Scaffolding Problem-Solving and Instructional Design Processes: Engaging Students in Reflection-in-Action and External Representations in Three Online Courses

Instructional design is an applied field of study that involves considerations for complex problem solving and authentic learning. Instructional guidance and scaffolding is particularly critical in facilitating online instructional design students, thus helping them succeed. In this chapter, the authors share how they designed and facilitated three instructional activities in three courses to scaffold a student-centered learning environment online. Using a case study approach, the authors describe their design considerations and how the instructor made decisions to incorporate external representations as a unique instructional technique into the three courses. Through student self-reporting, the instructor\u27s formative and summative evaluation, and the authors\u27 close review of drafts, the design process resulted in final products that were refined and noticeably improved. The authors conclude the chapter by reiterating the importance of scaffolding the problem-solving process with external representations and provide recommendations for future researchers and practitioners

A MEETING OF MINDS ACROSS THE WORKSPACE: COMMON GROUND IN COLLABORATIVE DESIGN

This thesis reports an exploration of how the use and construction of external representations through methods of signalling and conversational grounding, support the sharing of ideas for spatial design tasks and how that support changes as a function of access to a shared works pace, external representations and memory support. Further aims of the study were to develop a coding scheme to identify the use of language in establishing and maintaining mutual understanding between collaborators. Pilot studies identified appropriate tasks relating to visual problem-solving design tasks for use in the main studies. For the main studies, video recordings were obtained, coded and time-stamped and analysis of the duration of grounding and activity codes, as well as concurrent grounding and activity, was carried on the impact of tasks and constraints on communication. For the first study 36 pairs of participants were used to investigate collaborative problem-solving and visual access to a shared workspace was varied. For the second study, 30 pairs of participants were used to investigate how ‘learned’ solutions are communicated. Again visual access to a shared workspace was varied, together with the manipulation of the opportunity for communicators to have access to external representations and memory support. Evidence was obtained to support the principles of ‘co-operation' and 'least collaborative effort' in conversation. Differences in the use and construction of external representations were discussed in terms of compensations, and changes in dyadic interactivity, made as a function of limitations in the media settings and the purpose of the joint activity. Other issues emerged relating to perceived communication efficacy as a result of a divided workspace focus and competition between problem-solving and grounding resources. These findings have implications for design cognition and communication as well as the technological support offered to support such activities

Designing as Construction of Representations: A Dynamic Viewpoint in Cognitive Design Research

This article presents a cognitively oriented viewpoint on design. It focuses on cognitive, dynamic aspects of real design, i.e., the actual cognitive activity implemented by designers during their work on professional design projects. Rather than conceiving de-signing as problem solving - Simon's symbolic information processing (SIP) approach - or as a reflective practice or some other form of situated activity - the situativity (SIT) approach - we consider that, from a cognitive viewpoint, designing is most appropriately characterised as a construction of representations. After a critical discussion of the SIP and SIT approaches to design, we present our view-point. This presentation concerns the evolving nature of representations regarding levels of abstraction and degrees of precision, the function of external representations, and specific qualities of representation in collective design. Designing is described at three levels: the organisation of the activity, its strategies, and its design-representation construction activities (different ways to generate, trans-form, and evaluate representations). Even if we adopt a "generic design" stance, we claim that design can take different forms depending on the nature of the artefact, and we propose some candidates for dimensions that allow a distinction to be made between these forms of design. We discuss the potential specificity of HCI design, and the lack of cognitive design research occupied with the quality of design. We close our discussion of representational structures and activities by an outline of some directions regarding their functional linkages

Task-Based Ontology for Information Systems

Problem solving method describes the reasoning process and knowledge requirement for accomplishing a given task. There are a number of problems solving methods and other problem solving approaches currently in place. Apparently, these existing approaches demonstrate an excellent work done in the field. Several of these approaches are technology based or driven where the designer/developer has to force fit their design into these technologies. Further, it is not clear as to how such approaches account for external representations in problem solving, epistemological limitations that humans and computers have, and pragmatic constraints associated with real world problems. In this paper we have examined these perspectives and taken them into account for developing Task-Based Problem Solving Adapters (TPSAs). TPSAs developed by us lead toward human centeredness and help us to address the pragmatic task constraints through a range of technologies like neural networks, fuzzy logic, and genetic algorithms. We have also provided an example of applying the TPSAs to develop a working system for assisting sales engineers of an electrical manufacturing firm in monitoring the status of orders in the company

Matching presentational tools' ontology to part-task demands to foster problem-solving in business economics

