December 1999

December 1999

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 1999
To: "k-12sd" <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
From: Ed Gallaher <gallaher@mail.teleport.com>
Subject: Re: Role of student in the system

>Date: Mon, 29 Nov 1999 17:13:17 -0500
>To: "k-12sd" <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
>From: George Richardson <gpr@csc.albany.edu>
>Subject: Re: Role of student in the system
>
>At 1:20 PM -0500 11/29/99, k-12sd wrote:
>>> The interesting thing that we have found is that younger children "think
>>> this way naturally".....
>
>This notion has been put forward in various places and times in our systems
>thinking efforts with kids in schools, so it has some natural
>attractiveness or natural connection for a number of people.
>
>But I think it can not be true.

I agree with George that the reason we apply the modeling/simulation tools
is that we cannot think intuitively about complex dynamics, or even simple
dynamics, when even a single feedback loop contributes to the behavior.
This includes 8-year-olds.
On the other hand, it is easy to understand that a pile of toys, water in a
glass, a bank balance, or fish in a lake, are "stocks", which can be
illustrated by a rectangle.
And flows are easy to understand for each of these examples:
- toys are bought or arrive as gifts; they break, are outgrown, or are lost
- water is poured into the glass; it evaporates or is consumed
- inputs include bank deposits and interest income (with its attendant
reinforcing loop!); outputs include withdrawals (spending), and bank robbery
- fish migrate in, eggs are laid, fish are hatched (reinforcing loop); fish
are eaten by other fish, migrate out, or are caught by fisherpersons
It is also reasonably easy to take the "innocent" student forward with
these concepts, begin simulating, and continue to examine more complex
behaviors.
In contrast, it is VERY difficult to get "educated" adults to temporarily
set aside their knowledge of calculus and differential equations (however
rusty), and consider the elegant simplicity of the system dynamics
framework from the child's innocent perspective!
(Hmmm . . . perhaps I will try this in the future. If we asked our
audience to consider explaining these issues to their children, or
grandchildren, might we convince them, at least temporarily, to avoid
filtering what we are saying through their years of "traditional" math,
cause and effect viewpoints, etc.?
In a business consulting arena, however, or in a medical school seminar,
this might not be appreciated.
The danger of course would be (inadvertently . . . ?) insulting the
audience's intelligence.)

I am convinced that SD is an elegantly SIMPLER way of organizing the
STRUCTURE of a complex system, and then examining the system's BEHAVIOR. It
does not necessarily -appear- simpler if the audience is observing the
elegance through a differential equations filter.
Ed Gallaher

Xxxxxxxxx

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 1999
Subject: Re: Role of student in the system
From: "Timothy Joy" <tjoy@pps.k12.or.us>
To: "k-12sd" k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu

Worker?
manager?
Such industrial metaphors. Were we not trying to escape that paradigm?
I have heard this discussion for days and felt an unease but could not name
it, nor am I certain I can name it even now. Still, student as worker
conjures misty images of a Dickensian world: David Copperfield in the boot
blacking factory, my dad working on Christmas Day. These are things we
aspire to? Do not these images also carry the burden of all those ancillary
industrial messages: interminable hours, for the company, hierarchy, for a
product to be sold, strikes, tensions, unions, production, assembly,
competition.
Why not student as poet? The maker, one who creates.
Yes, images of beatniks, ne'er-do-wells, black-coated slouches who crowd
doorways and smoke hand-rolled cigarettes. I choose a nobler derivation:
Plato feared the poets, wished them expelled from the Republic for they were
dangerous: they had their own minds.
In the world imagined by Jay Forrester in World Dynamics(1971) and the world
we create bit by bit as we daily live with students, do we not wish it
populated with poets?
Tim Joy

Xxxxxxxxxxxx

From: LucasRPS@aol.com
Date: Tue, 30 Nov 1999
Subject: Re: Re: Role of student in the system
To: k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu

Dear George,
I will gracefully, and with all respect disagree with you.
Originally, I wrote several pages dealing with learning styles, 4MAT,
developmental stages of children, the work of current brain researchers like
Mel Levine, and my 27 years as a resident in elementary and middle schools.
I went into detail about my current enrichment class of 7th graders and the
work they are doing with first graders on causal loops - but I stopped.
I am not going to change your mind.
What I do hope for is that more classroom teachers join this site so that
there is a balance of theory and practice explored and shared by all. And
eventually, that we have students, who have been working with SD and ST
since elementary school, sharing their insights about their learning
experiences.
The assessment model we need on this topic is longitudinal experiences that
give us first hand knowledge and wisdom. I believe it will come from the
students we started working with nine years ago in the primary grades.
With good thoughts and best wishes for a happy holiday, the new millenium,
and a seamless K-16 SD curriculum across the country -
Tim
Timothy R. Lucas
Superintendent of Schools
Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey

Xxxxxxxxx

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 1999
To: "k-12sd" <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
From: teresa@northwest.com
Subject: Re: Role of student in the system

I wish it were true that younger kids think this way because if it were
then educators would have a much easier time of it. Although we often hear
about how students will "play the system"....I wonder if that's related to
this discussion.
I have been thinking about this scenario. You are a teacher and your
students consistently don't follow through with assignments, reading,
etc....so....
no matter what you try to implement they still choose to follow this
behavior and choose to fail. We always talk about the connection between
teaching and learning and how we need to be more aware of that interaction.
In my mind this means the feedback loops in a scenario like this. There is
feedback between the teacher's actions and expectations and the students
actions or "lack thereof". The longer this pattern goes on the teacher
becomes less motivated to offer rich, well planned, time consuming
experiences and tends to take the low road. This change in motivation on
the teacher's part has to be obvious to the students who then become less
motivated to work because now the teacher is also less motivated. Would
this be modeled as "escalation" or "drifting goals"?
Another scenario....when we say that we need to raise the standards in
education, which is what most reform movements are all about, aren't we
saying that we are not happy with the "Quality of the students" that we are
turning out to higher education or the workforce? There is a gap between
the quality we and they want and the actual quality of the student we have.
There is also the question about what is the measure of quality that the
key players use?
Is it grades, which is pretty much the norm now or could it be work
samples, portofolios which may be a better measure? As the effort to close
the gap must intensify in terms of a school's investment in ongoing teacher
prep, remedial programs, rich student experiences with technology or
whatever we think will help, this expenditure of effort may turn out to be
too much for some teachers and some schools so then there is pressure to
lower the goal (standards) and accept what we have and our internal
standards become what we use to assess our success. Unless we pay
attention to external expectations and standards it doesn't seem that
things will get better. The other more positive reinforcing loop could be
once we find the right leverage point to help close the gap and are able to
turn out "higher Quality students" then students can better sell themselves
to the public who may offer more help in funding schools and programs
which helps us to keep our internal standard high. Is this really the
"business model" of schools and an example of drifting goals?

