| A Computer System Simulation of Student Performance in the Elementary Classroom |
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Author(s):
Nancy Roberts
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Subject:
Research |
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Nancy Roberts did a study of student performance during her doctoral work in 1973. It was published in the September 1974 issue of Simulation & Gaming, vol.5: pp 265-290, and is still available online at the Simulation & Gaming journal site. |
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Link to the file: http;//sag.sagepub.com/
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| America Disrupted: Dynamics of the Technical Capability Crisis |
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Author(s):
Dan Sturtevant
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Subject:
Research |
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The percentage of students earning Bachelor‘s degrees in engineering is almost half what it was in 1985. This decline has occurred despite the fact that wages for engineering graduates are higher than those of any other degree-type. Unemployment for scientists and engineers has just hit a record low. What is being studied in this thesis is an apparent contradiction: people decreasingly willing to go into a field in which wages are extremely strong. |
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 PDF (2238 K)
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| Assessing the Effectiveness of Systems-Oriented Instruction for Preparing Students to Understand Complexity |
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Author(s):
Richard Randall Plate
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Subject:
Research |
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Dissertation for Ph.D. This research presents systems-oriented instruction as a promising pedagogical tool for preparing students to understand complex social and ecological systems. A methodology is presented using cognitive mapping to evaluate how systems-oriented instruction affects the way students learn about complex systems. |
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PDF (722 K)
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| Building Slightly More Complex Models: Calculators vs. STELLA |
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Author(s):
Diana M. Fisher
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Subject:
Research |
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If students are to develop the potential to effectively manage ubiquitous complex systems, it is becoming increasing important to develop systems thinking concepts and model building skills formally at the pre-college level. This paper describes an experiment conducted in two secondary school classrooms in the Pacific northwestern United States to determine the importance of access to a relatively new modeling tool for students to enable them to successfully create and analyze simple models that are slight extensions of traditional models, as compared with using graphing calculators to build and analyze the same extended model scenarios. |
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PDF (513 K)
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| Children’s Misconceptions as Barriers to Learning Stock-and-Flow Modeling |
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Author(s):
Oren Zuckerman,& Mitchel Resnick
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Subject:
Research |
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Research has shown that people have difficulties understanding dynamic behavior. In an attempt to better understand the nature of these difficulties, we have developed a new modeling tool and
conducted an exploratory study with young children. The modeling tool, called System Blocks, is a set of communicating plastic boxes with embedded computation that facilitates hands-on modeling and simulation of stock & flow structures. In the study, 5th grade students were asked to perform several assignments with System Blocks, dealing with concepts such as rates, accumulation, net-flow, and positive feedback. Our initial findings suggest there are common patterns in the way children think about dynamic behavior, which might account for some of the difficulties children as well as adults have when faced with dynamic behavior in general and stock & flow models in particular. These patterns include a tendency to prefer: quantity over process (stock over flow), sequential processes over simultaneous processes, and inflow over outflow. |
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PDF (582 K)
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| Does a Model Facilitate Learning? Some preliminary experimental findings |
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Author(s):
David Wheat, Robin Goldstein,& Larry Weathers
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Subject:
Research |
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The purpose of the experiment described in this paper is to compare the learning that takes place with different methods of delivering essentially the same information about Gross Domestic Product to student groups. The main delivery methods discussed are (1) simple narrative only, and (2) the same narrative, accompanied by a diagram revealed in stages, using STELLA’s “story” feature. This experiment was administered to secondary students in the Harvard Public Schools in Massachusetts, and to community college and secondary students in Virginia. Tentative results suggest that students having access to the model structure learn more than students receiving only narrative instruction. |
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PDF (298 K)
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| How Is This Similar to That? The skill of recognizing parallel dynamic structures on center stage |
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Author(s):
Linda Booth Sweeney
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Subject:
Research |
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This article is intended to put systems educators’ daily work in context for educational researchers and to highlight a central skill for schools seeking to teach students to see, understand, and ultimately affect the systems around them. |
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PDF (129 K)
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| Learning System Thinking: The role of semiotic and cognitive resources |
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Author(s):
Maria Larsson
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Subject:
Research |
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Three empirical studies provide detailed analyses of video-recorded collaborative work in System Dynamics education. In a Master’s program in environmental studies, students are introduced to systems thinking and the method of creating Causal Loop Diagrams and interactive computer models for analyzing and solving complex problems. They learn how to use the terminology, symbols and methods of a specific semiotic domain. The research questions concern how interacting with systems thinking tools affect students in the process of collaboratively analyzing and modeling complex problems, and how cognitive and semiotic resources are used in this process. The study provides a conceptual lens with which to discuss and perceive the complexity of learning to express knowledge with new representational tools: both its visual and spatial formalism and the related terminology. Three theoretical perspectives are applied: the socio-cultural perspective, the social semiotic, and the constructivist perspective. |
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Link to the file: http://www.lu.se/o.o.i.s?id=12588&postid=1503748
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| Systems Thinking and Dynamic Modeling within K-12 Schools: Effects on Student Learning |
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Author(s):
Anne LaVigne
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Subject:
Research |
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The increasing trend of use of systems thinking and dynamic modeling could not have occurred without a network of educators who saw the benefits for their students and who worked and continue to work on
developing capacity to apply systems thinking and dynamic modeling within classroom instruction and organizational learning.
