Enhancing Orchestration of Lab Sessions by Means of Awareness Mechanisms

Orchestrating learning is a quite complex task. In fact, it has been identified as one of the grand challenges in Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) by the Stellar Network of Excellence. The objective of this article is to provide teachers and students with a tool to help them in their effort of orchestrating learning, that makes use of awareness artefacts. Using this powerful mechanism in lab sessions, we propose four different aspects of orchestration as the target for improvement: the management of the resources in the learning environment; the interventions of the teacher and provision of formative feedback; the collection of evidences for summative assessment; and the re-design of the activity, adjusting some parameters for future enactments. The proposal has been tested in a real course of Multimedia Applications with junior students (3rd course), measuring the benefits for the orchestration.