A learning theory perspective on running open ended group projects

A Learning Theory Perspective on Running Open Ended Group Projects (OEGPs) Amie Hauer and Mats Daniels Department of Information technology Uppsala University PO Box 337, 751 05 Uppsala, Sweden [email protected] and [email protected]

Abstract1 One of the most important questions for an educator is how best to help students learn, and another is of course what they should learn. We will address both these questions from a learning theory perspective in the context of Open Ended Group Projects (OEGPs). We argue that OEGPs provide a useful tool for instructors to reach towards higher order thinking skills in students. The intent of this paper is to inspire readers to also consider the general learning objectives of an engineering education programme and build on learning theories in setting up a learning environment using an OEGP structure. We argue that OEGPs are a suitable structure to develop knowledge and problem solving skills to deal with real-world problems in the future professional lives of engineering students. Keywords: Open ended problems, Ill-structured problem solving, Professional skills, Real-world problems, Theories of learning, Situated cognition.

1

Introduction

As education providers, one of our goals is to strive for higher-order critical thinking skills in our students. Specifications of education study programmes typically contain general statements about such goals, e.g. the ACM/IEEE Computing Curricula 2001 (ACM and IEEE 2001) is an example of a useful guideline concerning computing education. In this paper we use a description of the overarching goals of an IT engineering education at Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand which are expressed in terms of graduate capabilities because it provides a distinct set of general capabilities that many providers of engineering education world wide may subscribe to. These goals also align well with the use of Open Ended Group Projects in engineering education.

Copyright © 2008, Australian Computer Society, Inc. This paper appeared at the Tenth Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE2008), Wollongong, Australia, January 2008. Conferences in Research and Practice in Information Technology, Vol. 78. Simon and Margaret Hamilton, Eds. Reproduction for academic, not-for-profit purposes permitted provided this text is included.

We argue that basing a learning environment on Open Ended Group Projects (OEGPs) (Faulkner, Daniels, and Newman 2006) has the potential to prepare the students to meet the overarching goals stated at Auckland University of Technology, as presented by Tony Clear in the panel discussion “Ill-Structured Problem Solving” at ACE 2007 in Ballarat, Australia. An OEGP learning environment can be implemented based on pedagogical ideas such as Situated Cognition (Brown, Collins, and Daguid 1989), Practice fields (Barab and Duffy 2000), and Communities of Practice (Barab and Duffy 2000, Wenger 1998), where the situatedness of the learner, the learning environment, and the problem in context are seen as instrumental to successful learning. In addition, learning in this environment is seen as a social process. Open ended problems, often referred to as ill-structured problems, are the norm in the real world and industry. The OEGP concept thus lends itself well to collaborations with external partners, from which the motivation and context for an open ended problem can be derived. We do not claim that the whole programme should be based on using open ended or ill-structured problem solving. There are many issues to be addressed. For example, adequate time is a factor that needs to be addressed in setting up an OEGP environment, since learners need to have enough time both to get an understanding of the problem to solve and to work on the problem resolution, as well as to reflect on the problem and the chosen solution. Also, time for reflection and discourse is an important part of the environment for situated learning in courses using OEGP. Further, we realize that resolving open ended problems is somewhat dependent on pre-existing knowledge and skill. Thus we argue that OEGP environments are more appropriate towards the end of an education study programme. Finally, we find that OEGPs are not an educational silver bullet. However, we will describe how a well run OEGP can enable students to reach the overarching goals of engineering education. To this aim, we will provide a brief overview of engineering education goals, problem solving (especially open ended problems), OEGPs and how they relate to the education goals, and a specific example of an OEGP in action in a real course at Uppsala University. We will also address some limitations or barriers to the OEGP process, e.g. the view that too much free rein (so called

