IGE: Enhancing Graduate Education in Systems Thinking and Multi-Stakeholder Design through a Co-Creation Toolkit

重大的全球挑战往往需要涉及科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）专业人员的融合、包容的方法。培训学生与多个利益相关者合作，如非营利组织和当地居民，可以更好地为他们解决涉及多学科或多视角的问题做好准备。例如，人道主义组织正在与STEM专业人员和受影响人群成员合作，为难民救济和应对设计创新的干预措施。这项授予麻省理工学院（MIT）的国家科学基金会研究生教育创新（IGE）奖将培训STEM研究生在人道主义响应背景下采用更具协作性和包容性的方法来解决问题。麻省理工学院D-Lab专注于通过发现、设计和传播进行发展，将通过一种教授研究生水平设计和系统思考课程的新方法，扩大其对人道主义救济部门的贡献。目标是培养未来的STEM领导者，以更具包容性和参与性的方法来解决问题。麻省理工学院D-Lab将开发、试点和评估一个为期数周的模块，以有效地促进包括人道主义组织和受影响人群在内的设计团队在整个过程中的共同创意设计会议。当该模块在D-Lab的环境下开发和测试时？在美国的人道主义工作中，它在学术界和实地的许多其他环境中都有应用。研究人员将在麻省理工学院的D-Lab、系统设计与管理项目和城市风险实验室开发和试点设计与系统思维模块的元素；俄勒冈州立大学人道主义工程项目；哥伦比亚大学强迫移徙与健康方案；以及密歇根大学信息学院。与此同时，学生将与合作伙伴组织（如乐施会、联合国儿童基金会或红十字会）合作一个学期的项目，在该组织与受影响人群之间开展共同创造活动。课后，学生将有机会与D-Lab的工作人员和该领域的合作伙伴一起进行共同创造活动。研究人员将衡量课程的学习成果，并确定学生的变化。技能、知识和态度。此外，研究人员将确定共同创造过程的有效性，并将作为本项目一部分制定的活动与目前确定解决办法和吸引人道主义部门用户的过程进行比较。通过比较这些过程，团队将能够确定关于教授共同创造和参与原则的有效方法的重要假设，以及共同创造过程对学生和难民的影响。研究生教育创新（IGE）项目专注于研究生教育的研究。IGE的目标是试点、测试和验证研究生教育的创新方法，并产生将这些方法推广到更广泛的社区所需的知识。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Major global challenges often require convergent, inclusive approaches that involve science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) professionals. Training students to work with multiple stakeholders, such as non-profit organizations and local populations could better prepare them to address problems that involve multiple disciplines or perspectives. For example, humanitarian organizations are engaging both STEM professionals and members of affected populations to design innovative interventions for refugee relief and response. This National Science Foundation Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) award to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will train STEM graduate students to adopt more collaborative and inclusive approaches to problem-solving within the humanitarian response context. MIT D-Lab, which focuses on Development through Discovery, Design and Dissemination, will expand its contributions to the humanitarian relief sector through a novel approach to teaching graduate-level design and systems thinking courses. The goal is to train future STEM leaders to incorporate a more inclusive and participatory approach to problem solving. MIT D-Lab will develop, pilot, and evaluate a multi-week module on how to effectively facilitate co-creative design sessions that include both humanitarian organizations and affected populations on the design team throughout the entire process. While the module is being developed and tested within the context of D-Lab?s humanitarian efforts, it has applications in many other settings, both in academia and in the field.Researchers will develop and pilot elements of the design and systems thinking module in D-Lab, the Systems Design and Management program and the Urban Risk Lab at MIT; in the Humanitarian Engineering program at Oregon State University; in the Program on Forced Migration and Health at Columbia University; and in the School of Information at the University of Michigan. In parallel, students will work on a semester-long project with a partner organization (such as Oxfam, UNICEF or the Red Cross) to develop a co-creative activity between the organization and an affected population. After the class, students will have the opportunity to work with D-Lab staff and partners in the field to deliver the co-creative activity. The researchers will measure learning outcomes for the curriculum and identify changes in the students? skills, knowledge, and attitudes. In addition, researchers will determine the effectiveness of co-creation processes and will compare the activities developed as part of this project to the current process for identifying solutions and engaging users in the humanitarian sector. By comparing these processes, the team will be able to identify important hypotheses about effective ways to teach co-creation and participatory principles as well as the effects of a co-creation process on students and refugees. The Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) program is focused on research in graduate education. The goals of IGE are to pilot, test and validate innovative approaches to graduate education and to generate the knowledge required to move these approaches into the broader community.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.