The Visionary Pursuit of the Learning Sciences: Projecting the Future while Remaining Grounded in the Past & Present

1 ZuikerJordan_MLFTCEduCon2014 - September 22, 2014

Learning to Design Collaborative
Engineering Projects
Michelle Jordan

Design Literacy…
— is the foundation of a new instinct for navigating
the complexities and pace of our dynamic,
information-rich, and systems-oriented world
— is an essential literacy for the re-calibration of our
educational system if we want to prepare our
students to thrive and have agency in their future
— empowers the creative imagination
— embraces questions as much as answers
— is comfortable with ambiguity

How can we foster
dispositions for design?
— Designers must cope with undecidable problems,
act without imposing inappropriate order, refrain
from looking for a single correct outcome, and
welcome opportunity over certainty
(Glanville, 2003)
— Design practices are highly social, requiring
collaboration and communication with diverse
people for multiple purposes (NRC, 2011)

Designing
combine
transform
define
generate

BRAINSTORMING
“Let’s each draw our own
idea”

— How do learners manage uncertainty during
collaborative design projects?
— How does peer support influence uncertainty?
— Are there times when intentionally increasing
uncertainty is preferable to reducing it?

Life consists of “the stable and precarious, the fixed and
unpredictably novel, the assured and the uncertain”
~John Dewey
Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to
unfold his powers… creativity requires the courage
to let go of certainties. ~Erich Fromm

Limitations: Life is complicated
—

Ambiguity:
Life is value-laden

Unpredictability: Life is complex
http://www.mscs.dal.ca/~selinger/lagrange/doublependulum.html

In a rapidly changing world, how can we
cope with our limited ability to predict
the future, evaluate our options, and
interpret ambiguous situations?
Asuchallenges.com

How we manage uncertainty
Reduce
Ignore
Maintain
Increase
• task
• disposition
• culture

— Theme 1: Learners used tactics to reduce,
ignore, maintain and increase uncertainty
related to task and social issues
— Theme 2: Fewer strategies in closed
projects than in creative projects
— Theme 3: Varied dispositions for
managing uncertainty
— Theme 4: Uncertainty management
dependent on supportive peer response

Task Characteristics
• structuredness
-novelty
-activity & tools
Peer Response
• shared
• warranted, salient
• other uncertainty
• previous experience
Reduce, Ignore,
Maintain or
Increase
Uncertainty
• task issues
• social issues
OUTCOMES
• resolution, maintenance, increase,
or shift of uncertainty
-emerging task structure
-engineering knowledge
-social relationships
Individual
propensity
or habitus
Figure 5.1 Uncertainty Management in Collaborative Academic Tasks

How do participation
structures scaffold social
interaction for design
learning?

Design Studio Rituals for Critique
Formal review
(Robo-fair)
Customer
surveys
School
Classroom
Pin-ups
Wikis
Desk crits
Stop & talks

Shifts in Design Critique Pinups
Pinup 1 Pinup 3
Teacher authority
Audience talks to Teacher/
Presenters
Sketches as discursive tools
Report only on self-generated
design ideas
Help students deal with
negative feedback
Report design ideas
Talk focused on structures
and functions
Student authority
Audience talks to
Presenters and each other
Structures & websites
Remix other’s creations
(Kafai, Fields, & Burke, 2010)
Help students consider
needs of the customer
Co-construct design ideas
Talk about structures,
behaviors/mechanisms, and
functions interwoven

STRUCTURES
That’d be cool if they used all 3 motors and have like
three separate little boxes on it.
BEHAVIORS
How are you going to make the
NXT read the air tire pressure?

Novices tend to focus on perceptually available system
components, whereas experts cohesively integrate
structural, behavioral, and functional elements (Hmelo-
Silve—r & Pfeffer, 2004)
Structures
Behaviors
Func1ons
Teacher
48
37
39
Students
30
20
5

Changes in Peer Interaction
Prior Subsequent
} Social topics interleaved
with task topics
} Expressed social-relational
uncertainty
} Overlapping speech &
topic initiations
} 12 new design ideas in
375 comments (3%)
} Focused on Structures
— No social topics; 2 topics
evaluating intersubjectivity
— Task topics interleaved
with other task topics
— Sustained substantive
discourse
— 22 new design ideas in 157
comments (14%)
— Focused on Function-resistance
to change

H ow do 5th Grade designers…
• use and create textual resources?
• interweave digital & physical worlds?
And for
what
purposes?

How
were
textual
resources
used?
Brainstorming
– Self-‐created
resources
the
ini1al
catalyst
in
all
groups
Defining
a
product
Genera1ng
solu1ons
Valued
Sketching
make
design
decisions
coordinate
inven1on
persuade
(reify)
expand
on
ini1al
ideas
avoid
being
misunderstood

Thank you
michelle.e.jordan@asu.edu

The Visionary Pursuit of the Learning Sciences: Projecting the Future while Remaining Grounded in the Past & Present

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