Supporting Collaboration in Challenge-Based Learning by Integrating Digital Technologies: Insights from a Design-Based Research Study

The complexities of 21st century challenges and crises necessitate a multi-disciplinary, holistic, and multi-perspective approach to find effective solutions. To fulfill their mission of providing quality education suited to the 21st century, higher education institutions need to equip students with the competences, experiences and knowledge necessary to tackle complex issues. Challenge-based learning (CBL) is an innovative method of teaching and learning that has the potential to achieve this goal. It is an active, interdisciplinary, collaborative approach to teaching and learning, in which learning revolves around collaborative efforts to solve authentic, complex and open-ended challenges. Although increasingly recognized for its potential, CBL is in its infancy. Research on CBL has yet to shed light on the instructional design underlying the approach, as well as the integration of digital technologies into CBL practice. The present paper contributes to bridging these research gaps with a focus on one central characteristic of CBL, collaboration, to provide insights into design elements for supporting collaboration in digitally-enhanced CBL based on the implementation of CBL into a university course on artificial intelligence as part of a design-based research study.