Purpose:With the expansion of telemedicine, patient-centered approaches for delivering diabetes mellitus (DM) self-care education in both in-person and remote settings are needed. A novel Diabetes Survival Skills Toolkit (Kit) (physical toolkit, website, paper guide) was developed, using a user-centered design approach. The aim of this study was to develop a hybrid protocol to assess the perceived usability of the Kit and the skills attainment of its users. Methods:Adults without prior exposure to DM self-care were recruited. User tests were conducted between January 2021 and July 2022. Initially, the usability of the website alone was tested. Then, usability and skills attainment tests were conducted with all 3 components delivered together. Usability was measured by the System Usability Scale (SUS) and skills attainment was measured thorough simulated insulin injection and lancing device use. Results:User tests (N = 43) were conducted remotely (27/43; 63%) and in-person (16/43; 37%). SUS scores were largely excellent (35%) or acceptable (47%). Users who completed skills attainment testing (N = 32) all successfully injected insulin with simulation supplies. However, SUS scores and skills attainment were poorly correlated: users with unacceptable SUS scores (4/32, 13%) successfully attained the tested skills, while 2 of the 3 users who did not demonstrate successful lancing device use had excellent SUS scores. Conclusion:Hybrid user testing of a multi-component Kit to teach DM survival skills showed high skills attainment among adult users new to DM self-care. Pairing usability and skills attainment testing can help optimize the design of DM education interventions.

Educational Design Research (EDeR) methodologists argue that iteration is a core component of EDeR. Iteration is currently defined as a process of gathering more information through actions, such as testing, and using that information to improve the design. In this paper, we seek to tighten the definition of iteration to help EDeR teams conduct iterations more effectively. We argue that EDeR teams should organize their research in slices that deliver small but real value to end users while informing the design research. EDeR should pick slices that are: (a) minimal and focused, (b) deployed in a real context, (c) valuable to the end users, and (d) informative to the research. Slicing helps EDeR teams increase ecological validity when they test because it allows testing which is within real-world educational contexts or with the stakeholders who will use and be impacted by the design. Increasing ecological validity of testing is particularly important because EDeR projects tackle highly complex real-world problems with many unknown elements and relational complexity—this means it is challenging to predict what designs will have the desired impact without real-world deployment. Effective iteration through organizing research in slices helps EDeR teams to better support stakeholder goals, develop more impactful theory, and have greater and earlier impact upon education.

Background: Patients newly diagnosed with diabetes mellitus (diabetes), who require insulin must acquire diabetes "survival" skills prior to discharge home. COVID-19 revealed considerable limitations of traditional in- person, time-intensive delivery of diabetes education and survival skills training (diabetes survival skills training). Furthermore, diabetes survival skills training has not been designed to meet the specific learning needs of patients with diabetes and their caregivers, particularly if delivered by telehealth. The objective of the study was to identify and understand the needs of users (patients newly prescribed insulin and their caregivers) to inform the design of a diabetes survival skills training, specifically for telehealth delivery, through the application of user-centered design and adult learning and education principles. Methods: Users included patients newly prescribed insulin, their caregivers, and laypersons without diabetes. In semi-structured interviews, users were asked about experienced or perceived challenges in learning diabetes survival skills. Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. Investigators performed iterative rounds of coding of interview transcripts utilizing a constant comparative method to identify themes describing the dominant challenges users experienced. Themes were then mapped to adult learning and education principles to identify novel educational design solutions that can be applied to telehealth-based learning. Results: We interviewed 18 users: patients (N = 6, 33 %), caregivers (N = 4, 22 %), and laypersons (N = 8, 44 %). Users consistently described challenges in understanding diabetes survival skills while hospitalized; in preparing needed supplies to execute diabetes survival skills; and in executing diabetes survival skills at home. The challenges mapped to three educational strategies: (1) spiral learning; (2) repetitive goal directed practice and feedback, which have the potential to translate into design solutions supporting remote/virtual learning; and (3) form fits function organizer, which supports safe organization and use of supplies to execute diabetes survival skills independently. Conclusion: Learning complex tasks, such as diabetes survival skills, requires time, repetition, and continued support. The combination of a user-centered design approach to uncover learning needs as well as identification of relevant adult learning and education principles could inform the design of more user-centered, feasible, effective, and sustainable diabetes survival skills training for telehealth delivery.

One-to-many coaching is a common, yet difficult, coaching technique used in environments with many novices learning to solve ill-defined problems. Intelligent systems might be designed to support 1-to-many coaching but designing such systems requires a 1-to-many coaching model that details novices' challenges, coaches' strategies, and coaches' goals. To build such a model, we conducted interaction analysis on 24 1-to-many coaching sessions with novices developing new products in a university incubator and conducted retrospective analyses with 3 coaches and 30 novices. We contribute a model that demonstrates that coaches in a 1-to-many setting not only need to help novices develop metacognitive skills (just as in 1-to-1 coaching), but also need to utilize the presence and expertise of a group of novices to learn from each other, to mitigate their fear of failures, and provide them accountability. Our model informs design implications for future intelligent coaching systems to (1) assist coaches in monitoring and comparing many novices' progress, learning, and expertise; (2) provide novices with checklists, templates, and scaffolds to help them self-evaluate, seek-help, and summarize learning; (3) showcase failures and growth; and (4) publicize planning and progress to provide accountability.

