Trialogical learning and object-oriented collaboration
Sami Paavola 1, Kai Hakkarainen 1
1
University of Helsinki, Faculty of Educational Sciences, Helsinki, Finland.
Emai: sami.paavola@helsinki.fi;; kai.hakkarainen@helsinki.fi
A draft version of a paper: Paavola, S. & Hakkarainen, K. (2021) Trialogical learning
and object-oriented collaboration. In: U. Cress, A. Wise, C. Rose, & J. Oshima (Eds.)
International Handbook of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning. Springer. DOI:
10.1007/978-3-030-65291-3.
Abstract: This chapter delineates different approaches to technology-mediated learning that
emphasize “object-oriented” collaboration. The chapter introduces, more specifically, trialogical
learning, as distinguished from individual knowledge acquisition (“monological”) or from
participation in social interaction and meaning making (“dialogical” approaches, see TrausanMatu, Wegerif, and Major, this volume). We briefly introduce object-oriented collaboration and
the trialogical approach where human learning and activity are targeted at jointly developed
knowledge artifacts and related knowledge practices. As objects and object-orientedness have
become centrally important for understanding collaboration in modern knowledge work, the
facilitation of trialogical processes of collaborative learning is crucial in educational contexts.
Several approaches focusing on object-oriented collaboration are analyzed, including those that
use different terminology. The trialogical approaches appear to form a continuum with dialogical
theories and meaning-making traditions often highlighted in CSCL research. Finally, we
anticipate future uses of trialogical learning and object-oriented collaboration.
Keywords: object-oriented collaboration, trialogical learning, knowledge-creation metaphor,
knowledge practices
1
Introduction and Scope
The meaning of artifacts and objects as central elements in human interaction and
collaborative activity is nowadays highlighted in relation to learning theories (Paavola &
Hakkarainen, 2009), design research (Ewenstein & Whyte, 2009), maker-centered
learning (Papert & Harel, 1991;; Riikonen et al., 2018), science and technology studies
(Latour, 1996), and organization studies (Engeström & Blackler, 2005). Artifact
mediation plays an important role in several theoretical frameworks, such as distributed
cognition (Pea, 1993), knowledge building with conceptual artifacts (Bereiter, 2002),
cultural-historical activity theory (Engeström, 2015), actor-network theory focusing on
the heterogeneous networks of humans and nonhumans (Latour, 1996), and recent
discussions on sociomateriality (Orlikowski, 2009;; Leonardi et al., 2012).
Sociomateriality is a posthumanist framework maintaining that object-oriented
technology-mediated activity entangles emergent configurations between material
(technology) and social (technology use in social contexts) elements. Socio-cultural
approaches have long emphasized that tools and concepts mediate human interaction
with the world and between humans (Miettinen & Paavola, 2018). The central role of
artifacts and objects has been emphasized in technology-mediated collaborative
learning from the very beginning, starting with Papert’s constructionism (learning by
making) (Papert & Harel, 1991) and moving through learning by design (Kolodner,
2002).
Object-oriented technology-mediated collaboration goes a step further beyond mere
intersubjectivity (human–human interaction) to consider the role of artifacts and objects
in human learning and development. Objects and artifacts do not solely have a
mediating role, but (knowledge) objects, artifacts, and practices can themselves be
seen as targets for collaborative development and modification in educational and
professional contexts. The sustained pursuit of the advancement of jointly developed
artifacts and practices not only orients collaboration but at the same time requires new
ways of organizing collaborative learning and working. Object-driven activities then
require new theoretical conceptualizations of different aspects of collaborative learning.
2
Trialogical learning builds on the idea of object-orientedness. Rather than being a mere
intersubjective process, collaboration is embedded in heterogeneous networks of
artifacts and objects, characterized by Latour (1996) as interobjectivity (see Stahl, and
Hakkarainen, this volume). It refers to those forms of collaborative learning where
people are collaboratively and systematically developing shared, tangible “objects”
(conceptual or material artifacts, practices, ideas) together. The term has been
developed in relation to technology-mediated learning when new technology makes
collaborative knowledge processes durable and provides new affordances and means
for trialogical efforts of creating knowledge-laden artifacts and related practices. It is not
a specific pedagogical model but rather a framework to facilitate, support, and develop
object-oriented collaboration and knowledge creation in different contexts.