minimalist instruction) can be harmful to learning (Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark 2006). This argument basically states that a deep and thorough understanding of something is essential for being able to use the knowledge and that the minimal guidance approach is ineffective for transferring knowledge into long-term memory. In a sense we agree with the authors, and rather use this as inspiration for setting up a learning environment that takes into account different findings about human learning where appropriate scaffolding is embedded or previously acquired. We argue that minimal guidance may be appropriate towards the end of a learner’s degree, if appropriate scaffolding is acquired from prior learning experiences. The IT in Society course (Daniels and Petre 1999, Daniels, Barker, Cajander, Laxer, and Moore 2005) is used as an example of a real OEGP setting. The balance between scaffolding and ‘openness’ in this course will be discussed based on situated cognition with an eye to the goals of engineering education as stated in the Auckland University of Technology document. The discussion is based both on the theories presented and on the actual experience of running the course. Finally, in the later stages of the paper, we further propose and motivate the use of Activity Theory (Engeström 1993) and Holistic Theory (Yang 2003) as examples of ways to capture a holistic view of a learning situation embedded into an OEGP. The focus for the latter part will be on the potential to analyze how well a given learning situation offers multiple opportunities for learning and as a result inspires improvements in the way we set up learning experiences. This work is based on initial ideas presented as “Work in Progress” at IEEE Frontiers in Education in Milwaukee 2007 (Daniels and Hauer 2007).

2

Learning goals of engineering education

Study plans for engineering education programmes typically state overarching goals, which include both general and specific skills. For example, the ACM/IEEE Computing Curricula 2001 (ACM and IEEE 2001) contain education programme goals. Similar specifications can also be found at Uppsala University, Sweden. The educational goals described as capabilities in IT engineering graduates used at Auckland University of Technology in Auckland, New Zealand, are particularly suitable as a platform for the purposes of this paper. The stated engineering education learning goals provide a concrete list that we can refer to and provide an example of general skills that we believe engineering education providers world wide would subscribe to. The graduate capabilities of Engineering Students from Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand are: • the ability to critically evaluate information; • understanding of and commitment to continuing learning; • independent, critical and reflective judgment; • effective oral and written communication skills; • project management skills; • skills in information literacy and research;

• the ability to work effectively as a member of a team; • an understanding of ethical issues; • the ability to work well with people from other cultures and backgrounds and to be sensitive to different approaches and beliefs; • understanding of the role of information technology and its impact on the environment; • the ability to develop and apply appropriate information technologies and tools to framing and solving problems and evaluating opportunities in a range of business, industry and professional domains; • sound technical understanding of computing systems and hardware infrastructure. These graduate capabilities for engineering students at Auckland University of Technology will be used as a framework to evaluate whether our suggestions for, and examples of, OEGP learning environments for engineering students can assist such learning goals. The appropriateness of these capabilities and their ability to capture education goals is beyond the scope of this particular paper, but the framework is given here to provide a view of how educational settings using open ended problems can address high-level learning goals such as those seen at the Auckland University of Technology and Uppsala University.

3

Open ended problems: the way to reach the goals?

Before discussing OEGP settings, it is useful to provide a brief overview of problem solving as a reference point for OEGPs in the learning environment. First, problem solving is considered a fundamental learning activity (Davidson and Sternberg 2003, Jonassen 1997) and we consider this ability as central in achieving the goals of engineering education. Second, problem solving is situated and different for each discipline, and this often blurs the idea of what problem solving means for a given situation. For the purpose of this paper we see problem solving as the search for answers to difficult or perplexing questions or situations. Next, problems can be generally classified as either well-structured or illstructured, the latter of which is often called open ended. Open ended or ill-structured problems are where goals or bounds are unspecified, unclear or insufficient in various ways; these problems are considered to be more complex, real-world or indeterminate in their end goals in comparison to the well-structured problems (Davidson and Sternberg 2003, Reitman 1965, Simon 1977, Simon 1979, Sweller 1988, Xun and Land 2004). Finally, it is well-structured problems that are prevalent in today’s education environment, even as ill-structured problems are the ones students more frequently encounter in everyday and professional practice (Xun and Land 2004, Jonassen 2003). One of the main arguments in this paper is that if students will encounter ill-structured problems in their professional practice, it is important to prepare them for solving ill-structured problems by providing learning experiences that use these kinds of problems in the educational setting. However, tackling ill-structured problems is not always a straightforward task. For one, solving ill-structured

