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融合、包容的方法，涉及科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)专业人员。培训学生与多个利益相关者合作，如非营利组织和当地民众，可以更好地为他们解决涉及多个学科或视角的问题做好准备。例如，人道主义组织正在邀请STEM专业人员和受影响人口成员为难民救济和反应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奖(IGE)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侧重于通过发现、设计和传播实现发展，将通过一种教授研究生级设计和系统思维课程的新方法，扩大其对人道主义救援部门的贡献。其目标是培训未来的STEM领导人，使其采用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，内容是如何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联合创意设计会议。虽然该模块是在D-Lab？S人道主义努力的背景下开发和测试的，但它在学术和现场的许多其他环境中也有应用。研究人员将在D-Lab、麻省理工学院的系统设计和管理项目和城市风险实验室、俄勒冈州立大学的人道主义工程项目、哥伦比亚大学的强迫迁移和健康项目以及密歇根大学的信息学院开发和试验设计和系统思维模块的元素。与此同时，学生们将与合作组织(如乐施会、联合国儿童基金会或红十字会)合作开展一个为期一学期的项目，以在该组织和受影响人口之间开展一项共同创造的活动。课程结束后，学生将有机会与D-Lab的工作人员和现场合作伙伴一起开展联合创作活动。研究人员将衡量课程的学习结果，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建进程的有效性，并将把作为该项目一部分而开展的活动与目前确定解决办法和让用户参与人道主义部门的进程进行比较。通过比较这些过程，该小组将能够确定关于教授共同创造和参与原则的有效方法以及共同创造过程对学生和难民的影响的重要假设。研究生教育创新(IGE)项目专注于研究生教育的研究。IGE的目标是试验、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社区所需的知识。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.