Co-Designing a Classroom Orchestration Assistant for Game-Based PBL Environments

Because implementing and orchestrating collaborative problem-based learning (PBL) in K-12 classrooms requires teachers to manage multiple activities and access various teaching resources at the same time, this is an exceptionally complex task for designers to develop tools for orchestration support as well as for teachers to coordinate. The aim of the present study was to explore what classroom teachers perceived to be essential to support orchestration in PBL, but also to surface potential areas of tension between teacher and designer goals through a co-design approach. Thirteen K-12 classroom teachers were interviewed to find out what teachers consider integral to support orchestration in game-based PBL environments. We present the primary features that were identified as essential from the teacher interviews, which include the ability to (1) conduct assessment, (2) intervene and scaffold in different ways, and (3) visualize information. In addition, we discuss the design tensions between the goals of the teachers and designers as we work together on a shared view of what it means to design an intelligent assistant for classroom orchestration and present the design documents with implications.