problems requires different skills and differing magnitudes of skills than solving well-structured problems (Reitman 1965, Simon 1979, Sweller 1988, Xun and Land 2004, Kester, Kirschner, and van Merriënboer 2005). This means that theorists often diverge as to the characteristics of ill-structured problems, even as most agree that knowledge of the nature of illstructured problems is important both for learning goals and in teaching students how to solve ill-structured problems (Jonassen 1997, Reitman 1965, Sweller 1988, Chen and Ge 2006, Hong, McGee, and Howard 2000). We argue, as the second main argument, that Open Ended Group Projects provide a natural setting for addressing the educational goal of higher order thinking and problem solving skills by providing students an environment where ill-structured, open ended problem solving is given focus. However, we also acknowledge that providing a setting is not enough to achieve learning. We will highlight ideas from learning theories that are important to meld with the OEGP environment, in order to better reach the learning goals previously described. Yet before we address the complexity concerns with OEGPs, we will first frame how the OEGP process buttresses the engineering

education goals. Table 1 lists the Auckland engineering education goals, matching each with an indication of how OEGPs can help to meet these goals. The table shows a good match between the goals of engineering education and the use of open ended group projects as a method for setting up a learning environment. This stated, however, we note that the usefulness of OEGPs does not imply that whole education programmes should be based solely upon illstructured problems. We believe that OEGPs serve learners better in the latter stages of their education, though it could be argued that with more scaffolding OEGPs could be used earlier.

4

Concerns with open ended problems: how to address complexity issues

An important consideration with open ended (illstructured) problems is knowledge of human cognition and how we solve problems. This is especially crucial with open ended problems because it appears that novices can choose to focus either on solving the problem (goal attainment) or on learning how to solve the problem (schema acquisition) (Davidson and Sternberg 2003). Keeping in mind that novices must spend more

Table 1: Engineering Education Goals and OEGPs Engineering Education Goals Open Ended Group Projects (OEGPs) and IT in Society Course the ability to critically evaluate information; This is central to OEGPs in order to choose from several possibilities to solve the problem. understanding of and commitment to Students take the lead in finding their own way to search for and continuing learning; evaluate new information. independent, critical and reflective Reasoning and argumentation for various solutions provides judgment; experience for students. Reflective reasoning is important to the OEGP process. effective oral and written communication In OEGPs communication between peers, users and other stakeholders skills; are typically essential to the task. project management skills; To reach a solution utilizing various teams and project management skills is clearly an intimate part of an OEGP skills in information literacy and research; The skills in information literacy and research are, or at least should be, essential in an OEGP. the ability to work effectively as a member The ability to work effectively as a member of a team is central to an of a team; OEGP. an understanding of ethical issues; To have an understanding of ethical issues could naturally be brought up in most OEGPs. the ability to work well with people from The ability to work well with people from other cultures and other cultures and backgrounds and to be backgrounds and to be sensitive to different approaches and beliefs is sensitive to different approaches and beliefs; integral in OEGPs when international student collaboration is part of the course. understanding of the role of information The understanding of the role of information technology and its impact technology and its impact on the on the environment could be addressed given the choice of problem to environment; solve. the ability to develop and apply appropriate The ability to develop and apply appropriate information technologies information technologies and tools to and tools to framing and solving problems and evaluating opportunities framing and solving problems and in a range of business, industry and professional domains is probably evaluating opportunities in a range of what most OEGP is essentially about. business, industry and professional domains; sound technical understanding of computing The sound technical understanding of computing systems and hardware systems and hardware infrastructure. infrastructure is again something that is dependent on the type of problems set in the OEGP.

time in information search, because their domain knowledge is less, the competition between these goals sometimes induces learners to solve the problem at the expense of acquiring schemas that they may then apply to future problems (Sweller 1988). So most discussions of problem solving are likely to include topics of bounded rationality, external support tools, and scaffolding. Because open ended problems are naturally more difficult, this suggests that appropriate scaffolding experiences must occur before a learner is able to successfully tackle a more advanced open ended problem type. In this sense, we argue for balanced scaffolding rather than a completely minimalist environment where no guidance occurs

conclusion that they need some information, and the instructor or a member of the community (whether business personnel, previous student experts, or faculty from other departments providing lectures on a specific topic students find they need more information with) should help the students to obtain information to assist them in their reasoning and decisions, e.g. facts about something or procedures used in some situation. Less ideally, but at times probably needed, is for the instructor to realize when the balance has toppled and to provide support that keeps the students from an irresolvable impasse (such as an ethical situation with an uneasy solution) or ‘analysis paralysis’ (spending too much time in information search).