At 01:40 PM 11/30/99 -0500, you wrote:
>Date: Mon, 29 Nov 1999 17:13:17 -0500
>To: "k-12sd" <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
>From: George Richardson <gpr@csc.albany.edu>
>Subject: Re: Role of student in the system
>
>At 1:20 PM -0500 11/29/99, k-12sd wrote:
>>> The interesting thing that we have found is that younger children "think
>>> this way naturally".....
>
>This notion has been put forward in various places and times in our systems
>thinking efforts with kids in schools, so it has some natural
>attractiveness or natural connection for a number of people.
>
>But I think it can not be true.
>
>Or if we construe it in such a way that we think it's really true, then the
>phrase 'think this way' must mean something different from what I think we
>really mean when we talk about 'systems thinking in complex dynamic
>systems.'
>
>No kid can look a diagram of a simple model like Forrester's World Dynamics
>model and say anything accurate about how the stock-and-flow/feedback
>structure of that system influences its dynamics. (No adult can either,
>without considerable cognitive support from simulation.) So we must not be
>saying 'kids can think intuitively and accurately about the dynamics of
>stock-and-flow/feedback systems.' I'd go so far as to say that kids can't
>say anything accurate about the behavior of a simple oscillating structure
>or maybe even S-shpaed growth without the wonderfully insightful and
>helpful teaching you folk are trying to provide kids in k-12 (and I'm
>trying to provide to graduate students).
>
>I don't even think kids think naturally in loops. (Although, I do think
>they are less surprised by the idea than adults who have had years of
>one-way causal chains and logical arguments spread before them.) In fact,
>I think that's the point of our use of simulation: we CAN'T think
>naturally in feedback loops, once things go beyond a trivial level of
>complexity -- we need cognitive supports, which, fortunately, good formal
>models can provide.
>
>But smart people say 'younger children think this way naturally.' So --
>what do we mean by that?
>
>...GPR
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>George P. Richardson G.P.Richardson@Albany.edu
>Chair, Dept. of Public Administration and Policy 518-442-5258
>Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy 518-442-5298
>University at Albany, NY 12222 http:/www.albany.edu/~gpr
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------

xxxxxxxxx

Date: Wed, 01 Dec 1999
From: Niall Palfreyman <Niall.Palfreyman@assyst-intl.com>
To: k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Role of student in the system

George Richardson wrote:
> But smart people say 'younger children think this way naturally.' So
> what do we mean by that?
George also wrote:
> (Although, I do think they are less surprised by the idea than adults
> who have had years of one-way causal chains and logical arguments
> spread before them.)
I think you've answered your own question, George. I would say half of
learning is to do with actively proposing and exploring new ways of
thinking, and half is being open to those such proposals which come from
others. "Younger children think this way naturally" sounds as if it
means that children actively want to think this way, but I think their
advantage over us adults lies rather in their openness to alternative
thinking proposed by others. Children are possibly more naturally
curious than us and also, as you say, less burdened with other,
conflicting, views which can inhibit openness to new ideas.
Incidentally, I can imagine this making the teaching of SD to kids
somewhat frustrating, since many approaches to teaching SD seem to rely
on making the learner aware of the kind of lovely counter-intuitions we
were playing with a couple of months ago. Yet kids are mostly stunningly
unsurprised by such things - they're so used to things being different
from the way they thought.
I wonder... You know, I've just had the glimmerings of an idea. Most
kids I have to do with (these are younger than 10, mostly) just love the
idea of magic. And there is an element of magic in watching a system's
dynamics unfold - it's just that the diagrams are a bit abstract for
young kids; magic needs to be more practical and kinaesthetically
oriented. I'd be interested to hear examples from people of more
_tangible_ counter-intuitive experiments which might be used with young
children to raise awareness of systems issues. I remember for example
how my son was delighted when I showed him how he could stand stably on
a bus not by fighting its motion, but rather by lowering his centre of
gravity. I think kids love such paradoxes: they just need to come in the
form of _felt_ experience.
Any ideas?
Niall.

--
We have only the world that we can bring forth
with others, and only love helps us bring it forth.
Dr. Niall Palfreyman mailto:Niall.Palfreyman@assyst-intl.com
assyst GmbH, Henschelring 15a
85551 Kirchheim bei Muenchen Tel: ++49-89-90505-233
Germany. Fax: ++49-89-90505-102/3

Xxxxxxxx

Date: Thu, 02 Dec 1999
From: Marion Brady <mbrady@digital.net>
To: k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Role of student in the system

> .....But smart people say 'younger children think this way naturally.' So --
> what do we mean by that?
George,
Probably only my mother would say I qualify for "smart," but I can
tell you
what _I_ mean when _I_ say that.
First, dismiss any notion that "understanding" necessarily means the
matching of some particular jargon we happen to use with a particular concept.
Many different words or symbols could be attached to and "stand for" various
systems concepts.
Second, (insofar as possible) dismiss the assumption that the academic
disciplines are the optimum tools for "taking reality apart" for detailed
study.
(This isn't easy. Our whole system of education is based on the disciplines.)
Third, replace for a moment the disciplines as the basic tool for
describing
and analyzing reality with the five-part approach to segmenting reality
imbedded
in our thought and language. Attempting to understand something -- anything --
we, without exception, (1) locate it in physical space, (2) assign time
dimensions, (3) identify the participant actors or objects, (4) describe the
state or action, and (5) attribute "cause" to the action. (This is the
basis for
the "where, when, who, what / how, why" categories that underlie conversation,
news stories, histories, crime reports, military orders, fiction, biography,
drama, etc.)
These five concepts, along with each one's massive supporting conceptual
framework, are the basic organizers of all perceptions of experience.
( I said "replace the disciplines as the basic tool for describing and
analyzing reality" because the traditional disciplines don't lend themselves to
systemic thinking. Their differing vocabularies, conceptual frameworks,
levels of
abstraction, objectives, etc. keep them from being related in ways that promote
the tracing of systemic relationships. But the above five ARE systemically
integrated, and when they are pulled together to form a SINGLE conceptual
framework for modeling reality, there are no artificial barriers standing
in the
way of generating relationship hypotheses ranging across our entire realm of
knowledge.
In my opinion, we begin thinking in relationship terms -- systemically --
very early in life. ("Hmmm. If I make this certain noise, my diaper gets
changed.") However, the five mesh so seamlessly, so automatically, and are so
familiar we're unaware of the process. I wonder sometimes if the whole process
isn't hardwired.
When we build systems models of aspects of reality, we're playing with the
subconcepts within our five-part "master" systems model. Now I certainly
wouldn't maintain that any kid can trace (or even follow) every systems model.
Of course they can't. But it's my opinion that difficulties in so doing stem
from degrees of elaboration, not from kids' inability to grasp the basics.
When
adults have difficulty, I think maybe it's at least partly because of what I
mentioned earlier. We've built an educational system on the false premise that
an acceptable general education can be fashioned from an assortment of
specialized studies -- "distribution requirements." We give students a
bunch of
random pieces of the reality puzzle, but no picture on the lid of the
puzzle box
to show them how the pieces fit together.
That's my admittedly pretty-far-out-of-the-mainstream take on the matter.
Marion
--
SUPRADISCIPLINARY, SEAMLESS CURRICULA
http://digital.net/~mbrady/

xxxxxxxxx

Date: Fri, 03 Dec 1999 19:47:38 -0800
From: "RICHARD TURNOCK" <Richard_Turnock@pgn.com>
To: k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu
Subject: Student

>>>>>>>>
Why not student as poet?
>>>>>>>>>>
Great suggestion Tim!
Yes, have them write poems describing dynamic systems.
As for the word "worker", it's an industrial age word that's
hard to get rid of, and used to help people make the transition
to a new mental model. What should we label students that is both
dignifying and describes their accountability in the revised system?

