Background: Co-creation is a term that has been used to emphasize collaborative learning in design education. Allowing students to develop both hard and soft skills has been demonstrated important to facilitate effective learning [1]. When mixing disciplines with each other it becomes an important catalyzer that allows you to learn in new ways and to tackle perspectives on growing societal challenges and innovation. This paper proposes a curricula design that matches student interdisciplinary learning, design challenges and societal benefit. OpenLab is an initiative to support an interdisciplinary learning approach from the perspective of both lecturers’ and students’ aiming to create innovation in the meeting between medicine, social sciences and engineers. Creation involves empathy and capability to define, ideate, prototype and test. Creation allows prototypes to be made, which are by default presented and interpreted differently by people according to their understanding and frame of reference [2].

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to present and the curriculum for a master level course that emphasis and support the creations performed by problem-solving interdisciplinary teams. The subsequent purpose is to position the course design in relation existing best practices that has presented similar challenges of merging the specific methods presented, e.g. Scrum and Design thinking.

Design/Methodology: Observational notes and more than 100 student reflections, notes and remarks from more than 30 peer-to-peer faculty internal meetings, international workshops and faculty-student ‘review screenings’ sessions have been used to outline the pros and cons for the presented curriculum.

Findings: a unique opportunity to break existing By addressing the process of key elements of the course both scrum and design thinking has been adopted and practiced early up-front in the course. Moreover, initial team building and checkpoints, pre-checks and cultural differences have been reported positive in relation to the possibilities of deepen student project understanding and appreciation.

Conclusions: From initial course design and analysis the learning environment provides a catalyzer for learning to be appreciated and acted upon. The design of activities should build on a shared perspective from faculty and motivate students and convincing them to deepen their need for interdisciplinary design.

[1] Naveiro, R. M., and de Souza Pereira, R. C., Viewpoint: Design Education in Brazil, Design Studies (2008), 29: 304-312

[2] Berglund, A., and Leifer, L., Why we Prototype! An International Comparison of the Linkage between Embedded Knowledge and Objective Learning. Engineering Education (2013) 8(1), 2-15. DOI: 10.11120/ened.2013.000

The capability to innovate is an important skill for engineers, thus stressing the critical issue of educating for innovation at technical universities. This paper investigates the feasibility of four different models for implementing and practicing new content in engineering education. Implementation efforts are looked at revealing systematic constraints and pitfalls, and also evaluating these approaches from the perspective of innovation capabilities and the desired effects from changes in education. The different models can be categorized as bottom-up and top-down approaches depending on actors’ roles in the education system.  The top-down and bottom-up approaches are also categorized in accordance to the width of the approaches: programmatic changes with new content in many courses and specialized changes with new courses addressing the desired content and capabilities. A critical analysis is made of the four models intercepting specific learning elements that can be elevated to facilitate innovation in courses and programs. The critical analysis not only relates to educational values, but also relates more specifically to the needs of teaching and training innovation and consequently to developing innovation capabilities. This leads us to discuss the practical epistemologies involved in engineering practice in general and in innovation in particular; engineering as an art and as a science and both are essential. Finally arguments on how to actually reform education are addressed, with attention on leveraging innovation as a key driver to excel and challenge the learning experiences faced by current and future students. 

Active learning is generally defined as an approach that engages students in the learning process and is supposed to lead to consistently better and deeper understanding. In an earlier study students in mechanics were offered the choice between labs using probe-ware (MBL) [FMCE normalised gain: 48%] and experimental problem-solving labs [18% gain]. Both options were considered to employ active learning, but the difference in gains was remarkable. As this contradicts the conclusions in the literature a follow-up study was performed. Analysis of video recordings from the labs showed that in probe-ware labs students linked observed data to concepts, whereas students in the problem-solving labs made little use of physical concepts in their modeling of phenomena. One implication of this study is that we have to go beyond surface interpretations of “active learning”, and in a detailed and nuanced way look into the ways in which students are actually active in a learning environment.

Labwork is usually seen as an essential element in engineering and science education. One, of the many purposes, with labwork is to strengthen, develop and deepen students' understanding of real phenomena (i.e., objects and events) and the connection between real phenomena and theoretical models and theories. Another main purpose of lab work is to develop students' abilities to collaborate in experiments and empirically investigate and describe technical systems, natural and technical objects, and natural and artificial phenomena.

