Case application suite: promoting collaborative case application in learning by design classrooms

Transfer means being able to extend what has been learned in one context to new contexts. But achieving transfer among students in classrooms has proven to be quite difficult. Transfer is intimately linked to making connections analogically. Such analogical reasoning involves a variety of steps (Gentner, 1998; Kolodner, 1993) including retrieval, mapping, evaluation, re-representation, and application. Helping learners get to the point where they can transfer something learned in one situation to another is aided by helping students practice transferring (Bransford, Brown & Cocking, 1999). This paper addresses the application part of the transfer process. For novice problem solvers, application of what’s been learned can be a difficult task. Following the suggestions case-based reasoning reasoning (Hammond, 1989; Kolodner, 1993; Schank, 1982, 1999) makes about case application, we aid learners at that task by providing support as they attempt to apply an expert solution to their own challenge. We do it in t he context of a project-based inquiry approach to science education called Learning By Design (LBD) (Kolodner et al., 1998; Hmelo et al., 2000). LBD builds on case-based reasoning and constructivist approaches to learning as well as classroom practices from problem-based learning (Barrows, 1985; Koschmann et al., 1993/4) and communities of learners (Campione et al., 1998), to support both collaborative learning and learning from hands-on activities. The software component to LBD, SMILE (Supportive Multi-User Interactive Learning Environment) (Nagel & Kolodner, 1999), was designed to promote the kinds of reflection that case-based reasoning suggests are needed to learn from experience. The first version of SMILE contained a Case Authoring Tool, whose role was to scaffold student’s reading of an expert case. But that tool did not complete the task of helping students apply what they learned from a case to their challenge. We report here on a new suite of tools that has been added to SMILE called the Case Application Suite (CAS). It supports three stages in using an old case to solve a new problem: case interpretation, case application, and solution assessment. It builds on the Case Authoring Tool as well as the experiences we‘ve had with the SMILE’s Design Discussion Area (Kolodner & Nagel, 1999). Here, we examine CAS with a focus on the ways it scaffolds case application and promotes collaboration.