The paper analyzes a collaborative learning process among Finnish pre-service teachers planning their own learning in a self-regulated way. The study builds on culturalhistorical activity theory and the theory of expansive learning, integrating for the first time an analysis of learning actions and an analysis of types of interaction. We examine the theory of expansive learning as a possible conceptual and methodological framework for understanding this type of collaborative learning. The task of the paper is primarily methodological. We believe that cultural-historical activity theory needs to be turned into methods and procedures of systematic empirical analysis, and this article examines one such methodological solution. At the same time, we aim to uncover some substantive dynamics of expansive learning in collaborative teacher education oriented at openended problems and tasks. An almost complete expansive mini-cycle of learning actions appeared in the pre-service teachers' meeting. However, an analysis of the steps of formation of the shared object revealed a more complex iterative process. As the expansive learning process moved epistemically from questioning to analysis, modeling and implementation, it also moved interactionally from coordination to cooperation and communication. Yet there was no mechanical correspondence between specific learning actions and specific types of interaction. Transitions and disturbances were crucial for the dynamics of expansive learning. A full assessment of a potentially expansive minicycle of learning calls for extending the time scale of the analysis.
Librarians in academic libraries are facing major changes in their work due to, e.g., the internet, digitization, and increasing use of new channels for information retrieval by their most important clients, namely researchers. This creates challenges for librarians: both to deepen their own expertise and to develop innovative service models for their clients.In this paper we present a development project entitled 'Knotworking in the Library' from the Helsinki University Library. The project made use of the Change Laboratory method, which is an intensive developmental effort which facilitates improvements in the activities of organizations and changes in the organizational culture. The process started in Viikki Campus Library in 2009-2010 and continued in the City Centre Campus Library in 2010-2011. The aim was to create new kinds of partnership between libraries and research groups in the form of knotworking. By knotworking we mean a boundary-crossing, collective problem-solving way of organizing work.The knotworking model presented in this paper generated practical tools to assist selected research groups in dealing with data management related-issues.
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