Pippa Yeoman | The University of Sydney (original) (raw)

Papers by Pippa Yeoman

Research in Networked Learning

Education is never neutral. One of the main functions of education has been to facilitate young p... more Education is never neutral. One of the main functions of education has been to facilitate young people's integration into an existing system or society. However, in the foreword to The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Richard Shaull reminds us that education can become "the practice of freedom" or "the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world" (Freire, 1972, p. 14). This chapter presents Fast Food da Politica (FFDP) as a case study of a learning network that embraces the practice of freedom as its core sentiment. FFDP is a not-for-profit Brazilian organization that works to empower young and old, men and women to take hold of their own futures. FFDP uses games and open resources to educate Brazilians on a complex topicthe mechanisms and functioning of their political structures. The organization draws on the concept of "fast food" to convey that political engagement can be something fun and easy to go through. We argue that this learning network strongly enacts the networked learning values of participation, co-creation and knowledge building (Hodgson & McConnell, 2019). The very essence of the type of knowledge shared

This pre-conference workshop brings together a number of leading learning scientists, as well as ... more This pre-conference workshop brings together a number of leading learning scientists, as well as talented younger researchers, working in an emerging, but fragmented line of research focused on ‘Future Learning Spaces’ (FLSs). Significant advances in this area of scholarship have been made in recent years, spurred by billions of dollars of investments into building or re-designing educational spaces — both physical and digital, formal and informal — to accommodate learning in a networked society. To advance our theoretical understanding on the role of space in learning, vital work remains to be done to frame concepts, synthesize dispersed research agendas and share the results of work that is relevant to the broader FLSs project. To do this, this workshop is organized in four themes that address current challenges and opportunities for FLSs research: Theory, methods, design, and implementation. The workshop includes a combination of invited presenters and key contributors who have a...

Within the field of CSCL, observation customarily follows the design and, or implementation of a ... more Within the field of CSCL, observation customarily follows the design and, or implementation of a new tool, script or digital learning environment. This study sets out to describe a collaborative learning environment with high reliance on ICT's that exists "in the wild". A total of 549 hours of observation will be used to process theories of: materiality, practice and orchestration, in an examination of the relationships between learning activity and the learning environment.

A good repertoire of methods for analysing and sharing ideas about existing designs can make a us... more A good repertoire of methods for analysing and sharing ideas about existing designs can make a useful contribution to improving the quality and efficiency of educational design work. Just as architects can improve their practice by studying historic and contemporary buildings, so people who design to help people learn can get better at what they do by understanding the designs of others.

Design for learning involves the delicate interweaving of knowledge about learning and knowledge ... more Design for learning involves the delicate interweaving of knowledge about learning and knowledge about design. This work is often carried out by heterogenous design teams in which members speak of and value different aspects of design, and different methods for evaluating these designs in use. The challenge of reconciling these often-competing demands is critical to the success of these teams. This short paper outlines work breaking new ground translating an educational design method, developed in English speaking contexts, for use in Spanish speaking contexts. Steeped in socio-cultural and socio-material awareness this project explores how the ACAD Toolkit-a set of tangible design related resources embodying networked learning ideals-shapes and is (re)shaped in and through the process of translation. Guided by two questions: (i) How can we explore the process of translating not only language but values and forms of practice? and (ii) How can the ACAD Toolkit be validated in new contexts? This qualitative study involves the thematic analysis of multimodal data including video and audio recordings, and artefacts produced during workshops. Our method builds on traditional cross-cultural processes of adaptation that involve adapting, expanding and splitting ideas and concepts in two stages: language translation and user-experience testing. Our analysis is, therefore, reported in two stages. In the first we explore the process of reaching agreement on a test set of translated resources, and in the second we explore how these resources are being enrolled in educational design work in new contexts. The newly translated resources have been tested in three workshops in two Spanish speaking educational settings (Spain and Argentina). After analysing the data from these workshops, the initial translation will be corrected, and instructions will be developed-in both languages-to improve future translations of the ACAD Toolkit and in its ongoing use in English contexts. These instructions and the processes through which they will be developed will produce potential research objects for future educational design research. This method, initially developed with educators in Australia and New Zealand, embodies the very heart of networked learning-the movement of people, objects, and ideas across contexts and time.