Xxxxxxxx

From: KCStarguy@aol.com
Date: Sat, 4 Dec 1999
Subject: students
To: teresa@northwest.com, k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu

I was interested in your thoughts below.
As for " play the system" students don't usually think through what they are
doing if they just play.
They fail because there is not plan and goal.
Teachers are not aware of "connection between teaching and learning and how
we need to be more aware of that interaction " because most teachers let
students just do what they want on the computers and do not prepare and
monitor them. The kids think and know they can usually do what ever they
want.
as for
" aren't we saying that we are not happy with the "Quality of the students"
that we are turning out to higher education or the workforce? There is a gap
between
the quality we and they want and the actual quality of the student we have."
it is not about raising the standards but holding the line and getting the
most out of what they are doing. It is what we expect that gauges that. I
expect the brighter students do do better quality work and the lesser ones
also. It is not necessarily the same thing . The teacher must know to raise
the students level. But first you have to recognize what the student should
do or be capable of.
Grades don't necessarily indicated what a student learns or is capable of .
Achievement tests given even less so.
There is too much emphasis on content and not enough on assimilating the
information and applying it. Why? easier to test.
Parents complain that there students are not prepared when they go to college
but they are the first to complain if the teacher's standards are considered
too high and the poor little cherubs have to really think and do they work
instead of having the "stuff" handed to them shoveled into the brains.
Too many teachers, say " find all you can about a topic." The emphasis is
then on "regurgitation station" students copy information. And today we have
high technology regurgitation station as students now copy from the internet
and teachers let them. They are just please as punch that they use the
internet.
Better yet they should do like I did with my students. Instead of letting
them do presentation on " Tornadoes or some other topic of their choice" I
had them phrase a question that they wanted to answer (example: what causes
hurricanes?) and that is the main title. Each part of the presentation has to
tackle that . Each student has a different topic so they can't copy from
someone else. Those who work in pairs have to produce and help others.
The students are not used to this. One girl was surprised when I told that
the information that she found had nothing to do with the topic. I showed her
a website I developed to find more information on storms and told her to find
related information. While working on one computer looking at the site, she
use the other other to form her powerpoint slides on the topic. And she
learned and began to do a good job. That is learning- not just letting them
get by doing a lesser job of the task.
Then they fill out my E.J.A.W.s- (Explorers, Judges, Artists and Warriors)
sheets and let me know what they learned . And I am very pleased with most of
the progress by most of them.
I am gearing these methods so that they will use robotics, simulations
(simcity2000, farm, life) and stella for next semester while also entering
some contests.
Time will tell.
Dr. Eric Flescher (KCStarguy@aol.com) Project S.I.M. (Simulations,
Interdisciplinary internet and Metacognitive activities)
Dr. Eric Flescher, (KCStarguy@aol.com)- Educational Technology
Consultant-Adjunct Faculty, Lesley College-Multimedia-
Gifted education consultant- Piper HS; Northwest MS, Coronado MS (Kansas
City, KS)

xxxxxxxxxxx

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 1999
To: "k-12sd" <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
From: teresa@northwest.com
Subject: Re: Role of student in the system

Xxxxxxx

From: KCStarguy@aol.com
Date: Sat, 4 Dec 1999
Subject: stelllaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
To: k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu, gpr@csc.albany.edu

>No kid can look a diagram of a simple model like Forrester's World Dynamics
>model and say anything accurate about how the stock-and-flow/feedback
>structure of that system influences its dynamics.
from DrEric: well said and true
***
(No adult can either,without considerable cognitive support from simulation.)
So we must not be
>saying 'kids can think intuitively and accurately about the dynamics of
>stock-and-flow/feedback systems.' I'd go so far as to say that kids can't
>say anything accurate about the behavior of a simple oscillating structure
>or maybe even S-shpaed growth without the wonderfully insightful and
>helpful teaching you folk are trying to provide kids in k-12 (and I'm
>trying to provide to graduate students).
from DrEric: Students are not used to diagnotically observing looking and
searching. Many expect the idea to pop into their head instead of "looking."
*****************
>I don't even think kids think naturally in loops. (Although, I do think
>they are less surprised by the idea than adults who have had years of
>one-way causal chains and logical arguments spread before them.) In fact,
>I think that's the point of our use of simulation: we CAN'T think
>naturally in feedback loops, once things go beyond a trivial level of
>complexity -- we need cognitive supports, which, fortunately, good formal
>models can provide.
from DrEric: cognitive support comes in the way of coaching, teaching,
student reflection and more. Models provide but teachers have to assimilate,
model and have to integrate and use it the want they want
**
>But smart people say 'younger children think this way naturally.' So --
>what do we mean by that?
from DrEric: They may think that way naturally but if you don't focus it and
guide it through some design it goes no where like playing Nintendo. The key
is to use the intuitive nature or develop but having students search and
thinking about what they are doing. Then they need to use it in meaningful
way and reflect back about what they are doing and this is where the teacher
comes in. With different students it may come at different times even as they
work at their own pace.
And above all they need to be "warriors." Just because they are intuitive
does not mean that you can't learn to do something better especially if you
have to think about it. Being automatic is not neccessary learning. I have
seen that with my research and dissertation especially with technology.
Finally , " The word 'engage' is what Jean Luc Picard says for the Enterprise
to go somewhere- it should not be used to indicate what students are
learning with computers and technology."
There is too much emphasis on how the students are engaged with technology.
That does not mean anything. They have to learn how to be "warriors" while
switching back and forth with "being engaged" and also "being disengaged." By
that I mean you sometime you have to take them out of their "comfort zone"
and let them struggle a bit. Then the teacher can take these moments and use
them with stella, robots, activities and more.
And even as I ponder how to format my stella curriculum and wonder if I can
introduce it to the middle school students and make it success. So far I have
not seen anything that will take me to that level so I have to invent the
way.
This listserve helps so any feedback is welcome.
Dr. Eric Flescher, (KCStarguy@aol.com)- Educational Technology
Consultant-Adjunct Faculty, Lesley College-Multimedia-
Project S.I.M. (Simulations, Interdisciplinary internet and Metacognitive
activities)
Gifted education consultant- Piper HS; Northwest MS, Coronado MS (Kansas
City, KS)

