Public defence in New Media, MA Jaana Brinck

The title of the thesis: Grounded Principles for Open Design Pedagogy: Design Perspectives on Early Years Pedagogy with Digital Technologies

Doctoral student: Jaana Brinck
Opponent: Professor Ole Sejer Iversen, Aarhus University
Custos: Professor Teemu Leinonen, Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Department of Art and Media

Thesis available for public display 10 days prior to the defence at: https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/doc_public/eonly/riiputus/

In the past few decades, design has been introduced as a method to implement and develop teaching and learning practices that are more active, evidence-based, and interdisciplinary, as well as to confront real-life situations and problems. Moreover, in the current world, skills and competencies to utilise and benefit from various digital technologies are increasingly important for an individual to fully participate in society. Socialisation into digital media culture starts from an exceedingly early age, and digital environments are an integral part of children’s everyday sociocultural environment. Thus, digital tools should be integrated in early years pedagogy. 

This research explores the ways in which pedagogical practices should be designed to apply digital technologies in early childhood design education. The pedagogical dimensions of design practice are investigated in real-life educational context by conducting two design experiments. 

As an overall contribution, this thesis developed grounded principles for open design pedagogy, a set of principles which is called the 4Ts of open design pedagogy. The main finding of this thesis is that open design pedagogy should foster learning contexts that are designed around the principles of togetherness, tools, trust, and time.

Image: The +Andscape prototype was built as part of this thesis to study children’s play with technology. Brinck, J. (Author), Leinonen, T. (Author), Pöllönen, N. (Developer), & Selvarajan, J. (Developer). (2017). +Andscape installation: Augmented reality sandbox. Exhibition, Design Museum Helsinki.

Contact information:

Doctoral theses in the School of Arts, Design and Architecture: https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/handle/123456789/54