IDBM Challenge Manual

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AUTHORS
Miikka J. Lehtonen
Katharina Schilli
Theresa Berg

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IDBM
CHALLENGE:
transformative learning
experiences through gameful
blended learning

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Innovation thrives when
multiple disciplines and design
practices converge.
This document should be read as a sort of
post-mortem for IDBM Challenge; probably
the first higher education course in the world
combining challenge-based and blended
learning. Here, the course facilitators reflect
on the process as well as offer some insights
on how to design similar courses and how
does this all link to changes taking place in
the higher education sector at the moment.
EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY

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Collaboration across cultures,
colleagues with different skill
sets, communication around
the globe, obstacles that don’t
respond to tried and tested
methods… these are facts of
our everyday and professional
lives. Turning these modern
complexities into advantages
cannot be learned only through
theory and text books — it
must be experienced!
Aalto’s new IDBM Challenge
is the introductory course for
new Master students of the
IDBM Program (International
Design Business Management).
The 3-week course brings
together students from diverse
educational backgrounds,
and provides a setting for
combining theory with
practice. Through practical
experience and learning-
by-doing, students acquire
the skills to conceptualize,
develop and introduce socially
sound and commercially
successful solutions. Taught
in autumn 2017, this year’s
course was designed
together with Space Nation
and supported by other
organizations to deliver a
space-related challenge with a
societal angle.
Online episodes with experts
are combined with workshops
in physical spaces. Students
are encouraged to be active

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partners in the course creation
by sharing their own insights
and knowledge: through student
input, the IDBM Challenge
website will come alive as it
continuously changes and
expands.
As an introduction to the IDBM
Program, this course is crucial
for teaching students about
multidisciplinary teamwork
and establishing a strong
sense of inclusive community.
The coursework supports
the idea that learning takes
place at individual, team and
community levels. Through the
IDBM Challenge, students are
reminded to enjoy and have fun
on their development journey.
Since 1995, IDBM has
delivered world-class
multidisciplinary and systemic
education in global business
development through
design and technology. The
International Design Business
Management (IDBM) program
is a joint offering between
the Aalto University School of
Art, Design, and Architecture,
School of Science and School
of Business.

IDBM
CHALLENGE
IN A
NUTSHELL
The IDBM Challenge is the
introductory course for new
Master students of the Aalto
University’s multidisciplinary
IDBM Program (International
Design Business Management)

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This 3-week course was taught
in autumn 2017. In this first
iteration of the course, IDBM
was working with Space
Nation and a host of other
organizations to deliver a
space-related challenge with a
societal angle.
What made this course
unique, among other
things, was that it combined
challenge-based and blended
learning to create a learning
space that catered to the
students’ needs. We started
with a simple vision – how
could the future of learning
look like – and this course
would not have been possible
without the generous help of
Aalto University’s Aalto Online
Learning (A!OLE) initiative: a
strategic program aimed at
transforming learning and
teaching in Aalto University.
In total, 52 students took this
course: 47 by attending the
workshops and organizing the
final event, and five by taking
this course independently.
What is more, out of the 47
students, we had six students
from Student & Innovation
House in Copenhagen,
Denmark remotely
participating in the first two
weeks after which they joined
the teams in Helsinki for the
final week. This diversity in the
student body illustrates that
the course can be taken in
diverse ways and locations.

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Understanding the dynamics between the
individual, the team, and the community. This will
be based on readings, exercises during the class,
as well as individual and team assignments.
Apply the skills you learn and practice through
readings, talks, and exercises to propose your
solution to the challenge
Analyze the current situation and in
multidisciplinary teams connect the present state
of things with how you envision the world.
In multidisciplinary teams, learn to apply design-
driven methods and processes to create a
solution to a pressing societal challenge.
Since IDBM Challenge is the
introductory course to the IDBM
program, the learning outcomes
focus on multidisciplinary teamwork:

PHILOSOPHY
BEHIND THE
DESIGN
OF IDBM
CHALLENGE
As mentioned in the section previously, IDBM Challenge was
a challenge-based blended course that combined various
methods and technologies to create an engaging and inspiring
environment for the students. More specifically, the course
integrated elements from game design to create a gameful
learning experience.

