IFIP W.G. 3.4
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF IT
PROFESSIONALS
Singapore 13.-17.7.1992
EDUCATING REFLECTIVE SYSTEM DESIGNERS BY USING
THE EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING MODEL
Eero Tourunen
Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, University of Jyväskylä, PL
35, 40351 Jyväskylä, Finland
Keyword Codes:K.3.2;K.6.1
Keywords:Reflective education;Theory and practice;Project education
1.INTRODUCTION
Skill requirements for professionals working in the field of information systems are
becoming more complex. Technical requirements for information systems are
increasing.In addition, information systems are being transformed into an integral part
of the organization and working life. The act of designing the information systems
cannot any more be done separately from developing organizations or individual's
working situation. This will be a great challenge for the system designers and high
requirements for their education.
Universities in Finland are responsible for obtaining the highest degree in system
designer's education. Many managers in information system departments have studied
at the universities. As a matter of fact university studies are often theoretical and not so
closely connected with the everyday practice. Another great problem of the university
students is the lack of their professional orientation to their future working life by means
of the university studies. This raises the question, whether it is possible to provide the
students with at least some kind of professional orientation during their university
studies, in order to help them to get deeper theoretical knowledge and its practical
applications. That would also help the students to find their own role in the working life
as fast as possible.
Main requirements for the professional orientation [1] in the system design are as
follows: a good level of knowledge and good skills in the field of system designing, as
well as the real practice of the system design work and recognizing one's owns talents,
what may be one's potentials for the system design work. Moreover a system designer
has to have sufficient know-ledge about the domain area. Over a decade ago a practical
period called the Development Project, which has been developed towards the model of
experiential learning as presented by Kolb [2] (see Figure 1.) was included in our
curriculum.
According to the experiential learning model the conception of learning is based on the
fact that people need experiences in order to be able to learn. After having personal
experiences they must reflect them. Reflection, as Jarvis [3] it defines, is an essential
phase in the learning process whereby people explore their experiences in a conscious
manner in order to lead to a new understanding and a new behavior. After reflection
they form abstract concepts representing the experiences. After that they are able to do
some new experiments in the area and in that way to have new experiences for reflection
etc.(see Figure 1.)
Concrete
Experience
Active Reflective
Experimentation Observation
Abstract
Conceptualization
Figure 1. Structure of the Experiential Learning Model
.
The main idea of the Development Project course is to offer to students the real
practical experiences, and so to make them to reflect their experiences in many ways, to
give them a feedback from various instances and to make students work in self-directed
groups.
The Development Project course is described in this article from a practical standpoint.
In section 2.1. there is a brief description of the whole curriculum of which the
Development Project course is one part. In the sections 2.2. to 2.6. there are the aims
and practical solutions of the course organization. In section 2.7. there can be found out
quite a detailed description of the course evaluation. At the end of the section 3. there
are the conclusions: effects, problems and views of the course.
2. DEVELOPMENT PROJECT
2.1.Curriculum of administrative data processing
There has been made a university curriculum called Administrative Data Processing at
the University of Jyväskylä in Finland. It is located at the Faculty of Social Sciences and
it belongs to the Economics and Business Ad-ministration. The curriculum is focused at
the information systems. The curriculum is a four years program, 160 credit units (cu),
where one credit unit corresponds to approximately 40 hours of full time student work.
The curriculum consists of the general studies (19 cu), language as communication
studies (15 cu), computer science studies (80 cu), studies in econo-mics or in other
subjects (46 cu). Each group consists of the obligatory, alternative and optional study
modules. An ordinary study module (course) consists of the 4 credit units in computer
science studies. There are two bigger exceptions: Development Project (10 cu) and
Preparation of a M.Sc. Thesis (17 cu).
Students are working 400 hours for the Development Project. Approximately 100 hours
are spent for special education about the project working, methods, teamwork training,
etc. The rest (300 hours) the students are working with the subject of the project.
2.2. The aims of the Development Project
Main aims of the Development Project course are as follows: to integrate the studies of
the first and second year, especially program-ming and system design studies, to provide
the students with a holistic and realistic concept of the system designers' work, to
provide the students with the personal experiences in the project work. Apart from the
common aims of the course, each group has its own special aims derived from the
subject of the group. Each student also has his or her personal aims. Both, the groups
and the students, have to define their aims at the beginning of the course.
2.3. Subjects of the project
Subjects for the groups are collected mostly by the teachers during the summer before
the beginning of the course. There are more subjects than groups, so that student groups
are given a good possibility to choose their subject according to their own interest. This
is of great importance for the motivation of ones work and learning.
The teachers work on the subjects as long as the subjects are suitable for the
Development Project. The most important fact that must be clear as to the client and so
to the teacher, is the fact that the clients are ready to undertake the project work for the
whole project period. The client must be able to "sell" one's subject to a student group.
