Conference Agenda

Under the umbrella of the Nordic Research Network on Teaching and Learning in Innovative Learning Environments (NNILE), the theme of this symposium emerged from collaborative work that critically examined the growing gap between ambitious educational reforms and everyday pedagogical practice.

Educational reforms across Europe increasingly seek to transform schooling by redesigning learning environments, reorganising pedagogical practices, and introducing new digital technologies. Innovative Learning Environments (ILEs), student-centred learning models, and generative artificial intelligence are promoted as mutually reinforcing drivers of 21st-century education, promising greater flexibility, participation, and learner autonomy. Yet, as these ambitions are translated into everyday educational practice, they often generate tensions, contradictions, and unintended forms of constraint. This symposium examines how contemporary educational change is enacted, negotiated, and experienced at the intersection of space, organisation, and technology.

Adopting a practice-oriented and sociomaterial perspective, the symposium conceptualises educational change as an ongoing process rather than a completed reform. It foregrounds how material arrangements, technological infrastructures, and institutional expectations actively shape what teachers and students can do, how they understand their roles, and how agency is distributed in learning situations. Rather than treating space and technology as neutral supports for pedagogical innovation, the symposium approaches them as mediators that reconfigure professional judgement, participation, and effort.

Empirically, the symposium draws on qualitative and longitudinal research from Nordic educational contexts that share similar possibilities and challenges with an increasing number of new schools characterised by strong policy commitments to openness, flexibility, and innovation. Across organisational transitions, newly designed school buildings, and digitally mediated writing practices, a recurring pattern emerges: educational actors are expected to enact student-centred ideals under conditions that simultaneously constrain collective coordination, pedagogical stability, and meaningful engagement. These tensions are not temporary implementation problems but persistent features of contemporary reform trajectories.

Analytically, the symposium highlights how contradictions surface in teachers’ and students’ everyday practices—as dilemmas, conflicts, and experiences of impasse—and how they are managed through ongoing adaptation rather than resolution. It also shows how emerging technologies redistribute responsibility for learning by shifting effort away from generative and exploratory practices toward forms of management, evaluation, and editing. Taken together, these dynamics point to a broader reconfiguration of educational agency, in which openness and automation coexist with new forms of pressure and uncertainty.

By bringing spatial, organisational, and technological perspectives into dialogue, the symposium contributes a nuanced account of why well-intentioned educational innovations so often produce ambivalent outcomes. It invites critical reflection on which forms of effort, authorship, and professional judgement are being displaced or preserved in contemporary schooling, and on how future learning environments might better support sustainable pedagogical change.

This paper examines the shift from teacher-centred teaching (TCT) to student-centred learning (SCL) from the perspective of organisational change in a large-scale school development project. Staff from three traditional schools were merged into a newly constructed school designed as an Innovative Learning Environment (ILE). Our previous findings indicated that this shift is difficult (Bergström et al., 2023). Teachers’ practice for SCL in prototype ILE classrooms involved individual experimentation under unfamiliar conditions (Bergström et al., 2025). In the new ILE, similar challenges emerged, as SCL ambitions had to be enacted through continuous situational judgement in relation to space, material, and communication (Wiklund-Engblom et al., 2025; Lindfors et al., submitted). Such challenges are understood as contradictions, directing our analytical focus towards organisational change. The overall aim is to describe and analyse how organisational change unfolds over time from the teachers’ perspectives. The analysis is informed by Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), in which contradictions constitute a central analytical concept (Engeström & Sannino, 2021). Contradictions cannot be observed directly in the study; rather, they are analytically approached through their discursive manifestations in teachers’ accounts: (A)discursive markers, (B) dilemmas as expressions of competing evaluations, (C) conflicts, and (D) double binds, which denote situations of experienced hopelessness that prevent further action. Drawing on these four perspectives, contradictions were interpreted across the seven-year longitudinal process. Methodologically, the study adopts a longitudinal before-and-after design (Neale, 2019). Data collection began two years prior to the move into the new ILE, during a preparation phase in which school leaders organised workshops and established prototype classrooms in the existing schools. After the new school opened, additional data was collected between 2023 - 2025. This article comprises an analysis of 18 recurring semi-structured interviews carried out after observed lessons of five selected teachers in grades 1–9. The interviews were both retrospective and prospective in their focus. The interviews lasted 35-60 minutes. Preliminary findings indicating an ongoing and uncertain change process. At the level of dilemmas, the material points to a persistent tension between SCL ideals and pragmatic teaching practices, as well as between individual experimentation and the need for collective stability. These dilemmas are not resolved but reproduced over time through reformulations and compromises. A double bind emerges as student groups grow, generating frustration over how teaching should be organised and how teachers can move forward. Together, these findings indicate contradictions on different levels over time.

