EAGER GERMINATION: Computational Modeling from Scenario Development: A Pedagogy for Generating Novel Research Questions to Address Critical Societal Issues

该项目由美国国家科学基金会工程萌芽计划委员会资助，该计划旨在促进教学方法的发展，以提高学术研究人员提出具有潜在变革性结果的研究问题和想法的能力。这个项目旨在开发和测试一个结构化的创造力框架，通过结合使用两种技术：叙事性情景开发和计算建模，通过确定有影响力和科学严谨的研究问题来扩大对挑战的探索。情景建模强调推测和创造力，而计算建模则与精确度和公式化有关。利用这两种方法的组合预计将导致研究问题和议程，对关键的社会挑战具有很大的影响潜力。将为注重研究的研究生部署一个试点教学框架，评价提供反馈，以实现迭代改进。将从一系列学科招聘研究生，认识到提出解决关键社会挑战的研究问题可能需要在多种类型的复杂系统和学科之间建立桥梁。该项目可能会产生一种新的教学方法，可供广泛的研究人员使用，并有望提高他们构思具有社会影响力的研究的能力。该项目将开发和试行一门为期一学期的多学科研究生课程，内容是生成关于关键社会规模挑战的研究问题，将情景开发和计算建模结合在一起。该课程将涉及准实验设计，并将产生纵向、多来源和多标准的评估数据。所有学生将参加教学模块，重点是A)回顾一套标准化的关键社会挑战，B)叙事性情景开发，以及C)计算建模。完成A单元后，学生将被分成两组，按不同的顺序进行B和C单元的学习(即B后C，C后B)。学生提出研究问题的能力将在每个模块之前和之后进行评估。在课程交付的各个学期中，持续的监测、学习和调整应该会导致改进和验证课程的推广和传播。这一新颖的教学法预计将产生广泛的影响，因为它能够测试情景生成研究问题的新颖性、创造力和量化可行性。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。

This project is funded through the NSF Directorate for Engineering Germination program, which seeks to foster the development of pedagogical approaches to increase the ability of academic researchers to formulate research questions and ideas with potentially transformative outcomes. This project aims to develop and test a structured creativity framework that broadens exploration of challenges through the identification of impactful and scientifically rigorous research questions using a combination of two techniques: narrative scenario development and computational modeling. While scenario modeling emphasizes speculation and creativity, computational modeling is associated with precision and formulation. Leveraging this combination of approaches is predicted to result in research questions and agendas with strong potential for impact on critical societal challenges. A pilot pedagogical framework for research-focused graduate students will be deployed, with evaluation providing feedback to enable iterative improvement. Graduate students will be recruited from a range of disciplines, recognizing that the formulation of research questions that address critical societal challenges can require creation of bridges between multiple types of complex systems and disciplines. This project could generate a novel pedagogy that would be available and useful to a broad range of researchers, with the promise of enhancing their capacity to conceive societally impactful research.The project will develop and pilot a semester-long, multidisciplinary graduate course on the generation of research questions about critical societal-scale challenges that couples scenario development and computational modeling. The course will involve a quasi-experimental design and will generate longitudinal, multi-source and multi-criteria evaluation data. All students will take part in instructional modules focused on A) Review of a standardized set of critical societal challenges, B) Narrative scenario development, and C) Computational modeling. Subsequent to completion of the A module, students will be divided into two groups which will undertake B and C modules in contrasting sequence (i.e., B then C, versus C then B). Student capacity to generate research questions will be evaluated before and after each module. Continuous monitoring, learning, and adjustment over semesters of course delivery should result in an improved and validated course for scaling and dissemination. This novel pedagogy is anticipated to have broad impact via its capacity to test the novelty, creativity, and quantitative feasibility of scenario-generated research questions.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.