Xxxxxxx

From: KCStarguy@aol.com
Date: Sat, 4 Dec 1999
Subject: Re: Role of student in the system
To: k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu, mbrady@digital.net
I like what you have to say in the listserve and also on your site.
" We give students a bunch of random pieces of the reality puzzle, but no
picture on the lid of the puzzle box to show them how the pieces fit
together."
says it all. that's it right there.
I don't much about knowing that students for example know the names of the
planets
Can they do it in order or better yet backwards. Can they invent a way to
remember the planets? Better yet instead of memorizing the planets or
something else, what questions do you want to answer and how do you go about
that>?
I find making the students aware of how the pieces fit together the
challenge and is most rewarding. Seeing the minds click on and discover new
things and getting them there, that is the thing.
Dr. Eric Flescher (KCStarguy@aol.com) Project S.I.M. (Simulations,
Interdisciplinary internet and Metacognitive activities)
Educational Technology Consultant-Adjunct Faculty, Lesley College-Multimedia
<< --
SUPRADISCIPLINARY, SEAMLESS CURRICULA
http://digital.net/~mbrady/
>>

xxxxxxxxx

From: KCStarguy@aol.com
Date: Sat, 4 Dec 1999
Subject: ejaws sheet
To: apple-net-authoring@public.lists.apple.com,
techfacilitators@egroups.com,
I now have my E.J.A.W.s- (Explorers, Judges, Artists and Warriors) sheets in
pdf format ready to sent to those who want it for use in classroom
activities, projects with or without technology.
It can be used for assessment, metacognitive feedback, discussions, higher
level thinking and more.
If interested email me (directly, not the "list").
Dr. Eric Flescher, (KCStarguy@aol.com)- Educational Technology
Consultant-Adjunct Faculty, Lesley College-Multimedia-
Dr. Eric Flescher (KCStarguy@aol.com) Project S.I.M. (Simulations,
Interdisciplinary internet and Metacognitive activities)

Xxxxxxxx

From: "Curtis Lee" <clee@spusd.k12.ca.us>
To: "'k-12sd'" <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
Subject: RE: Role of student in the system
Date: Sun, 5 Dec 1999

Observer from afar offering a tangent. Reading a book by Paul Cilliers,
"Complexity and Postmodernism", that takes issue with the very idea of
modeling complexity. His assertion is that only "complicated" things can be
modeled. If it is truly complex than it is typically emergent or in flux,
self-organizing and without boundaries. This makes any attempt to capture it
merely an artificially bound snapshot. The snapshot model is informative,
surely, but with tremendous caveats.
I sit and stare at this public high school and try to get a handle on the
flow, and it is staggering. As I understand him, Cilliers insists that the
tool by which to grasp/feel/understand/manage? this complexity lies more in
the deconstructivist school of postmodern, with an appreciation for constant
adaptations, than in SD. In a nutshell, I want to find more elegant
adjustments/insertions that behave in more of a viral fashion, as opposed to
a more mechanistic approach (e.g., standards) that seeks to further
delineate reality/knowledge till we've distilled it to death.
Randomly offered,
Curtis Lee

Xxxxxxxxx

Date: Mon, 06 Dec 1999
Subject: Re: Role of student in the system
From: "Timothy Joy" <tjoy@pps.k12.or.us>
To: "k-12sd" k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu

In my earliest years as I teacher, I realized how poorly the information from the School of Education correlated to my experience in the classroom (Didn't we all go through this?!). I set aside most of it and looked elsewhere for clues about learning and, consequently, how one ought to go about teaching. And so I watched my own children at play. My younger brother once told me a that an adult's life purpose is to attain the seriousness of a child at play. (My brother didn't dream up that gem, but he did tell me about it.) Pithy. I have pondered it off and on for nearly 20 years now. At the time, my children(then, just two: one of each) were four and two. They played. Interesting to note that their play never split discretely into subjects, but was unabashedly, enthusiastically multi-disciplinary, multi-sensory, and certainly multi-reality. Their play taught them things about each other and their world: building models of the unfolding world around them and testing themselves within its framework. Then they went to school. Boxes and queues everywhere. Non of our curricular materials were (nor are many even today) designed with a child's multiplicity of interest in mind. I do believe a child senses, apprehends or considers that her sphere of life contains some connections, but only some: if I poke my brother in the eye, mother will scold me. But delays absolutely confound a child: ten minutes ago is much the same as ten days ago-it's gone, so what? In short, children seem predisposed toward relationships and connections, but as for some apprehension of natural systems, as George called loop thinking, I must admit to not seeing it, certainly not of the order we might be imagining or hoping for. Of course, much of our early instruction (or, for that matter, much of any of our instruction) has little to do with that. Wordsworth has a great line about this: "for to be mistaught is to be worse than untaught." Do they apprehend a stock/flow diagram naturally? Probably not, no more so than most children read or write naturally. Do they think in loops naturally? To some extent, maybe. But to what order? Maybe SD/ST provides an elegant view of changing experience, but it is still an abstraction, a mental construct with some formal rules. As a model, think of language acquisition: while speech may be instinctual and grammar a neurological predisposition, clearly orthography is neither; we still gotta teech speling. I will be safe here, believing that if I agree with George, I'm in good territory. His deeper question raised at the end is a keen challenge to us. Brain research is only recently providing insight to what might be optimal instruction. What is "a natural way for a child to think"? Maybe we should all have paid closer attention to Art Linkletter. Thanks for the stirring the pot, George.

Tim Joy

Xxxxxxxxxx

From: "Bastos" <dbastos@inx.com.br>
To: <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
Subject: Introduction
Date: Mon, 6 Dec 1999

Hi: My name is Alexandre Bastos, I'm a masters student in Federal
University of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). For some months I've been interested
and dealing with modeling, specially System Dynamics (using Ithink Analyst
as a tool) in business. I'm very interested on the material and
information you have and hope to be contributing soon. Thank you very
much.
bastos@gpi.ufrj.br
www.gpi.ufrj.br

xxxxxxxx

Date: Mon, 06 Dec 1999
From: "Allan Collins" <collina@irn.pdx.edu>
To: <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Engineers
Another person at Portland State University (PSU) that you can reach is
Wayne Wakeland. He is a professor from the System Science Ph D. program.
He is also very active with Symbowl.
allan collins

xxxxxxxxxx

Date: Thu, 09 Dec 1999
From: Niall Palfreyman <Niall.Palfreyman@assyst-intl.com>
To: k-12sd <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
Subject: SD / virality

Curtis Lee wrote:
> I sit and stare at this public high school and try to get a handle on
> the flow, and it is staggering. As I understand him, Cilliers insists
> that the tool by which to grasp/feel/understand/manage? this
> complexity lies more in the deconstructivist school of postmodern,
> with an appreciation for constant adaptations, than in SD. In a
> nutshell, I want to find more elegant adjustments/insertions that
> behave in more of a viral fashion, as opposed to a more mechanistic
> approach (e.g., standards) that seeks to further delineate
> reality/knowledge till we've distilled it to death.