The terms “trialogical learning” and “trialogical approach” are neologisms that were
originally presented as a main characteristic of the theories representing the knowledge-
creation metaphor of learning (Paavola & Hakkarainen, 2005). The knowledge-creation
metaphor of learning is separated from the metaphors of acquisition (the transmission
or acquisition of conceptual or factual knowledge from textbooks or from a teacher to
learners more or less straightforwardly) and participation (growing up with the prevailing
practices of a specific community) (Paavola et al., 2004). The well-known distinction
between the acquisition (AM) and the participation metaphors (PM) of learning was
suggested by Anna Sfard (1998). At that time theories on the meaning of participation in
cultural practices and communities (PM) were challenging traditional “cognitivist”
approaches (AM) on learning and human cognition. The cognitivist approaches defined
individuals as a site of learning and the human mind as a container of factual and/or
conceptual knowledge. The knowledge-creation metaphor is inspired by classic
theorists such as Peirce, Popper, and Vygotsky, and by educational and organizational
theories by Engeström, Nonaka, and Bereiter. It refers to theories of collaborative work
and learning, which emphasize dynamic processes for transforming prevailing
knowledge and practices. The knowledge-creation metaphor also highlights the
importance of cultural practices along with individual initiatives in learning, and ways of
transforming traditional dichotomies of human activity and learning (concepts vs.
practices, individuals vs. collectives, subjects vs. objects, humans vs. nonhumans).
3
We have ourselves long argued that CSCL would benefit from focusing on theories and
models relevant in the modern knowledge society that aim at understanding how people
collaboratively advance knowledge or transform their communities (Paavola et al.,
2004). A common characteristic of these theories is that they do not concentrate on
processes of knowledge acquisition by individual learners (a “monological” approach)
nor just on processes of participation in social interaction (a “dialogical” approach), but
on understanding those processes where common objects of activity are developed
collaboratively (both individually and collectively). Interaction is trialogical when it
happens through developing common objects (or objects of activity), not just between
people or between people and their environment. From the trialogical perspective
collaboration is not only a matter of sharing meaning and understanding but involves
shared efforts of advancing envisioned epistemic objects (e.g., artifacts and practices)
that are given tangible (i.e., materially embodied) form in terms of writing, visualization,
prototyping, or other means. Concrete artifacts produced in collaborative processes are
often generated when seeking to reach envisioned epistemic objects (Knorr Cetina,
2001) at the edge of knowing. Intermediary artifacts are stepping stones that enable
advancing the inquiry toward epistemic objects that itself become more complex and
open up new questions when pursued. Although collaboration is a social process,
individual agents have an important role in it, assuming fertile support provided by
community-level practices.
The role of mediating artifacts as tools has been emphasized in CSCL research
throughout its history. Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory highlighting the role of
artifacts in cultural mediation has influenced CSCL in many ways. Activity theory assists
in understanding the dual role of artifacts and tools in relation to objects (Engeström,
2015;; Miettinen & Virkkunen, 2005). CSCL environments function as tools that mediate
participants’ learning and knowledge-creation processes in various institutional and
cultural settings. The participants are engaged in solving complex problems, building
and creating, and sharing and advancing knowledge in terms of constructing epistemic
artifacts. A growing network of such artifacts mediate, as tools, the learners’ subsequent
learning activities and associated inquiries. It can be maintained that digital tools have
for long supported mainly either “the information genre” or “the communication genre”
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(Enyedy & Hoadley, 2006;; Lakkala et al., 2009) rather than communal knowledge
creation, or trialogical processes and actual work with shared objects. The pursuit of
object-oriented collaboration is a socially emergent and nonlinear process where the
generated artifacts direct and guide the advancement of inquiry in unpredictable ways,
affecting future trajectories of collaborative activity.
Integrating external tools as instruments of learning activity is a developmental process
of its own. Both individuals and communities must undergo a process of gradually
transforming artifacts into instruments of their activity (Beguin & Rabardel, 2000).
Appropriating CSCL tools for remediating learning activity requires adapting and
transforming both the external tools (instrumentation) as well as the participants’
cognitive-cultural schema (instrumentalization). Because CSCL environments tend to
offer a wide variety of tools, it is critical to investigate “which tools are actually picked up
and appropriated by learners and how they put them to use for object-oriented
endeavors” (Lund & Rasmussen, 2008).
Appropriating novel collaborative instruments as tools of collective activity in education
or at workplaces is not a trivial matter but requires extensive effort to develop support
for social practices. Accordingly, using CSCL environments to foster object-oriented
collaboration with knowledge artifacts requires cultivating social practices that support
expansive working with knowledge, i.e., knowledge practices (Hakkarainen, 2009). By
knowledge practices, we refer to the personal and social practices related to working
with knowledge. The term “knowledge” is used in the broadest sense, to include what is
explicit or stated in official discourse (e.g., approved texts);; what is implicit, informing
one’s habits;; and the knowledge that underlies the competencies of experts, for
example, “procedural knowledge.” Central characteristics of object-oriented knowledge
practices are the deliberate transformation of prevailing practices in relation to unfolding
knowledge objects (Knorr Cetina, 2001), the systematic pursuit of novelty, and constant
work at the edge of competence (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1993). Trialogical learning is
then linked to “the practice turn” in social theory (Schatzki et al., 2001), which assists
educational researchers in understanding the theoretically tangible social
transformations needed for making educational innovations happen.