In connection with distance learning, it is in general a challenge to design labwork ina good way so that the intended learning outcomes mentioned previously are achieved. This does not only apply specifically to the situation with “forced distance teaching” that has arisen in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic, but generally applies to all kinds of “off campus” teaching and learning.

I have carried out a comprehensive exploratory review of what is reported in the science and engineering education research literature regarding laboratory work conducted as distance labs or as home labs. In my paper I will present initial results from my literature review. I have found that there is, indeed, a quite substantial literature describing remote labs and online labs. However, with few exceptions, the literature is mainly focused on the technical aspects of remote labwork and less on the pedagogical aspects. In addition to various forms of "online" labs and remotely controlled labs, I will highlight different forms of home labs and labs with low-cost equipment as an interesting option.

Laborationer ses vanligtvis som ett väsentligt inslag i teknisk- och naturvetenskaplig utbildning. Ett av de många syftena med laborationer är att stärka, utveckla och fördjupa studenternas förståelse av verkliga fenomen (det vill säga objekt och händelser) och sambandet mellan verkliga fenomen och teoretiska modeller och teorier. Ett annat huvudsyfte med laborationer är att utveckla studenternas förmåga att samarbeta i experiment och empiriskt undersöka och beskriva tekniska system, naturliga och tekniska föremål och naturliga och artificiella fenomen.

I samband med distansutbildning är det generellt en utmaning att utforma laborationer på ett bra sätt så att de avsedda lärandemålen uppnås. Detta gäller inte bara specifikt situationen med ”påtivingad” distansundervisning som uppstod i samband med COVID-19-pandemin, utan det gäller i allmänhet alla typer av av undervisning "off campus".

I denna artikel beskrivs preliminära resultat från en litteraturstudie i syfte att få en översikt av vad som rapporteras i den ämnesdidaktiska forskningslitteraturen om laborationer som utförs som distanslaboratorier eller som hemlaboratorier inom naturvetenskapliga och tekniska utbildningar. Det finns en rätt omfattande litteratur som beskriver fjärrlaboratorier och onlinelaboratorier. Men, med få undantag är litteraturen främst inriktad på de tekniska aspekterna av att fjärrstyra laborationer och mindre på den pedagogiska utformningen och studenternas lärande. Förutom olika former av ”onlinelaboratorier” och fjärrstyrda laborationer lyfts olika former av hemlaborationer och laborationer med digital utrustning som kan införskaffas till en så låg kostnad att studenterna själva kan äga eller låna den som intressanta alternativ för framtiden.

Engineering Education Research (EER) has recently emerged as a field of research worldwide. In this context one could focus on the conceptual difficulties experienced by engineers learning about educational research. However, in this chapter I explore the contributions that engineering and engineers can make to education research, based on the view, drawn from John Dewey’s essay “Education as engineering”, that EER could be regarded as engineering research. My first point is that engineers have learned to handle both general aspects (in the case of bridge building: engineering mathematics, solid mechanics, materials science, geology etc.) and particular aspects (the local situation of particular bridges) of their profession. Hence, it is not possible in engineering to simply apply knowledge from science to practice and Dewey points out that this also applies to education. My second point is that engineers are trained to acquire proficiency in design and both understanding and improving complex systems. Similarly, in “design-based research” or “design experiments” in education, insights from design and engineering are employed to address the complexity of educational activities and the need, as known from engineering, for theory as well as tinkering. My third point is related to the role of technologies in promoting engineering students’ learning in, for example, laboratories. Diverse technologies (artifacts) are crucial in engineering for collecting and processing data from experiments and/or real environments for numerous applications, for example controlling and monitoring production processes and monitoring the environment. Thus, engineers have high proficiency in the use of technologies and materiality, strong awareness of their impact on human perception, and hence can make valuable contributions to their application in educational contexts.

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Students come to our courses with a personal theory of physics. Most students do not change theirpersonal theories during a traditionally taught physics course. In this paper I will give some reasons forthis and also highlight some successful active-engagement curricula who help students to modify theirpersonal theories of physics and thus help them acquiring a good functional understanding of physics.

In this paper I describe a study wthere 25 students of a total of 111 in taking a physics course for engineering students participated in 16 hours of alternative, conceptual, labs instead of 16 hours of regular, non-conceptual, labs. All students participated in the same set of lectures and the same problem-solving sessions. A feature of the conceptual labs is the use of technology as a tool to aid students’ inquiry. In addition, systematic variation, based on the theory of variation, has been introduced into the design of the assigned tasks. Results from the a “Force and Motion Conceptual test (FMCE)” show a marked difference in achievement, with normalised gain of 48% for the students participating in the conceptual labs and 18% for the students participating in the non-conceptual labs. Some data from video-recordings of student courses of action in the conceptual labs will are also be presented.