With this in mind, OEGPs have some natural difficulty areas. They can increase cognitive load (especially for less experienced learners), due to beginners’ difficulties with problem representation/formulation, and resolving the problem can take more time unless schema acquisition is already in place. For further reading on some of these issues we refer to work on problem representation focusing on problem recognition (deep vs. surface) and problem transfer (Davidson and Sternberg 2003) and work on cognitive load and the split attention effect (Kester, Kirschner, and van Merriënboer 2005). We conclude from these readings that designers and implementers of OEGP settings should be aware of the complexity issue and be prepared to design learning experiences that are sensitive to keeping learners challenged without overwhelming them to the point of exhaustion. In this sense, appropriate scaffolding and earlier well-structured problems can assist the students to deal with OEGP and its inherent complexity, which they must learn to do as they gain experience in resolving illstructured problems and reach towards the higher order engineering education goals.

In an OEGP it is important to be aware of the state of the students, in order to know when support is called for and what level of support is needed. We suggest that an understanding of Vygostsky’s zone of proximal development (Vygotsky 1978) is essential in this regard. An interesting way to provide scaffolding in an OEGP is to include students with different specializations, and then to leave much of the scaffolding to the students themselves. This is where one student may be an expert and find something trivial, while another student may struggle. Students are an important source of knowledge for each other, and students’ teaching of one another is a vital exchange in the knowledge dialogue.

5

Solution: using scaffolding to balance the learning environment

The challenge of complexity can be resolved by realizing that complexity is not a binary situation. Complexity is a duality that is both fluid and manageable. In an OEGP, the instructor serves more as a facilitator or consultant. Providing well-balanced scaffolding supports the learners in an OEGP setting, and sets students up to prepare dealing with the open ended problems. The general idea is that currently well-structured problems, at some point, probably started out as ill-structured problems, and this is part of the OEGP process: provide an ill-structured problem, with balanced scaffolding so students learn how to resolve such problems. This said, it is vital to understand the underlying pedagogical reasons for using an OEGP, or any other method for that matter, when looking into what balanced scaffolding really means. An OEGP might be based on, for instance, communities of practice ideas, in which case the scaffolding should focus on issues that engage students in participating in the community. In this mode, there are newcomers and oldtimers. There are also differing roles and experience levels. The scaffolding should ideally be a result of the students reaching the

Some useful reading to assist in scaffolding is in work on bounded rationality. This is especially helpful when thinking of students’ use of external structures to aid them in the problem solving process (computer simulations, archiving team documents) and how schema acquisition is managed by students during the learning process (Xun and Land 2004, Simon 1996). As information search-space continues to expand in response to the ever-increasing amount of available information, there is a corresponding need to better understand how to manage large search spaces, how to utilize external structures for learning management, and how schema acquisition is impacted by problem formulation and information search (Davidson and Sternberg 2003). High cognitive load (Sweller 1988, Kester, Kirschner, and van Merriënboer 2005) is the next issue of concern in student-centered learning environments such as OEGPs, and there might be a need to use externalized support or scaffolding to help cognitive and metacognitive processes (Xun and Land 2004, Simon 1996). Cognitive load is highly dependent on the skill level of the problem solver, i.e. whether novice or expert (Sweller 1988, Xun and Land 2004, Chen and Ge 2006). The novice is in much higher need of scaffolding in order not to run into a cognitive overload where little or nothing is transferred to long-term memory (Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark 2006). For example, using experts as models for novice learners can be an important way for novices to scaffold their learning, considered within the realm of Vygotsky's ‘zone of proximal development’ (Chen and Ge 2006). We suggest having seminars from topic experts or previous students in a project course as a way to assist learners in the current year’s course to learn from the experiences of students or domain experts from previous years. Having

this sort of ‘catch and toss’ gives OEGP learners experiences with ‘experts’ who often solve problems with a forward-working approach, while novices use a backward-working approach (Jonassen 1997, Sweller 1988). Because many students are unaccustomed to illstructured problems, having ‘experts’ stop by in such courses (whether in the form of clients or industry personnel or prior students) assists students in hearing how others think. Open ended problems are more difficult to deal with, which is one more reason that we suggest they be used towards the conclusion of a learner’s programme. For advanced OEGP courses, we suggest that course prerequisites be firmly in place for those courses that provide prior knowledge important to the actual problem solving process.

