Students' Working Strategies and Outcomes in a Creativity-Supporting Learning Environment
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Session F4F Students’ Working Strategies and Outcomes in a Creativity-Supporting Learning Environment Mikko Apiola, Matti Lattu, and Tomi A. Pasanen [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] Abstract - This paper describes results from a teaching department decided to purchase 60 Mindstorms sets, and we experiment at the Department of Computer Science at also presumed that Mindstorms could be a great platform for the University of Helsinki, in which we studied students’ this experiment. different working strategies and tried to find patterns To put our ideas into practice, we designed and carried between these strategies and the creativity of the out a 10-week pilot course with intermediate level students students’ work. In a typical computer science course in (n=33), with good basic skills in computer science and Finland, the teaching is quite strictly structured and the project work. The course was set as optional in the support structures (e.g. lectures, lab sessions) are highly curriculum. The task for students was to define a robotics teacher-driven. In contrast, our intention was to create a task suitable for CS1 or CS2 students and create a robot for learning environment where the support structures an example of a solution. Students were required to build would focus on supporting creativity to bring forth new and program a robot, document the solution and clarify ideas and innovation. We were especially interested in which CS1 and CS2 course objectives the task revises. the working strategies that students would use outside Students were encouraged to explore, have fun, and amaze our learning sessions, the students´ outcomes with us and the other participants. regards to creativity, and the interplay between working In contrast with other practical lab-courses, we strategies and the creativity of the outcomes. To put our deliberately did not recommend any working strategy, which ideas into practice, we designed a pilot course utilizing created the possibility to study the approaches students practices from research into creativity and intrinsic would take and the possible interplay between the chosen motivation. To answer our research questions we strategy and the resulting project work. interviewed all course attendees (n=33) twice, at the beginning and at the end of the course. We chose OUR LEARNING ENVIRONMENT LEGO® Mindstorms robots as the platform for the A learning environment can be defined as the factors that project. While further studies are needed, our define the context for studying and learning (for example preliminary results suggest that there is a pattern [20]). These factors are many, and include, for example, the between working strategy and creativity. learner’s personality, the social environment and the physical surroundings. Meisalo and Lavonen [23] define an Index Terms – Creativity, Working strategy, Open Learning open learning environment by using the metaphor of a Environment, Robotics market place. At the market place the learner transacts with INTRODUCTION those market stalls that best fulfill her learning needs. The roots of the concept of an open learning Creativity and creative skills have become widely regarded environment are related to the cognitive revolution in the as highly important in education and for future technology 1970s and the development of educational sciences in the industries (for example [6, 28]). However, in a typical direction of constructivistic learning theories, often seen in computer science course in Finland, the teaching is quite opposition with instructivistic learning theories. Thus, strictly structured and the support structures (e.g. lectures, starting from the 1990s there has been great debate between lab sessions) are highly teacher-driven. In practical computer the acquisitional or participational nature of learning [29], science lab-courses, highly structured software engineering for example. Yet, as Sfard [29] points out, it is good to models are almost always recommended as the working remember the dangers of choosing just one viewpoint. In strategies for students. In contrast with this common designing a learning environment, the cleverest approach is practice, our intention was to create a learning environment probably not to take any single viewpoint, such as where the support structures would focus on supporting instructivism or constructivism, but to aim for a proper mix creativity to bring forth new ideas and innovation. We were of different approaches. also interested in the use of robots, which are often reported I. Intrinsic Motivation as being successfully used in basic programming courses, but also seem to offer a framework for more advanced The Self-Determination Theory (SDT) of Ryan & Deci [26] domains, e.g. artificial intelligence (see e.g. [12-16, 18, 19]). defines intrinsic motivation as performing some activity for Thus, after some preliminary planning and research [17] our the sake of the activity itself, not, for example, to accomplish 978-1-4244-6262-9/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE October 27 - 30, 2010, Washington, DC 40th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference F4F-1 Session F4F rewards extrinsic to the task at hand. Ryan & Deci [26, 27] components of intrinsic motivation are competence, define three basic needs which they perceive as crucial for autonomy and relatedness [26, 27], and the components of general well-being and motivation; competence, autonomy creativity are intrinsic motivation, domain-relevant skills, and relatedness. While intrinsic motivation is a favorable and creative processes and working styles. Since intrinsic condition in itself, it is also often seen as one necessary motivation is defined as one component of creativity, component in creativity (see for example [3, 24, 30, 31]). creativity inherits all the components of intrinsic motivation. Thus, in attempting to support both intrinsic motivation and II. Creativity creativity, we are left with five components; competence, Creativity is often defined as the producing of original, autonomy, relatedness, domain- relevant skills, and creative unexpected and useful work (for example [30]). Herrmann processes and working styles. Table 1 shows all our [10] summarizes a variety of creativity definitions: “the components and literature-derived ideas customized to our ability to challenge assumptions, recognize patterns, see in environment on supporting each component. new ways, make connections, take risks, and seize upon change”. Pioneers in creativity research have come to share TABLE I somewhat similar views; that creativity requires three COMPONENTS OF OUR LEARNING ENVIRONMENT components; domain-relevant skills (expertise and talent in Component Method of Support Competence Use of creativity enhancing methods, providing the task domain), creative processes (cognitive skills and effectance promoting feedback work styles) and intrinsic motivation (for example [3, 30, Autonomy Providing choice and opportunity for self- 31]). direction The literature suggests several methods for enhancing Relatedness Encouraging teamwork, promoting social creativity, of which methods especially intended for concrete interaction and creative working methods problem-solving situations include; brainstorming [25], Domain relevant skills Requiring good computing skills from all verbal check-lists [7, 25], picture stimulation and mind attendees. mapping (for example [5]). Higgins [11] has also provided Creative processes and Use of creativity-enhancing methods in course many methods for enhancing creative problem solving. A working styles sessions: brainstorming, 3+ [21], and open- space workshops [9]. general idea with many of these methods is the purpose of Constructionism Use of LEGO-mindstorms robots. Lend each generating ideas by suppressing the common tendency to student their own robotics-kit. criticize or reject ideas using different types of games or tasks. Collaborative methods include for example Open Spaces Technology (OST) [9] and a method developed at the To put theory into practice, we set up a voluntary University of Helsinki Teacher Education Department, programming course targeted at students with good named 3+ [21]. computing skills, i.e. students at the intermediate level in our curriculum. There were three of us instructors and we had III. Mindstorms and Constructionism six course meetings. At the first meeting the idea and LEGO Mindstorms is a robotics kit based on a small practical arrangements were presented and every student was microcontroller unit, a set of input sensors, motors and parts lent his own Mindstorms kit for personal use during the for building robots. The robot can be programmed with course. At all the following sessions we experimented with multiple programming languages, libraries exist for example creativity methods such as 3+[21], and open space for Java [22] and C/C++ [4]. workshops [9]. In 3+ the idea is to generate a Constructionism is a learning theory developed by psychologically safe environment for ideation by setting Seymour Papert [8], and is based on constructivistic students in circles, where everyone in turn has to present learning. Papert has worked closely with LEGO Mindstorms an idea regarding the project, and give supportive comments and also, for example, with the LOGO programming on the previous student’s ideas. At open space workshops language. Constructionism is connected with experiential students would prepare ideas, solutions and problems in learning and builds on similar ideas