I describe a series of projects on the design and implementation of “conceptual labs” aimed atdeveloping insightful learning, following work that began in 1994/95. The main focus has been oncourses in mechanics and electric circuit theory. The approach taken in designing these innovativecurricula can be described as “design-based research”. A common feature in these learningenvironments is the use of technology as a tool to aid students’ inquiry. In addition, systematicvariation, based on the theory of variation, has been introduced into the design of the assignedtasks. Results from conceptual inventories have demonstrated the success of conceptual labs. Inthe later projects we used video recording to study students’ courses of action in labs. I describehow these studies have provided insights into conditions that are critical for learning and howthese insights have helped me and co-workers to make further improvements to learningenvironments.

@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 4pt; text-align: justify; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1;Mechanics, first experienced by engineering students in introductory physics courses, encompasses an important set of foundational concepts for success in engineering. However, although it has been well known for some time that acquiring a conceptual understanding of mechanics is one of the most difficult challenges faced by students, very few successful attempts to engender conceptual learning have been described in the literature. On the contrary, research has shown that most students participating in university levelcourses had not acquired a Newtonian understanding of mechanics at the end of their respective course.

Recently I have described more than 10 years of experiences of designing and using conceptual labs in engineering education that have successfully fostered insightful learning. In the framework of the larger project I have developed labs applying variation theory in the design of task structure and using sensor-computer-technology (“probe-ware”) for collecting and displaying experimental data in real-time. In previous studies, I have shown that these labs using probe-ware can be effective in learning mechanics with normalised gains in the g≈50-60% range and with effect sizes d≈1.1, but that this technology also can be implemented in ways that lead to low achievements.

One necessary condition for learning is that students are able to focus on the object of learning and discern its critical features. A way to establish this, according to the theory of variation developed by Marton and co-workers, is through the experience of difference (variation), rather than through the recognition of similarity. In a lab, an experiential human–instrument–world relationship is established. The technology used places some aspects of reality in the foreground, others in the background, and makes certain aspects visible that would otherwise be invisible. In labs, this can be used to bring critical features of the object of learning into the focal awareness of students and to afford variation.

In this study, I will account for how the design of task structure according to variation theory, as well as the probe-ware technology, make the laws of force and motion visible and learnable and, especially, in the lab studied make Newton’s third law visible and learnable. I will also, as a comparison, include data from a mechanics lab that use the same probe-ware technology and deal with the same topics in mechanics, but uses a differently designed task structure. I will argue that the lower achievements on the FMCE-test in this latter case can be attributed to these differences in task structure in the lab instructions. According to my analysis, the necessary pattern of variation is not included in the design.

I will also present a microanalysis of 15 hours collected from engineering students’ activities in a lab about impulse and collisions based on video recordings of student’s activities in a lab about impulse and collisions. The important object of learning in this lab is the development of an understanding of Newton’s third law. The approach analysing students interaction using video data is inspired by ethnomethodology  and conversation analysis, i.e. I will focus on students practical, contingent and embodied inquiry in the setting of the lab.

I argue that my result corroborates variation theory and show this theory can be used as a ‘tool’ for designing labs as well as for analysing labs and lab instructions.  Thus my results have implications outside the domain of this study and have implications for understanding critical features for student learning in labs.

Over the past century, educational psychologists and researchers have posited many theories to explain how individuals learn, i.e. how they acquire, organize and deploy knowledge and skills. The 20^th century can be considered the century of psychology on learning and related fields of interest (such as motivation, cognition, metacognition etc.) and it is fascinating to see the various mainstreams of learning, remembered and forgotten over the 20^th century and note that basic assumptions of early theories survived several paradigm shifts of psychology and epistemology. Beyond folk psychology and its naïve theories of learning, psychological learning theories can be grouped into some basic categories, such as behaviorist learning theories, connectionist learning theories, cognitive learning theories, constructivist learning theories, and social learning theories.

Learning theories are not limited to psychology and related fields of interest but rather we can find the topic of learning in various disciplines, such as philosophy and epistemology, education, information science, biology, and – as a result of the emergence of computer technologies – especially also in the field of computer sciences and artificial intelligence. As a consequence, machine learning struck a chord in the 1980s and became an important field of the learning sciences in general. As the learning sciences became more specialized and complex, the various fields of interest were widely spread and separated from each other; as a consequence, even presently, there is no comprehensive overview of the sciences of learning or the central theoretical concepts and vocabulary on which researchers rely. 

The Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning provides an up-to-date, broad and authoritative coverage of the specific terms mostly used in the sciences of learning and its related fields, including relevant areas of instruction, pedagogy, cognitive sciences, and especially machine learning and knowledge engineering. This modern compendium will be an indispensable source of information for scientists, educators, engineers, and technical staff active in all fields of learning. More specifically, the Encyclopedia  provides fast access to the most relevant theoretical terms provides up-to-date, broad and authoritative coverage of the most important theories within the various fields of the learning sciences and adjacent sciences and communication technologies; supplies clear and precise explanations of the theoretical terms, cross-references to related entries and up-to-date references to important research and publications. The Encyclopedia also contains biographical entries of individuals who have substantially contributed to the sciences of learning; the entries are written by a distinguished panel of researchers in the various fields of the learning sciences.

The concept of mediation could be represented by: Human ⇔ Mediating tools ⇔ World. Questions about the role of technology (artifacts) in everyday human experience include: How do technological artifacts affect the existence of humans and their relationship with the world? How do artifacts create and transform human knowledge? How is human knowledge incorporated into artifacts? What are the actions of artifacts? Tools (i.e. conceptual and physical artifacts) play an important role in human thinking and learning. However the role of technology is frequently missing, or insufficiently evaluated, in educational analysis. Herein, I reflect on Dewey’s notion of “education as engineering”. Considering the importance of the use of tools in education, I claim that education could, in one sense, be seen as an engineering science. Engineers are trained in design, especially in artifact design, and in under¬standing and improving complex systems. They should be trained to understand that humans are also part of the systems that they work with. Thus, approaches and knowledge from the perspective of engineering science and the philosophy of technology can contribute to the understanding and development of engineering education.

Microcomputer based laboratories (MBL) have successfully been used to promote conceptual changein mechanics. In MBL-labs students do real experiments and taking advantage of the real-time displayof the experimental results facilitates conceptual change by the computer. Thus students’ alternativeconceptions can successfully be addressed.

One necessary condition for learning is that students are able to focus on the object of learning and discern its critical features. According to Marton and Pang (2008, p. 538) “‘new’ phenomenography … [also] involves the study of variation … among the critical aspects of the phenomenon as experienced or seen by the experiencer”. However as pointed out by for example Bohr (1958, p. 27) “it is … impossible to distinguish sharply between the phenomena themselves and their conscious perception”. Bohr continues (p. 73) ”it is indeed more appropriate to use the word phenomenon to refer only to observations obtained under circumstances whose description includes an account of the whole experimental arrangement”. Prior research has shown that it is difficult for most students, even at university level, to discern and learn to use motion concepts such as velocity and acceleration. Many students believe that the acceleration always is in the direction of motion and that zero velocity implies zero acceleration. Motion of an object on an inclined plane is commonly studied in physics teaching laboratories and in this study three different common physical setups are studied. It is shown that the differences led to the establishment of different experiential human–instrument–world relationship due to the differences in instrumentation. It is shown that the technology in some setups does not afford critical variation and discernment and hence the ‘enacted objects of learning’ are different although on the surface the same physics is studied. Indeed students ‘lived object of learning’ is different in the different set-ups as shown in their activities during the labs recorded by video. I conclude that my study supports variation theory, but I also argue that the role of the technology cannot be neglected.

It is argued that all learning and thinking is about establishing experiential human – world relationships. Thinking and learning cannot be studied in isolation. Human contact with reality is always mediated. Technology offers one form of mediation and projects in engineering education are presented here where learning through technology is central to the design of the learning environment.

BACKGROUND: Students’ experience of the world in the laboratory is not a direct experience, human – world, but a mediated experience, human – tool – world, shaped by the use of physical and symbolic tools. Technology is used as agencies of observations, i.e. as tools for collection and processing of physical data. However, the role of experimental technologies for student learning in the laboratory is largely neglected in educational research. If technologies are studied at all, it is often seen as being synonymous with studying the role of computers.

METHODS: Students’ interaction in different physics and electric circuit labs, with different experimental technologies, was recorded using digital camcorders. The videotaped data were used to detect typical interactional patterns. Particularly interesting parts of these sessions were transcribed to allow for detailed examination of interactional patterns.