These words strike a definite chord in me, Curtis. I'm still a total
beginner with SD, and I only know the meaning of the word
"deconstructivism" from an excellent novel called "Nice Work" by David
Lodge. But in my work my speciality is the use of collective agents in
handling optimisation tasks which until now have been typically handled
by rules and algorithms. I watch in stunned surprise as a network of
"dumb" agents collectively achieve a task which they are nowhere near
capable of achieving individually, and I often think, as you say, that
there is a living process present in "constant adaptations" which fades
away when the situation is approached instead via the "delineated
knowledge" of rules.
Somewhere deep inside I _know_ now that there is something missing in
SD. It's not that SD is wrong or unuseful - on the contrary I find it
extraordinarily useful for making sense of a number of things which have
always puzzled me about collective behaviour. It's more that there is a
piece missing somewhere, and for me that piece has to do with the
ability to create (parts of) systems which are defined at a lower level
than SD demands and which rely instead on communication, rather than the
flows which characterise an SD model. I wish I could be more specific,
but unfortunately I haven't reached that stage in my thinking yet. I
just wanted you to know that it was very comforting for me to hear
someone else expressing the kinds of reservations I've been entertaining
recently.
Best wishes,
Niall.
--
We have only the world that we can bring forth
with others, and only love helps us bring it forth.
Dr. Niall Palfreyman mailto:Niall.Palfreyman@assyst-intl.com
assyst GmbH, Henschelring 15a
85551 Kirchheim bei Muenchen Tel: ++49-89-90505-233
Germany. Fax: ++49-89-90505-102/3

Xxxxxxxxx

Date: Thu, 09 Dec 1999
From: William Costello <WILL@cvumail.cvu.cssd.k12.vt.us>
To: k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu
Subject: DynamiQUEST 2000
Information regarding the DynamiQUEST 2000 exhibition to be held in ther
spring is available at
<http://www.trinityvt.edu/waters/DQuest/DQuest.html>
This 2-day event highlights the SD/ST work of students in Gr 5-12. It also
provides opportunities for kids and teachers to network.
Get the details and then come join us for DynamiQUEST 2000!
Xxxxxxxx
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1999
From: jiml@cabarrus.k12.nc.us
Subject: students
To: k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu

K.
K->as for
I have a problem with the statement below.
. The teacher must know to raise
K->the students level. But first you have to recognize what the student
should
K->do or be capable of.
Yes, we should have clear expectations and a clear curriculum intent.
However, we can only know what students "have done". Can we really know
"what they are capable of?" While leadership is based on prediction,
learning should never have a "capability cap" on it. Maybe students are
only performing at a certain level, not because of their ability, but
because of how the system has failed to challenge that capability.
Looking at most state assessments and curriculum expectations, our aim
is rather low. I, for one, am cautious about stating what students are
capable of. I can only relate to what a mechanistic, low aiming,
anti-brain research system says they are capable of. Not good enough
for me! (Pardon the prepositions ending a sentence!)
Jim Lunsford
Cabarrus County Schools
660 Concord Parkway N, P.O. Box 388
Concord, NC 28026-0388
(704)786-6195, Ext. 115
jiml@cabarrus.k12.nc.us

xxxxxxxxxx

Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1999
To: "k-12sd" <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
From: Ed Gallaher <gallaher@mail.teleport.com>
Subject: Re: Role of student in the system
Do kids think "intuitively" about SD?
This is becoming clearer to me as this discussion continues. (That doesn't
mean it's right, of course, but it is becoming 'clearer' . . . !)
>>>>
Date: Mon, 06 Dec 1999 15:24:31 -0800
Subject: Re: Role of student in the system
From: "Timothy Joy" <tjoy@pps.k12.or.us>
To: "k-12sd" <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
an adult's life purpose is to attain the seriousness of a child at play.
>>>>
At the time, my children(then, just two: one of each) were four and two.
They played. Interesting to note that their play never split discretely
into subjects, but was unabashedly, enthusiastically multi-disciplinary,
multi-sensory, and certainly multi-reality.
<<<<
Then they went to school. Boxes and queues everywhere. None of our
curricular materials were (nor are many even today) designed with a child's
multiplicity of interest in mind.
>>>>
But delays absolutely confound a child: ten minutes ago is much the same
as ten days ago-it's gone, so what? In short, children seem predisposed
toward relationships and connections, but as for some apprehension of
natural systems, as George called loop thinking, I must admit to not seeing
it, certainly not of the order we might be imagining or hoping for.
>>>>
Do they apprehend a stock/flow diagram naturally? Probably not, no more so
than most children read or write naturally. Do they think in loops
naturally? To some extent, maybe. But to what order?
Now I'm beginning to agree more with George's earlier comments.
I do NOT think that the behavior of systems which include loops are
intuitive to adults, and they are certainly are not intuitive to kids
either.
What I think IS reasonably intuitive to kids is the idea of stocks
(amounts; toys, salmon, water in the glass) and flows (buying and selling,
births and deaths, pouring water in and out).
This MUST be 'intuitive' for adults as well. I mean, how hard is it???
BUT, the adults have been "educated". They've had calculus! They KNOW that
we need dx/dt, and theorems, and differential equations, etc. etc. etc. to
understand this stuff.
Therefore, simple rectangles and pipes look like toys to them. After all,
if high school kids can do this stuff (or middle school), then the
pharmacokinetics they learn couldn't possibly be of any 'real' use to
medical students.
So, I am tentatively concluding that young kids CAN easily grasp the
concept of stocks and flows. They do not have to struggle with comparing
these concepts to integrals, derivatives, and differential equations, so
they don't bother with that stuff.
They can also begin to grasp the concept that it takes TIME to accumulate
material in stocks. This -begins- to lay the foundation that delays exist.
e.g. Doing good works (homework, clean room, do chores) can accumulate in a
stock labeled "good will".
This stock does not accumulate instantaneously! But as it accumulates, some
of this "good will" can be withdrawn (movie, ice cream, praise). And doing
well on a hard assignment provides the confidence to tackle an even harder
assignment next. (Reinforcing loop)
Beyond this, I firmly believe that dynamic behaviors must be examined,
mulled, played with, investigated, and so on. Only then will reinforcing
loops and balancing loops begin to make sense. Only then will S-shaped
growth (ie changing loop dominance) begin to make sense. This will take
work and careful thinking. (But it's fun work!)
It sure would be nice to start with students that can hit the ground
running (like 6 year olds). The older ones (eg PhDs) have to analyze their
body weight and height, and the physiology and physics of postural control
before they dare put one foot out in front of the other.
Ed Gallaher

Xxxxxxxxx

Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1999
From: Niall Palfreyman <Niall.Palfreyman@assyst-intl.com>
To: k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu
Subject: Using Converters as Stocks

Hi,
Well, I've finally got around to buying my first copy of Stella, and I'm
having great fun trying things out and exploring. However there is one
thing I don't understand, and I'm hoping someone can help me.
I'm very interested in understanding the pro's and con's of using a
converter instead of a stock. This is particularly of interest to me as
a physicist, since fields are alternately treated in physics as either
entities in their own right (ie, stocks) or else as derivative
quantities dependent upon the space over which they are defined (ie,
converters).
Unfortunately, the discussion of these pro's and con's (or at least the
con's) in the "Introduction To Systems Thinking" manual provided with
Stella (pp 3-26 to 3-28) is phrased in reference to an example drawn
from economics. Now, I pride myself on being able to understand most
things, but I have to admit to having a crippling mental block when it
comes to economics and finances. I just can't understand the explanation
in the book, which refers to such mysterious things as "Inventory",
"Supply", "Demand" and "Pricing".
So, my question: Can anyone please offer me either a coherent (PLEASE
non-economical) explanation of the issues involved in using a converter
instead of a stock, or else a transcription of the economic example in
the manual into situation drawn from a science closer to my own home
ground of physics or biology (or chemistry, or psychology, or ... well,
basically anything which doesn't have anything to do with money).
Believe me, I would be eternally grateful. Um, well, at least for a very
long time. ;->
Niall.

