Designing Orchestration Assistants: Examining Orchestration Practices in Elementary, Middle, and High School PBL (Problem-Based Learning) Classrooms (Poster 5)

• In Event: Theory-Driven Development of Classroom Orchestration Tools to Support Learning at Multiple Social Planes

Abstract

Collaborative problem-based learning (PBL) in K-12 education poses significant challenges for teachers to orchestrate, including coordinating multiple groups in the classroom, managing simultaneously occurring learning activities, and monitoring the progress and interactions of the entire class (Dillenbourg et al., 2009). This study explores the following questions: What were the PBL orchestration and facilitation practices of three teachers in elementary, middle, and high school classrooms? and How did teachers reflect on their PBL practices retrospectively with regard to orchestration load and potential forms of support? We then discuss the design implications to develop potential forms of support, such as an orchestration assistant (OA).
Three teachers (i.e., elementary, middle, and high school) were recruited from among those featured in video cases of exemplary PBL teachers. The problems of the three cases were: 1) “How can materials be engineered to adapt a piece of sports equipment to support Paralympics?” in the 2nd grade science class; 2) “How can we design a robot that serves a need in our local community?” in the 7th grade science class; and 3)“Should there be a meat tax?” in the 9th grade biology class. Interaction Analysis (IA) (Jordan & Henderson, 1995) was employed to analyze classroom videos and the video-based stimulated interviews with each individual teacher.
The following provides an overview of the most prevalent orchestration practices. First, it was clear that the teachers conducted a substantive amount of preliminary work that could be identified and prepared in advance to manage the real time orchestration. These preliminary planning tasks were critical to devising strategies to decrease orchestration load and free the teacher’s time to provide adaptive support during the concurrent activities of the class. Next, setting clear classroom norms with students was considered critical for successfully orchestrating PBL units in a classroom with multiple groups. All three teachers emphasized the importance of being explicit about expectations of collaborative group work and discussing them with students at the beginning (e.g., how to handle disagreement of opinion and ideas, and how to encourage one another). Lastly, teachers emphasized specific challenges associated with class size, and noted that external support, such as a classroom aide or AI-driven tools would be helpful to provide adaptive support.
These findings imply that there was an apparent link between effective preplanning and a lower real-time orchestration load, facilitating lengthy and deep interactions. Another important way to reduce real-time orchestration load was to create the space for students to take the lead in their tasks by establishing strong group norms, reducing some of the guidance and monitoring tasks that teachers need to deal with as they share the responsibility of classroom orchestration with students. More specifically, these findings inform our designs for an orchestration assistant to reduce orchestration load that leverage various data streams (Author et al., 2020): (1) prospective guidance (to anticipate struggle and to proactively suggest facilitation strategies); (2) concurrent guidance (to scaffold disciplinary engagement); and (3) retrospective guidance (to support teachers to make successful ones continue.

Authors

• Haesol Bae, University at Albany - SUNY

• Krista D. Glazewski, North Carolina State University

• Cindy E. Hmelo-Silver, Indiana University

• Thomas Brush, Indiana University

• Bradford Mott, North Carolina State University

• James C. Lester, North Carolina State University