RESULTS: In some cases the technologies were used as tools to see the world with and some aspects of the world were put in the foreground. In other cases the technology in itself become the focus of attention and no, or inadequate, connection to the world was made. The role of the technology for students’ learning depended in some cases on the affordances of the technology used, but in other cases it depended on the pedagogical design.  

CONCLUSION: Some experimental technologies are more effective for facilitating learning by being effective tools to see with. However, for the effective use of technologies the educational design is important and no technology is effective independently of the pedagogy used.

This Paper describes how, based on a symbiosis of American and European thinking, "conceptual" labs for engineering courses have been developed in a series of design-based research projects that started in 1995. Researchers working in engineering education have been encouraged to "look for opportunities to translate research questions, theories, methods, and findings... across national and institutional boundaries", and urged to "think globally about the development of engineering education as a research field". Nevertheless, engineering education has been criticized for being insufficiently global in its practices. The aim of this paper is to meet these challenges. At first the design of labs was inspired by "interactive engagement" curricula such as "RealTime Physics" and "Workshop Physics" developed in the US, after they had been adapted to the Swedish setting and traditions. Variation theory, pragmatic and (post)phenomenological theories of the philosophy of technology, and activity theory influenced later development. Labs for advanced mechanics, and for introductory and advanced courses in electric circuit theory, were later developed using similar ideas. The labs utilized probeware and real-time computer-based measurement technologies as a mediating technology, and tasks were designed according to variation theory. Students learning in several designs of these labs has been studied by recording students activities and interactions by video, and using concept inventories such as the Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation (FMCE). Some designs resulted in high achievement (normalized gains of 50-60%) on the conceptual tests, well in line with the results from the US. Furthermore, in the labs that led to high achievement, the technology was used help students to focus on important relationships and concepts, i.e. the technology functioned as a "cognitive tool". However, the implementation of probeware technology could also result poor achievement. This is explained by differences in how the tasks are designed and structured in the labs - the necessary patterns of variance and invariance in line with variation theory were missing. These results that identify important factors in students learning in labs differ to some extent from earlier proposals put forward to explain the success of interactive engagement curricula. The results also question some of the assumptions behind "active learning". The analysis presented in this paper was brought forth and facilitated by achieving synergies between American and European thinking.

According to variation theory, it is essential to enable students to focus on the object of learning and discern its critical features, but the features that it is possible to discern often depend on the equipment used. Thus, in labs, the experimental technologies used may shape students experience of focal phenomena, in a human-mediating tools-world manner, by placing some aspects of reality in the foreground, others in the background, and visualizing certain aspects that would otherwise be invisible. However, this mediating role is often neglected, and instruments and devices are often seen as having little cognitive value. Hence, the role of experimental technologies in labs as tools for learning is examined here through a case study, in which three sets of students investigated the same physical relationships (Newtonian motion in an inclined plane), but using different measurement technologies. The results demonstrate that what it is possible for students to experience in a laboratory is heavily influenced by the chosen technology. Some technologies do not afford the discernment of features regarded as crucial for students to learn. Furthermore, analysis of video recordings shows that the three sets of students discourses differed, although they studied the "same physics". Hence, the role of experimental technologies in students learning in labs should not be neglected, and their courses of action should be seen as material-discursive practice. Moreover, general conclusions about learning in labs should be drawn cautiously, specifying the conditions and technology used, and discussions about learning technologies should not be limited to the use of computers.

The conception of quality in scientific work is fundamental and determines what researchers judge as reliable knowledge in their field. Although criteria of quality is used daily in research there are few extensive reviews available especially in Engineering Education Research (EER). For the development of high-quality research in EER in the future we argue that it is necessary that the EER-community begin to negotiate criteria for quality. In our reflection we consider: quality of a study in general, quality of the results and validity of the results.

The understanding of quality in scientific work is fundamental and determines what researchers judge to represent reliable knowledge in their field. Although quality criteria are used daily in research, there are few extensive discussions available especially in Engineering Education Research (EER). For the development of future high-quality research in EER we argue that it is necessary that the EER-community begin to negotiate criteria for quality. In this paper we propose tentative criteria with a special focus on qualitative EER, although we argue that several of our proposed criteria are also appropriate for quantitative EER. Our proposed criteria are divided into three main categories: quality of a study in general, quality of the results and validity of the results. We describe these in detail, together with a number of subcategories for each and introduce a hypothetical study to exemplify our criteria. It is stressed that the proposed criteria are tentative and that criteria need to be open for debate and need to evolve as research evolves.