Real vs' Canned Students experience

1

• Real vs. Canned Students experience
• Raya Fidel

2
Students Experience

• What do students Experience throughout a course?
• Reading and reflecting
• Participation in discussions
• Doing independent creative work (alone or in
  groups)
• Writing papers
• Giving presentations
• Etc.

3
Carrying Out Analysis

• Can we effectively teach CWA without having
  students actually do some analysis?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages?

4
When students do carry out an analysis

• they may do so with a real or a canned
  situation.
• My experience in a quarter-long graduate course
• A real-life work domain is selected
• Students interview and (sometimes) observe actors
• Students perform CWA
• Students present requirements for the design of
  an information system to support the actors work

5
Challenges to Real Analysis

• Difficult to demonstrate how analysis should be
  done because each student has a different text
• At times, the level of inference that is required
  may not make sense to a novice
• The situation might be too complex for a novice
  to study both the work domain, and CWA

6
Disadvantages of Canned Analysis

• Text might be too neat to reflect the
  complexity in real life
• Not holistic because students are not familiar
  with the case at hand
• The dedication that is fed by direct contact with
  people (actors) is missing (i.e., it might be
  boring)

7
The Best Approach

• How can we overcome the challenges and
  disadvantages of each approach?
• Many thanks.