Birgit R. Krogstie

Fostering Collaborative Redesign of Work Practice: Challenges for Tools Supporting Reflection at Work

Reflection is a well-known mechanism to learn from experience. Often, it has been investigated from an educational viewpoint or as a formalised procedure such as in project debriefing. Based on an analysis of three case studies, we show that collaborative reflection is much more embedded in daily work and that it supports collaborative, bottom-up redesign of work. We found that processes of work redesign alternate between individual and collaborative reflection and identified reasons for collaborative reflection as well as criteria for selecting reflection partners. We also identified perspective exchange, attribution and (re-)appraisal of past situations to be decisive for collaborative reflection and how it supports finding adequate levels of work redesign and partners needed to implement change. From this, we describe five themes for the design of support for collaborative reflection as a means for work redesign.

Understanding and Supporting Reflective Learning Processes in the Workplace: The CSRL Model

Reflective learning is a mechanism to turn experience into learning. As a mechanism for self-directed learning, it has been found to be critical for success at work. This is true for individual employees, teams and whole organizations. However, most work on reflection can be found in educational contexts, and there is only little work regarding the connection of reflection on individual, group and organization levels. In this paper, we propose a model that can describe cases of reflective learning at work CSRL. The model represents reflective learning processes as intertwined learning cycles. In contrast to other models of reflective learning, the CSRL model can describe both individual and collaborative learning and learning that impacts larger parts of an organization. It provides terminology to describe and discuss motivations for reflective learning, including triggers, objectives for and objects of reflective learning. The paper illustrates how the model helps to analyse and differentiate cases of reflective learning at work and to design tool support for such settings.

Computer Support for Reflective Learning in the Workplace: A Model

In this paper we propose a model of Computer Supported Reflective Learning (CSRL) that links the reflection process to supportive ICT. The CSRL model has the potential to support analysis and design of CSRL solutions. It fills a gap that currently exists between theoretical work on reflection and research investigating technologies for reflection support. The model is based on theory, specifically concerning the reflection process, and on empirical work on reflective learning in work life carried out in five different test bed organizations.

Power through brokering: open source community participation in software engineering student projects

Many software engineering projects use open source software tools or components. The project teams active participation in the open source community may be necessary for the team to use the technology. Based on an in-depth field study of industry software engineering project students interacting with an open source community, we find that participation in the community may affect the teams work and learning by strengthening the power of the broker between the team and the community. We outline pitfalls and benefits of having student teams acquire development-related knowledge from open source communities. The findings are relevant to the organization and supervision of software engineering student projects interacting with open source communities.

Using Project Wiki History to Reflect on the Project Process

In this paper, we address the potential of project wikis to support reflection on the project process through participants’ reconstruction of the project trajectory. Drawing on a case study of software engineering project work, we illustrate how information on project history can be found in a project wiki and may be used to support recall of and reflection on the process. We discuss implications for postmortem project reviews by considering how the utilization of project wikis could addresses some challenges to successful reviews. We also propose extended wiki functionality that can be used to make a more selective review of project history based on usertagged contents.

Supporting Reflection in Software Development with Everyday Working Tools

Through their day-to-day usage collaboration tools collect data on the work process. These data can be used to aid participants’ retrospective reflection on the process. The paper shows how this can be done in software development project work. Through a case study we demonstrate how retrospective reflection was conducted by use of an industry approach to project retrospectives combined with the examination of historical data in Trac, an issue tracker. The data helped the team reconstruct the project trajectory by aiding the recall of significant events, leading to a shift in the team’s perspective on the project. The success of the tool-aided retrospective reflection is attributed to its organization as well as the type of historical data examined through the tool and the tool features for navigating the data. These insights can be used to help project teams determine the potential of their tools to aid retrospective reflection.

Using mobile devices and apps to support reflective learning about older people with dementia

There has been little research to develop computing technologies to support the care of people with dementia, in spite of the growing challenges that the condition poses for society. To design such technologies, an existing model of computer-support reflective learning was instantiated with findings from a pre-design study in one residential home. The result was a mobile device running an adapted enterprise social media app to support person-centred care. Evaluations of the device and app in two residential homes revealed that use of the app both motivated and increased different styles of care note recording, but little reflective learning was identified or reported. The results suggest the need for more comprehensive and flexible computer-based support for reflective learning about residents in their care – and new designs of this more comprehensive support are also introduced.

Learning from achievement: scaffolding student projects in software engineering

It has become almost a truism that students learn more from working on projects than from lectures. This is reflected in pedagogical approaches such as Problem-based Learning, Project-based Learning (PBL) and Work-based Learning. A problem in PBL, underrated in the literature, is that while trivial tasks hold limited potential for learning, students may not succeed in solving nontrivial ones. We suggest that the solution lies in appropriate scaffolding: providing support for the learner to gradually master what is needed to complete a task. The empirical background for the study is a two-semester Software Engineering (SE) course at the Norwegian School of IT, with data collected over five years. We conclude that PBL in this setting may be successfully scaffolded by a formal, iterative and incremental SE method. As our main contribution we point to six types of scaffolding addressing essential aspects of SE project work.

Collaborative modelling of reflection to inform the development and evaluation of work-based learning technologies

In this paper we report the use of a goal modelling approach to produce a shared model of reflective learning in a research project. The project successfully applied the i* modelling approach to bridge from theory to technical and work requirements in diverse application domains. This proved to be an effective approach for agreeing on important concepts as well as establishing common ground between a diverse range of scientific and practice-oriented people. This made it possible to agree upon an emerging reflective learning model in the project that made tacit knowledge explicit, and explicit knowledge more precise.

Let's talk about reflection at work

Reflective learning is a mechanism to turn experience into learning. As a mechanism for self-directed learning, it has been found to be critical for success at work. In the workplace, reflective learning is relevant to everyone - the knowledge workers, teams, and the organisation as a whole. In this paper, we lay out the terminology and a process model of computer-supported reflective learning at work. The model has been developed in parallel to observing reflection in practice, designing information and communication technology for reflective learning at work, and trialling developed technology in multiple field trials. The model emphasises aspects that are in particular relevant in the workplace: In the terminology this is visible by clarification of reflection scopes (who should learn? An individual, a group, or the organisation), learning processes (individual vs. collaborative), and learning by different social entities (an individual, a group or an organisation). In the process representation this is visible by the emphasis on information that is handed over between stages, and the explicit modelling of triggers for follow-up reflection cycles. This paper also discusses the relevance of these theoretical considerations for designing information and communication technology, and the role of data and materials in the reflection process.