The paper to be presented by Jasmiina Korhonen is titled:
Jasmiina Korhonen, Kristiina Kumpulainen, Anu Kajamaa & Antti Rajala: Emergent leadership in students’ collaborative activity in a school-based makerspace
Abstract: Previous research on children’s leadership has shown that emergent leadership is an important but inadequately understood component of collaborative learning. This study examines how leadership emerges in a novel school based-makerspace and analyzes the ways in which socially constructed leadership mediates students’ collaboration and learning opportunities. The study follows a theoretical framework based on Barron’s (2003) conceptualization wherein problem solving is divided into content space and relational space. By using this theoretical framework, we analyze video recordings of five groups, working in a technology-enhanced, making and design learning environment, called the FUSE studio. The results indicate that most of the leadership moves identified in the students’ social activity concerned planning and organizing the group’s work. We could also identify leadership moves related to the development of ideas, and hence advancing the development of the content space. These moves seemed to be connected to reciprocity of interaction and symmetrical roles between students in the group. In some groups, more than one leader emerged. Reciprocity of parallel leadership moves seemed to advance collaboration. Our study holds, that leadership is a pivotal part of students’ collaborative work in contemporary learning environments and should hence receive more educational attention.
The invited commentators in the seminar are Assistant Professor Hanna Järvenoja (Learning & Educational Technology Research Unit, University of Oulu) and Professor Pirita Seitamaa-Hakkarainen (Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki).
The draft of the paper is available upon request from Jasmiina Korhonen (jasmiina.korhonen@helsinki.fi). More information on the iMake project here.
Everyone interested is very welcome to join the seminar!