6

OEGPs in action: the IT in society course

The Information Technology (IT) in Society course has been run at Uppsala University since 1998, mainly for 4th year students in the IT engineering education programme. It is a semester long halftime project course that has a resemblance to traditional capstone courses, but without the intention of building a product. An important goal of this course is to prepare students for their role as IT professionals in terms of personal development. Some of the characteristics of this, as stated in the course description, are an ability to communicate with peers, other experts, and users, and an understanding of group dynamics in projects including a repertoire of how to deal with situations that might arise. A strong component of this course is a real-world, ill-structured problem where student teams work together to find a resolution for the current situation. Collaboration with real users has been a part of this course from its inception and for the last five years this collaboration has been with a local hospital. A hospital problem is carefully selected as a humanitarian or service learning problem. Students readily understand how assisting a hospital benefits society. In addition, the need for IT in a hospital setting is obvious and pressing, but the value of introducing an IT solution in a particular context is usually far from clear, and this is why it provides firm ground for an OEGP. Likewise, students who are familiar with information technology in their education have found it useful to work with a hospital situation because it gives them experts to talk to who are not IT specialists and who have their own set of procedures and their own jargon which are often different from students’ own experiences in their programme. These aspects have allowed students to prepare for real life situations where IT is a tool towards an end-goal, but integrates knowledge, procedures and requirements from another domain. Hence, the real-world, open ended component that students need experiences with for their later professional work. Experience with working in a project including real users is part of the aim of this course. The students are required to work in subproject teams of between five and seven in order to meet the ‘working in a project’ part. Experience from earlier years has shown that a team of this size is big enough to require proper project management in order to

function, and yet not so big as to become unwieldy for students to manage. There have been valuable opportunities for students to encounter such problems as users really ‘being real’, e.g. a business contact ‘disappearing’ for different reasons and how the team must deal with finding a new contact. In addition, the IT in Society course is purposefully a project that is large enough to require several subprojects and thus create several contact surfaces and a possibility to contact real users through several channels. The goals for engineering education, as listed above, are directly addressed through the IT in Society course. We believe, supported by the anecdotal evidence of earlier end-of-course reflections, that the real setting does work as a motivating factor. For example, the need for project management is obvious, thus avoiding the problem of applying such a method to a task that doesn’t really require it, which might lead to lack of student motivation to learn and/or use the method. One of the fundamental ideas behind the IT in Society course is that the students should be challenged and inspired to draw on their abilities in IT to make a difference in society, to make this very much their own agenda. Motivation is however not enough and the issue of cognitive load should be addressed, and this is where scaffolding comes in. The provision of scaffolding is in an OEGP is a delicate endeavor in that we want the students to have the initiative to take charge of their own learning and the direction of the project, but at the same time we want to help them (when needed) to move forward. In order to find a balance we need to understand ‘where’ each student is, and reflection on practice might be an approach to this. Reflection on individual lectures has been used in traditional courses, such as Computer networks and Distributed information systems, with good results (Pears and Larzon 2006). We currently use reflection in the IT in Society course by asking students to reflect on a selected issue at the end of each week, e.g. a lecture, a particular problem issue, a particular client issue. The students are asked to write down their thoughts on the selected issue and thus provide us with an understanding of what is going on in the class. With this information we can tailor scaffolding to fit the actual individual need, while at the same time assuming that the deeper learning effect shown in the earlier study will also occur in this context.

7

OEGPs: getting a holistic view

Holistic Theory (Yang 2003) and Activity Theory (Engeström 1993) offer structured approaches to understanding how different factors influence a learning situation. This can be used either to better understand what is involved in the learning situation and thus aid in finding areas to improve, or to support in building a learning situation taking into account different aspects that influence the learning. We will here give a very brief introduction to and comparison of the two theories in order to inspire readers to learn more and to use this knowledge in enhancing the learning environment for students.

