Writing as an instrument for modeling students learning attitude

A design project exposes students to the realities of the software developing practice. Also, teamwork and cooperative learning are essential ingredients to reflect on what students are learning. But it becomes a challenge in a commuter school with large classes. It is also not uncommon for students to have significant out-of-school commitments including work and family. The authors introduced the study of artifacts into a creative problem solving strategy in their education: a hardware dissection as the first team assignment. They found that the dissection assignment made students able to draw the necessary analogies between the unfamiliar task of software design and the more familiar task of assembling a device. However, adequate in-class team assignments and individual writing assignments must support this out-of-class assignment