Instructional Design for Facilitating University Students’ Metacognitive Organizational Knowledge of How a Productive Organization Functions

Abstract

We designed an instructional method based on the methodology of the Change Laboratory Approach in Activity Theory for the purpose of facilitating university students’ metacognitive organizational knowledge. In the designed course, students watched and analyzed drama stories on TV program where a task force team challenged financial collapse in a city. Across five sessions, they analyzed and interpreted how the team engaged in solving problems with use of the framework of human activity system as researchers do in the Change Laboratory Approach. Analyses of students’ metacognitive organizational knowledge at the pre- and the post-test revealed that their knowledge was significantly improved through their learning. Further analysis of two student cases suggested that appropriate interpretation of relation among subject, community and objective in the human activity system might be critical for students to further elaborate their interpretation.