Planning to iterate: Supporting iterative practices for real-world ill-structured problem-solving

Solving real-world highly ill-structured problems involves iteration: gathering information, building, testing, and revising products, experiments, and theories. However, we do not know how to create learning environments to teach iteration for highly ill-structured problems. How might we help student teams effectively iterate for highly ill-structured design problems? In this design-based research study we built on learning sciences research to implement Planning to Iterate—a weekly planning session in which teams create problem and planning representations. The study took place in a 6-week extracurricular undergraduate design program with five undergraduate project teams working on highly ill-structured problems. To understand team iterative practices, we analyzed videos of teams’ weekly planning sessions, and teams’ artifacts. Students significantly increased iterative practices, but infrequently integrated the practices together, suggesting re-design with additional coaching.

[1]  Cynthia J. Atman,et al.  Educating effective engineering designers: the role of reflective practice , 2003 .

[2]  David H. Jonassen,et al.  All Problems are not Equal: Implications for Problem-Based Learning , 2008 .

[3]  J. Kolodner,et al.  Toward implementing distributed scaffolding: Helping students learn science from design , 2005 .

[4]  Herbert A. Simon,et al.  The Structure of Ill Structured Problems , 1973, Artif. Intell..

[5]  Ann L. Brown,et al.  Guided discovery in a community of learners. , 1994 .

[6]  Raymonde Guindon.  Designing the design process: exploiting opportunistic thoughts , 1990 .

[7]  C. Hmelo‐Silver.  Problem-Based Learning: What and How Do Students Learn? , 2004 .

[8]  Yan Jin,et al.  Study of mental iteration in different design situations , 2006 .

[9]  Robin Adams,et al.  The Informed Design Teaching and Learning Matrix , 2012 .

[10]  Donald A. Sch.  The reflective practitioner: how professionals think in action , 1983 .

[11]  Design-Based Research: An Emerging Paradigm for Educational Inquiry , 2003 .

[12]  Larry Leifer,et al.  Difficulties Student Engineers Face Designing the Future , 2010 .

[13]  Janet L. Kolodner,et al.  Problem-Based Learning Meets Case-Based Reasoning in the Middle-School Science Classroom: Putting Learning by Design(tm) Into Practice , 2003 .

[14]  Cynthia J. Atman,et al.  Engineering Design Processes: A Comparison of Students and Expert Practitioners , 2007 .

[15]  Matthew W. Easterday,et al.  The logic of design research , 2018 .

[16]  Ricki Goldman,et al.  Conducting Video Research in the Learning Sciences: Guidance on Selection, Analysis, Technology, and Ethics , 2010 .

[17]  Eugene Bardach,et al.  A Practical Guide for Policy Analysis: The Eightfold Path to More Effective Problem Solving , 2019 .

[18]  Deborah A. Fields,et al.  Electronic Textiles as Disruptive Designs: Supporting and Challenging Maker Activities in Schools , 2014 .

[19]  Durward K. Sobek,et al.  Linking design process to customer satisfaction through virtual design of experiments , 2006 .

[20]  Brian J. Reiser,et al.  Scaffolding Complex Learning: The Mechanisms of Structuring and Problematizing Student Work , 2004, The Journal of the Learning Sciences.