"Towards creative reasoning: Scaffolding systems thinking and decision-making "

Abstract

This paper addresses three questions. First, how students can be guided to learn from examples and generate their own ideas without falling into mechanistic substitution from the examples learnt; second, how students can be guided to elaborate on their own ideas; third, how students can be guided to associate concepts in a systemic whole into order to make holistic decisions. Concepts from the learning and decision sciences are applied to address these three questions. Findings indicate positive generation, elaboration, evaluation, reflection and association of concepts culminating in feasible, interesting and systemic decision-making. Three implications to technology-mediated design conclude.