For that reason a meeting is organized, where the clients present their pro-jects.
Examples of the projects which recently being started up addressed: A group developed
an object oriented design method for a company which was selling the information and
software at the financial markets. They had also tested it by designing a program for the
company. A group investigated, what is the situation of the data processing in the sports
associations in Finland like. They also made a prototype system for one association. A
group designed a prototype work station for the university planning coordinators. A
group designed and implemented a system for the language study center, that would help
the students to enrol for the language courses. A group designed and implemented an
extra part for a big data system in the libraries. The client was a big software house,
selling and maintaining that system. A group investigated and tested the possibilities
using the electronic data interchange systems for ordering and invoicing goods between
the companies. The client was a local data processing company. A group selected a
software package for the marketing purposes. The client was a telephone company.
Every year we try to offer the students a collection of different kinds of project subjects.
One reason for this is the fact that the groups may thereby learn from the working of the
other groups. So, they can pick up a good collection of examples, how to develop
systems in the different domains and using different methods and techniques.
2.4. Groups
The first contact with the students takes place in spring before the beginning of the
project course. They can get some information at the meeting as, how to get ready for
the Development Project: students can discuss, what the group he or she wants to get a
part of, they are asked to pass the courses for the first and second year of the
curriculum. Some older students will tell something about the Development Project from
the students' viewpoint in the meeting.
In the fall the students will enrol for the Project course. By that time they will have
studied 2 years. Students make up the project groups. The groups may suggest,what
subjects they would like to achieve. Thus the students make also the decision, which
subjects are left out. There are usually 5 or 6 groups. A suitable size of the group is 5 or
4 students. This is big enough for a real project organization, and small enough so that
everybody has to be responsible for the work of the group.
Projects are organized at the Department of the Computer Science and Information
Systems, that is also responsible for the education of the students. University provides
the working rooms, computers and some office material for the groups. Project course
lasts for 7 months, from the beginning of September to the end of March. A Christmas
holiday lasting for one month is held.
The organization of the Development Project is based on the autonomous and
responsible groups. They can discuss all problems they have with the teacher, but finally
it is the group which has the responsibility for all the decisions. The first task of each
group is to organize the group. The first project manager and secretary are selected.
Each member must in turn act as a manager and secretary. The group makes the
decision, what kind of plans to do and what to leave out. For the purpose of learning the
group must create, supervise and rework at least the following plans: project plan,
phase plans, communication plan, documentation plan, information collection plan, the
plan for controlling of the resources and a weekly working plan.
Groups have hardly any teamwork facilities provided during the earlier studies. The
university offers to the students a special curriculum of the teamwork training as a part
of the Development Project course. This course is organized by a company of
psychologists and it will last for two and a half a day and it is held in the university
premises with full boarding. The course consists of theoretical and practical parts.
2.5. Organizing of the project work
At first the group must get some background information about the subject of the
project. For that reason different methods of observation may be used. Then they visit in
the company of the client with the teacher and try to define the methods of
communications: electronic mail, telefax, phone, mail etc. They also select the governing
group consisting of the representatives of the client's organization as well as the
representatives of the university. The project manager has the post of an introducer.
The governing group makes all project resolutions. It also accepts the outcomes of the
project for the client, but not as the examination for the Development Project course in
the university.
Students continue in the investigations of the subject and get quite a large and detailed
knowledge about it: organization, aims, functions, future plans etc. For that reason they
make interviews and enter all kinds of interactions with the employees of the client.
They also interview the end-users of the prospective system. After having enough
information about the subject the group makes a proposal of the project contract. After
that is accepted, a representative of the client and a representative of the university will
sign it. In the time of the project, the governing group makes slight changes to the
contract, mostly the ones concerning the definitions of the subject.
2.6. Supervising
One of the teachers of the department takes responsibility for the Development Project
course as a whole. He or she collects the subjects, organizes the studies partly outside
the university, takes care of the lectures, economy of the course, etc. He or she is
responsible for the students' final credits.
Each group has a supervisor, who is one of the teachers, taking care of the group
education. The supervisor keeps at last one meeting with the whole group every week
and one meeting with the project manager. During these meetings they discuss the
events, which had occurred since the last meeting and try to foresee, what would happen
next week. The supervisor does not give any ready solutions of the tasks. He or she only
helps the students to find the essential aspects of the problems. Main aim of the meetings
is to learn how to reflect one's own way of working.
The supervisor is almost always present at the meetings with the client. Afterwards the
group and the supervisor together analyse the meetings. The group sends all the plans
they have made to the supervisor and he or she makes some comments on them.
Electronic mail is used for the communicational purposes between the supervisors and
groups.
2.7. The evaluation
Development Project course is a part of the curriculum and therefore it must be
evaluated within the official scale: rejection, satisfactory-, good-, or
excel-lent-knowledge. There are no written examinations in the time of the course. The
evalu-ation is based on the repeated debates during the whole course. At the beginning
the students write down their own personal aims in the Development Project course.
