Architect planners and urban designers traditionally acquire their professional skills through apprenticeship – learning from masters. The unreliability of professional judgment and the existence of competing worldviews and professional paradigms have been presented as reasons, however, to seek a broader and stronger scientific basis for planning. One expression of this is a requirement for "evidence-based planning", which by some is interpreted as a more frequent use of large knowledge bases, expert systems and computer modelling. This paper questions this as the only way and argues for the use of heuristic tools as an intermediate method; between imitating masters and relying on scientific knowledge, for developing professional skills through cognitive apprenticeship. Educational experiments at the school of Spatial planning, Blekinge Institute of Technology have been using software tools to help students visualize, construct and analyse chains of arguments in real planning cases. The outcome of these experiments forms the basis of a discussion of how heuristic tools for cognitive apprenticeship, potentially applicable to planning, generally, can help developing professional skills in planning and urban design.

Heuristiska, datorbaserade verktyg som syftar till begreppsligt klargörande har använts i planerarutbildningen vid BTH. Visualisering av studenternas tankekedjor underlättar lärarens diagnos och handledning.