Kristiina Kumpulainen is a Professor of Education at the Department of Teacher Education at the University of Helsinki. She is also the founding member and scientific director of the Playful Learning Center. Professor Kumpulainen has worked for many years within a sociocultural research paradigm conceptualising and analysing tool-mediated learning and communication in various educational arrangements in and out of school. Her current research centers on creative STEM learning, digital literacy, socio-materiality, learner agency and identity, resilience, as well as visual research.

More: kristiinakumpulainen.fi

Keynote lecture:
A sociocultural analysis of the educational potential of “makerspaces” for STEM learning and teaching

Lately, there has been an increased interest in makerspaces as a new sociomaterial arrangement for young people’s creative and personally meaningful engagement in STEM learning. Educational makerspaces have also attracted growing interest in Finland as they resonate well with the new Finnish core curriculum that introduces a phenomenon-based learning model, emphasizing real-life problem-solving, students’ agency, digital literacy, collaboration and entrepreneurship. Drawing on socioculural theorizing, in her talk professor Kumpulainen will critically analyse the educational potential of makerspaces for young people’s agency, learning and identity development in STEM. She will also address how teachers make sense and manage their role in makerspaces as a new learning arrangement. In doing so, she will consider the developmental potential of makerspaces for professional learning, as well as for institutional transformation.

See also Playful Learning Center, University of Helsinki: plchelsinki.fi