Experiences from using constructive controversy in an open ended group project

The purpose of this paper is to inspire other educators to aspire to true collaboration in student projects by presenting experiences from two course instances where speed dating were used in the light of constructive controversy ideas. The educational setting is an international student project based on an open ended group project framework in which scaffolding is introduced to ensure that essential teamwork skills become part of the learning experience for the students. An action research approach has been used by the authors to both develop the course and acquire information about the learning outcomes. The particular focus in this paper is to report findings about if and how constructive controversy can be used in the scaffolding.