The Issue
The complex topics that STEM fields grapple with are not merely scientific puzzles; they are also ideologically, morally, and emotionally charged issues. They are informed by multiple scientific disciplines and affect a variety of stakeholders in different ways. They have very real societal consequences.
Issues such as genetically modified crops, vaccine development, and climate change mitigation require understanding of how complex systems work, as well as that these complex systems might look different from different vantage points. In short, we need to teach our students how to understand a diversity of perspectives about these socio-scientific issues.
What are socio-scientific issues?
We have developed teaching instructions, modeling assignments, and a series of case studies (see resources) that provide different positions on controversial socio-scientific issues. The assignments ask students to put themselves in the “mental shoes” of others, with the goal of helping students understand their own understanding and the perspectives of others – leading to a more holistic and complete understanding of a complex issue.
Socio scientific Issues are controversial social issues that require an understanding of science (Zeidler & and Keefer, 2003). They are complex, open-ended problems that often have or require multiple possible solutions. Solutions to these problems can be science-based, but these solutions are often not purely objective and intersect with attitudes, morals, and beliefs. For example, should we bring back extinct species? Should people with cognitive disabilities who commit crimes receive the same punishment as those without these disabilities? Which animal species, if any, should we allow to be used for medical testing? What amount of genetic modification is allowable, in which organisms, and how should it be regulated?
Project Goals
In this research we explore whether perspective taking can improve students’ systems thinking about complex socio-scientific issues. We use the easy-to-use online modeling tool called Mental Modeler (www.mentalmodeler.org) as a pedagogical tool for structuring students’ perspective-taking efforts.
Systems Thinking
Our Approach
Our approach builds on previous research on systems thinking in the undergrad STEM classroom and new research on the impacts of perspective taking. We use a model-based reasoning software called Mental Modeler (www.mentalmodeler.org) to tie it all together.
One of the hallmarks of human intelligence may be the sophistication of our capacity to interpret, predict, and make decisions within complex systems. “Systems thinking” can be broadly defined as understanding relationships, interdependencies, causal chains of impact, and responsibility among elements in a system. While the systems thinking approach to STEM education has been popular for decades, there remain significant gaps in understanding how systems thinking is scaffolded in the undergraduate STEM classroom and how to assess and measure systems thinking. The popularity of teaching STEM content using a systems thinking approach is based on two major benefits. First, it relies on the notion that if students can develop skills that allow them to think deeply about the complex dynamics of systems, they are better prepared to predict a system’s behavior and engineer solutions that lead to more favorable outcomes (see identifying "leverage points" discussed in Meadows, 2008). Additionally, since systems thinking is a transdisciplinary and generalizable construct, it is also a useful way for students to integrate and synthesize knowledge across disciplines. Such systemic thinking generates habits of mind that we believe are useful for grappling with contemporary societal and environmental problems.
Model-based learning
Based on the notion that internal “mental models” are constructed over time as learners obtain new information, we argue that iterative external model construction is a viable practice with which learners can integrate both evidence and domain-specific knowledge into visualizations (i.e., concept maps). These models can also be used to measure degrees of systems thinking. The tools, teaching resources, and case studies in this project integrate social and scientific concepts embedded in content knowledge that students encounter in their disciplinary classes.
Perspective-taking
Our approach uses perspective-taking as a gateway to improving systems thinking and model-based reasoning. Perspective taking is the ability to make inferences about and represent others' psychological states - -their emotions, thoughts, goals, and intentions. We argue that perspective taking is a fundamental part of systems thinking and is yet underdeveloped in terms of STEM training (see Cabrera et al., and others 2008 and Taylor et al., 2020). While perspective taking has been formally promoted as a pedagogical tool in other disciplines including the humanities and social sciences (Kahn & Zeidler, 2016), this project tries to extend this to STEM education.