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The table below further fleshes out this philosophy.
GAME DESIGN ELEMENT PEDAGOGICAL ELEMENT
Context Mindset
Meaning
Participants
Method
Process
Learning space, both digital
and physical
Frames the course through
the learning outcomes
Learning a new way to learn:
not finding the right answers,
but crafting the right questions
Learning in teams while at the
same time reflecting on one’s
own learnings
Supports active and
embodied learning
Creating engaging course
content
Situates the facilitators
and the students as co-
creators of meaning
Facilitators provide the
skeleton (i.e. learning
outcomes) while the
students create the
experience
Diverse methods to support
learning also outside classroom
Open-ended methods that help
students create meaningful
learning
Meaningfully connecting the
course contents
Process provides the students
with psychological safety to
broaden their horizon

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As the table above illustrates, IDBM
Challenge would not have been
anything without active participation
from the students. This does not
mean that we as facilitators outsource
content creation to the students, but
instead we invite them as co-creators
to the course. This kind of approach is
relatively common in games: although
a game might still be a game even if no
one played it, it becomes a meaningful
experience only when someone is
playing the game. Thus, by referring to
this kind of approach to course design
as gameful learning we are departing
from gamification that is often
connected to competition, scoreboards,
and collecting badges. In the next
section, we will further elaborate how
we made this philosophy concrete
through IDBM Challenge.

Three examples of
teaching methods
COURSE DESIGN
COOKING SLAM
THE NEXT ERA S
CARDS

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What are the elements
that you need to consider
when designing an online
or blended learning course?
This set of analog cards was
created to help anyone who
is running a course with
planning, developing and
prototyping new or existing
online courses. This method
was designed with the intent
to help structure the course
and discover the potential
gaps in a course design.
When designing a course it’s
easy to build on previous
experiences and what we
know works and to get that
additional push to try something
new sometimes demands
us to challenge our thinking.
We created this method to
challenge ourselves in our
course design decisions as well
discovering and mapping out
the additional opportunities and
constraints when designing for
blended learning.
The set of cards has seven
categories and each category
has multiple choices with a
descriptive text.
Course Design cards for online
and blended learning

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What learning theory will your
course be based on?
Perhaps Constructivism or
Connectivism?
What learning approach will
you take, perhaps case-based
learning or challenge-based
learning?
Which instructional methods
will you use? Perhaps peer
teaching or demonstration?
What is the course frame? Will
your course be a self-paced or
instructor-paced?
Which platform will you select?
A commercial MOOC or will
you create your own platform?
When it comes to content
production, which online tools
and techniques will you use?
Webinars, wiki, blogs, quizzes,
podcasts?
How about monetization, are
you aiming to generate profit
and if so what is the business
model? Selling additional
content, selling certificates,
subscription?
How will you market your
course? Through teaser
content, high-profile people,
social media?

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The two-day cooking slam
was dedicated to introduce
different strategizing
approaches of companies, and
how these approaches affect
their potential innovation
level. Extant research suggests
four strategizing types that
are based on prediction and
control parameters. Within
that context, we emphasized
the control-driven effectuation
process, that is characteristic
for innovation and
entrepreneurial activities.
For the slam, we translated
and illustrated the effectuation
process literally into a
cooking process. The
students gathered in an
event space where we had
divided them into teams
that each would occupy one
cooking station. On each
station, we had arranged
seeminly odd combinations
of groceries. During the
cooking slam, the students
had to follow the illustrated
cooking process within a
predetermined time frame,
using all the provided
ingredients and team skills
to create an entrée, main
course, or dessert. Next
Cooking slam and
strategizing

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to the pre-set groceries on
each station, one common
“opportunity table” offered
additional, culinary choices to
refine the cooking creations.
The final creations and team
experiences were throughout
inspiring and truly formidable.
On the second day, we
stepped back into a
theoretical session where
we connected the dots
between the cooking slam
and the different strategizing
approaches of companies.
Here, the students discovered
diverse theoretical
frameworks and reflected on
corresponding
cooking scenarios.