5
History and Development
The background for trialogical learning and object-oriented collaboration can be sought
from various theoretical approaches. They build on classic approaches emphasizing
mediation as a basis for understanding human activities, from Hegel and Marx to
Vygotsky and subsequent generations of socio-cultural researchers. They emphasize
“augmentationist” frameworks, according to which human intelligence is augmented and
develops through the evolution of external symbolic artifacts and their systems rather
than within a human head (Skagestad, 1993;; Donald, 1991). Charles Peirce’s emphasis
on broadly conceived semiotic mediation and Karl Popper’s theory of objective
knowledge provide the philosophical background for this kind of approach. Human
beings can control their behavior from the outside, that is, culturally by using signs and
tools (Vygotsky, 1978). As an extension of this, Wartofsky maintained in his historical
epistemology that an “[a]rtifact is to cultural evolution what the gene is to biological
evolution” (Wartofsky, 1979, 205). More recently, distributed cognition (Pea, 1993;;
Hutchins, 1995) has challenged the idea that human learning takes place mainly in
people’s minds or inside their skin, maintaining that learning is materially distributed
between minds and cultural-historically developed tools, practices, and environments.
The emergence of literacy transformed human-cognitive architecture as profoundly as
earlier leaps in biological evolution. It opened various external memory fields for writing
and visualization that assist in solving significantly more complex problems than can be
done with the unaided human mind (Donald, 1991). The other aspect is the social
distribution of intelligence. Human beings are ultra-social and hyper-collaborative beings
in nature who are able to merge and fuse intellectual effort and create collective
cognitive systems together. CSCL capitalizes on these human capabilities of materially,
socially, historically, and culturally distributed cognition (Pea, 1993;; Vygotsky, 1978).
6
In the social sciences and organizational learning, the “practice turn” has been
discussed for some time (Schatzki et al., 2001). There are different kinds of practice
theories (see Miettinen et al., 2012), but mainly they aim at transcending traditional
dichotomies of human and nonhuman entities by emphasizing materially mediated
and/or embodied activities. The initial theories of CSCL were strongly rooted in
cognitive-psychological learning research and, accordingly, foregrounded conceptual
and mental aspects of learning (e.g., research on intentional learning, inquiry learning,
and conceptual change). Although such research assisted in understanding various
aspects of personal learning and the development of expertise, it runs into difficulties
when attempting to implement CSCL practices in educational institutions. The reason
for this difficulty was because the notion of social practices was undertheorized by most
of the cognitively inclined researchers. Yet implementing CSCL in educational practices
calls for transforming technology-mediated social systems and institutional practices
that were invisible to researchers of information and communication technologies.
Although information was conveyed and communication was established, the
established systemic practices or learners and teachers did not tend to change beyond
a superficial level. Practice-related considerations regarding situated and participatory
aspects of learning (Lave & Wenger, 1991) assisted the theoretical and methodological
advancement of CSCL research.
As important as the practice turn and situated learning theories have been, such
approaches run into difficulties in properly addressing knowledge-related aspects of
learning in educational and professional contexts. Digital technologies make knowledge
processes a durable and visible part of personal and collaborative learning (Nerland,
2012). Emerging CSCL practices, as well as CSCW practices, engage participants in
sustained efforts of building, sharing, and creating knowledge. The trialogical approach
foregrounds sustained work with epistemic artifacts and practices as a central aspect of
collaborative learning and knowledge-intensive work. Consequently, Jensen and
colleagues (2012) address future challenges of knowledge work and state that we need
a “knowledge turn” after the practice turn. Knowledge must again return to
considerations of professional learning so as to adequately address the epistemification
or scientification of digitalized professional practices currently dealing with increasingly
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complex problems, multi-professional collaboration, international quality systems, and
global standards (Hakkarainen et al., 2004). Following Knorr Cetina (1999), the
trialogical framework understands knowledge as a practice to be socio-materially
embodied in digital-collaborative technologies and in the practices of groups,
communities, organizations, and networks. The practice-based considerations of
knowledge work are critical because the objects of professional work are becoming
increasingly complex and messy and require advanced problem solving, expansive
learning, and the creation of new knowledge, anchored on supporting collectively
shared knowledge practices.
The notion of objects has become, in different forms, more prevalent in current social
scientific research (Ewenstein & Whyte, 2009). Objects have intrigued, among others,
philosophers (Harman, 2018), science and technology researchers (Knorr Cetina, 1999;;
Latour, 2005), organizational researchers (Engeström & Blackler, 2005), engineering
and architectural design researchers (Ewenstein & Whyte, 2009;; Paavola & Miettinen,
2018), and CSCL researchers (Bereiter, 2002). The notion of ‘boundary objects’
allowing collaboration across different communities without consensus is nowadays
often used (Star & Griesemer, 1989). ‘Epistemic objects’ refer to the open-ended nature
of investigative projects that involve pursuing partially understood objects of research
and development at the edge of the knowledge and understanding that guide the
inquiry, becoming constantly more complex when studied (Knorr Cetina, 1999;; 2001).