These writings are stored by the teachers and the students can get them back at last for
the final evaluation.
We have created a evaluation frame together with the students. Every year we check it
up with the students and make some improvements. Different parts of the frame are not
equally significant for the evaluation. The significance is shown in percents in the
parenthesis. The individual parts of the frame are as follows:
domain (10 %): organization of the subject, definitions, help of the client
outcome (20%): system, reports, increase of the client's know-ledge
methods (12%): using of the system design methods, creating of own methods.
project group (13 %): group organization, working analyses, solution of the problems
systematic working (15 %): plans, benefit of the plans
communication (15%): meetings with the client, atmosphere with the client
instruction (7%): working with the supervisor, seminars, reputation of the group
stake (8%): utilization of the resources, attitude, eagerness to study of the project work
There are following phases of the evaluation process:
1. At the beginning of the course we explain the aims of the Development Project. We
also introduce the frame for the evaluation.
2. We have two interval evaluations. The first one takes place at the beginning of
November (after the two months of working) and the second one at the beginning of
February. The evaluation is organized so that both the groups and the supervisors make
the analyses of working of the group separately by using the evaluation frame and write
one's own opinions down. The opinion of the group comes out in the common discussion.
After that the documents concerning the opinions are discussed. We try to find out the
causes of succeeding and failure of the group working.
3. At the end of the Development Project the teachers of the course collect all the
evaluation material and add to that their final opinions and statements of the clients
concerning the work of the group. After that the group takes its evaluation material for
an analysis, writes an evaluation of that material (meta-evaluation). This is a very
important and time-consuming phase.
4. After the teachers have read the meta-evaluations, we have a meeting with each group
and debate on the whole evaluation material and its justness.
5. Then the teachers have a meeting, where they decide about the credits of the groups.
The list of credits of the group is printed and given to the students.
6. Finally we have still one meeting for each group, where we discuss on the final credits
of all groups. Now both, supervisors and students, have the right to suggest some
student(s) a credit that differs from the credit given to the group. These personal credits
are given on the basis of one-mindedness of the whole group.
The evaluation is based mainly on the debates, discussions and the feedback, which
helps the group to reflect its working. The final goal of the evaluation of this type is to
arouse the critical self-reflection.
3. CONCLUSIONS
From the teacher's standpoint the influences of the Development Project course on the
students' development are significant. Both the individuals and the groups get mature in
many ways in the time of the Project. Students learn how to communicate in a more
fluent way. This concerns especially the quiet ones. So in many situations the groups are
more balanced at the final phase. Significance of the communication of different
participants will be inter-nalized during the Development Project.
Students have achieved a professional approach to the design work. They know, what
their function in the field of the system design work is and by that they can find their
professional identity as system designers. This is very important for the students because
of their professional development and career. The only way how to catch up with this
process is by personal experience and its reflection. In order to achieve a good reflection
[2] people need an open interaction and they must have the courage to be open minded.
For that reason they need the help of a small safe group. Most of the Development
Project groups offer good possibilities for that.
The information systems are mostly developed by using the methods of team-work. The
Development Project provides good facilities for the teamwork. They have got an
experience in the different roles of the group and they have learnt how to reflect their
action in a group.
The interviews [4] at the end of the course have showed that the students improved their
comprehension of theoretical structures within their own branch. They have made clear,
what their future profession might be like and they have achieved a realistic
understan-ding, what kinds of engagements in the working life they are ready to take up.
However they have still got a holistic understanding of the system design process.
Sometimes there have been problems between the groups, clients and supervisors,
concerning the approach of the system work. For instance, software houses are not
willing to go to as deep interaction with the clients or end-users as it is useful for the
students. Software houses emphasize more the outcome of the project and the university
emphasizes the process of system work. These disagreements can sometimes be quite
frustrated for the students and they may reduce the motivation of learning.
As a whole, the Development Project course provides the students with good facilities to
act as reflective developers in their working communities. They have achieved the habits
of learning. The Development Project will give a good knowledge to students, what will
be the real everyday life like in the field of system design.
4. REFERENCES
1. Järvinen, A. Development of reflection during teacher education. Learning and
instruction, Volume 3,chapter 31.,Pergamon Press,re-print 1992
2. Kolb,D.A. Experiental learning. Experience as the source of learning and
development. Englewood Cliffs NJ:Prentice Hall, 1984
3. Jarvis, P. Meaningful and meaningless experience: towards an analysis of learning
from life. Adult Education Quarterly, 37,3:164-172
4. Eteläpelto,A.,Tourunen, E., Reflektiivisyyden edistäminen suunnittelijakoulutuksessa,
Jyväskylän yliopisto, Kasvatustieteiden tutkimuslaitoksen julkaisusarja B 65, 1991