--
We have only the world that we can bring forth
with others, and only love helps us bring it forth.
Dr. Niall Palfreyman mailto:Niall.Palfreyman@assyst-intl.com
assyst GmbH, Henschelring 15a
85551 Kirchheim bei Muenchen Tel: ++49-89-90505-233
Germany. Fax: ++49-89-90505-102/3

Xxxxxxxx

Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1999
From: Jason Foster <jafoster@engmail.uwaterloo.ca>
To: k-12sd <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Request For Help

Hi!
A while back you sent the following message to the K-12 Systems Dynamics
mailing list.
> We are a group of 5 Industrial students of Sharif University Of
> Technology Of Iran. We are very interested in System Theory especially
> System Dyanmics. We have heard that there is this plan of teaching
> Systematic Thinking and relevant subjects to highschool students. We also
> heard that your group is the one working on this project. So we thought
> perhaps every one of you could give us some help.
[snip]
> And last but not least is this main question: "IS THERE A RESOURCE BOOK
> WHICH SHOWS HOW TO TEACH SYSTEM ANALAYSIS TO SCHOOL STUDENTS?"
My Master's research is looking at teaching Design and Systems Thinking to
undergraduate engineering students, so I was interested in your request.
I was wondering whether you received any replies to your message, and in
particular whether you found a resource book that worked for you? So far
I have had little or no success finding such a book.
Thanks for your help.
Jason Foster
jafoster@engmail.uwaterloo.ca

xxxxxxxxxx

Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1999
To: "k-12sd" <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
From: "Jay W. Forrester" <jforestr@MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: students
>However, we can only know what students "have done". Can we really know
>"what they are capable of?" While leadership is based on prediction,
>learning should never have a "capability cap" on it. Maybe students are
>only performing at a certain level, not because of their ability, but
>because of how the system has failed to challenge that capability.
>
>Jim Lunsford
>Cabarrus County Schools
>660 Concord Parkway N, P.O. Box 388
>Concord, NC 28026-0388
>(704)786-6195, Ext. 115
>jiml@cabarrus.k12.nc.us
>
To support the above, at the last conference of K-12 teachers that I
attended, I was surprised by the number of teachers who said, "I had no
idea these students could do so much."
---------------------------------------------------------
Jay W. Forrester
Professor of Management
Sloan School
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Room E60-389
Cambridge, MA 02139
tel: 617-253-1571
fax: 617-258-9405
Home office:
tel: 978-369-9372
fax: 978-369-9077

xxxxxxxxxx

From: Dakar@aol.com
Date: Sun, 12 Dec 1999
Subject: Re: stocks/flows/converters question
To: k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu

In a message dated 12/12/99 2:47:21 PM Eastern Standard Time,
k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu writes:
> Niall.Palfreyman@assyst-intl.com
... ellaboration on stocks and converters.
I too am a physics person and have been writing sims in stella for a couple
of years now.
I have found stella to be very strong in situations where classical scenarios
are allowed to evolve in time. time is the iterated parameter in stella so
that the stocks and valves allow one to basically set up 1st and 2nd order
ODEs by chaining flows into a stock. Quantities that can be expressed as
functions of time can be easily tracked, etc. Note: Be sure to set flows as
birectional to allow negative rates (velocity, acceleration, etc.)
A strength of stella is that quantities can be defined as graphical
relationships instead of just in terms of equations. It also allows for real
time control of the model, allowing the user to purturb the system somehow,
sensitivity analysis on a single parameter, etc.
If you give me an idea of what your goal is, maybe I can offer some ideas. I
have used several sim packages, they each have their strengths.
Jay Fogleman
Lead Technical Instructor
GSE Systems
Baltimore, MD

Xxxxxxxx

Date: Sun, 12 Dec 1999
To: "k-12sd" <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
From: teresa@northwest.com
Subject: Re: Role of student in the system

(To Curtis Lee" <clee@spusd.k12.ca.us> and Marion Brady <mbrady@digital.net>)
I am having some difficulty understanding what you are saying here!!!
With this conversation, are we really asking "Do kids understand System
Dynamics or Systems Thinking"???
I believe that they understand Systems Thinking about the systems they
encounter everyday, however, they don't necessarily think about the fact
that they are thinking systemically...they aren't really doing conscious
metacognition about it. They haven't defined their thinking with any
special labels (systemic compared to linear thinking). I have found that
with high school students of various abilities, that they do understand
from experiences what constitutes a system and what does not but I have to
help them distinguish between a dynamic system with feedback vs. a static
heap of stuff. They also agree that most of the thinking that they do in
school is linear (once they define this) and that what seems to be
important in the "real world", outside of school involves thinking
systemically.
They do see the importance of being able to think
systemically because they have read the newspaper or heard the news about
policies and legislation, etc. and they can see that "they" aren't
considering all of the variables, key players, etc. when these policies are
put in place. I don't think they naturally put things into mental "stocks"
or "flows" but they can adapt their mental models quite easily to this
language just as they do any other symbols that represent a way of thinking
i.e. mathematics. However, they do understand accumulations and what causes
things to accumulate. Again this is based on what experiences they have
had i.e. working to earn money and saving money to see a bank account growing,
building skills in a sport with more practice, building up points toward
the grades they earn, building a group of friends by specific types of
relationships, building trust with their parents to be allowed more
freedom, etc.. The difficulty that they have is identifying or predicting
the feedback loops, but isn't that the same difficulties that adults have???

