In search of common ground: A task conceptualization to facilitate the design of (e)learning environments with design patterns

Multilevel Boundary Crossing in a Professional Development School Partnership

“…Educational scholars have stressed that boundaries are at play in many working and learning processes (e.g., Engeström, Engeström, & Kärkkäinen, 1995;Wenger, 1998). For example, students may be confronted with conflicting perspectives on subject matter and assignments in school (Christiansen & Rump, 2008;East, 2009;Melles, 2008;Zitter, Kinkhorst, Simons, & Ten Cate, 2009); encounter irreconcilable differences between family, peers, and school (Phelan, Davidson, & Cao, 1991); or encounter different cultural traditions when moving between school and work (Tuomi-Gröhn & Engeström, 2003). Specifically, in dual teacher education programs, student teachers often encounter boundaries between the teacher education program and the schools in which they work (Andersson & Andersson, 2008;Edwards & Mutton, 2007;Finlay, 2008;Gorodetsky & Barak, 2008;Tsui & Law, 2007;Yoon et al, 2006).…”

Hybrid Learning Environments

“…As a follow-up, it is now applied in the context of senior secondary vocational education in the Netherlands. In parallel, design-based research was carried out, to lay the theoretical, scientific foundations for designing hybrid learning environments (Zitter, 2010;Zitter, Kinkhorst, Simons and Ten Cate, 2009;Zitter, De Bruijn, Simons and Ten Cate, 2011;Zitter et al, 2012;Akkerman et al, 2011) We can start with the "learning environment" part of hybrid learning environments. As Goodyear (2001) defined it: "a learning environment consists of the physical and digital setting in which learners carry out their work, including all the tools, documents and other artefacts to be found in that setting.…”

“…We kept the elements from activity theory that are about design, namely, objects or goals, instruments and outcomes, and merged them into the instrumental perspective focused on boundary objects (Zitter et al, 2009). The concept of "boundary objects" represents an analytical perspective, focusing on objects that facilitate coordination, alignment and integration of the various activities of individuals of the involved communities (Schmidt, 2000and Schmidt and Wagner, 2004in Zitter et al, 2009. The agency perspective was adopted from so-called "collaboration scripts" (Kobbe et al, 2007;Kollar, Fischer, andHesse, 2006 in Zitter et al, 2009), from which the concepts of participants, roles and groups were taken and merged into the instrumental perspective.…”

“…Also, the perspectives are meant to establish common ground so that generic and portable concepts are preferable to highly specific ones. Finally, they should be simple and at the same time expressive, to appeal to a wide target audience (Zitter et al, 2009). …”

Making HCI theory work: an analysis of the use of activity theory in HCI research

“…The remaining five papers addressed a variety of other topics, such as the relationship between ethnography and theory in design (Macauley et al, 2000); designing sociotechnical support for people with cognitive disabilities (Carmien et al, 2004); conceptualizing notions of task (Zitter et al, 2009) and anticipation (Peña-Ayala et al, 2014), both intended to support the design of learning environments; and common ground and awareness in emergency management planning (Convertino et al, 2011).…”