Collaborative Research: Integrating Perspective-taking and Systems Thinking for Complex Problem-Solving

该项目旨在通过使用计算机建模来呈现多个视角，帮助学生提高系统思维和复杂的社会技术问题解决能力，从而为国家利益服务。STEM领域努力解决的主题往往不仅仅是科学问题；它们有时也是意识形态和情感上的问题。这些当代“社会科学”问题以不同的方式影响到多个利益攸关方，并在经济和社会方面产生实际和不同的后果。理解和应对这些社会科学问题，如转基因作物、疫苗开发/部署和气候变化缓解，需要个人不仅了解科学内容和系统如何工作，而且还需要了解这些系统从不同的有利角度如何看待。该项目的目标是开发和评估新的教学策略，以提高对这些复杂的社会和环境问题的理解和决策。本项目将以以往的研究为基础，开发最先进的本科教学策略。正在设计的软件、课程工具和案例研究将被美国各地的大学教师用来促进换位思考和解决问题。正式地让学生进行这种思考对培养美国未来的劳动力至关重要。具体来说，学生将参与一系列关于复杂社会科学问题的案例研究，并使用MentalModeler （www.mentalmodeler.org）软件从不同利益相关者的角度绘制系统。我们相信，这种方法将促进系统思维，基于模型的推理，视角，和解决问题的能力在本科课堂。我们打算测试这样一个假设，即在不同的本科课程中整合新颖的视角和系统建模：1)帮助学生克服由有争议的社会科学主题引起的一些认知和动机障碍，2)导致对系统本身的更深入和更准确的理解，3)帮助学习者创建和支持关于干预对系统级结果影响的论点。NSF IUSE: EHR计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生STEM教育的有效性。通过参与学生学习轨道，该计划支持有前途的实践和工具的创建，探索和实施。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。

This project aims to serve the national interest by using computer modeling to present multiple perspectives, helping students to improve systems thinking and complex socio-technical problem-solving. The topics with which STEM fields grapple are often not merely scientific problems; they are also at times ideologically and emotionally charged issues. Such contemporary “socio-scientific” issues affect multiple stakeholders in different ways and have real and diverse consequences, both economic and societal. Understanding and responding to these socio-scientific issues, such as genetically modified crops, vaccine development/deployment and climate change mitigation, requires that individuals not only understand scientific content and how systems work, but also how these systems look from different vantage points. The goal of this project is to develop and assess new teaching strategies to improve understanding and decision-making related to such complex social and environmental problems. This project will build on research from previous studies to develop the state-of-the-art undergraduate instruction strategies. The software, curricular tools, and case studies being designed will be used by college instructors across the United States to promote perspective-taking and problem-solving. Formally engaging students in this type of thinking is essential to the training of America’s future workforce. Specifically, students will engage with a series of case studies on complex socio-scientific issues, and use the MentalModeler (www.mentalmodeler.org) software to map out the system from the perspectives of different stakeholders. We believe this approach will promote systems thinking, model-based reasoning, perspective taking, and problem-solving ability in the undergraduate classroom. We intend to test the hypothesis that integrating novel perspective taking and systems modeling across different undergraduate courses: 1) helps students overcome some of the cognitive and motivational obstacles elicited by controversial socio-scientific topics, 2) leads to a deeper and more accurate understanding of the system itself, and 3) helps learners create and support arguments regarding the effect of interventions on system-level outcomes. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.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.