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

The work-reflection-learning cycle in SE student projects: Use of collaboration tools
has been developed as a prototype and tested through scenario evaluation by expert
groups (P5).
For course staff and others involved in the organization of SE student projects, the tools
for conducting retrospective reflection provide a way of implementing state-of-the-art
SE approaches (e.g. agile development methodologies) in SE student projects as well as
a way of improving the learning outcomes. The insights about the potential of
collaboration tools to support retrospective reflection can help course staff decide
whether to impose or encourage the use of particular tools in the projects, based on their
potential to aid retrospective reflection.
For organizers of PBL in domains other than software engineering, the thesis
demonstrates that an important part of the reflective activity of a project team can be
facilitated and organized in a workshop format. The design of the workshops as outlined
in P6 is focused on project work and project process independently of the SE domain
and is applicable to other work domains. As argued in the thesis, the ideal in PBL is that
the retrospective reflection of a team be part of the real work practice and not a separate,
educational exercise. Thus, for PBL-based courses within other domains the organizers
should find ways of making the reflection workshops an integral part of the work
practice, possibly by linking them to existing learning practices within the domain. As a
second option, the thesis research indicates that reflection workshops can be introduced
as more of an educational exercise: students appear to find it interesting to get the
opportunity to reconstruct and account for their story about the project and hear the
story of the other team members. The approach based on the drawing of individual and
shared timelines and satisfaction curves allows participants to address the emotional
aspects of project work in a form that does not put them off writing or talking „about
their feelings‟ or spending what they see as too much time elaborating on the project
process. The reflection workshop presented in P8 was adapted to a CSCW research
agenda and is not a readily applicable design for retrospective reflection in PBL
settings. However, the finding that steps of investigating historical data in collaboration
tools can be incorporated into an existing workshop approach and thereby improve it,
can be utilized by PBL organizers as in the development of other tool-aided reflection
workshop designs. For the organizations (in industry or education) in which PBL takes
place, the proposed approaches to retrospective reflections may contribute to
organizational learning. Organizers of PBL efforts consider using the results from the
reflection workshops as a way of informing the development of their courses, taking
some precautions as discussed in P6. This would support the educational practitioners as
researchers and developers of their own practice. Also, in formal education, successful
incorporation of retrospective reflection workshops in PBL can ultimately contribute to
industry practice if the students who learn the techniques find them useful and later
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