Bergström, P., Wiklund-Engblom, A., & Lindfors, M. (2025). Sharing teacher power: exploring teaching practices in innovative learning environments through mixed methods analysis. Teachers and Teaching, 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2025.2528819 Bergström, P., Rönnlund, M., & Tieva, Å. (2023). Making the transition from teacher-centred teaching to students’ active learning: developing transformative agency. In E, Matthews & P. Lippman (Eds). Creating dynamic places for learning. Cham: Springer. Engeström, Y. & Sannino, A. (2021). From mediated actions to heterogenous coalitions: four generations of activity-theoretical studies of work and learning. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 28(1), 4-23. DOI: 10.1080/10749039.2020.1806328 Lindfors, M., Bergström, P., & Wiklund-Engblom, A. (submitted). Tracing Trajectories of Teaching Practice: Developing and Applying the Typology for Teacher Power and Control. In Mahat, M., Aldridge, J., and Fisher, K. International Handbook of Research on Learning Environments. Springer. Neale, B. (2019). What is Qualitative longitudinal research? Bloomsbury Academic. Wiklund-Engblom, A., Bergström, P., & Lindfors, M. (2025). Exploring Teaching Practices in an Innovative Learning Environment: A Pragmatic View on the Student‑Centred Ideal in Future Classrooms. Postdigital Science and Education. 7, 834–854. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-025-00570-z

The preoccupation on materiality, technology and physical environments is increasing in education and educational research. The design of schools’ learning environments has become a growing occupation of research and discussion; theoretically, empirically and in global education policy and practice contexts (Deppeler et al., 2021). Contemporary schools designed as Innovative Learning Environments (ILEs) have physical characteristics of openness, flexibility of learning spaces, high-end technology, and furnishings to support desired practices of teachers’ work and students’ learning. This school design has grown in popularity across the OECD countries (Woolner et al., 2022), promoted as having the potential to bring about pedagogical practices that will achieve the aims of 21st-century learning competencies (i.e., communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity) (Deppeler et al., 2021). Being part of an international school design trend (Trask et al., 2023), ILEs entail physical and pedagogical moves to change educational culture and restructure practices (Page et al., 2021). Students in ILEs are expected to spend more time collaborating with others and working individually to design their own learning and less time being taught in a teacher-led whole class setting (Deppler & Aikens, 2020). Open and flexible designs are prevalent and currently preferred in Norway and the Nordic countries with strong demands for designing ILEs promoting 21st century skills and learning (Frelin et al., 2021; Grannäs & Stavem, 2020; Saur & Ulleberg, 2025). In our study, we have examined several key aspects related to how contemporary schools are planned, designed, and experienced in a larger Norwegian municipality. We investigate processes and considerations involved in school design, and how design choices are connected to pedagogical aims. Among other aspects, we have investigated the following: From which sources do planners derive inspiration when designing new school facilities? Do international trends and political discourses influence local decision-making? How do teachers and school leaders experience and make use of the physical learning environment, and how do they perceive their level of involvement in the planning and decision-making processes? How do teachers experience the functionality of the new school environments in relation to supporting pedagogical practices? With background from preliminary results from qualitative interviews we discuss what influences planners of contemporary school design and how schools are experienced by principals and teachers. The study aims to provide insights into the interplay between architectural design, stakeholder participation, and educational practices, thereby contributing to a deeper understanding of how physical learning environments influence teaching and learning.