Perhaps some important questions to consider are “How and why has it spread thus far?” and “What keeps it from spreading more quickly?” One partial answer begins with yet another question: “After twenty years, what evidence exists that using systems thinking/dynamic modeling (ST/DM) methodologies has a positive, desirable effect on student learning?”
Four areas of evidence are available, each in different quantities and with different measurement criteria. The largest body of evidence is found within the anecdotes of teachers who describe thinking and learning results for their students. Although smaller in quantity, action research (a methodology used to investigate a particular question about learning) and student survey results allow for observation of some general trends relating to student learning/thinking. Finally, empirical research studies are less prevalent, but have occurred within K-12 classrooms. |
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PDF (117 K)
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| The Feedback Method : A System Dynamics Approach to Teaching Macroeconomics |
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Author(s):
David Wheat
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Subject:
Research |
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This thesis documents a method for improving undergraduate instruction in macroeconomics. Called the feedback method, it enables students to learn about dynamic behavior in a market economy by using feedback loop diagrams and interactive computer simulation models instead of static graphs or differential equations. There are at least two types of pedagogical problems associated with graphical representation of the economy. First, students seem to have difficulty interpreting static graphs used to illustrate dynamics, which raises questions about the value added by graphs to student understanding. Secondly, the most prominent graph in modern macroeconomics principles textbooks—the aggregate supply and demand (AS/AD) model—appears to misrepresent disequilibrium conditions in the economy and cause students who understand the graph to misunderstand important behavior in the economy. The feedback method emphasizes dynamics rather than static equilibrium conditions. How the economy changes over time in different contexts is the behavioral question that students repeatedly encounter. The structure of the economy is explained in terms of reinforcing and counteracting feedback loops. Student understanding of the source of dynamic economic behavior requires seeking, identifying, and explaining relevant feedback structure in an economic system. Interactive computer simulation activities reinforce the insights gained from studying feedback loops. Even small-scale student participation in model-building seems to facilitate understanding of a larger model; moreover, such participation may build respect for the scientific method and an appreciation for theory building by economists. The feedback method is a structural explanation of economic behavior, but it also provides an improved learning structure for students, and the thesis reports on four experiments designed to test that claim. Two experiments examined student preferences for methods of learning macroeconomics; for example, using static graphs or a feedback loop diagram. The experimental designs were quite different, but the results were the same—a significant majority preferred the feedback method. The most commonly cited reason: feedback loops enable the students to visualize a process in the economy. The third and fourth experiments addressed the performance question. In the third experiment, students showed more understanding of GDP when they had access to a stock-and-flow feedback diagram of the economy. In the final experiment, students using feedback loop diagrams displayed more understanding of business cycle dynamics than other students who had access to an AS/AD graph. Teaching students to search for feedback structure in the economy and using computer simulation to connect structure with behavior appears to be a promising method for teaching macroeconomics. |
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Link to the file: https://bora.uib.no/handle/1956/2239
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