‘Intermediary objects’ refer to evolving versions and different phases of the objects to be
constructed (Vinck, 2011;; Paavola & Miettinen, 2018).
As stated above, objects are not important solely as mediating artifacts. Object-
orientedness highlights the dynamic and motivating meaning of objects in collaboration.
Activity theory has highlighted that the object of activity indicates the motive of each
activity (Engeström, 2015);; “the object of an activity is its true motive” (Leontjev, 1978,
p. 62). Investigators can make “sense” of an activity by analyzing the nature of the
objects pursued. In an educational context it is, for example, different to do the learning
assignments as “schoolwork” than to orient towards solving vital community problems,
contributing to society, and creating something that is useful for others to use. Modern
8
knowledge work is more complex and interdisciplinary than before, and the expansion
of the object places theoretical and methodological challenges on activity theory
(Spinuzzi, 2011). Spinuzzi has highlighted that changes in work activity mean that
objects are nowadays often representational objects (such as models, applications,
plans) and more multidimensional than before: “more broadly circulated, shared, and
interpreted in different activities” (Spinuzzi, 2011, p. 463). Digitalization has reshaped
many aspects of object-oriented learning and working in terms of digital instruments,
which enable constructing the digitally augmented objects being inquired about,
representing and sharing objects, engaging in real-time virtual interaction around
artifacts in-the-making, intermixing the digital and material features of objects, and
building extended networks for the pursuit of inquiry and knowledge creation.
At the same time, the modern world challenges traditional ways of understanding the
nature of practices and objects as a part of knowledge work. Creative knowledge work
requires the dynamic, creative, and reflective notion of practices instead of standard
procedures, recurrent processes, and rule-based routines. Knorr Cetina (2001) has
highlighted the motivating force of “epistemic objects” in such expert work as the pursuit
of innovations or academic research. The targeted epistemic objects are open-ended
and “have the capacity to unfold indefinitely” (Knorr Cetina, 2001, p. 181). The
pedagogic models being investigated by learning scientists may, accordingly, be
understood as epistemic objects. Epistemic objects function as motivating factors in
learning and social activity, and direct and guide personal and collaborative activity both
in education and professional work (Jensen et al., 2012;; Nerland & Jensen, 2012;; also
Hakkarainen et al., 2004).
A central aspect of CSCL has been to engage students in a research-like, progressive
inquiry process guided by their own question, working theories, and other knowledge
objects (Hakkarainen et al., 2004). By following the dominating tradition of the
philosophy of science, progressive inquiry was initially understood to be mainly a
conceptual process (influenced by theories close to the acquisition metaphor of
learning). In accordance with Bereiter’s (2002) knowledge-building theory, the objects
pursued in collaborative learning were understood as conceptual artifacts. Sustained
9
efforts of implementing CSCL in education made us aware of the importance of
embedding epistemic activities into deliberately cultivated social practices. The parallel
pursuit of investigations in knowledge-intensive organizations has assisted in
understanding how expert knowledge is distributed and stretched over concepts and
instruments, methods and procedures, embodied arrangements of laboratory spaces,
and networks of peers and experts (Knorr Cetina, 1999;; Latour & Woolgar, 1986;;
Pickering, 1995), instead of arising from the mere rational process of individual minds.
Knowledge creation and invention appear to rely on collectively cultivated epistemic
practices that guide and channel the participants’ intellectual efforts in creative and
expansive ways, instead of representing mysterious individual gifts or creative talents.
The trialogical framework emerged from associated efforts of expanding Bereiter’s
(2002) knowledge-building approach toward a practice-based direction by taking
epistemic, social, and material practices into account (Hakkarainen, 2009).
Collaborative knowledge advancement presupposes the transformation of related
knowledge practices, which requires time and sustained efforts from teachers, students,
and researchers.
A set of design principles have been developed to support trialogical knowledge
practices (Hakkarainen & Paavola, 2009;; Paavola et al., 2011). They have a dual
nature: (1) they point out characteristics that can be called “trialogical” and (2) give
broad guidelines for enhancing the trialogical features of the learning settings in
question. The set of design principles (DPs) of trialogical learning were developed as:
· DP1: Organizing activities around advancing shared objects.
· DP2: Supporting the integration of personal and collective agency and work (through
developing shared objects).
· DP3: Fostering long-term processes of knowledge advancement with shared objects,
whether artifacts or practices.
· DP4: Emphasizing development and creativity in shared objects through transformations
and reflection.
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· DP5: Promoting the cross-fertilization of various knowledge practices and artifacts across
communities and institutions.