This paper introduces Fast Food da Politica (FFDP) as a case study of a learning network designed... more This paper introduces Fast Food da Politica (FFDP) as a case study of a learning network designed to promote social action in a developing country. Our focus is on exploring FFDP design elements, such as those related to tools, tasks and social organization, and the connections between these elements and valued learning activity. FFDP cleverly (re)purposes popular (board) games as pedagogical tools, which are then customised for the teaching and learning of the mechanisms and functioning of Brazilian political structures. FFDP has taken their political games to game-playing sessions across the country in varied venues – including schools, government organisations, and open sessions at market-street events and public protests. Their games are shared as open learning resources through blueprints and manuals that explain the many ways a game can be played, and which are easily downloadable through their website. FFDP also encourages game users (educators and learners) to come up with a...

The complex interaction of tool use (both physical and digital) in face-to-face collaborative lea... more The complex interaction of tool use (both physical and digital) in face-to-face collaborative learning situations, and the role that these tools play in facilitating group work is increasingly important as tools for learning become more sophisticated and specialized. In this paper, a group of five high school students is studied as they engage in a learning by design task to design an educational resource about a local waterway. They carried out this design work in The Design Studio at the University of Sydney, using an iPad projected onto a whiteboard wall. Multiple streams of data were collected, visualized and analyzed, which allowed the overall patterns of tool use for all members of the group to be identified in relation to the development of their design. Two patterns of tool use are identified and analyzed according to the practice of sketching identified in other fields of design.

Learning Environments Research

Journal of New Approaches in Educational Research

Contemporary educational practices have been calling for pedagogical models that foreground flexi... more Contemporary educational practices have been calling for pedagogical models that foreground flexibility, agency, ubiquity, and connectedness in learning. These models have, in turn, been stimulating redevelopments of educational infrastructure –with physical contours reconfigured into novel complex learning spaces at universities, schools, museums, and libraries. Understanding the complexity of these innovative learning spaces requires an acknowledgement of the material and digital as interconnected. A ‘physical’ learning space is likely to involve a range of technologies and in addition to paying attention to these ‘technologies’ one must understand and account for their physical sites of use as well. This paper discusses the influence of materiality in learning, using an analytical approach that situates learning activity as an emergent process. Drawing on theories that foreground socio-materiality in learning and on the relational perspective offered by networked learning, we cal...

Educational Technology Research and Development

This paper provides a summary account of Activity-Centred Analysis and Design (ACAD). ACAD offers... more This paper provides a summary account of Activity-Centred Analysis and Design (ACAD). ACAD offers a practical approach to analysing complex learning situations, in a way that can generate knowledge that is reusable in subsequent (re)design work. ACAD has been developed over the last two decades. It has been tested and refined through collaborative analyses of a large number of complex learning situations and through research studies involving experienced and inexperienced design teams. The paper offers a definition and high level description of ACAD and goes on to explain the underlying motivation. The paper also provides an overview of two current areas of development in ACAD: the creation of explicit design rationales and the ACAD toolkit for collaborative design meetings. As well as providing some ideas that can help teachers, design teams and others discuss and agree on their working methods, ACAD has implications for some broader issues in educational technology research and development. It questions some deep assumptions about the framing of research and design thinking, in the hope that fresh ideas may be useful to people involved in leadership and advocacy roles in the field.

Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 2018

In response to an acknowledged gap in the literature – concerning a lack of actionable knowledge ... more In response to an acknowledged gap in the literature – concerning a lack of actionable knowledge about the relations between the designed environment and learning activity – we make a case for moving the field forward by reframing pedagogical challenges in ergonomic terms in order to reach satisfactory epistemic resolutions. This article reflects a time-honoured way of learning through apprenticeship and was produced through the collaborative efforts of an educational researcher and a specialist in audiovisual design. Drawing on our recent participation in the redevelopment of university teaching facilities, this case study explores how educational design ideas persist over the duration of large infrastructure developments. This article offers an overview of the 16-month design process, followed by a reframing of the underlying pedagogical challenges using the activity centred analysis and design framework (Goodyear & Carvalho, 2014), an analysis of the ergonomic solution presented in the final project documents, and a discussion of the epistemic resolution of two particularly demanding design challenges. It makes a theoretical contribution using the notion of epistemic apprenticeship to explore how educational design teams innovate in the absence of pedagogical evidence, and a methodological contribution that builds on analysis to connect epistemic intentions and pedagogical practice over time.

