and motivating for the students. Also, it is possible to actualize real
cross-fertilization between educational institutions and work places where all parties learn. The
teacher very flexibly took into account each student’s interests, competencies and wishes to
develop their expertise through the course.
When examining the course design critically against the trialogical design principles, some
improvements can be suggested. Only some students and teams had such a project that the
teacher actively supervised; some students also worked alone without a team. The question is,
did all the students receive enough experience and support for learning the skills of collaborative
design? Further, how to, more systematically, support and supervise the critical expert-like
design practices under study? In the present course, the requirements for systematic explication
and reporting of the process did not work out very well and the students did not see its value. Of
course, it is also always a matter of the teacher’s choice and priorization, which aspects are
emphasized in the course design.
In the KP-Lab project, a special focus is on the development of appropriate tools for
trialogical learning practises. In the investigated course, there were not very advance tools in use
for sharing the design object and its various versions or the process phases and documents,
especially with the external customer. An interesting result was that the participants, except the
teacher, did not even explicate any special needs or requirements for technology that they would
have desired for the collaborative design process.
We see that the theoretically oriented design principles provided a useful framework for
the analysis of pedagogical design, although the implementation of the principles into
educational practice should be developed and concretized further. The analysis revealed that for
actualizing educational practices that are designed according to the principles, changes are
needed both in pedagogical practices (the nature of tasks, the modelling of expert practices,
assessment, students’ accountability etc.), teachers’ role and responsibilities (the role as
supervisor and organizer, networking with customers etc.), and curriculum and institutional
 15

level structures (the duration of courses, resources for teachers, extranet open for customers
etc.).

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