· DP6: Providing flexible tools for developing artifacts and practices.
CSCL research has traditionally emphasized interactional and dialogic theories of
learning and human cognition and shared meaning making (Koschmann, 1999;; Stahl et
al., 2006;; Suthers, 2006). The role of artifacts and objects in CSCL research has,
however, become clearly more prominent recently (see e.g. Stahl et al., 2014;;
Ludvigsen et al., 2015). The meaning making and dialogical tradition highlights issues
such as meaning, intersubjectivity, dialogues, language, communication, different
voices and perspectives, and common ground, whereas trialogical approaches highlight
jointly produced artifacts, (shared or intermediary) objects, collaboration, tools,
indexicality, and (knowledge) practices. There is no sharp contrast but rather a
continuum between meaning-making approaches on the one hand, and trialogical
approaches with object-orientedness on the other (see Paavola & Hakkarainen, 2009).
Further, intermediate forms exist between dialogical and trialogical interaction such as
“anchored discussion” or “object-oriented discussion,” where the discussion is focused
on a specific theme or parts of some document. All in all, dialogical and trialogical
approaches bring forth different kinds of emphases.
Trialogical learning focuses on collaborative processes of developing artifacts and
deliberate efforts to transform prevailing practices. It typically focuses on the activities of
small groups and the organization of their collaboration (see the chapter concerning
group practices). However, object-orientedness brings forward the need to broaden the
perspective and the unit of analysis. Work with knowledge artifacts requires sustained
efforts of developing related social practices (Hakkarainen, 2009). By relying on
Bakhtin’s theory of chronotopes, it may be maintained that object-orientedness has
certain temporal and spatial implications (Ritella & Hakkarainen, 2012). The temporal
structure of activity is transformed by changing participants’ intangible ideas into shared
epistemic artifacts and, thereby, bringing the results of past inquiries to the present. The
spatial transformation involves (a) sharing object-driven inquiries regardless of location
11
and making remote knowledge resources immediately accessible, and (b) working with
objects through qualitatively different semiotic spaces organized in multiple ways. These
spatial and temporal processes may be fused to create a novel chronotope of
technology-mediated collaborative learning. Further, cultural-historical activity theory
has been used in CSCL research to highlight the complex social, cultural, and historical
dynamics that influence CSCL practices (Timmis, 2014).
State of the Art
The trialogical approach is not a specific pedagogic model but rather a metalevel
framework for identifying, examining, and fostering learning in line with the knowledge-
creation metaphor of learning, going beyond mere individual knowledge acquisition or
social participation. This kind of learning is by its nature interventionist and
transformative. It aims at transforming current practices of learning by taking into
account and developing theories, pedagogical practices, and technologies in line with
object-oriented collaboration. It can be argued that human learning and productive
cultural activity are inherently trialogical in nature in terms of involving collaborative
efforts of creating and extending shared objects of activity. But at the same time
trialogical learning requires conscious effort and deliberate ways of organizing
collaboration to be successful. The trialogical approach has been and can be developed
in various directions depending on the context and methodological choices. In this
chapter we present some of these directions. Trialogical learning and object-oriented
collaboration are quite broad notions (as with “dialogical learning”) which can be
interpreted in many ways.
An important starting point for the trialogical framework has been learning taking place
in educational institutions. With the assistance of the trialogical design principles, the
focus has been on ways of promoting knowledge-creating learning from elementary to
higher education. Elements of trialogical learning can be found from many pedagogic
12
models, such as problem-based learning, project-based learning, flipped learning,
game-based learning, learning by design, and learning by making. The emphasis is,
however, on supporting certain kinds of processes of learning. The trialogical approach
highlights sustained efforts of pursuing targeted epistemic objectives by modifying and
developing targeted and tangible outcomes. Pedagogic models often highlight practical
aspects of scaffolding learning processes, whereas the trialogical approach focuses on
combining practical support with ambitious epistemic and creative efforts. The trialogical
design principles assist in making pedagogic implementation of these approaches more
“trialogical” in terms of involving systemic efforts of creating and developing shared
artifacts and cultivating associated knowledge practices. In different contexts, the
design principles are implemented in varying ways.
Bereiter and Scardamalia’s knowledge-building approach has highlighted collaboration
with conceptual artifacts (Bereiter, 2002;; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2014b). Some newer
approaches have developed knowledge building in connection with practice-based
research and especially with cultural-historical activity theory (Zhang et al., 2018). This
kind of “knowledge creation” approach (Tan et al., 2014) provides one kind of trialogical
framework where work with conceptual artifacts is central.
