Visualizing Extracurricular Student Teams Learning at Tu/e Innovation Space with CDIO Syllabus

This paper's purpose is to present the findings of exploratory research performed at TU/e innovation Space to gain a better understanding of what students learn in extracurricular student teams. Having a better understanding of student learning can help us make such learning more visible, which has a positive impact on students' development of professional identity and employability. The scope of this study includes interviews with five alumni from student teams and an analysis of its outcomes. The results of the interviews' analysis showed that students recognized that they experienced learning gains because of their participation in student teams. However, the process of describing the learning gains in a detailed way is not easy for them, showing that their extracurricular efforts did not make these learning gains explicit. Students reported learning gains associated with personal and professional skills (CDIO syllabus section 2) and interpersonal skills, collaboration, teamwork, and communication (CDIO syllabus section 3). Peer interactions and learning by doing were the most relevant media that promoted those learning gains. Finally, we conclude that additional methods such as observations during teamwork can help understand the mechanisms that facilitate learning

The near future of children's robotics

Robotics is a multidisciplinary and highly innovative field. Recently, multiple and often minimally connected sub - communities of child - robot interaction have started to emerge , variously focusing on the design issues , engineering, and applications of robotic platforms and toolkits . Despite increasing public interest in robots, including robots for children, child - robot interaction research remains highly fragmented and lacks regular cross - disciplin ary venue s for discussion and dissemination . This workshop will bring together researchers with diverse scientific backgrounds . It will serve as a venue in which to reflect on the current circumstances in which child - robot research is conducted, articulate emerging and “near future” challenges, and discuss actions and tools with which to meet those challenges and consolidate the field

LEADERS’ SENSEMAKING IN THE FACE OF PANDEMIC-DRIVEN DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

Drawing on the sensemaking perspective, this study explores how business leaders with responsibility for digital related programmes, have made sense of digital transformation before and during the Covid-19, and examines the impact of this on on the wider organisational structure including their own position in the organisation. The study is qualitative in nature and is based on a series of case studies with organisations across different sectors. Analysis so far shows that as a result of the pandemic there has been a wider acceptance of the possibilities provided by digital technologies and the opportunities for digital transformation. Further, findings show that digital leaders’ commitment, resources and expectations have contributed to accelerating the process, though this has differed across different organisations. The theoretical and practical implications of the study are explored

An Empirical Investigation of Pull Requests in Partially Distributed BizDevOps Teams

In globally distributed projects, virtual teams are often partially dispersed. One common setup occurs when several members from one company work with a large outsourcing vendor based in another country. Further, the introduction of the popular BizDevOps concept has increased the necessity to cooperate across departments and reduce the age-old disconnection between the business strategy and technical development. Establishing a good collaboration in partially distributed BizDevOps teams requires extensive collaboration and communication techniques. Nowadays, a common approach is to rely on collaboration through pull requests and frequent communication on Slack. To investigate barriers for pull requests in distributed teams, we examined an organization located in Scandinavia where cross-functional BizDevOps teams collaborated with off-site team members in India. Data were collected by conducting 14 interviews, observing 23 entire days with the team, and observing 37 meetings. We found that the pull-request approach worked very well locally but not across sites. We found barriers such as domain complexity, different agile processes (timeboxed vs. flow-based development), and employee turnover. Using an intellectual capital lens on our findings, we discuss barriers and positive and negative effects on the success of the pull-request approach

CtrlAQUA Final Report

publishedVersio

Digital competence across boundaries - beyond a common Nordic model of the digitalisation of K-12 schools?

This paper explores policy related to digital competence and the digitalisation of Nordic K-12 schools. Anchored in some key transnational policies on digital competence, it describes some current Nordic movements in the national policies of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. The concept of boundary objects is used as an analytical lens, for understanding digital competence as a plastic and temporal concept that can be used to discuss the multi-dimensional translation of this concept in these Nordic countries. The paper ends with a discussion of the potential to view digital competence as a unifying boundary object that, with its plasticity, temporality and n-dimensionality, can show signs of common Nordic efforts in the K-12 school policy.Peer reviewe

Speculative design for envisioning more-than-human futures in desirable counter-cities

The city has long been regarded as the domain of humans. Residing above the physical constraints of nature, such detached and dualistic anthropocentric perceptions tend to universalize, marginalize and de-politicize the value and possible co-benefits of human/nonhuman nature connections. Recognising a need to re-conceptualise the city as a multispecies space, we analyse outcomes from an interdisciplinary Master's subject that sought to encounter, restore, protect and co-exist with more-than-human species. Students were encouraged to step beyond their disciplinary boundaries to develop innovative strategies that could reconfigure human/nonhuman relationships within the city of Trondheim, Norway. Through their work, visions of alternative, possible futures emerged. Such alternative visions can be powerful: speculation can challenge and transform the linear, dualistic understandings of the city, and shape and redirect innovation practices. This article explores students' visions of multispecies cities to consider their contribution to just and sustainable transitions literature, analysing them with respect to design for sustainability transitions, teaching transdisciplinarity and the concept of the counter city

Using Challenge Episodes to Identify Social Regulation in Collaborative Groupwork

In recent years, researchers have shown increased interest in the question of how groups regulate their collaborative work and how this in turn affects their learning experience. There is a lack of empirical studies that explore social regulation in student group work. This study in progress attempts to identify instances of social regulation of learning in group work through examining challenges that students experience throughout interdisciplinary group projects. Building on existing conceptual work, we target different dimensions of social regulation – Planning, Monitoring/Performance and Evaluation. Data is collected from four courses within Tracks – a ten-year educational initiative, aiming to respond to the changing educational needs of future engineers. Within Tracks, students meet and learn collaboratively across programme boundaries and take on relevant challenges with a basis in real-world problems together. Students were asked to self-report in form of reflective writings about challenges and coping strategies. First results indicate that groups employed different forms of social regulation though their affiliation with different study programs made it difficult to schedule collaborative, synchronous meetings. Our findings further highlight the role of motivation in collaborative group work and stimulate a discussion about ‘desirable challenges’ that act as catalysts for learning in group work