Abstract:

The Collaborative Design and Build (CDB) activity addresses three major challenges faced by STEM instructors: promoting 21st century skills (communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and problem solving), achieving scalability coupled with rapid feedback (supporting up to 500 students), and enabling hybrid learning through online accessibility.

In a CDB session, teams of students belong to a chain made up of problem-solving steps interspersed with transition phases. Only the first team in the chain can access the problem statement, while subsequent teams must build upon the work of previous teams to advance the solution.

This activity is suitable for any STEM course that requires multiple steps to solve problems. While previously limited to in-person classroom settings (using paper-based methods), the CDB activity is now a module that integrates with existing Learning Management Systems through LTI (Learning Tool Interoperability).

The module allows instructors to define:
(i) the problem statements (i.e., uploading a PDF),
(ii) the solution steps (e.g., problem decomposition, coding (in Computer Science)),
(iii) acceptance criteria for each step (forming the basis for transition phases),
(iv) the number of groups and team size, and
(v) the duration of both problem-solving steps, and transitions from one step to another.

After instructors have configured a CDB session, students access the CDB module, join a group, and, inside the group, join a team. Once group formation is complete, distinct problem statements are automatically distributed to each team in a group for parallel solving. If S steps are required to solve the problems, then S teams stand in a group and S problem statements initiate S problem-solving chains in each group. When the time allocated for a step expires, step solutions advance to the next team. This team reviews it based on predetermined acceptance criteria. Step solutions then return to the original team for revision based on feedback. The goal of this transition phase is to maintain continuity in the problem-solving chain. Upon completing the final step, solutions return to their initial team for validation against expected outcomes, expressed in the initial statement. Results are classified as correct, incomplete, or incorrect. Finally, a CDB session concludes with an inter-team meeting where representatives share their solution outcomes and perform a retrospective analysis (i.e., what went well and what went wrong).

We have deployed the CDB module in our Complement to Programming course (CS2) in which students had to solve recursive problems in three steps:
(i) mathematical recursive formulation of the problem,
(ii) formal C-function specification, and, (iii) C function implementation.

The final version of the paper will provide CDB module screenshots, analysis of perception data from students (in particular, a comparison with previous CDB activity done on paper), as well as a link to the code of the module.

Keywords:

Collaborative learning, Assembly-line Learning, Hybrid learning, Problem solving, 21st Century Skills.