Several researchers have analyzed collaborative knowledge-creation processes and
ways of promoting them in different educational contexts. Damsa and Ludvigsen (2016)
have analyzed the co-construction of knowledge objects. They are elaborating the
variety of interactions around concepts, ideas, and knowledge objects, some of which
materialize into texts or related knowledge objects. Muukkonen et al. (2011) have
studied knowledge creation in university courses and analyzed the pedagogical
infrastructures promoting object-oriented inquiry. The design principles of trialogical
learning are used to analyze and develop trialogical learning, especially in the context of
higher education (Moen et al., 2012). Teachers’ ways of organizing and re-designing
courses using trialogical design principles have been studied in different educational
contexts (see Lakkala et al., 2015;; Ilomäki et al., 2017). Students’ competences
required in knowledge work are analyzed using the knowledge-creation metaphor of
learning and work on shared objects as a basic framework (Muukkonen et al., 2017).
13
Cress and Kimmerle (2008) have analyzed “collaborative knowledge building” around
Wikipedia articles. They developed a model using Luhmann’s systems theory and
Piaget’s cognitive theory to analyze these kinds of processes. Wikipedia is an
interesting topic to analyze because Wikipedia articles are usually not just based on
knowledge sharing but on collaborative means of modifying these articles. Cress and
Kimmerle do not use the term “trialogical learning” in their article, but the processes are
quite similar (see also Cress & Kimmerle, 2018). It should be remarked, however, that
some trialogical processes are more ambitious epistemically than others. Bereiter
(2010) has maintained that the stated Wikipedia aim of reaching consensus and
presenting impartial views is different from the disciplined pursuit of idea improvement
that characterizes knowledge building.
The rationale of having academic investigators taking an active part in designing,
assessing, and improving trialogical learning processes at educational institutions is to
provide the students and teachers access to the knowledge practices of research and
creative knowledge work. Thereby they are cross-fertilizing educational and creative
professional knowledge practices. The trialogical approach aims at anchoring
knowledge-creating learning experiments at schools on expert-like practices of co-
inquiry and co-design, and capitalizing on research on expertise as well as the newest
practice-based standards of science education (Duschl & Bismack, 2016;; Osborne,
2014). The present knowledge-–practice driven approach relies on pedagogic
applications of three mutually supporting lines of knowledge-creating activity, i.e., 1)
scientific practices, 2) engineering practices, and 3) practices of learning through
collaborative design.
Inquiry learning and engineering practices
Scientific practices engage students in working with objects such as questions,
generating working hypotheses, carrying out experiments, analyzing results, visualizing
and modeling results, presenting evidence-based arguments, and reporting (Osborne,
2014). The knowledge-creation potential of such practices even at the elementary level
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of education has been revealed through various studies on inquiry learning,
investigative learning, and knowledge building. Engineering practices, in turn, focus on
applying scientific knowledge to investigating complex open-ended challenges as
objects, envisioning potential solutions, determining their criteria, constructing and
iteratively testing solutions, modeling solutions, comparing their strengths and
weaknesses, and building and communicating results (Krajcik & Shin, 2014). Scientific
and engineering practices provide critical resources for understanding and integrating
the knowledge and methods required for trialogical learning. Together scientific and
engineering practices allow integrating inventive activities with cross-cutting curricular
challenges across many subject domains.
Collaborative design and maker culture
Collaborative designing involves team effort to find and construct solutions for a design
challenge (Kangas et al., 2013;; Koh et al., 2015, Seitamaa-Hakkarainen et al., 2012).
Further, the design process involves iteratively and nonlinearly developing the design
objects involved in ideation (coming up with design ideas);; studying users and their
needs;; analyzing constraints;; exploring and testing various aspects of design;; creating
mock-ups and prototypes;; getting feedback from peers, users, and experts;; and
constructing and manufacturing the design object. Design objects are instantiated in a
series of successively more refined artifacts and productions, which enable finding
novel perspectives and going beyond the information given.
Many investigators from Piaget to Papert and Bruner have emphasized the importance
of learning by constructing and inventing artifacts. The present fabrication technology
allows bringing the practices of the maker culture to schools in the form of feasible
knowledge-creation projects with hitherto unforeseen complexity, intellectual challenge,
and aesthetic appeal (Blikstein, 2013;; Halverson & Sheridan, 2014;; Kafai et al., 2014).
In Finland, compulsory craft studies and associated laboratory spaces enable
integrating such activities into regular school work (Korhonen & Lavonen, 2017).
Students use the traditional instruments of laboratories in art, craft, technology, and
15
science education (STEAM). Further, students are being introduced to digital fabrication
technologies such as 3D CAD and 3D printing, the construction and programming of
robots, the design and construction of circuits, and wearable computing (e-textiles), by
which one may create multi-faceted complex artifacts. Such trialogical practices enable
young children to construct complex controllable artifacts with hybrid physical, digital,
and virtual features (Riikonen et al., 2018). Maker-centered knowledge practices entail
participation in such modes of invention as generating questions, building working
theories, solving complex problems, formulating and pursuing promising ideas,
sketching, prototyping, and making. Learning by making involves interaction between
ideas, instruments, socio-material spaces, and embodied experiences in creative
externalization, material explorations, prototyping, and the reciprocal, continued
refinement of intangible and tangible design ideas.
