Preparing graduates for the 21st century workplace

Interest in the use of collaborative learning strategies in higher education is growing as educators seek better ways to prepare students for the workplace. This is particularly true in design education where teamwork and creativity are particularly valued. Successful collaborative learning depends on knowledge sharing between students and there is increasing recognition that the goals of individuals affect their perception of the costs and benefits of knowledge sharing. In a team which is functioning well, members commit to the collaborative achievement of the group's goals; however students see knowledge as a critical personal resource which is often used to assess their performance and students who form incorrect conceptions of the intended goals fail to connect with the feedback information they receive. In this paper the authors describe a learning intervention developed to support creative design by collaborative processes, which has been modelled on the knowledge-sharing practices of design experts. A design-based research methodology, which blends empirical data with the theory-driven design of learning, has been adopted and both qualitative and quantitative methods have been applied. Real-world evidence from experts has also been considered. In evaluating this intervention, iterative cycles and data triangulation have been applied and the motivations and goals of students have been considered. The patterns and principles which characterise this educational intervention are described in this paper