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Distributed software system design is by nature an ill-defined or wicked problem. In order to learn to design them, the student must be presented with complex, open-ended problems for which there may be more than one correct solution. The decision-making strategies students acquired in previous courses are not effective when applied to large, complex problems of distributed systems. Students (novice designers) tend to think linearly and focus only on the problem at hand. They also tend to use trial-and-error strategies and they lack confidence in their design decisions. The purpose of the distributed systems' course is to create a learning approach that helps students to adopt and to apply expert design decision-making strategies. We use a case-based learning approach with classroom assessment techniques and rubrics to identify the critical weaknesses in the approaches that novices typically use when attempting to solve difficult design-oriented problems. The novice-oriented knowledge-based learning and application environment is supported by scaffoldings to incorporate expert strategies. In this paper, we describe the experience and the learning environment that provides the opportunities for professional development. We present and analyze our data comparing the students' outcomes over four terms, the time it takes to develop our students' expertise and how time spent with an expert (instructor) is crucial to an overall development. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Reflective writing in the form of three reflective writing tasks has been used in our Distributed Systems Design course to develop and assess students' thinking and learning. Case studies with real-life scenarios are developed in a Problem based Learning approach where students work in teams to identify learning needs and develop a viable solution in an iterative approach. The same case study was applied in two sister institutions with similar curricula and different policies. In the control group institution, it was mandatory to follow a teacher-centered approach. In the experimental group institution, students followed the CAT set “assessing skills in problem solving” to solve the case, write their arguments and the collected evidence for their positions in argumentative essays. Essays were debated in class to reach consensus and reflections were documented for reciprocal peer review. The outcomes of the essays and peer reviews were used as formative measures of student learning and as a vehicle for providing critical feedback to the students. In this paper, we will describe the experience, present and analyze our data comparing the students' outcomes from the two institutions over three terms. We will also describe the conducted classroom research and students' attitudes and difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]