Future
Research on object-oriented collaboration, trialogical learning, and knowledge creation
has the potential to be developed in different educational, professional, and academic
research contexts. Pursuing these lines of research is important because productive
participation in the emerging knowledge society, which is oriented toward building a
sustainable future, will require the cultivation of novel competencies and practices by all
citizens. Instead of merely promoting intellectual elites, all citizens need sophisticated
innovation competencies and related knowledge practices, and associated identities as
potential developers and creators of knowledge. This requires an improved
understanding of associated cultural-creative practices in learning and the processes
involved in gaining or deepening knowledge, and organizing knowledge work and
learning.
Different socio-cultural dimensions (technological, social, institutional) that affect how
learning is organized or understood need to be taken into account. Building a productive
16
culture of object-oriented collaboration at educational institutions is a socially emergent
process (Sawyer, 2005) that requires deliberate long-term orchestration (Viilo et al.,
2016). Different time scales and layers of activities have an effect on the development
of collaborative learning (see Stahl, 2013). This requires building a research–practice
partnership that engages both researchers and practitioners in solving persistent
problems of practice related to school transformation, that is, from a long-term
developmental perspective starting from real world practices and problems (Coburn &
Penuell, 2016).
The trialogical framework emerged from efforts to foster object-oriented collaborative
learning and knowledge-creation processes through CSCL environments. The research
objects and practices reflect the nature of the data that various kinds of environments
(i.e., discussion forums, knowledge-building environments) provided. Novel digital
fabrication technologies have enabled engaging students in co-inventing complex
artifacts with hybrid physical and digital features. Students are also engaged in learning
by creative game design, and corresponding co-design projects with virtual reality (VR)
and augmented reality (AR) are not far in the future. All of these investigations involve
potential trialogical features in terms of sustained collaborative object-driven activity.
Collaborative work with digital objects involves “virtual materiality” or “digital materiality”
with novel forms of tangibility (see Paavola & Miettinen, 2018), which changes the
dynamics and ways of collaboration. Digital artifacts build on a “dubious ontology”
(Ekbia, 2009) that challenges existing theories of human activity and learning in many
ways. This requires novel conceptualizations on the role of virtual reality and hybrid
practices as a part of trialogical processes.
Research on CSCL is mediated by the evolving ecology of socio-digital tools. From the
perspective of expanding trialogical learning practices across educational fields, it is
important that CSCL is no longer confined to monolithic learning environments. The
emerging ecology of socio-digital technologies involves integrated systems of mobile
and wireless technologies, enabling any place to be potentially transformed into a
learning space within and outside educational institutions (Hakkarainen et al., 2015).
There are thousands of applications that can, at least potentially, be used to facilitate
17
object-oriented collaboration processes. With new cohorts of teachers and students
comfortable with various socio-digital technologies, this provides new affordances for
eliciting teachers’ and students’ epistemic agency. Without the guidance of educational
theories and innovative pedagogies, such grass-root educational efforts may serve
narrow rather than in-depth epistemic objectives. Trialogical learning aims at supporting
sustained and focused object-driven inquiry in contrast to conventional social media
practices that are often fragmented and shallow in nature. The trialogical emphasis on
object-driven collaboration does not mean that human development and personal
learning is not important. As indicated by Stetsenko (2005), object-orientedness (or
object-relatedness) means that individual and collective processes are interrelated and
co-evolving rather than separate processes. When participants are working with the
object, the object is, so to speak, molding the participants by fostering learning and
development. The development of human subjectivity and agency should be seen as a
central part of the development of collaborative and collective processes. The
combination of individual and collective agency, and how that combination can be
analyzed requires more theoretical and empirical research.
This is also a methodological challenge for the future of CSCL research. Digital
ecologies of learning and schooling enable tracking students’ personal, social, and
object-oriented learning processes in novel ways (Larusson & White, 2014).
Knowledge-creation processes cannot be rigidly scripted but should involve self-
organized and socially emergent processes (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2014a) that may
be hard to anticipate and complex to analyze. Research on learning analytics is
currently developing instruments and methods for tracing personal and social learning
processes (Chen & Zhang, 2016;; Buckinghan Shum & Daekin Crik, 2016). From the
trialogical perspective, it is important to develop instruments and methods for following
the trajectories of the evolving objects that learners are working with. In this regard,
epistemic network analysis, which enables examining the interconnectedness of ideas
in qualitative discourse data, may provide useful resources (Shaffer et al., 2009). Novel
instruments and tools, such as the Idea Thread Mapper (Zhang et al., 2018), have been
developed for visually representing the collective progression of an object-driven
18
learning process. The aim is to empower learners to use their own learning data and
foster their ownership and shared regulation of the knowledge-creation process.
