The work-reflection-learning cycle - Department of Computer and ...

424 B.R. Krogstie
and to express how work and learning involves individual as well as collective reflection
and the use of cognitive tools.
We clarify our use of some concepts: Activity is used as a generic, commonsense
term and not as a reference to activity theory. By project artifact we mean something
used and produced in project work, e.g. a diagram or a report. In distinguishing between
work and the retrospective reflection on that work, we deliberately ‘hide’ the
reflection and learning in day-to-day project work inside the concept of project work.
This is not to pretend that project based learning only happens in ‘chunks’ of retrospective
reflection, but it is our agenda to shed light on the latter.
We proceed with an analysis of retrospective reflection on the above theoretical
basis, from the empirical grounding described in Section 2 and with the objective of
developing a model. With a sidelong glance at the work on organizational memory in
[25], we structure our analysis in terms of retrospective reflection being socially distributed,
temporally distributed, and involving transformation of representations.
4 Analysis
We use findings from the research on SD teams outlined in Section 2 to shed light on
how retrospective reflection may be supported in similar settings of project based
learning from the perspective of distributed cognition.
4.1 The Social Distribution of Cognition in Retrospective Reflection
The social distribution of the cognition involved in retrospective reflection can be
seen as having two main components: the social distribution of the process reflected
upon, and that of the retrospective reflection activity itself. The social distribution of
the process reflected upon in the case of SD student projects was largely described in
Section 2 and illustrates the complexity of the experience to be returned to in retrospective
reflection We noted that tasks relating to different aspects of work were
distributed in the teams, resulting in a distribution of tool use. Historical data were
generally being stored in the tools as a result of the work. The data reflected aspects
of project work in which the tool has played a role, including the tool use itself. E.g.,
in Fig. 2, the historical data reflects software development work, more specifically
coding. Crucially, in our context, a new version of a project artifact stored in the tool
represents different data than the previous version, this distinction serving to capture
the temporal and partially also the social distribution of the project work.
We now take a closer look at the social distribution of the retrospective reflection
with reference to the SD students teams. The timelines in [10] (see Fig.1) were drawn
with the aid of simple physical tools; paper and pencil, whiteboard and pens. These
tools had a flexibility in the situation of knowledge sharing appearing to make them
adequate for externalizing and transforming participants’ representations.
When historical data in collaborative tools were introduced in similarly organized
retrospective reflection [11], particular tool features for retrieving and navigating data
were found to be important to the utility of the tool. For instance, the view in Fig.2
allows easy chronological traversal with direct access to project artifacts in there-andthen
versions. The likelihood of being able to retrieve interesting data from a specific
tool also depends on the actual tool usage in the team’s work. Further, what is
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