One-to-many coaching is a common, yet difficult, coaching technique used in environments with many novices learning to solve ill-defined problems. Intelligent systems might be designed to support 1-to-many coaching but designing such systems requires a 1-to-many coaching model that details novices' challenges, coaches' strategies, and coaches' goals. To build such a model, we conducted interaction analysis on 24 1-to-many coaching sessions with novices developing new products in a university incubator and conducted retrospective analyses with 3 coaches and 30 novices. We contribute a model that demonstrates that coaches in a 1-to-many setting not only need to help novices develop metacognitive skills (just as in 1-to-1 coaching), but also need to utilize the presence and expertise of a group of novices to learn from each other, to mitigate their fear of failures, and provide them accountability. Our model informs design implications for future intelligent coaching systems to (1) assist coaches in monitoring and comparing many novices' progress, learning, and expertise; (2) provide novices with checklists, templates, and scaffolds to help them self-evaluate, seek-help, and summarize learning; (3) showcase failures and growth; and (4) publicize planning and progress to provide accountability.

Novices learn innovation best through project-based learning (PBL), working in face-to-face teams to tackle real-world problems. Yet, real-world projects are complex, stressful, and especially challenging for novices. Online communities could provide social support to motivate novices, but it is unclear how to design online communities to support face-to-face PBL teams. Here we ask:How might we design an online system that enlists external supporters to provide online social support to motivate PBL students?Our need-finding study found that PBL students received infrequent social support, rarely engaged in help-seeking, and perceived little progress until the end of their projects. Based on these findings, we designedCheerOn, an online social support system that prompts novice student teams to externalize progress allowing external, online supporters to offer social support. We testedCheerOnwith 3 PBL teams and 15 external supporters over a 6-week course. We found that external supporters provided instrumental, informational, and emotional support that strengthened students’ bonds to the community, which increased help-seeking. Supporters also provided appraisal support, which increased students’ perceived value of their work. Supporters were more likely to offer informational and instrumental support when they were promoted or saw a clear need for help; supporters who received gratitude from students were more likely to offer emotional support in return; and supporters who were closely connected to the community were more likely to offer appraisal and instrumental support. Theoretically, this research contributes to our understanding of how hybrid face-to-face and online communities can impact the behavior of PBL students, specifically towards the facilitation of help-seeking behavior, as well as increased understanding of how different types of social support (i.e., appraisal, emotional, informational, and instrumental) can impact the participation of PBL students and supporters. Practically, this research contributes to our understanding of how to design socio-technical systems that facilitate social support for offline novice PBL students working, expanding the instructional resources available for preparing novices in PBL environments.

Undergraduate research experiences enhance learning and professional development, but providing effective and scalable research training is often limited by practical implementation and orchestration challenges. This paper introduces Agile Research Studios (ARS)--a socio-technical system that expands research training opportunities by supporting research communities of practice without increasing faculty mentoring resources. ARS integrates and advances professional best practices and organizational designs, principles for forming effective learning communities, and design of social technologies to overcome the orchestration challenge of one faculty researcher mentoring 20 or more students. We present the results of a two-year pilot of the Design, Technology, and Research (DTR) program, which used the ARS model to improve the quality of learning, produce research outcomes, and lower the barrier to participation while increasing the number of students who receive authentic research training.

Creativity support tools help learners undertake creative work, such as facilitating coaching by creative professionals. How might we design creativity support tools that in-crease learners' access to coaching by creative professionals? This study took place in an extracurricular project-based learning program where students were co-located, and met professional coaches face-to-face once a week but otherwise communicated online. To test an online creativity support tool called the Loft and investigate coach-student communication we collected data from 47 interviews, online log data and field observations. We found that (a) explicit help-seeking was rare outside of meetings, (b) help from professionals was highly-valued but not sought out, and (c) online systems could surface learner struggles and trigger help-giving. Our findings suggested that online creativity platforms can support professional coaching through: (1) structured virtual updates (2) coach thanking, (3) Computer-Supported Group Critique, (4) disclosure of expertise, and (5) help-seeking training.

Groups of novice critiquers can sometimes provide feedback of the same quality as a single expert. Unfortunately, we do not know how to create systems for novice group critique in design education. We tested whether 4 principles: write-first scripts, critique prompts, interactive critiquing & formative framing, allow us to create systems that combine the advantages of face-to-face and computer-mediated critique. We collected observations and 48 interviews with 12 undergraduate design students who used a computer supported group critique system over 5 critique sessions, analyzed using grounded theory. We found that: (a) the write-first script helped overcome initial learning costs; (b) the interactive critique features created a dual-channel critique that increased the number of critiquers, duration of critique and interactivity; and (c) the system produced a greater volume of useful critique and promoted reciprocity among critiquers. The study provides improved principles for developing computer supported novice group critique systems in design.