
What Imaginatory does
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Generates research-based knowledge on play, imagination, creativity and learning in early childhood education.
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Thrives to promote young children’s educational opportunities and social inclusion via co-design and arts-based research.
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Offers a hub for researchers, educators, designers and children and their families to imagine, create and learn together.​
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Supports the professional development of early years educators.

Playful Learning Center

Playful Learning Center (PLC) is a physical space situated at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki for imagining, researching and developing education and learning for early childhood education. In PLC we thrive to: ​
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Nourish the connection between play and learning and children’s holistic development and wellbeing.
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Align with the Finnish early childhood and primary school curricula with a specific focus on multiliteracy, science, technology, mathematics, arts and engineering, as well as creativity
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Use materials and tools that are aesthetically appealing and involve seamless integration of technology.
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Enhance the learning experience and encourage children to use their imagination to create artefacts and solutions that build on but also go beyond their earlier knowledge and experiences.
Researchers

I'm a Professor in the Department of Language and Literacy Education, Faculty of Education, The University of British Columbia. I also hold a professorship at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki. I received my PhD in education from the University of Exeter, UK. My research is grounded in relational and cultural-historical inquiries into communication, learning and education. My research has generated new knowledge on how digitalization is transforming young people’s communication and learning in formal education and informal settings.
I have engaged in interdisciplinary research to co-develop playful, imaginative and participatory pedagogies and curricula for early childhood, K-12, and teacher education that affirm human, linguistic, and epistemological diversity and equity. I have researched and developed pedagogies for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) learning, multiliteracies, health literacies and for children’s ecological literacies. I have also developed methods for visual, participatory, and multimodal research, and researching with children and teachers, increasing knowledge of democratic and ethical forms of inquiry. I'm the Co-Editor of Elsevier’s journal Learning, Culture and Interaction.
Kristiina Kumpulainen

I’m a researcher and university lecturer at the University of Helsinki. My research interests lie in the realm of young children's imagination, playful STEAM and science education, as well as scientific literacy and multiliteracy. In practice, this means that I study through qualitative methods 3 – 8-year-old children’s play and imagination while they engage in STEAM, science and math activities either through free play or guided play sessions in kindergarten or school and home.
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As a concrete impact of my research, I have developed a playful inquiry learning model specifically for young children. This model blends the elements of play, storytelling, imagination, and inquiry-based learning. The model has been successfully implemented in early education systems across 30 countries by Kide Science which I co-founded in 2017.
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My passion is to create young children multiple opportunities to get excited about STEAM and therefore, in addition to my academic work, I have authored fictional science books catered to children and pedagogical guides intended to assist teachers in their instructional practices. Moreover, I have created five television shows centered around science and mathematics, targeted specifically at young audiences.
Jenni Vartiainen

I am a PhD researcher in the School, Education, Society, and Culture Doctoral Programme at the University of Helsinki. In my research, I explore speculative fabulating as a pedagogical method through a two year long ethnographic study in a Finnish primary school, to address parallel timespaces in children’s storying with socio-ecological worlds.
My study adopts digital storytelling, Finnic Baltic myths and multispecies storytelling, to support children to express and share their affectively entangled and meaningful experiences with more-than-human worlds. Moreover, I hold a Master of Arts in General and Adult Education. My current research project is ECHOing- Enriching Children’s Ecological Imagination, funded by Academy of Finland and Kone Foundation.
Jenny Byman
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I am a PhD researcher in the School, Education, Society, and Culture Doctoral Programme at the University of Helsinki. My doctoral thesis focuses on the aesthetic encounters of children and the more-than-human world. My research interests include multiliteracies, digital literacy, multimodal and multi-sensuous pedagogies, environmental education, affective and aesthetic encounters in education and arts-based methods.
I hold a Master of Arts in General and Adult Education and also have training as a visual artist. My academic work is grounded in theories ranging from environmental aesthetics, posthuman perspectives and ecofeminist scholarship. I am inspired by a/r/tography, post qualitative research and arts-based methods and my research combines academic and artistic practices throughout the processes of inquiry. My current research project is ECHOing- Enriching Children’s Ecological Imagination, funded by the Academy of Finland and the Kone foundation.
Jenny Renlund

I am a doctoral researcher in the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Helsinki, Finland. My research focuses on pedagogical developments that support children’s climate change learning through imaginative, multimodal, and holistic approaches combining stories, art, and science.
I also study teachers’ collaborative creativity when co-designing educational activities for environmental education. I hold a Master’s degree in Creative Sustainability from the Department of Design at Aalto University. In the past, I worked as a toy designer, promoting playful learning in primary schools in Hong Kong. Currently, I work with the research project: “ECHOing: Enriching Children’s Ecological Imagination” funded by the Academy of Finland and the Kone foundation.
Chin-Chin Wong

I am a researcher and university lecturer at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki. My research interests include affect, literacy, and play in early childhood education, post-approaches in educational research and figurations of children and childhood.
I teach in the bachelor and master programmes at the Faculty of Educational Sciences. In my doctoral thesis, I examined young children's joy and literacy practices in early childhood education, from sociocultural and posthumanist theoretical perspectives.
Alexandra Nordström

I am a Professor of Education at the Faculty of Education and Psychology, University of Oulu, Finland. I am also an Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Education, University of Helsinki, Finland and Honorary Professor in the College of Social Sciences and International Studies, University of Exeter, UK. I lead the Continuous learning research group at the Learning and learning processes research unit.
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My current research focuses especially on continuous and collective learning, distributed creativity, collaboration, learning processes, organizational practices, management, and change and development via interprofessional working and formative interventions. My expertise is in sociocultural- and practice-based theories, qualitative research methods and participatory intervention techniques, drawing especially from sociocultural approaches, cultural historical activity theory and the Change Laboratory method.
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My current research contexts are primary schools, teacher education, prisons, libraries, health care and social care, makerspaces, and entrepreneurship hubs/fabrication laboratories and other hybrid organizations. My work is highly international, and I am a research group member in several national and international projects and consortiums, such as Erasmus+ and Horizon Europe projects.
Anu Kajamaa

I am Sara Sintonen, a teacher educator and education scientist from Finland who is passionate in education, the arts, and cultures – especially from the more-than-human point of view. I am keen on inviting researchers, teachers and educators to re-think and re-imagine education, cultures, environments, and futures. I’ve authored or edited numerous books, articles, book chapters, and created popular open pedagogical materials. I have been employed at the University of Turku's Faculty of Education, Department of Teacher Education in Rauma campus, as a Professor of Early Childhood Education, from 2023. I have worked at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki, throughout the most of my academic career.
Sara Sintonen

I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki. Additionally, I teach at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki ,and at the School of Educational Sciences and Psychology, University of Eastern Finland.
My research interests encompass the various ways in which creativity and imagination can open avenues for children's participation and learning in formal educational contexts. Applying sociocultural theoretical perspectives, my research delves into the study of interaction and learning within basic education. My work has contributed to the understanding of collective and creative learning processes, exploring areas such as distributed leadership, innovation practices, and relational expertise within school makerspaces.
Jasmiina Leskinen

I am a master’s student in the Special Education Programme at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki, Finland. I work as a research assistant, and I’ve done ethnographic field work and analyzed collected material as part of the ECHOing: Enriching Children’s Ecological Imagination research project. As part of the Imaginatory group, I designed this website and I’m currently in charge of managing it. I have experience working in elementary schools as a special needs assistant and a substitute teacher, in both general and special education classes. I also work as a support person for a child with special needs.
Vilma Lehtoranta