Ett ständigt aktuellt tema är studenter som upplever att undervisningsformerna karakteriseras av leda (se Daschman et al 2013) och lärare som tycker sig se ett bristande engagemang (se Foley 2013). Intrycket från en programmeringskurs med fokus på mobilappar och tjänster var projekten som studenterna skapade brast i konceptuell och teknisk höjd.  Vare sig studenter eller lärare tyckte kursen var särskilt intressant.  Två samverkande omständigheter identifierades: 

• Lärarna förmådde inte att relevantgöra innehållet på ett engagerade och inspirerande sätt.  
• Studenterna tyckte innehållet var för svårt och vågade inte chansa. 

Foley (2013) diskuterar hur lärare kör på i trygga banor (complacency) och inte engagerar sig, något som leder till studenter som inte gör mer än vad som krävs. Faktorer som undervisningens upplägg, över- eller understimulering leder till alltså till brist på engagemang och avhopp.  Det som krävs är en mer varierad, engagerande och individanpassad undervisning.  För att bryta detta har pedagogiken ändrats på kursen för att skapa engagemang på olika sätt.   

Kraven ställs på ett annat sätt:  genom att använda noggrant kvalificerade värdeladdade ord för att beskriva kraven på studenternas projekt och laborationer. Exempelvis ska tekniska laborationer ska vara ”avancerade” och tjänsterna/koncepten ”spännande” eller ”unika”.  Vi är dock tydliga med att utmaningarna i sig är något som studenterna får misslyckas med. Istället för att ställa omöjliga krav uppmanar vi studenterna utforska gränserna (”hur spännande kan det bli?”).   

Praktikbaserade gemenskaper (efter Wenger, Farnsworth et al 2016):  redovisning av laborationer och projekt genomförs i ett interaktivt muntligt format där studenterna själva väljer vad de vill fokusera på inom ramen för en kritisk diskussion. Studenterna sätter därmed sin egen agenda inom kursens tematiska ram där de kan fokusera på teknologi eller på tjänsteutveckling. Genom att de specificerar sina egna tekniska laborationer direkt i dialog med läraren får de omedelbar återkoppling. Studenterna får också till uppgift att designa en lösning som representerar ett för dem verkligt problem – något som kräver engagemang och en gemensam orientering mot kursinnehållet. Kursinnehållet och fokus kommer alltså inte längre från lärarna utan från studenterna som investerat sitt eget skapande (och tänkande).  Lärarna engageras sig för att inte framstå som okunniga inför studenterna.   

En mycket försiktig tendens i kursutvärderingar av två omgångar av kursen genomförd nya sättet är att studenter fortfarande tycker laborationerna är för svåra, men samtidigt att anser de att kursen är givande.   

Referenser  

Daschmann, E. C., Goetz, T., & Stupnisky, R. H. (2014). Exploring the antecedents of boredom: Do teachers know why students are bored? Teaching and Teacher Education, 39, 22–30. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2013.11.009 Farnsworth, V, Kleanthous, I and Wenger-Trayner, E (2016) Communities of practice as a social theory of learning: A conversation with Etienne Wenger. British Journal of Educational Studies, 64 (2). pp. 139-160. ISSN 0007-1005 Foley, J.A., 2013. Places of Belonging: Awakening a Zone of Complacency. Critical Questions in Education, 4(3), pp. 205–212.  

This study explores how students within higher education perceive different types of peer review feedback and how that feedback affects their learning. The study builds on a previous paper [1] where the Blackboard peer assessment tool was used, and compared three feedback conditions: positive, mixed, and negative. The findings strongly indicated that students preferred negative feedback, corresponding to earlier research showing that experienced students seem to benefit from negative feedback [2].

To explore the students perception on feedback, we designed an academic course to incorporate peer review assessment. The course was held during autumn 2018 and included 75 bachelor students. Students were required to individually complete a set of four review assignments using the school’s learning management system, ITs learning (ITs). Each of the four peer review assignments were designed to represent a different approach to feedback. The first assignment instructed the students to only give positive feedback in the review process; e.g., “choose three things that are positive”. The second assignment had instructions without suggesting valence in the feedback and asked the students to “examine how the argumentation is included in the text”. The third assignment instructed the students to provide negative feedback, by asking them to “point towards at least three areas for improvement”. The fourth assignment instructed the students to validate the feasibility of a written research proposal by their study peer, again without suggesting a valence of positive or negative. By consciously designing the four peer review assignments to produce specific kinds of feedback, we aimed to learn more about how the students experience such different types of peer review.