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by Sitra and Demos Helsinki)
to utilize their findings as the
basis for the scanning cards,
and as a result we created a
deck of cards that contains
thirty cards dealing with
contemporary phenomena. In
short, The Next Era Scanning
Cards are utilized to create
future scenarios through a
process that can last between
three to eight hours. Ideally,
this process involves three to
five people in one team, but
other setups are also feasible.
However, what makes this
method interesting is what
happens after the scenarios
Miikka participated in
developing the first iteration
of the scanning cards at
The University of Tokyo’s
multidisciplinary i.school unit,
but the scanning method
itself was created at Stanford
Research Institute in the
1960s. Initially the purpose
of this method was to help in
creating future scenarios, and
at i.school we utilized them
in shifting young researchers’
mindset from past and present
to present and future (without
ignoring the historical legacy!).
We teamed up with The Next
Era initiative (jointly organized
The Next Era
Scanning Cards

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have been created (we
instructed teams to come up
with one to three scenarios).
As such, these scenarios are
rather generic, taking place
five to twenty years from now,
but when combined with a
specific domain is where the
magic happens. For example,
if a scenario portrays a society
where robots take care of all
the mundane jobs, how does
this influence HR practices
in firms, for example. Or
what will happen to labour
unions? Thus, two insights
are worth noting here: first,
the method itself is highly
modular, and second, this
method is not about creating
‘accurate’scenarios, but
instead the aim is to help
the participants become
more aware of how changes
today have an impact on
future societies.

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EXECUTING
IDBM
CHALLENGE
Below, we will describe what kind of actions
were taken before, during, and after the course.
All the actions points listed below were either
directly or indirectly contributing to the broader
vision mentioned above, namely: how could the
future of learning look like. Please bear in mind,
however, that the lists below are by no means all-
exhaustive nor should they be followed blindly.
The purpose here is to merely provide you with
food for thought.

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BEFORE THE COURSE
Find the team
Online episodes and podcasts
Once we got the funding decision, and actually slightly before
that, we had discussed this course with some people who
would later on become seminal in realizing and contributing
to the vision. In the end, we had a team of almost ten people
contributing to the course: some were full-time, some did a
teaching gig, others designed the audio identity for the course.
Regardless of the size of the team, during the setup phase
of IDBM Challenge we realized there are so many talented
individuals working and / or studying at Aalto University. As
facilitators of the course, we met numerous people in connection
to this course, and our task was to understand how all these
experts could work together to produce a coherent experience.
Our first episodes (first season consists of fifteen episodes) were
shot between May and August, and this was perhaps the most
time-consuming part of the course prior to its start. Basically,
the setup for shooting the episodes consisted of one or two
interviewers, one or two cameramen, and the interviewee, but

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Partners
Teaching methods
Once the funding decision was announced, the teaching team
started to reach out to potential partners in and outside Aalto
University. What kind of resources and tools do we already
have in Aalto? What kind of services or expertise do we require
from external partners? Questions like these were guiding us
in pitching our course to potential partners and creating that
course pitch, as well.
Most of the teaching methods we utilized in IDBM Challenge
were already tested elsewhere, but some methods we had
usually two people from the crew shot one episode. Prior to
filming the episodes, the teaching team listed a number of
experts we would like to interview, after which we created a
shortlist and started contacting people. Once the episodes were
filmed, each episode was edited according to the interviewer’s
vision, and on average the episodes lasted between thirty to
sixty minutes. Podcasts (three in total), on the other hand, were
all recorded and edited by the teaching team.