Xxxxxxxxxx

From: "Bastos" <dbastos@inx.com.br>
To: "k-12sd" <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: stocks/flows/converters question
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1999

(To Naill...)
I would sugest you to read Road Maps Chapter 2 "first step text" where it is
explained.
Look for it in the mit home page.
http://sysdyn.mit.edu
[]s Bastos

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Reply-To: <jgunkler@sprintmail.com>
From: "John Gunkler" <jgunkler@sprintmail.com>
To: "k-12sd" <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
Subject: Complexity and Postmodernism
Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1999
In his brilliant analysis in "Feedback Thought in Social Science and System
Theory" George Richardson explains why people who come from certain
intellectual traditions choose to believe that complexity cannot be
understood (or modeled.) It seems obvious that Paul Cilliers comes from
that tradition. However, there are many others (primarily from the
traditions underlying system dynamics) who not only believe that complexity
can be modeled usefully but have done it.
I find it difficult to maintain a proposition of non-possibility in the face
of an example of it being done. For example, can anyone reasonably say that
the reality that Forrester's world dynamics model captures is not
"complicated"?
Also, it shows fundamental ignorance of the nature of dynamic models to talk
about models as "snapshots." Sure, there are lots of "snapshot" models
around but that doesn't mean those are the only ones we can use. Many years
ago Herbert Simon made an interesting distinction between what he called
"state descriptions" (i.e., snapshots) and "process descriptions" (like
computer programs.) He argued for the usefulness of process descriptions
for dealing with dynamic, complex things for all the reasons that snapshots
are inadequate. We've come quite a long way between then and now in our
ability to capture and "tame" complexity. We have neural networks and fuzzy
logic running things in our kitchen appliances and automobiles, we have
computer programs that are "emergent or in flux, self-organizing and without
boundaries" that serve as models for complex realities.
I sometimes feel that we trick sometimes ourselves into dysfunctional
beliefs by logical and linguistic sleight of hand. For example, in physics
class I was told that "we understand the physics of moving bodies." But
someone who wants to trick us could say, "Waddya mean? Isn't the color of a
body one of its physical properties? Newton's laws and Einstein's theories
don't tell me anything about the color of moving bodies." To which one can
only answer, "That's right" and "So what?" Saying that something doesn't do
"Y" says nothing about how adequately it does "X."
That is (to bring this back to models of complex reality) it isn't really
very interesting to criticize something for not doing what it was never
intended to do. We can certainly find questions for which Forrester's world
dynamics (or any other SD model) cannot provide any answers -- some of these
unanswered questions are even important and directly related to the reality
of the system that was modeled, yet the models still have nothing to say
about them -- but that is no criticism of the models. It is only a reminder
that there are other things to do that could be useful -- including,
perhaps, creating other models of other aspects of reality. So, if you're
really interested in how movement affects the color of objects, I heartily
recommend that you try to build a model of that. Sounds to me like it could
be a breakthrough in our understanding!
John W. Gunkler
jgunkler@sprintmail.com

xxxxxxxxxx

From: "John Gunkler" <jgunkler@sprintmail.com>
To: "k-12sd" <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
Subject: RE: stocks/flows/converters question
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999

I thought that converters were unnecessary (but often useful) devices
for taking apart flow (rate) equations. That is, every converter in every
SD model could be eliminated by including them in the appropriate flow
equation. We put them outside the flow equations so they are easier to
"get at" and more explicitly and visually part of our model -- that is, we
use them to make models easier to understand, use, and modify. A
discussion of what converters "are," therefore, devolves into a discussion
of flow equations, doesn't it. Or did I miss the point somewhere?

Xxxxxxxxx

From: "Curtis Lee" <clee@spusd.k12.ca.us>
To: "'k-12sd'" <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
Subject: RE: Complexity and Postmodernism
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 1999

]
John,
I am not that well read in this field and am simply positing an intuition
that resonates with me. I think the main focus of this list is to explore
ways in which students can achieve intellectual growth through the
application of SD in a K-12 setting. My thoughts are really tangential to
that purpose. I'm really more interested in exploring a number of different
"lenses" by which to view the institution so that I can work smarter not
harder.
Schools as a system are extremely adept at assimilating change agents as
they are introduced into the environment and their impact is too often
diffused. I'm trying to introduce "agents" into the system that are not
recognized as such initially (so the aren't attacked), but which take hold
rapidly because of their nodal quality and the network effect of exponential
growth. This borrows heavily from Kevin Kelly's observations about the power
of ubiquity.
For example: Two schools receive $100,000 to infuse information technology
into their schools.
School A buys (75) $1000.00 computers, puts five in each classroom, and
spends the rest on staff development.
School B buys (1000) $100.00 palm pilots and gives them to everybody
(students, teachers, admin, custodians, etc.) with little direction.
If you return to each school a year later, which school "system" will have
been more impacted by the introduction of technology.
My thoughts are that providing a lot more of simple, is far more powerful
than a small amount of too much.
If we "light" up more nodes, than we're predisposing the system to behave in
ways that are pleasingly non-linear and emergent.
This is not as reckless as it sounds. I'm not suggesting that we move away
from accountability structures that exist in schools. I'm simply suggesting
that if we exploit the complexity to our advantage, it is far more
interesting than trying to simply increasingly manage it through grades,
subject areas, standards, bell schedules, etc.
Curtis Lee

Xxxxxxxxxx

From: KCStarguy@aol.com
Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1999
Subject: regarding systems stuff
To: tjoy@pps.k12.or.us, k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu

Do they apprehend a stock/flow diagram naturally?
Probably not, no more so than most children read or write naturally.
from DrEric: When I first was taught flow charting at Brown University in my
junior year of high school it did not make any sense. The same mystery struck
when trying stella. It is not the parts- it is how they are put together. the
structuring of the stock and flow and all of it does not necessarily
translate to logical thinking or to creatively construct the models. In many
ways the two processes of trying to teach modeling this way is contradictory.
Reminds me of teaching kids to diagram sentences to teach them to write
better. It did not work for me as this is pigeon holing kids thinking. Stella
and systems is not the same thing but it could be depending how it is taught.
The trick is to get systems thinking in a more visual manner so that the
logic and visual can combine to think with the stella model.
***
Do they think in loops naturally? To some extent,
maybe. But to what order?
from DrEric: There is no order . There are webs of thoughts that branch out
in different directions at different times. The tentacles of thought sometime
come back and condense as parts of the model. The trick- how to get there and
make some order of the web thoughts?
**
Maybe SD/ST provides an elegant view of
changing experience, but it is still an abstraction, a mental construct
with some formal rules.
from DrEric: an abstraction that should relate to thoughts and ideas and
model their thoughts not the teachers way of thinking necessarily .
**
What is "a natural way for a child to think"?
from DrEric: Certainly not the way geometry is taught in which theorems are
said to be "logical " "and natural" is a synonym for "being easy."

Xxxxxxxxxx

Date: Thu, 16 Dec 1999
To: "k-12sd" <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
From: "Jay W. Forrester" <jforestr@MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: stocks/flows/converters question

George Richardson wrote
>If you can find an old copy of Richardson and Pugh's Introduction to System
>Dynamics Modeling with DYNAMO, you can find a lot on the subject of
>choosing stocks in a model: pp. 31-37 (intuitive, nonquantitative intro),
>67-72 (equations for stocks), and 176-190 ('What is a Level?') [In the old
>days stocks were called 'levels,' like the level of water in a tub.]
>Pp. 176-190 are the most interesting and (I hope) helpful, as they discuss
>the 'snapshot' test for stocks, stocks as 'transformers' of behavior
>(accumulation changes the time shape of flows), stocks as decouplers of
>flows, and stocks as potential for disequilibrium. [All this stuff is
>discussed without Dynamo, so one does not need to know anything about a
>particular simulation language to follow the discussion.]