Deppeler, J., & Aikens, K. (2020). Responsible innovation in school design – a systematic review. Journal of Responsible Innovation, 7(3), 573–597. https://doi.org/10.1080/23299460.2020.1809782 Deppeler, J., Thompson, I., & Corrigan, D. (2021). International studies of school design – Lessons for Europe on innovation and risk. European Educational Research Journal, 21(4), 561-567. https://doi.org/10.1177/14749041211014604 Frelin, A., Grannäs, J., & Rönnlund, M. (2021). Transitions in Nordic school environments: An introduction. Education Inquiry, 12(3), 217–224 https://doi.org/10.1080/20004508.2021.1947625 Page, A., Anderson, J., & Charteris, J. (. (2021). Including students with disabilities in innovative learning environments: a model for inclusive practices. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 27(14), 1696-1711. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2021.1916105 Saur, E. & Ulleberg, H.P. (2025). Space, Place and Safety: User Experiences of New School Buildings. Educational Research, 67(1), 117–134. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131881.2024.2443141 Trask, S., Charteris, J., Edwards, F. et al. (2023). Innovative learning environments and student orientation to learning: a kaleidoscopic framework. Learning Environment Research 26, 727–741. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10984-022-09449-3 Woolner, P., U. Thomas, & J. Charteris. (2021). The Risks of Standardised School Building Design: Beyond Aligning the Parts of a Learning Environment. European Educational Research Journal 21 (4): 627– 44. https://doi.org/10.1177/14749041211021262

The rapid uptake of generative AI (GAI) in education has produced a striking paradox: Students’ GAI-assisted writing often yields impressive short-term performance gains, yet emerging evidence suggests that these same tools may undermine the learning processes that writing is intended to cultivate (Stadler et al., 2024, Lee et al., 2025, Gerlich, 2025, Tierens et al., 2025). This presentation addresses this paradox by shifting analytical focus from the quality of finished texts to how GAI mediates the practice of writing. Drawing on a postphenomenological framework, I argue that GAI does not simply support student writing but actively mediates the conditions under which writing—and learning through writing—takes place. Synthesizing recent empirical studies of student use of GAI, I identify two recurring mediational dynamics: shortcutting and promptification. Shortcutting describes the ways in which GAI encourages fast, low-effort task completion. Interface designs and default affordances draw students toward accepting GAI-produced text with minimal deliberation, thereby reducing cognitive effort, depth of inquiry, and opportunities for productive struggle. Rather than attributing this tendency to motivational deficits or ‘metacognitive laziness’, shortcutting reframes it as an outcome of technological mediation. Promptification captures a second, more structural shift: the reorganization of writing around prompting, evaluating, and editing machine-generated text. Even when students remain actively engaged, GAI transforms writing into a predominantly editorial activity. As prompting replaces idea generation and iterative drafting, students increasingly come to experience themselves not as authors but as editors of algorithmic prose. This transition cultivates new skills—such as prompt engineering and textual appraisal—while eroding others, including conceptual exploration, synthesis, and the embodied experience of struggle. Taken together, shortcutting and promptification offer a conceptual explanation for the growing evidence of authorial deskilling. The paper concludes by outlining key directions for future research, including the frequency and conditions under which students adopt active versus passive GAI strategies; the extent to which metacognitive awareness can counteract technologically mediated drift toward passivity; and whether shortcutting and promptification remain confined to academic tasks or migrate into other domains of writing and self-expression. Understanding these forms of mediation is essential not for defending a nostalgic ideal of “pure” writing but for discerning which forms of effort, friction, and authorship remain worth preserving.

Gerlich, M. (2025). AI Tools in Society: Impacts on Cognitive Offloading and the Future of Critical Thinking. Societies, vol. 15(1), article 6. https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/15/1/6 Lee, H., Drosos, I., Sarkar, A., Rintel, S., Wilson, N., Tankelevitch, L., & Banks, R. (2025). The Impact of Generative AI on Critical Thinking: Self-Reported Reductions in Cognitive Effort and Confidence Effects from a Survey of Knowledge Workers. In CHI ’25: Proceedings of the 2025 Chi Conference on Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, article 1121. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3706598.3713778 Stadler, M., Bannert, M. & Sailer, M. (2024). Cognitive ease at a cost: LLMs reduce mental effort but compromise depth in student scientific inquiry. Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 160, article 108386. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563224002541 Tierens, T., Decuypere, M., Hartong, S., & Alirezabeigi, S. (2025). Schooling the (Artificially) Intelligent Writer: GenAI Technologies as Thinking Infrastructures in School Education. Postdigital Science and Education. OnlineFirst. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-025-00585-6