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to improve / tweak to better fit our needs. Since most of our
teaching content is freely available online, we also ended up
releasing one of the teaching methods on our course website
together with an instructional video on how to use the method.
We decided to release this method freely because it was based
on an existing method: hopefully someone finds the method
useful and ends up developing it further.
Workshop locations
Setting up live streaming
Since IDBM Challenge was the first course in the program, and
most of our students come from outside Helsinki, we wanted
to host our workshops in diverse locations in and outside Aalto
University. This is something we did a couple of months prior to
the course.
Since two of our teams were following the course remotely
from Denmark during the first two weeks of the course, we had
to make sure we could live stream our lectures and talks. In
some of the workshop locations streaming was relatively easy,
but in most places we had to bring our own cameras, laptops,

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T-shirts and tote bags
Creating the course universe
We wanted to provide our students and partners with tangible
memories of the course, which is why we ordered t-shirts and
tote bags that were in line with the course’s visual identity
from Pure Waste, a company producing sustainable clothing
and accessories.
One of the aims of IDBM Challenge was to try out different
technologies that would support learning and teaching, and
this was made possible by a mandate from Aalto University’s
IT solutions for learning. In line with our audio-visual identity,
we wanted to create a course space that would bring all the
different components together as well as provide everyone a
window to our activities.
and wireless microphones to make it happen. Luckily Aalto
University has all of the aforementioned equipment so we only
had to know where to find them.

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DURING THE COURSE
Make sure the process flows smoothly
Improvise when necessary
Teaching team’s reflection sessions
Since IDBM Challenge was a 3-week intensive course, it was crucial
that the process would flow smoothly. In practice this means
ensuring everyone knows when and where the sessions are held,
and that technology works as expected.
Perhaps contradicting the point above, but since we were
dealing with an open-ended course (i.e. no one knew how the
outputs would look like), being flexible with sudden changes
or failures with technology was something we had to prepare
ourselves for. Some of the students, for instance, were taking
another course at the same time that overlapped with one of
our sessions, and to resolve this issue we asked a company
to record the other lecture so the students would not have to
move between two locations.
We hosted reflection sessions for the students each week, but
equally importantly the teaching team also convened briefly

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Being available for the students
Since a major part of the course took place outside the
classroom hours, we made sure we were available for the
students throughout the course. Within reasonable hours.
after each day to discuss the course progress and how
the students were feeling about the workload and the
instructions we provided them with.

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AFTER THE COURSE
Reflect, and then reflect
some more
In addition to all course-
related administrative issues
(e.g. grading, returning
all the equipment we
borrowed), we cannot
emphasize the importance of
reflections.
W
W
H
C
TA
W
FA

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WHAT WORKED?
WHAT DID NOT WORK?
HOW DO WE DEVELOP THE
COURSE NEXT TIME IT IS
AUGHT?
WHAT DID WE AS
ACILITATORS LEARN?

REFLECTIONS:
WHAT
WORKED,
WHAT COULD
BE IMPROVED

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Any thoughts on your mind right now?
How did IDBM challenge change you?
I’m not sure if it is valuable for the reader because
they might be on their own planning a course, but
even though there were discussions and conflict
moments or whatever, it was super fun to be
positive about whatever would happen. We kind of
trusted the flow. The students would be really good,
and they were. We gave the students right away a
positive character, a positive attitude in the course.
That’s a good point.
When I think back about the course now I think
mostly about the vibe of the students, and how they
were eager to take on this challenge and to learn.
I think the high energy was there. I think one thing
that we did, which I thought wasn’t intentional on
our part, but I think the students noticed that we
had put a lot of effort into this course, and in return
I think the students felt that “We should also put the
effort in.” I mean the students themselves.
Miikka :
Miikka :
Katharina :
Theresa :