To create design solutions experienced engineering designers engage in expert iterative practice. Researchers find that students struggle to learn this critical engineering design practice, particularly when tackling real‐world engineering design problems.

Learning Sciences researchers can radically enhance the rigor, communication, and training of design research by better defining the method. We define design research as: a method conducted by researchers to create practical solutions and theoretical design models through a design process of focusing, understanding, defining, conceiving, building, testing, and presenting that incorporates other research methods, iteratively increasing rigor, to search for solutions to practical problems of human learning. This definition has six important premises. First, design research is the preferred method for simultaneously producing new practical solutions and theories. Second, design research models build upon other theoretical products. Third, DR theory consists of design models that explain the learning mechanisms underpinning practical solutions. Fourth, design research achieves its validity by incorporating methodologies across fields into the design research process. Fifth, design research achieves efficiency by using quick, low-cost methods to search broadly, followed by more rigorous empirical methods and higher fidelity implementation after identifying promising solutions and models. Sixth, scaling requires different products, not phases, of design research. Conducting design research in this way allows researchers to design theory-based solutions that are more impactful and create theories that are useful in practice.

Mentoring is a key part of career development, especially in emerging fields such as social entrepreneurship. Internet technologies have made it easier for novice social entrepreneurs to identify and connect with mentors online. Yet, we do not know the strategies mentors use to advise professionals navigating emerging fields. Knowing these strategies would allow us to create technologies for more effective career mentoring. This paper presents an expert model of career mentoring for novice social entrepreneurs. To build the model, we conducted a retrospective cognitive task analysis with 9 mentors who have at least 5 years of experience advising novice social entrepreneurs. We found that mentors help novice social entrepreneurs regulate career-related stress and make decisions about next career steps. Our findings suggest that further exploration of career mentoring strategies might allow designers to develop technologies based on the expert model, such as intelligent agents, to support and scale mentorship in emerging fields.

Iteration is an important design process that novice designers struggle to follow. However, iteration is difficult to coach because we do not understand the underlying metacognitive knowledge required for effective iteration. We developed the Design Risks Framework, which helps researchers to identify the knowledge underlying three metacognitive processes that control iteration: focusing attention on key areas of the project, identifying project risks, and choosing iterative strategies to mitigate risks. We tested the framework over a 6-week period with 5 novice design teams and found that novices seemed to lack metacognitive knowledge of 49 criteria for identifying project risks. By using this framework to diagnose knowledge gaps and design coaching interventions, educators and managers can improve how novice designers iterate in design projects.

To investigate how we might expand learning environments to include professionals to coach students enacting disciplinary practices, we created StandUp, a socially-shared regulation of learning (SSRL) system. We implemented StandUp in an undergraduate design program with 3 student teams and 5 volunteer professionals. We captured 12 online coaching interactions that significantly changed project trajectories. This suggests SSRL designs can encourage online coaching that influences project trajectories.

Authentic project-based learning (APBL) is a highly effective way for instructors to help students learn disciplinary skills, modes of thinking, and collaborative practices by creating solutions to real-world problems for real users and clients. While educational technology innovations can bolster APBL by making a promising but challenging pedagogy more effective, as with many areas of education instructor adoption is slow. Diffusion of innovations theory predicts that instructors will adopt and maintain their use of innovations if innovations are perceived to, and then do, address their challenges. To guide design of future APBL technologies, we interviewed 47 university APBL instructors about their most significant challenges and inductively analyzed the resulting interview transcripts. APBL instructors reported interrelated challenges of: (a) scoping, sourcing challenges and balancing the needs of the program, students, and clients; (b) curriculum preparation, making the curriculum flexible enough for shifting project problems and codify standards to help students understand how to do quality work; (c) providing assistance to teams, including monitoring, and delivering assistance; and (d) coordinating a range of stakeholders involved in assisting teams, including co-instructors, clients, and students. To support instructor adoption in APBL, educational technology innovators might communicate existing technology, or create technological innovations, that provide: (a) scoping tools for sourcing projects, and forming teams; (b) authoring tools for sharing and remixing of curricular materials; (c) project management tools for team management and monitoring; and (d) coordination software to manage all APBL stakeholders.