British Educational Research Journal, 2018

Innovative learning spaces have emerged in response to the influx of educational technologies and... more Innovative learning spaces have emerged in response to the influx of educational technologies andnew social practices associated with twenty-first-century learning. Whilst dominant narratives ofchange often suggest that alterations in the designed environment for learning will result in changedpractice, on the ground educators are struggling to align their pedagogical models with new spacesfor learning, direct instruction is still common, and technologically deterministic narratives mask afailure to engage with the materiality of learning. This article argues for a non-deterministic theoryof things in educational research and calls for a deeper understanding of the flows of matter, infor-mation and human–thing dependence, which will render visible the heterogeneous entanglementscharacteristic of innovative spaces for learning. It highlights that educational designers (e.g. teach-ers, space planners, architects, instructional designers) are in pressing need of analytical tools cap-able of supporting their work in ways that promote correspondence between (a) pedagogy, placeand people and (b) theory, design and practice. In response, we introduce an analytical approach toframing learning entanglement that accounts for the artefacts, resources and tools available to learn-ers; the choice of tasks and pedagogical models and the social roles and divisions of labour govern-ing any given learning situation. Finally, we practically demonstrate how this approach aids inidentifying correspondence or dissonance across dimensions of design and scale levels, in both theanalysis and design of complex environments for learning.

Journal of Learning Analytics, 2015

ABSTRACT: This paper describes theory-led design as a way of developing novel tools for learning ... more ABSTRACT: This paper describes theory-led design as a way of developing novel tools for learning
analytics (LA). It focuses upon the domain of automated discourse analysis (ADA) of group
learning activities to help an instructor to orchestrate online groups in real-time. The paper
outlines the literature on the development of LA tools within the domain of ADA, and poses an
argument for conducting tool development based upon first-principles. It describes first
principles as being drawn from theory and that these principles can subsequently inform the
structure and behaviour of tools. It presents a framework for this process of theory-led design.
The framework is substantiated through the example of developing a new tool for assisting
instructors with the orchestration of online groups. A description of the tool is given and
examples of results from use with real-world data are presented. The paper concludes with a call
for intent on the part of designers to connect the design process explicitly to theory on the basis
that this has the potential to yield innovation when developing tools as well as the prospect of
outcomes from tools connecting back to theory.

Learning spaces can play a powerful role in shaping and supporting the activities of the students... more Learning spaces can play a powerful role in shaping and supporting the activities of the students and teachers who use them: they can be agents for change when the success of new pedagogical approaches depends on shifting entrenched practices. The laboratory is a key site for science education. It is here that discipline knowledge and generic competences are fused and honed, in the very act of 'doing science'. This paper focuses on communication of science. It looks at how students learn to participate in science communication, and acquire both scientific and more generic communication skills, while engaged in laboratory-based activities. This paper reports some findings of ethnographic research that involved observing student activity in laboratories. This opportunity to examine differences in patterns of communicative activity arose from a relocation to new purpose-designed laboratory spaces. Ethnographic research is appropriate for gathering data about space usage. It helps trace relations between student activity, characteristics of the spaces in which the activity is unfolding, the social organisation of the work being done, and the disciplinary practices that underpin the tasks that students are set. Our research identifies the importance of sightlines, communication tools and instructor behaviours in promoting students' communicative activity.

Book Chapters by Pippa Yeoman

In R. A. Ellis, & P. Goodyear (Eds.), Spaces of teaching and learning: Integrating perspectives on research and practice. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer., 2018

Despite a commonly held assumption that our environment shapes what we do, a review of the litera... more Despite a commonly held assumption that our environment shapes what we do, a review of the literature reveals a paucity of empirical research exploring how the designed environment can be said to influence learning activity. Accompanied by an attendant lack of theory and methods, this results in missed opportunities to support learning and in the misallocation of resources for learning, which is concerning given the size of these investments—Australia’s Building the Education Revolution ($16.2 billion 2008–2012) and the UK’s Building Schools for the Future (£45 billion 1996–2011). Moreover, these projects tend to be driven by population growth and the natural life cycle of buildings, and not learning, which results in what I refer to as a procurement-mindset. This has implications for how design choices are made across multiple scale levels, from the types of tools students are offered, to the allocation and use of space, to the design of buildings and online environments that house diverse communities of learners. This chapter draws on 549 hours of participant observation in an innovative Australian primary school. In it, I explore different ways of thinking about materials and learning, before processing these theories through empirical observation, and refining a method designed to illuminate how the designed environment influences learning activity—the material case study. In doing so, I demonstrate the value of a curator-mindset when it comes to the generative design, use and management of spaces for learning.