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And I think anyway team dynamics is always a bit like a
surprise box, what do you get at the end out of there?
And we were lucky that the students really caught the
momentum and started doing things.
Yeah, and this connects to how you think about
blended or online learning. I do not think it is really
about making things easier for everyone: it’s more
about engaging in a different way and coming up with
new things and a new way to reach people.
Exactly.
The episodes and all the other material we had was
actually understandable or traceable even though you
are not in the context. You could watch an episode and
it is like a separate series or separate episode which
helps with some things, so you do not need the entire
lecture context. It’s quite modular.
Should we talk about what we think went good and
how we would redesign the course?
Maybe in the beginning would have been nice to say,
“Hey, since we do not really know what is the outcome,
we only have a structure, but then we have certain level
of freedom or flexibility.” Like openly communicate
Miikka :
Miikka :
Katharina :
Katharina :
Theresa :

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with the students.
I think more clarity in why we did what we did, why
we gave them the freedom we gave them, why we
gave them the structure. This is the interesting part
because even in the beginning when we started this
course, we made it also quite explicit that we really
need to communicate the learning outcomes of each
session. But still, we were not able to overtly be that
explicit. I think one learning, for me at least, was this
there is no such thing as over communication when
it comes to clarifying the learning goals, what the
purpose is of the tasks or the exercises.
That is one point, and the students also have to
learn how to deal with ambiguity. In my startup, we
also have no timetable that tells us when we have
to be where, and I think university is just the same
thing just in a safer environment.
Yeah, but you know you do not have a schedule.
Maybe some of these students also kind of expected
to somehow get that structure, but did not get it and
that felt a bit insecure perhaps.
Yeah, good point.
Katharina :
Theresa :
Theresa :
Katharina :

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By the way, there is actually some research on learning
about this; that it is actually a physically painful
process because you disrupt your thought patterns.
Oh, wow.
To learn is actually painful.
You rip off your hair.
Yeah, so it is not a pleasant thing, but you also need to
be able to challenge yourself. That is also a pleasure,
but there is pain also involved.
Hey, Katharina, you were talking about your startup.
What is the name of the startup?
Portyr.
What about the website?
Portyr.com.
Okay. Some free advertising there. It is the same thing
when you practice sports, for example, like when you
need to practice a new skill. Not that learning takes
place always in this step-wise manner, but it is still like
when you try to practice a new move or whatever. It
really takes a lot of time and then you need to have
it in your muscle memory. But it takes a lot of time,
Miikka :
Miikka :
Miikka :
Katharina :
Katharina :
Katharina :
Theresa :
Theresa :
Theresa :

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Miikka :
Katharina :
Theresa :
so I can fully relate to that comment that learning is
painful. That is why we had the gin Friday, I suppose.
But that is a good point, I think it is so important to
have fun together and do nothing else but that. It is
your life at the end no matter if you work or if you
study, it is a big part of your life and you have got to
choose how you fill that basket.
We tend to think that we are learning when we are
not. We tend to go to the same community that we
are used to, the same conferences with like-minded
people, and we think we are breaking ground
by talking about things that we are comfortable
talking. They can be complicated, but it might not
be challenging. And I think with the students, I think
what might cause friction in these multidisciplinary
teams can be that there are some hurdles they need
to go through, because they come from different
backgrounds and nationalities, but at the same time
they do have interest in the same things.
Yes, I think it goes back to this kind of empathy or
empathic approach to living your life or having an
empathic career. You accept and embrace diversity

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and divergent thinking. Not kind of diluting the
solutions or that everyone is happy with like the
lowest common denominator, but kind of seeing
beauty in diversity.
How do you think this course brought forward the
empathy aspect?
Empathy? Well, empathy is such a tacit asset, so it is
really hard to catch it. That is also what many people
say about IDBM: what I have learned is not so easy
to write in one sentence. But I think it showed very
much in the silent or small moments, like the group
dynamic, how people supported each other when
somebody had a problem, how they embraced each
other or the failure CV, when people are able to just
say, “Hey, my life was not perfect” then saying they
see positive about that person, which is completely
not in our society. Because usually you would go, “If
I say now something positive he may be better off
than me later.” That is so often the attitude in Western
culture at least. People are basically always afraid to
be a pinch behind and have to admit that somebody is
good. Not always, but often.
Katharina :
Theresa :