Based on focus group interviews, we have so far found that the students perceive it harder to give positive compared than negative feedback. They also perceive giving feedback, rather than receiving feedback, as a more important experience in learning. The latter will be especially interesting when compared against earlier research [3] which showed that providing peer feedback had several potential learning benefits for the provider. A preliminary finding of our study is that the transition from earlier levels of design critique during digital development projects to academically founded criticism and review requires careful instructions and pedagogic considerations. In order to further evaluate the students' experience, a questionnaire will be distributed at the end of the course (end of Oct. 2018).

The findings presented in this study aim to work as a backdrop for future discussions about how to design peer-review assignments in higher education to increase students’ academic literacy.

References:

[1] Kidd, J., Hankins, M., “The effects of peer review in students learning: a comparison of positive and negative feedback.”. 10th International Technology, Education and Development Conference, Valencia, Spain, March 7-9, 2016.

[2] Fishbach, A., Eyal, T., & Finkelstein, S. R., “How positive and negative feedback motivate goal pursuit.” in Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 4(8), 517-530, 2010.

[3] Van Popta, E., Kral, M., Camp, G., Martens, R. L., & Simons, P. R. J., “Exploring the value of peer feedback in online learning for the provider.” in Educational Research Review, 20, 24-34, 2017.

Robots are increasingly being used in domestic environments and should be able to interact with inexperienced users. Human-human interaction and human-computer interaction research findings are relevant, but often limited because robots are different from both humans and computers. Therefore, new human-robot interaction (HRI) research methods can inform the design of robots suitable for inexperienced users. A video-based HRI (VHRI) methodology was here used to carry out a multi-national HRI user study for the prototype domestic robot BIRON (BIelefeld RObot companioN). Previously, the VHRI methodology was used in constrained HRI situations, while in this study HRIs involved a series of events as part of a 'home-tour' scenario. Thus, the present work is the first study of this methodology in extended HRI contexts with a multi-national approach. Participants watched videos of the robot interacting with a human actor and rated two robot behaviors (Extrovert and Introvert). Participants' perceptions and ratings of the robot's behaviors differed with regard to both verbal interactions and person following by the robot. The study also confirms that the VHRI methodology provides a valuable means to obtain early user feedback, even before fully working prototypes are available. This can usefully guide the future design work on robots, and associated verbal and non-verbal behaviors.

In designing socially interactive robots we have focused on robot movement and its role in multi-modal human-robot communication. In this chapter we describe design and evaluation of robot body movements supporting communication, investigating the idea of using speed and orientation adjustments as design elements in human-robot interaction. The scenario studied includes a robotic shopping trolley that offers products via speech and GUI to the user while both are moving in a supermarket-like environment. Our results show that if the robot slows down while making such offers, users are more prone to react upon them and to take the product. However, even from our early pre-study with mock-up robots we observed that users tended not to mention the robot’s slow-down movements, even if these movements were shown several times to them during a video-based debriefing. This phenomenon, that users react implicitly on the robot’s movements without being consciously aware of them, was confirmed during an experimental study with a fully integrated robot prototype. We discuss our results by reflecting on human-robot interaction design methods, and we draw implications from the lessons learned in the study of the design of robot behaviours. In particular, we list a whole set of challenges for HRI when both the user and the robot are moving.

In designing socially interactive robotswe have focused on robot movement and its role in multi-modal human-robot communication. In this paper we describe a user-centred design and evaluation process, investigating the idea of using speed and orientation adjustments as design elements in human-robot interaction. The scenario studied includes a robotic shopping trolley that offers products to the user while both are moving in a supermarket-like environment. Our results show that if the robot slows down while making such offers, users are more prone to react upon them. However, in an early pre-study, performed only with a robot mock-up, we observed that users tended not to notice the robot's slow-down movements while offers are made, even if these movements were shown several times to them during a video-based debriefing. This phenomenon, that users react implicitly on the robot'smovements without being consciously aware of them, was confirmed during an experimental study with a fully integrated robot prototype.We discuss our results by reflecting on human-robot interaction design methods, and we propose implications from the lessons learnt in the study of the design of robot behaviours.

Today, it is common that a team of clinicians, from different disciplines, instead of one single doctor, care for a patient. This is especially true when it concerns more complicated diseases in highly specialised health care. Going from one doctor to a team of doctors raises new dimensions/problems/issues when deciding about the diagnosis and how to treat the patient. Instead of one person deciding, based on the information given from others, a group of people need to agree on a decision. How do the participants during such decision meetings argue for their experience and skill? What kind of technologies are available and how do they support the communication in the meeting? Måseide (2006), for example, focuses on how different forms of evidence influence and regulate the judgements and decisions of medical practitioners during such meetings. Groth et al. (2008), for example, focuses on the technology used during such meetings, with a focus on audio, video, and images.