Interactions - May/June 2012

Existing approaches
to teaching
computing concepts
do not usually allow
exploration of
advanced computing
technologies unless

student collaboration. However, the theme has to be introduced carefully and clearly to avoid confusion among students about its role.

Our initial results are encouraging, but more studies are necessary to get deeper insights into the learning process of students and to develop an empirically grounded theory of how interventions based on experiential learning of computing concepts work.

a student is willing
to become a
skilled programmer
and learn a
significant amount
of technological
detail.

ENDNOTES:

1. Schön, D. A. The Reflective Practitioner. Basic Books, New York, 1983. 2. Kolb, D. A. Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1984. 3. Joplin, L. On defining experiential education. Journal of Experiential Education 4, 1 (1981), 17-20. 4. Kesselheim, A.D. A rationale for outdoor activity as experiential education: The reason for freezing. Proc. 1st North American Conference on Outdoor Pursuits in Higher Education (Boone, NC). 1974, 18-22. 5. Dewey, J. Experience and Education. Simon and Schuster, New York, 1938/1997. 6. Stehno, J. J. The application and integration of experiential education in higher education. Touch of Nature Environmental Center, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL, 1986; (Eric Doc. Reproduction Service No ED-285-465). 7. Kirschner, P. A., Sweller, J., and Clark, R.E. Why minimal guidance during instruction does not work: An analysis of the failure of constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiential, and inquiry-based teaching. Educational Psychologist 41, 2 (2006), 75-86. 8. Obrenovic, Ž. and Martens, J.B. Sketching interactive systems with Sketchify, ACM Transactions on Computer Human Interaction 18, 1 (March 2011), Article 4. 9. Obrenovic, Ž., Starcevic, D. and Abascal, J. Universal accessibility as a multimodal design issue. Commun. ACM 50, 5 (May 2007), 83-88. 10. Lawson, B. How Designers Think: The Design Process Demystified (4th ed.). Architectural Press, 2005.

May + June 2012

interactions

We used various themes and metaphors to provide experience constraints. For example, in our master’s course on multimodal interaction we used the “Power Trio” theme to inspire and unify students’ activities. In our undergraduate course “Sketching Interactive Systems” we used the theme of sketching to encourage them to explore more diverse technologies.

Our experience constraints have a role similar to that of a primary generator in design used to “narrow down the space of possible solutions by providing an initial focus, i.e., by constraining and guiding the designer’s development of a solution” [ 10].

Conclusion

Our framework has been devel-
oped and applied during a period
of three years at the Department of
Industrial Design at the Eindhoven
University of Technology. We used it
in three iterations of the undergrad-
uate course “Sketching Interactive
Systems” and three iterations of the
postgraduate course “Multimodal
Interaction.” The first results are
encouraging, and although it’s still
too early to make more specific
claims, our initial findings suggest
the following:
• The key element of our
approach was to empower students
to have relevant experiences with
advanced computational technolo-
gies. Without such experience, the
students do not have a basis to
reflect and learn. This was a par-
ticularly successful element in the
usage of our framework, especially
in undergraduate education.

• Our tools enabled students to discover and learn a range of important properties of current computing technologies, as well as some basic computing abstractions, such as variables. Though such experience has its limits and cannot enable students to discover all relevant concepts, it provides a productive context to discuss such concepts and increases the general interest of students.

• Providing a structure and a set of plans that support informed exploration and reflective inquiry was crucial to enabling students to learn from their experience and from each other. Simply letting students explore computing technology and build computational systems will not necessarily help them learn computing concepts.

• Having themes and constraining students’ experiences had a positive effect on the conceptual integrity of our educational activities and on

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Željko Obrenović ( obren.info) is a best-practices evangelist at Backbase, Amsterdam. He conducted the work reported here while working as an assistant professor in the Department of

Industrial Design at the Eindhoven University of Technology. His professional interests include design of interactive systems, end-user development, rapid prototyping, creativity support tools, software engineering, and universal accessibility.