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What do you think about the exercises we had when
it comes to reflection days? Because we were very
explicit, again, with them acknowledging their team
mates’ strengths.
The sessions per se were not tacit, but they became
tacit afterwards.
Yes, yes.
Firstly, I think the reflective sessions were super
important, to actually think about what have you
done and in which process are you, because that
comes nearly always to mind. And I think also that
influenced the learning diaries, because they were
highly reflexive. When I was a student, I needed to
have the summer break to actually reflect on what did
I do last year. But these explicit exercises, many wrote
in the diaries, they really mentioned them and they
were memorisable for them.
I have this feeling that when it comes to blended
learning, so many people have tried it by kind of
emulating what has been done so far in traditional
classrooms, but it is not really about that. Mindset
and empathy are crucial, and at the same time what
Katharina :
Katharina :
Theresa :
Theresa :
Miikka :

50
you need to do is to create a completely new kind of
lexicon or words to talk about this kind of learning,
because you can not really talk about lectures,
and I think that has been one of our learnings that
hopefully paves way for other people. Because we did
not have any kind of reference points, or did we?
No, I think we did somewhat benchmarking, but there
is not really a best practice when it comes to blended
learning. And the fact that we also called our course
“hybrid learning” because blended learning with
all its requirements sounds a bit boxed. But okay, I
have a question for you. Do you think you can make
this course totally online? Could it serve the same
purposes? Or would it be a different animal?
But actually, when I think about the whole concept of
online learning or ... I mean as long as we are present,
as long as we have these physical bodies, like a
human body, can learning be fully online, because we
are also present ...
Okay, you are going meta now.
I think we are almost too old to give the answer.
Oh, hashtag lifelong learning.
Katharina :
Katharina :
Theresa :
Theresa :
Miikka :
Miikka :

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Katharina :
Katharina :
Miikka :
Hashtag vision maker.
Let me tweet that.
Of course, with a background in architecture I
say spaces, environments, they influence you
immensely. I think this course from the first
prototype it would have been only online, it would
have been a completely different animal, and it
would not have maybe even worked because we also
began with so much experience in the first trial. In
this case, I would say very different animal based on
the learnings we have. If you reshape the sessions
and you would go more into a gaming theory ...
Because if you see, for example, how kids or
students or even adults glue onto some games, they
spend their days and nights in front of a computer
and they build a complete community and they
are really supporting each other. There is a digital
community, which is maybe they might never meet,
but they are still a community. If this community has
the same values or ethical background or standards
as a physical community, that is another question,
but I would claim with some more experience you

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could create a great online only course.
Nice.
And I think within this game space there is a
perspective that a game is a space detached from the
real life in a way, and once you are in that space you
can do things in a bit different way. You can be like
someone else, but still you have the connection to who
you are. As long as you are in the game space you kind
of have the freedom to talk to strangers, even though
you might be an introvert, because the game tells you
to do that.
In this course, we have put a lot of emphasis on
teamwork, and actually for the students to be more
conscious about the challenges and the opportunities
regarding multidisciplinary teamwork. But if it were
a completely online course, could that transfer even
though you would have individuals in different parts
of the world? Can you do teamwork from afar in the
same way? And throughout this course we had quite
structured social events throughout these weeks
where they got to know each other outside the
learning environment.
Katharina :
Theresa :
Theresa :
Miikka :

53
Maybe this is the old generation talking, but
communities today are not bound by physical
limitations. Like Minecraft is a fantastic example.
People are playing Minecraft and streaming that on
YouTube and Twitch, and other people are watching
and learning things and they are like, “Oh, cool, you
like this as well?” And they might not even once
meet face to face.
Maybe the problem is that when you phrase it as a
course you have such stigmas attached to it.
Exactly, and it is really about the values I want to
provide the students with. You can have an impact
to some extent. We also just gave what we assumed
would be the right thing.
Agree.
Yeah.
It was really nice to see all those episodes, the ones
where I was not present like with Alf, for example, or
Esa and all those. It was so much fun. And I do not
know if you heard about this but close to the end of
the year Kalle was going through all those episodes,
and he was like binge watching them just like you
Katharina :
Katharina :
Theresa :
Theresa :
Miikka :
Miikka :