Slof, B., Erkens, G., & Kirschner, P. A. (2010, July). Matching representational tools’ ontology to part-task demands to foster problem-solving in business economics. In K. Gomez, L. Lyons, & J. Radinsky (Eds.), Learning in the Disciplines: Proceedings of the 9th International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS 2010) Volume 2 (pp. 16-18). Chicago IL: International Society of the Learning Sciences.Collaborative problem-solving is often regarded as an effective pedagogical method beneficial for both group and individual learning. The premise underlying this approach is that through a dynamic process of eliciting one’s own knowledge, discussing this with peers, and establishing and refining the group’s shared understanding of the knowledge domain, students acquire new knowledge and skills and process them more deeply (e.g., O'Donnell, Hmelo-Silver, & Erkens, 2006). However, due to its complexity (i.e., diversity in concepts, principles and procedures, see Miller & VanFossen, 2008) students in business economics encounter difficulties with acquiring a well-developed understanding of the knowledge domain (e.g., Marangos & Alleys, 2007). When solving problems, students, therefore, rely primarily on surface features such as using objects referred to in the problem instead of the underlying principles of the knowledge domain, and employ weak problem-solving strategies such as working via a means-ends strategy towards a solution (e.g., Jonassen & Ionas, 2008). This hinders students in effectively and efficiently coping with their problem-solving task because the ease with which a problem can be solved often depends on the quality of the available problem representations (e.g., Ploetzner, Fehse, Kneser, & Spada, 1999). To this end, it would be beneficial if students are supported in acquiring and applying suitable representations (e.g., Ainsworth, 2006). Research on concept mapping (Nesbit & Adesope, 2006; Roth & Roychoudhury, 1993) has shown that the collaborative construction of external representations (i.e., concept maps) can guide students’ collaborative cognitive activities and beneficially affect learning. Due to its ontology (i.e., objects, relations, and rules for combining them, see Van Bruggen, Boshuizen, & Kirschner, 2003) a representational tool enables students to co-construct a domainspecific content scheme fostering students’ understanding of the knowledge domain in question. Problemsolving tasks, however, are usually composed of fundamentally different part-tasks (i.e., problem orientation, problem solution, solution evaluation), that each requires a different perspective on the knowledge domain and, thus, another representational tool with a different ontology. To be supportive for problem-solving, the ontology provided in a representational tool must be matched to the part-task demands and activities of a specific problem phase. Otherwise, effective problem-solving may be hindered (e.g., Van Bruggen et al.). The goal of the study presented in this paper is to determine whether an instructional design aimed at providing ontologically part-task congruent support in the representational tools leads to more successful problem-solving performance in the field of business economics

Both Generic Design and Different Forms of Designing

This paper defends an augmented cognitively oriented "generic-design hypothesis": There are both significant similarities between the design activities implemented in different situations and crucial differences between these and other cognitive activities; yet, characteristics of a design situation (i.e., related to the designers, the artefact, and other task variables influencing these two) introduce specificities in the corresponding design activities and cognitive structures that are used. We thus combine the generic-design hypothesis with that of different "forms" of designing. In this paper, outlining a number of directions that need further elaboration, we propose a series of candidate dimensions underlying such forms of design

Visual cues improve students’ understanding of divergence and curl: Evidence from eye movements during reading and problem solving

The coordination of multiple external representations is important for learning, but yet a difficult task for students, requiring instructional support. The subject in this study covers a typical relation in physics between abstract mathematical equations (definitions of divergence and curl) and a visual representation (vector field plot). To support the connection across both representations, two instructions with written explanations, equations, and visual representations (differing only in the presence of visual cues) were designed and their impact on students’ performance was tested. We captured students’ eye movements while they processed the written instruction and solved subsequent coordination tasks. The results show that students instructed with visual cues (VC students) performed better, responded with higher confidence, experienced less mental effort, and rated the instructional quality better than students instructed without cues. Advanced eye-tracking data analysis methods reveal that cognitive integration processes appear in both groups at the same point in time but they are significantly more pronounced for VC students, reflecting a greater attempt to construct a coherent mental representation during the learning process. Furthermore, visual cues increase the fixation count and total fixation duration on relevant information. During problem solving, the saccadic eye movement pattern of VC students is similar to experts in this domain. The outcomes imply that visual cues can be beneficial in coordination tasks, even for students with high domain knowledge. The study strongly confirms an important multimedia design principle in instruction, that is, that highlighting conceptually relevant information shifts attention to relevant information and thus promotes learning and problem solving. Even more, visual cues can positively influence students’ perception of course materials

Design: One, but in different forms

This overview paper defends an augmented cognitively oriented generic-design hypothesis: there are both significant similarities between the design activities implemented in different situations and crucial differences between these and other cognitive activities; yet, characteristics of a design situation (related to the design process, the designers, and the artefact) introduce specificities in the corresponding cognitive activities and structures that are used, and in the resulting designs. We thus augment the classical generic-design hypothesis with that of different forms of designing. We review the data available in the cognitive design research literature and propose a series of candidates underlying such forms of design, outlining a number of directions requiring further elaboration

Learning interaction patterns using diagrams varying in level and type of interactivity

An experiment was conducted to investigate the differences between learners when using computer based learning environments (CBLEs) that incorporated different levels of interactivity in diagrams. Four CBLEs were created with combinations of the following two interactivity properties: (a) the possibility to rotate the whole diagram (b) the possibility to move individual elements of the diagram in order to apprehend the relationships between them. We present and discuss the qualitative findings from the study in terms of the learners’ interaction patterns and their relevance for the understanding of performance scores. This supports our previous quantitative analysis showing an interaction between cognitive abilities and interactivity. Based on our findings we reflect on the possibilities to inform CBLEs with relevant information regarding learners’ cognitive abilities and representational preferences