Yang’s (2003) model of holistic learning describes knowledge as arising from three main domains. The first domain is the cognitive domain, which systematizes knowledge (external world, knowledge exists ‘outside’). The second domain is perceptual, which interprets information (interactions with the world). The third domain is the affective domain, which deals with human values (e.g. emancipatory knowledge, call-to-action, ethics). Yang (2003, 2004) stresses the importance of all three components as a way to view learning in today’s world. It is worth pointing out that these theories also address the issue of the individual and the social group/organization that the individual is a part of. For an OEGP situation, the cognitive domain focuses on many of the things we expect engineering students to be competent at technically, e.g. systems, computing, formulas, etc. The perceptual domain in an OEGP is the interactional component, in which team members must work together for a shared understanding, where negotiating and communicating with end users is important and where documentation and archiving of knowledge and project management is crucial. However, the affective domain offers the opportunity to get at a level of knowledge and understanding that other learning theories often neglect. It is in the affective domain where ethics exists, and ethics in education is becoming a strong component of many educational programmes. Activity Theory is based around an activity triangle that represents the context of the activity. All the pieces of the triangle are connected, indicating that changes in one dimension affect changes in the other dimensions (Bryant, Forte, and Bruckman 2005). All parts of an activity triangle are connected to each other. Activity Theory focuses on the current activity at hand, whereas Yang’s model also addresses the long term visualization of human development as a whole. While Activity Theory acknowledges that knowledge evolves and changes over time, its focus tends to be on the here and now. Activity Theory appears to offer useful ways to analyze complex, socially situated problems or learning examples through the use of the Activity Triangle. It also offers flexibility of application and the understanding that knowledge is co-constructed (useful in a team environment). However, a drawback is that Activity Theory is difficult to describe and can be a little too flexible for some practitioners who prefer a clear, straight, context-free solution. Yet one specific example (Jonassen 2000) brings some encouragement in using Activity Theory to help educators create a student-centred learning environment, and the student-centred approach aligns well with OEGPs. Jonassen (2000) points out that Activity Theory provides a means to analyze the instructional design process in a context. Activity Theory can be helpful beyond the classroom as well, as it is often used to analyze workplace situations where there is a common goal but differing roles (Lloyd & Albion 2005). An OEGP often incorporates workplace situations and this seems useful for the OEGP approach. The fact that Activity Theory accepts that knowledge is evolving or moving appears to be a good fit for the workplace because, as described by Kessels and Poell (2004), the basic assumption in a knowledge economy is that the

character of work will change over time. This also aligns well with the OEGP approach of integrating real-world problems from current problem situations.

8

Conclusions

The Open Ended Group Project is a realistic studentcentred learning environment that aligns well with the more general educational goals of engineering education. Practical experiences with running courses using OEGP learning environments at Uppsala University provide anecdotal evidence that the OEGP environment reaches towards these engineering education goals. Even so, there are some challenges with the OEGP setting, which can often be addressed by giving attention to balanced scaffolding. Different versions of scaffolding have been tried in the IT in Society course over the years, and we believe that our added understanding of situated cognition and cognitive learning theories will be beneficial for future offerings of the course. Work on using reflection in the learning process is promising, and there are a number of projects dealing with the use of reflection during the learning process. We strongly advise all educators to learn more about educational theories as a way to consider the problem solving process in addition to the content of the course. To know the subject to a high standard is certainly an important part of instruction, but this is not enough. A complementary understanding of the student’s learning processes is vital in conveying the longer-range core of skills that students can draw upon to solve real-world, open ended problems in their future professional careers. We have also in this paper addressed the idea that the ‘pure’ subject, often approached in a well-structured manner, is just a part of the knowledge and skill a student should master. The use of theories that provide a holistic view on learning is an important aid in understanding how to build a learning environment suitable for a wide array of learning experiences, where one set of vital learning experiences is the use of open ended problems that incorporate a holistic problem solving process.

References Barab, S. A. and Duffy, T. M. (2000): From practice fields to communities of practice, in Theoretical Foundations of Learning Environments, eds. Jonassen, D, H and Land, S, M, Lawrence Erlbaum Ass. Inc, 2556 Brown, J. S., Collins, A., and Daguid, P. (1989): Situated cognition and the culture of learning, Educational Researcher, Vol 18, No 1., 32-42 Bryant, S. Forte A., and Bruckman, A. (2005): Becoming Wikipedian: Transformation of participation in a collaborative online encyclopedia, Proceedings of GROUP International Conference on Supporting Group Work, 1-10 Chen, C-H. and Ge, X. (2006).: The design of a webbased cognitive modeling system to support ill-

structured problem solving, British Journal of Educational Technology, Vol 37, No 2, 299-302

computer-simulated problem solving, British Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol 75, No 1, 2005, 71-85

