Chaordic learning: A case study

Software engineering is an interactive, collaborative and creative activity that cannot be entirely planned. Inspection and adaption are required to cope with changes during the development process. Software engineering education requires practical application of knowledge, but it is challenging and time consuming for instructors to evaluate the creation of innovative solutions to problems. Current higher education practices lead to a multitude of rules, guidelines and order. Instructors see deviations of students as failures and limit the creative thinking processes of students. In this paper we describe chaordic learning, a self-organizing, adaptive and nonlinear learning approach, to stimulate the creative thinking of students. Instructors provide structure and guidance, but also integrate freedom for self-organization and self-guided learning and embrace innovation and creativity. Deviations are seen as opportunities and failures as possibilities for students to learn and improve. We introduced chaordic learning into a games development course and a joint advanced student school and describe the chaordic process of these courses as case studies. Students in these courses report about an increased intrinsic motivation, a higher level of self-organization and more room for creativity leading to an improved learning experience and more fun.