It appears to us that beyond institutional and structural reasons, CSCL practices have
not penetrated strongly into the educational system because CSCL researchers have
underestimated the in-depth challenges associated with instrumental genesis at the
personal and collective levels as well as the associated transformation of social and
cultural practices. Investigators have often reported one-shot experiments where
participants have appropriated a collaborative learning pedagogy with collaborative
technologies. Alternatively, mature CSCL cultures have been analyzed that appear to
miraculously enact sophisticated learning practices without comprehensive
developmental trajectories leading to advanced knowledge practices. It can be
maintained that all successful cultures of CSCL are simultaneously also expansive-
learning communities (Engeström, 2015) focused on problematizing current practices,
envisioning changes, and gradually, step by step, consolidating novel inquiry practices.
Consequently, we presume that knowledge-practice oriented, sociomaterial
investigations on working with knowledge artifacts, which take different “layers” of
activities into account, are becoming more prevalent in the future of CSCL research.
Implementing knowledge-creation practices in education requires the appropriation of a
developmental perspective where the focus is on the epistemological, cognitive, social,
and technological infrastructures of CSCL (Lakkala et al., 2008;; Bielaczyc, 2013), that
is, designing synergetic scaffolding for knowledge-creating learning cultures (Tabak,
2004). Successful implementation of CSCL practices entangles epistemic and
sociomaterial aspects of learning together (see e.g. Fenwick & Edwards, 2010). The
enlarging body of interventionist approaches, from design experiments (Bielaczyc,
2013) to design-based implementation research (Penuel et al., 2011), and educational
improvement science (Bryk et al., 2015) to social design experiments (Gutierrez &
Jurow, 2016), has been developed to address various aspects of the research–practice
partnership needed for transforming education through CSCL.
19
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Additional Reading
1. Ritella, G., & Hakkarainen, K. (2012). Instrumental genesis in technology-
mediated learning: From double stimulation to expansive knowledge practices.
International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning. 7(2), 239-258.
This article addressed theoretical foundations of CSCL. The article elaborates concepts
of epistemic mediation, chronotope, double stimulation, instrumental genesis, and
knowledge practices and their interrelations in the context of promoting educational
transformations at the digital age.
2. Paavola, S. and Hakkarainen, K. (2009). From meaning making to joint
construction of knowledge practices and artefacts: A trialogical approach to CSCL. In
C. O'Malley, D. Suthers, P. Reimann, and A. Dimitracopoulou (Eds.), Computer
Supported Collaborative Learning Practices: CSCL2009 Conference Proceedings
(pp. 83-92). Rhodes, Creek: International Society of the Learning Sciences (ISLS).
The article presents the basics of the trialogical approach to learning. The use of this
notion is explained as well as theoretical backgrounds for the approach in line with the
knowledge-creation metaphor of learning (Paavola et al. 2004;; Hakkarainen et al. 2004).
The paper also makes a comparison between trialogical and dialogical theories of
learning and their uses in CSCL (computer-supported collaborative learning) research.
3. Damşa, C. I., & Ludvigsen, S. (2016). Learning through interaction and co-
construction of knowledge objects in teacher education. Learning, culture and social
interaction, 11, 1-18.
28
The article presents an empirical study, employing a design-based research approach,
of student teachers' learning through collaborative, small-group projects and work on
shared knowledge objects. The aim was to understand how knowledge objects, e.g.,
teaching and learning materials, emerge through students' interaction, how they are
developed through iterative co-construction, and how they play a role in the learning
process. Interaction data and knowledge objects generated by groups were analyzed
through qualitative methods, with a focus on the types of interaction, the uptake of ideas
and concepts, and their co-elaboration.
4. Kangas, K., Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, P, & Hakkarainen, K. (2013). Figuring the
world of designing: Expert participation in elementary classroom. International
Journal of Technology and Design Education, 23, 425-442.
The article examines elementary school students’ participation in knowledge-creating
learning that involves collaborative design and making of artifacts. With support of a
professional designer, students were engaged in figured world of designing and guided
to appropriate associated knowledge practices.
5. Zhang, J., Tao, D., Chen, M. H., Sun, Y., Judson, D., & Naqvi, S. (2018). Co-
organizing the collective journey of inquiry with Idea Thread Mapper. Journal of the
Learning Sciences, 27(3), 390-430.
The article addressed the role of technology-mediated knowledge practices in socially
organizing collective inquiry processes within two CSCL classrooms. The study revealed
that promising directions of object-driven (trialogical) inquiry can be monitored with Idea
Thread Mapper (ITM). Moreover, practices of reflective structuration supported long-term
advancement of inquiry in terms of active participation, inter-connected contributions, and
coherent scientific understanding.
29
Sami Paavola