Perspectives on Innovative Designs and Learning

Digitalization has changed ways of learning as well as challenged conditions for creativity in different landscapes of learning. This raises questions about how to approach learning and design in new ways. To address these queries, this conceptual symposium paper presents three perspectives on how innovative designs and learning in analogue and digital activities can promote new metaphors, theories, and methodologies to study these kinds of processes. The first perspective adds a focus on the environment and spaces based on ecological understanding of design and learning with a pivot point on boundaries and people’s wayfinding. The second perspective adds a focus on activities with artifacts and people’s engagement in creative and playful processes of making and breaking as part of a design and learning process. The third perspective takes the position of collaborative design in educational settings, with a focus on context and sequences, framing and fixing points, and on the choice of material and semiotic resources to express/represent knowledge. Despite differences in these perspectives, they can be used in different educational practices to understand people’s engagement in design and learning. The paper shows that differences in perspectives not necessarily represent division or disagreement, but rather exploratory routes that can generate new learning, understanding and resources to approach societal and educational challenges.