ALT-Spring 31 March 2005 Using knowledge structures to enhance reflective practice Lou McGill,...

ALT-Spring 31 March 2005

Using knowledge structures toenhance reflective practice

Lou McGill, University of StrathclydeAllison Littlejohn, University of Dundee


Project team

JISC/NSF Project 2003-2008

Stanford University - Centre for Design Research

University of Strathclyde Department of Design, Manufacture and Engineering

Management Centre for Academic Practice Centre for Digital Library Research Learning Services


Project vision

To enhance student learning opportunities by enabling them to participate in global team based design engineering projects that give them work experience within multi-cultural contexts.

Make this possible through a range of information and communication technologies.


What is design engineering?

What characterizes project based design learning?hands on learn by doingextreme constructivism

What are the defining attributes?open-ended scenarios demanding creativityno pre-defined information requirementsno right answer

How does one approach these scenarios?find, create, and reuse informationusing the widest possible range of resources not just engineering


What is informal design knowledge?

Informal knowledge is found in casual design documents (notes, sketches, photos, email, blogs, draft documents)

Informal knowledge is created during design activity and reflection.

Authorship is often ambiguous.

Difficult to capture, share and re-use

How do we support students to do this?

Information

Knowledge

DesignProcess

FORMALINFORMAL


LauLima Learning Environment (LLE) a workspace environment: point of need

LauLima Digital Library (LDL) longer term; reuse by staff and students

INFORMAL & DYNAMIC FORMAL & MORE PERMANENT

ICT infrastructure

Storing and sharing contentGroup Collaboration/ Team

CommunicationCross team activities

Workflow Management (Process)Manipulation of InformationCapturing tacit dimension

Knowledge Structuring

Retrieval of resourcesReuse of student-generated resources,

design concepts and learning processes

QualityMetadata and standards

Granularity


Some Learning & Teaching issues


Classroom exampleIce crusher project

3rd year project to develop a proof-of-concept model of a domestic ice crushing machine

Collaborative team-based project Combination of face-to-face and online activities Reflective learning/Problem-based learning To understand the importance of reflective practice,

information and knowledge construction to the design process

Learning literacies Tool literacy – shared workspaces, wiki environment Digital literacy – creating content Information literacy – sourcing, organising content Critical literacy – evaluating content Communication and Team literacies – collaborative design


Ice crusher project

Format Week 1 – Introduction Week 2 - Searching, storing & organizing information Week 3 - Exploring & selecting concepts Weeks 4 & 5 - Developing & testing concept Week 6 – Demonstration of final concept and

presentation of content on LauLima

Assessment a series of reflective project logs final presentations using team wiki pages demonstration of proof-of-concept models


Concept mapping

Teams were asked to develop a concept map and then asked to reflect on how far it helped them to: Understand connections and relationships between

concepts – mapping the design problem Break down the problem into manageable chunks and

assign team roles Identifying search terms - broader, narrower, related,

synonyms, acronyms, alternative spellings, etc. Organise their information within file folders Uploading files – applying indexing terms

In reflective logs students also identified this activity as an effective ice breaker for the teams


Student reflection

Team reflection on how the concept mapping activity supported their

understanding of the design problem, the development of a search strategy, allocation of roles and organising their content (see printed sheet)

on concept generation and evaluation on concept model and the design process

Consensus of experience and understanding – engage with questions at a team level

Provided tutors with an ongoing record of team understanding and approaches (in conjunction with other content)


Issues

Impact on Learning – Which learning? Impact of concept mapping exercise and reflection on

final design Impact on their learning – information literacy,

organisation, team working, communication

Some other issues Re-use – granularity issue, de-personalisation, rights

ownership Team reflection vs. individual reflection Role of tutors – training they need to be facilitators in an

electronic environment Linking to formal e-portfolios


Activity/Discussion

In pairs

Try to identify a learning activity or learning project which may benefit from this type of approach (ie concept mapping/reflective logs).

What impact is this likely to have on the outcome of individual learning objectives? (ie will it help students produce a better output, improve their learning literacies or both?)

Who would support this learning – do other people need to get involved (librarians, IT staff, educational developers, learning technologists)?

ALT-Spring 31 March 2005 Using knowledge structures to enhance reflective practice Lou McGill,...

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