: Solving real-world highly ill-structured problems involves iteration: gathering information, building, testing, and revising products, experiments, and theories. However, we do not know how to create learning environments to teach iteration for highly ill-structured problems. How might we help student teams effectively iterate for highly ill-structured design problems? In this design-based research study we built on learning sciences research to implement Planning to Iterate —a weekly planning session in which teams create problem and planning representations. The study took place in a 6-week extracurricular undergraduate design program with five undergraduate project teams working on highly ill-structured problems. To understand team iterative practices, we analyzed videos of teams’ weekly planning sessions, and teams’ artifacts. Students significantly increased iterative practices, but infrequently integrated the practices together, suggesting re-design with additional coaching.

Novices learn innovation best through project-based learning (PBL), working in face-to-face teams to tackle real-world problems. Yet, real-world projects are complex, stressful, and especially challenging for novices. Online communities could provide social support to motivate novices, but it is unclear how to design online communities to support face-to-face PBL teams. Here we ask: How might we design an online system that enlists external supporters to provide online social support to motivate PBL students? Our need-finding study found that PBL students received infrequent social support, rarely engaged in help-seeking, and perceived little progress until the end of their projects. Based on these findings, we designed CheerOn, an online social support system that prompts novice student teams to externalize progress allowing external, online supporters to offer social support. We tested CheerOn with 3 PBL teams and 15 external supporters over a 6-week course. We found that external supporters provided instrumental, informational, and emotional support that strengthened students’ bonds to the community, which increased help-seeking. Supporters also provided appraisal support, which increased students’ perceived value of their work. Supporters were more likely to offer informational and instrumental support when they were promoted or saw a clear need for help; supporters who received gratitude from students were more likely to offer emotional support in return; and supporters who were closely connected to the community were more likely to offer appraisal and instrumental support. Theoretically, this research contributes to our understanding of how hybrid face-to-face and online communities can impact the behavior of PBL students, specifically towards the facilitation of help-seeking behavior, as well as increased understanding of how different types of social support (i.e., appraisal, emotional, informational, and instrumental) can impact the participation of PBL students and supporters. Practically, this research contributes to our understanding of how to design socio-technical systems that facilitate social support for offline novice PBL students working, expanding the instructional resources available for preparing novices in PBL environments.

We may be able to educate social designers who can design for human needs through social innovation networks (SINs). SINs engage in three interrelated activities of: supporting design teams' project-based learning, supporting the leadership in studio-based learning communities, and continuous network improvement. SINs face challenges in diffusing social design that might be overcome through networked coaching platforms that support teams' socially-regulated learning and leaders' studio orchestration. SINs offer way to spread design education across disciplines in any organization where design teams need to both innovate and learn.

Across domains from science to civics, experts plan to solve real-world problems iteratively. Despite the importance of strategic iteration, we lack precise understandings of effective iterative planning and novice challenges, making it difficult to assess formatively and therefore to teach. We conducted design-based research to understand iterative planning and design assessment tools in a full-time 6-week program where undergraduate teams worked on social impact design problems. We found that iterative planning requires a process of risk analysis: detecting risks in the problem space, prioritizing those risks, and setting goals to reduce them. Novices struggled with each step of risk analysis, so they did not plan iterations strategically. We designed assessment tools that surface students’ thinking about risk analysis and support instructors to notice common challenges. We contribute detailed understandings of iterative planning and novice challenges as well as tools that can be adapted to assess real-world problem solving across domains.

To provide the substantial support required for project-based learning (PBL), educators can incorporate professional experts as design coaches. However, previous work shows barriers incorporating design coaches who can rarely meet face-to-face: (1) communication online is time-consuming, (2) updating coaches online is not perceived as valuable, (3) students do not seek help, (4) coaches are not proactive online and (5) coaches struggle to gain the awareness from student online communications. How might we design socio-technical systems that can incorporate professionals coaching? In a 6-week university PBL product design program with three teams (four members per team) and five coaches, teams met with coaches on campus for 2-hours a week, but otherwise communicated with teams online. We created and tested StandUp, a system designed to overcome coaching barriers online that: prompts team planning, goal setting and monitoring of progress and displays this information online to coaches. We collected and analyzed interview, observation and log data. We found StandUp helped participants overcome coaching barriers by providing students a way to regulate group learning which in turn automatically emailed reports to coaches thereby supporting coach awareness; coach awareness in turn prompted both online coaching and face-to-face coaching. This work provides evidence from one context. Future work should measure learning and explore different regulation scripts.

Undergraduate research experiences enhance learning and professional development, but providing effective and scalable research training is often limited by practical implementation and orchestration challenges. This paper introduces Agile Research Studios (ARS)--a socio-technical system that expands research training opportunities by supporting research communities of practice without increasing faculty mentoring resources. ARS integrates and advances professional best practices and organizational designs, principles for forming effective learning communities, and design of social technologies to overcome the orchestration challenge of one faculty researcher mentoring 20 or more students. We present the results of a two-year pilot of the Design, Technology, and Research (DTR) program, which used the ARS model to improve the quality of learning, produce research outcomes, and lower the barrier to participation while increasing the number of students who receive authentic research training.