Drawing on the interdisciplinary field of the learning sciences, Steve Zuiker and Michelle Jordan share ideas from research projects that imagine future educational experiences and how the interdisciplinary field of the learning sciences seeks to build these imagined futures through collaborative projects that facilitate change in formal and informal education settings.
The presentation contributed to the "ASU Ed Con" conference and its exploration of "Excellence in Education: Building a Brighter Future." Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University hosted the conference on September 22 & 23, 2014 at the Phoenix Convention Center.
16. 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
17. 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)
23. — 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?
24. 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
28. 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
29. How we manage uncertainty
Reduce
Ignore
Maintain
Increase
• task
• disposition
• culture
30. — 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
31. 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
32. How do participation
structures scaffold social
interaction for design
learning?
33. Design Studio Rituals for Critique
Formal review
(Robo-fair)
Customer
surveys
School
Classroom
Pin-ups
Wikis
Desk crits
Stop & talks
34. 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
35. 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?
36. 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
37. 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
38. H ow do 5th Grade designers…
• use and create textual resources?
• interweave digital & physical worlds?
And for
what
purposes?
40. 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