In L. Carvalho, P. Goodyear, & M. de Laat (Eds.), Place-Based Spaces for Networked Learning. New York, NY: Routledge, 2017

Research in Networked Learning

Learning Environments Research

Journal of New Approaches in Educational Research

Educational Technology Research and Development

Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 2018

British Educational Research Journal, 2018

Journal of Learning Analytics, 2015

In R. A. Ellis, & P. Goodyear (Eds.), Spaces of teaching and learning: Integrating perspectives on research and practice. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer., 2018

In L. Carvalho, P. Goodyear, & M. de Laat (Eds.), Place-Based Spaces for Networked Learning. New York, NY: Routledge, 2017

In L. Carvalho, P. Goodyear, & M. de Laat (Eds.), Place-based spaces for networked learning (pp. 206-224). New York, NY: Routledge., 2017

In Lucila Carvalho, Peter Goodyear (Eds.), The architecture of productive learning networks, (pp. 168-180).

Despite an underlying assumption that, at least on some level, our environments influence what we... more Despite an underlying assumption that, at least on some level, our environments influence what we do, a review of the literature on formal education reveals that empirical research on relations between the physical environment and learning is surprisingly sparse.

Conducted as ethnography, this study examines learning activity in an open, flexible and digitally connected learning environment. It draws on 549 hours of observation over a nine-month period in a refurbished space designed to accommodate 181 year five and six students and their team of seven teachers, using one-to-one mobile computing. Observation was informed by sociomaterial theories of learning, theories of material ecology from anthropology and archaeology, and the framework for Activity Centred Analysis and Design (ACAD) from the learning sciences. Through theoretical reflection, I consider how the qualities of materials participate in teaching and learning practice, and how we might account for their participation in learning activity.

The theoretical exposition, housed in Part 1, traverses three scale levels: the qualities and properties of materials, the relational dependences between things and humans, and the notion of emergent, systemic wholeness. Part 1 concludes with the identification of a number of repeating patterns of structure and activity that give rise to wholeness, which are presented in the form of a partial pattern language. All of this draws on ten rich descriptions of learning activity, presented in Part 2.

Throughout, I argue that there is an urgent need for a non-deterministic theory of materials in educational research, and that this type of detailed observational work can play a vital role in understanding how vibrant and participatory learning environments function and evolve. As such, this thesis makes both theoretical and practical contributions that have implications for teachers and educational leaders who wish to engage in shaping convivial places for learning.

Activity in learning networks is often digitally mediated. By virtue of this, studies of learning... more Activity in learning networks is often digitally mediated. By virtue of this, studies of learning networks have not focused solely on human-human relations, but have acknowledged the role of digital infrastructure in mediating relations between people. This research draws on sociomaterial studies of learning and theoretical approaches from anthropology and archaeology to investigate the connection between activity and the setting in which it occurs. In exploring relations between humans and things, sociomaterial studies of learning surface the role of materials in learning practice. Whilst sociomaterial descriptions are used to examine the nuanced relations between humans (H) and things (T) they often fail to consider the object nature of things. Archaeologist Ian Hodder addresses this issue highlighting that things are not isolated or inert, that they endure over different temporalities and where we see them as non-things or fail to see them at all, we are unable to trace their effects. In this paper, we argue that educational designers, teachers and others involved in networked learning would benefit from understanding the object nature of things (T) and their entanglement with humans (HT), as they engage in creating new resources for networked learning. Furthermore, it will be fundamental to understanding the changes that these ever-evolving and increasingly ubiquitous technologies will bring to future place-based instantiations of networked learning. This paper discusses these issues through the analysis of a learning network within a primary school context and whilst schools have not customarily been considered sites of networked learning, we argue that the way this school uses online structures to co-ordinate face-to-face activity necessitates the network attribution. Our research is based on an ethnographic study conducted in a digitally enabled, open plan learning space that is home to 180 year five and six students and their team of seven teachers. We present an analysis of a single, seventy-five minute episode selected from 549 hours of observation. Our analysis, whilst particular to this moment in time, draws on what was observed over a nine month period and the encounter was selected as illustrative of the intricate entanglement of place, task and social organisation that is characteristic of learning activity at this site.

Learning by design has a long association with learning about complex environmental systems. This... more Learning by design has a long association with learning about complex environmental systems. This investigation traces the development of ideas within a group of five students engaged in a collaborative design process. Tasked with the creation of an online educational resource, about a waterway of local significance, this group was one of three for which audio and video data was collected. Ideas central to the progression of their design were identified and represented visually over time, showing the impact of each group member and the facilitator. Discourse was coded according to the content code of the CPACS scheme, four phases were identified and Markov-transition diagrams of the content were interrogated. This paper makes a contribution to our knowledge of the phases of design evident in a learning by design project, which could have implications for the design and management of such projects in the future.

ETR&D, 2021