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would do on Netflix.
He sent me a message and was like, “Episode
something <3”, I forgot already which episode it was.
He is such an awesome guy.
Yeah, after all that editing he still had the slightest
interest to watch it again.
Yeah, exactly. That is actually something that maybe
I would have done differently or like be well ahead of
time with the episodes.
Yeah. I think we were all at the time optimistic when it
comes to this.
Also, because we just did not know at the beginning
exactly how much all of this would take. It was also
kind of an ambiguous challenge to us.
I think one thing when it comes to blended learning
or hybrid learning or however we want to call it, is to
think about how lean do we want to be: when to put
in high production value in what we do, and when is it
enough to have a semi-crappy video? I am just putting
it out there.
Well, think about Blair Witch Project that had like
a super small production budget, but it is all about
Katharina :
Katharina :
Theresa :
Theresa :
Theresa :
Miikka :
Miikka :

55
Theresa :
Theresa :
Miikka :
the story. What is the story you want to tell and
what is the medium? It is just about having a clear
vision, what do you want to achieve, and then what
kind of tools do you need to make that happen. And
hopefully when people read this report they go like, “I
can do it by myself, I do not need to have an army of
people”.
Yeah. Okay, what would you do better next time?
Maybe I would have a script for each of the episodes,
just to have a better understanding or like what do
we want to cover in each episode? It is a really small
thing.
No, that’s a fair point. I think being a bit clearer with
the students as well as what is going to happen
and why, mostly why, so they feel safe with the
uncertainty and explain why, subject them to the
ambiguity. But I think also the workload might have
been a bit heavy, which made the episodes perhaps
feel a bit like a source of stress for them. But actually,
I talked to IDBM students from the previous year,
asking them about what they thought about that year
in IDBM. One thing that I remember really clearly was

56
that they said they wanted to be more challenged,
which was quite interesting.
Yeah.
And I think we pushed these students quite a bit.
Yeah, you could say that.
Yeah. And I think that is something that we should
not lose the next time, because I think starting a
new program you are filled with energy. Now, of
course, it was a perhaps a bit unbalanced because
some students had already started before and had
like a heavy introduction, but most of the students
kind of came with the energy that they really wanted
something juicy to bite. I think there is something
there that keeping up the momentum is really
important in these courses, and giving the students
the challenge. But maybe we gave them too much
workload, we gave them too many things that they
should execute or take part of. I do not know, what
do you think? Do you agree?
Yeah, I firstly agree on the schedule and it should be
simply with digestible milestones. “This is what we
do, this is why we do it”, just because it makes life
Theresa :
Theresa :
Miikka :
Miikka :
Katharina :

57
Miikka :
Katharina :
easier for them, but it is still ambiguous in the end.
That’s about structure and being driven, and
psychological safety is also crucial; that they know
how to develop it or that they also know how to
create it for themselves. So what Esa and Emilia,
for example, were talking about in their respective
episodes: how to create a safe environment for
others.
That is awesome. Okay. Anything else?
The students who complained that IDBM was not
challenging enough, they had, for example, Miikka’s
course in the beginning and they were a really good
cohort. For them of course it was easy to go through
IDBM because they just had a great team. But then
there were years when there was not a good team
spirit, and for them everything was challenging
because you just could not collaborate properly.
And really to create this strong mindset, like “Hey,
whatever challenge comes, we are a good team,
we can handle this”. That is maybe one of the core
learnings for me.

WAY
FORWARD:
HOW DOES
THE FUTURE OF
LEARNING IN
HIGHER EDUCATION
LOOK LIKE?