Computing Curricula 2001, Computer Science, ACM and IEEE, 2001

Kirschner, P. A., Sweller, J., and Clark, R. E. (2006): Why minimal guidance during instruction does not work: An analysis of the failure of constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiental, and inquirybased teaching" Educational Psychologist, Vol 41, No 2, 75-86

Daniels, M., Barker, L., Cajander, Å., Laxer, C., and Moore, D. (2005): Managing cross-cultural differences in an open ended group project course. In IEEE Frontiers in Education conference, IEEE, T4D22-23 Daniels, M. and Hauer, A. (2007): Balancing Scaffolding and Complexity in Open Ended Group Projects (OEGPs). IEEE Frontiers in Education conference. F2G-1-2 Daniels, M. and Petre, M. (1999): IT in Society: a MultiDisciplinary Course. In IEEE Frontiers in education conference. 13a1:21 Davidson, J. E. and Sternberg, R. J. (2003): T h e psychology of problem solving, Cambridge University Press Engeström, Y. (1993): Developmental studies of work as a testbench of activity theory: The case of primary care medical practice. In S. Chaiklin and J. Lave (Eds.), Understanding practice: Perspectives on activity and context. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press Faulkner, X., Daniels, M., and Newman, I. (2006): The Open Ended Group Project: A way of including diversity in the IT curriculum, in Diversity in Information Technology Education: Issues and controversies, ed. Trajkovski, G., Information Science Publishing, 166-195 Hong, N. S., McGee, S., and Howard, B. C. (2000): The effect of multimedia learning environments on wellstructured and ill-structured problem-solving skills, American Educational Research Association, New Orleans Jonassen, D. H. (1997): Instructional design models for well-structured and ill-structured problem-solving learning outcomes, Educational technology Research and Development, Vol 45, No 1, 65-94 Jonassen, D. H. (2000): Revisiting Activity Theory as a Framework for Designing Student-Centered Learning Environments (chapter 4). In D. H. Jonassen, & S. M. Land (Eds.), Theoretical Foundations of Learning Environments. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers Jonassen, D. H. (2003). "Using cognitive tools to represent problems", Journal of Research on Technology in Education, Vol 35, No 3 Kessels, J. W. M. and Poell, R. F. (2004): Andragogy and Social Capital Theory: The Implications for Human Resource Development. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 6(2), 146-157 Kester, L, Kirschner, P, A, and van Merriënboer, J, J, G. (2005): The management of cognitive load during complex cognitive skill acquisition by means of

Lloyd, M. M. and Albion, P. (2005): Mistaking the Tool for the Outcome: Using Activity System Theory to understand the Complexity of Teacher Technophobia. In Crawford, Caroline and Willis, Dee Anna and Carlsen, Roger, Eds. Proceedings Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education International Conference (SITE) 2005, 1480-1487, Phoenix, Arizona Pears, A. and Larzon, L-Å. (2006): Encouraging deep learning using student reflections: A case study, Proceedings of the 6th Baltic Sea Conference on Computing Education Research, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden Reitman, W. R. (1965): Cognition and thought; an information-processing approach, Wiley Simon, H. A. (1977): Models of discovery: And other topics in the methods of science, D. Reidel Publishing Co Simon, H. A. (1979): Models of thought, Yale University Press Simon, H. A. (1996): The sciences of the artificial, 3rd ed., MIT Press Sweller, J. (1988): "Cognitive load during problem solving: Effects on learning", Cognitive Science: A Multidisciplinary Journal, Vol 12, No 2, 257-285 Wenger, E. (1998): Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity, Cambridge University Press Vygotsky, L. (1978): Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes, Cambridge University Press Xun, G. and Land, S. M. (2004): A conceptual framework for scaffolding ill-structured problem-solving processes using question prompts and peer interaction, Educational technology Research and Development, Vol 52, No 2, 5-22 Yang, B. (2003): Toward a Holistic Theory of Knowledge and Adult Learning. Human Resource Development Review, Vol 2, No 2, 106-129 Yang, B. (2004): Holistic Learning Theory and Implications for Human Resource Development. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 6(2), 241262