IDC theory: habit and the habit loop

Interest-driven creator (IDC) theory is a design theory that intends to inform the design of future education in Asia. It consists of three anchored concepts, namely, interest, creation, and habit. This paper presents the third anchored concept habit as well as the habit loop. IDC theory assumes that learners, when driven by interest, can be engaged in knowledge creation. Furthermore, by repeating such process in their daily learning routines, learners will form interest-driven creation habits. The habit loop, the process of building such a habit, consists of three component concepts— cuing environment, routine, and harmony. The cuing environment is a habit trigger that tells the students’ brain to get prepared and go into an automatic mode, letting learning behavior unfold. Routine refers to the behavioral patterns the students repeat most often, literally etched into their neural pathways. Harmony refers to the affective outcome of the routine activity as well as the integration or stabilization of habits; that is, through the routine behavior and action, students may feel that their needs get fulfilled, feel satisfied, and experience inner peace. It is our hope that such habitual behavior of creating knowledge can be sustained so long that students ultimately become lifelong interest-driven creators. This paper focuses on the description of the three components of the habit loop and discusses how these components are related to the interest loop and the creation loop in supporting learners in developing their interest-driven creation capability

Interest-driven creator theory: towards a theory of learning design for Asia in the twenty-first century

Asian education is known for its examination-driven orientation, with the downsides of distorting the processes of learning and teaching, diminishing students’ interest in learning, and failing to nurture twenty-first century competencies among students. As a group of Asian researchers, we have been developing Interest-Driven Creator (IDC) Theory, a design theory based on three anchored concepts, namely interest, creation, and habit. Each of these anchored concepts is represented by a loop composed of three components. In the interest loop, the three components are triggering, immersing, and extending. The components of the creation loop are imitating, combining, and staging. The habit loop consists of cuing environment, routine, and harmony. These three loops are interconnected in various ways, with their characteristics revealed by the design process. We hypothesize that technology-supported learning activities that are designed with reference to IDC Theory will enable students to develop interest in learning, be immersed in the creation process, and, by repeating this process in their daily routines, strengthen habits of creation. Furthermore, students will excel in learning performance, develop twenty-first century competencies, and become lifelong interest-driven creators. To sharpen our understanding and further the development of the theory, we need more discussion and collaborative efforts in the community. Hypotheses arising from this theory can be tested, revised, or refined by setting up and investigating IDC Theory-based experimental sites. By disseminating the framework, foundations, and practices to the various countries and regions of Asia, we hope that it will bring about compelling examples and hence a form of quality education for the twenty-first century, which is an alternative to the examination-driven education system. In this paper, we present an overall introduction to IDC Theory and its history, and discuss some of the steps for advancing it in the future

Explorations of programming learning behaviour of novices through computer-aided learning

The goal of Computer-Aided Instruction (CAI) research is to build instructional programs that incorporate well-prepared course material in lessons that attempt to individualize learning. The role of Artificial Intelligence (Al) is to facilitate a new kind of learning environment that stresses a learner-based paradigm instead of the teacher-based paradigm of traditional CAI. Research in Intelligent Computer-Aided Learning (ICAL) is focused on providing instruction that is sensitive to the student's strengths, weaknesses, and preferred style of learning. In this thesis, research milestones in ICAL are discussed. An Interactive Computer-aided Testing program that seeks to diagnose novices' misconceptions of the assignment statement in Pascal is described. This program was also used to explore the utility of providing explicit models as an aid to learning programming.Science, Faculty ofComputer Science, Department ofGraduat

Creating Computational Thinkers for the Artificial Intelligence Era—Catalyzing the Process through Educational Technology

There is an ongoing debate in the literature about the ways of using technology to enhance students’ Computational Thinking (CT). This special issue further enriches this debate by investigating how educational technology could be used, and for which purposes, to facilitate learning CT. It includes six papers demonstrating the innovative design of curricula and the use of various technologies to teach CT for students in different educational levels. Based on these papers, this special issue points out that more research is needed to investigate the best educational practices that could be used to teach CT rather than focusing on the technology itself. It also reveals that future work could cover smart learning analytics and precision education to better model students’ individual differences, hence effectively supporting learning CT