61
We wrote this report as a sort of reflexive sense-
making artefact for IDBM Challenge, the introductory
course for Aalto University’s IDBM program
combining challenge-based and blended learning.
One of the ideas here is to inspire other academics
to try out new teaching methodologies by helping
them avoid the pitfalls that we experienced during
our journey, and at the same time the purpose here
is to generate discussion on the future of learning
and teaching in higher education institutions. At
this point, we would like to focus on four aspects of
learning that, we believe, will come to shape higher
education: from teachers to co-creators, unrestricted
learning, actionable content over medium, and
learning’s new lexicon.

62
From teachers to co-creators of immersive experiences:
teacher-centric classroom as a concept has been under
attack for a while now, and although lecturing does
serve certain purposes, we need to develop other,
complementary teaching approaches that support students’
active learning. One of the challenges we are currently
facing is that universities are seen as entities separate
from the rest of the society in which they are embedded,
and here challenge-based blended learning can bring
universities back to the society. From the instructor, this
indicates a shift from being a teacher to becoming a co-
creator of immersive experiences. Teacher is no longer
solely responsible what their students learn and when, but
students also actively participate in shaping their learning
experience. Immersive experience, in this context, refers to
the ability to create such a learning space that does not feel
separate from the society while at the same time promoting
active learning through collaborative efforts.
Unrestricted learning: somewhat connected to the
previous point, students do not stop learning when they
leave the classroom. This per se is nothing revelatory, but

63
from a university’s perspective this requires creating
new teaching methods and tactics. For example, some
of our students mentioned they enjoyed listening to
the podcasts we had created while they were jogging,
commuting, or doing household chores. Coupled with
insights from our students’ learning diaries, we can argue
that universities should be actively speaking for lifelong
learning. Hence, unrestricted learning in this context
refers to universities creating learning opportunities for
their students wherever and whenever.
Actionable content over medium: majority of
contemporary technological innovations in the field
of education focus on scalable content, but does this
necessarily imply that the content is engaging? In
our opinion, this is one of the pitfalls in the current
educational technology hype: although providing quality
education for everyone is a just cause, it is somewhat
questionable whether this technology fetish actually
creates transformative learning experiences. As we
realized during IDBM Challenge, technology and different
medium need to support the learning objectives, not vice

64
versa. Asking yourself ‘why do we need this technology or
software in this pedagogical context?’ enables you to reflect
on the purpose and role technology has in teaching
and education.
Learning’s new lexicon: finally, since we are talking about a
revolution in teaching and learning in higher education, we
also need to create new words to better describe learning
and its all aspects. So far the way we talk about blended
and online learning has emulated ‘traditional’ learning, but
cognitively connecting them prevents us from creating novel
and perhaps radical pedagogical innovations. We are not
arguing for a full departure from the past: all the learning
theories and philosophies serve as a good springboard for
both revising them by studying new ways and spaces of
learning and creating legitimate content. Above, we have
attempted to flesh out several new terms, but it is up to us
all across academic disciplines to collectively come up with
a new lexicon. This way we are able to better understand
what kind of skills and competencies are required from the
facilitators as well as effectively transform teaching and
learning in higher education.

66
Demos
Microsoft
MOW
Nokia
Sitra
Space Nation
A!OLE
Kaute foundation
Aalto University strategic
digitalization project
PARTNERS
FUNDERS &
SUPPORTERS:

67
Miikka J. Lehtonen, Visiting Assistant Professor
Theresa Berg, Education Designer
Katharina Schilli, Education Designer
Andreas Kristian Gjede, Education Designer
Kalle Kataila, Educational Media Specialist
Johannes Söderström, VR Consultant
Harri Dammert, Audio Design
Parvati Pillai, Visual Designer
Jessie Cat, Copywriter
Paul D. Savage, Guest Lecturer

70
Innovation thrives when
multiple disciplines and
design practices converge.

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