The book continues in print at the new publisher:
Richardson, George P., and Alexander L. Pugh, III. 1981. Introduction to
System Dynamics Modeling with DYNAMO. Waltham, MA: Pegasus Communications.
413 pp.
---------------------------------------------------------
Jay W. Forrester
Professor of Management
Sloan School
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Room E60-389
Cambridge, MA 02139
tel: 617-253-1571
fax: 617-258-9405
Home office:
tel: 978-369-9372
fax: 978-369-9077

xxxxxxxxxxx

From: niall.palfreyman@assyst-intl.com
To: k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999
Subject: Re: stocks/flows/converters question

Hi.
Thank you very much for your various responses to my question. As I understand
it the central answer is that the value of a converter is changed instanteously
by its inputs, while stocks change as the integral of their inputs. In real
terms this means that I'd use stocks for anything whose time rate of change is
of interest to me, while converters are best used for things which change
either
too quickly or too slowly for their dynamics to be of interest.
In the case of field variables, I guess I'd use converters to represent the
gravitational field when modelling the gravitational 3-body problem. However if
I were interested in the dynamics of the field itself, for example when
modelling reaction-diffusion equations, then I might represent it instead as
stocks. Am I getting there?
Thanks again,
Niall.
--
We have only the world that we can bring forth
with others, and only love helps us bring it forth.
Dr. Niall Palfreyman mailto:Niall.Palfreyman@assyst-intl.com
assyst GmbH, Henschelring 15a
85551 Kirchheim bei Muenchen Tel: ++49-89-90505-233
Germany. Fax: ++49-89-90505-102/3

Xxxxxxxxxxx

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1999
From: Marion Brady <mbrady@digital.net>
X-Accept-Language: en
To: k-12sd <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: students

Jim Lumsford said --
> ....Yes, we should have clear expectations and a clear curriculum intent.
> However, we can only know what students "have done". Can we really know
> "what they are capable of?".....
To second Jim's view.... As some of you may know, my primary
instructional
objective is to help kids make explicit their implicitly known mental "filing
system" for organizing knowledge -- not just "school knowledge," but all
knowledge.
At the beginning of the term, I hand out blank paper, ask a single general
question about a local problem or situation (something I know they've never
studied), and have them generate brief paragraphs, each one suggesting a
different explanation or solution.
During the term, absolutely nothing is said or assigned that relates
to the
question. All the work focuses on surfacing that mental filing system
(using the
content of the discipline [whatever it is] as a vehicle -- a means to the end).
At the end of the term, I ask the same question I asked at the beginning of
the term.
Rarely, initially, do I get more than a half dozen hypotheses. Many
students hand in blank paper or one or two responses. At the end of the term,
the responses usually run into the double digits, with a few students
generating
20, 30, 40 or more -- this, remember, despite the fact that none of the
classwork
touched on the subject.
I can't imagine what kids could do if, running through all instruction in
all classes, there was a formal, deliberate effort to help them undertand how
they process information -- select, organize, manipulate, and integrate it into
their "master" conceptual framework.
Marion
--
SUPRADISCIPLINARY, SEAMLESS CURRICULA
http://digital.net/~mbrady/

xxxxxxxxxxxx

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1999
To: "k-12sd" <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
From: George Richardson <gpr@csc.albany.edu>
Subject: Re: stocks/flows/converters question
At 11:18 AM -0500 12/10/99, k-12sd wrote:
>So, my question: Can anyone please offer me either a coherent (PLEASE
>non-economical) explanation of the issues involved in using a converter
>instead of a stock
A stock is an accumulation, like momentum (for physicists) or population
(for biologists) or cash in a bank account or piggy bank (for all of us).
But sadly, it's not that easy. A stock in a simulation model is a
'dynamically significant' accumulation in the system you are trying to
model. 'Dynamically significant' means it's an accumulation that doesn't
change too slowly or two quickly over the time frame of the problem being
modeled. Too slowly, and the accumulation might as well be a constant.
Too quickly, and the accumulation should be modeled as an algebraic
quantity (what STELLA calls a converter).
If you can find an old copy of Richardson and Pugh's Introduction to System
Dynamics Modeling with DYNAMO, you can find a lot on the subject of
choosing stocks in a model: pp. 31-37 (intuitive, nonquantitative intro),
67-72 (equations for stocks), and 176-190 ('What is a Level?') [In the old
days stocks were called 'levels,' like the level of water in a tub.]
Pp. 176-190 are the most interesting and (I hope) helpful, as they discuss
the 'snapshot' test for stocks, stocks as 'transformers' of behavior
(accumulation changes the time shape of flows), stocks as decouplers of
flows, and stocks as potential for disequilibrium. [All this stuff is
discussed without Dynamo, so one does not need to know anything about a
particular simulation language to follow the discussion.]
The bottom line is that it is true that stocks are accumulations, but not
all accumulations in a system should be modeled as stocks in a given model
of the system.
...GPR
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
George P. Richardson G.P.Richardson@Albany.edu
Chair, Dept. of Public Administration and Policy 518-442-5258
Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy 518-442-5298
University at Albany, Albany, NY 12222 http:/www.albany.edu/~gpr
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

xxxxxxxxxx

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1999
To: "k-12sd" <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
From: John Leith <John_Leith@Brown.edu>
Subject: Re: stocks/flows/converters question

Dear NP
Your questions about stocks vs. converters is an important one, not that I necessarily know the "right"answers. I like your description of stocks as entities and converters as quantities which depend on a spatial (temporal) "field". I wonder however if you say converter but mean flow.
I was told that stocks represent accumulations, that is, they are things that persist if time stops. For example, in a race the stock is distance, not velocity.
Flows have the quality of verbal nouns. That is, making "nouns" from verbs or adverbs. It is an "act of doing" and is intended to convey an idea of process/continuance/practice. E.g., hiring/quitting; graduating; generating;changing;rendering,simulating, flowing, building, losing, creating, diffusing, degenerating, blah, blah, blah. Flows disappear when there is no action/activity.
Converters indicate a productivity relationship, e.g., lines of poetry per unit time; velocity, population density, children/marriage couples + couples + fraction of people in couples; kills per predator + prey density + area;etc . They may also be use used to house constant, external inputs or to perform algebra. They can house graphical functions and/or builtins (pulse, random, etc.). So they definition is not as precise.
Have I helped or hindered? Let me know if there is anything I can do to make clearer ("clearing").
Cheers, J.Leith

Xxxxxxxxx

Date: Thu, 16 Dec 1999
To: "k-12sd" <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
From: teresa@northwest.com
Subject: Re: Request For Help

A book just published this year by Ed Gallaher and Diana Fisher should be
helpful. Ed is a part of this list serve. Diana has been teaching systems
dynamics classes at the high school level for several years.

At 11:10 AM 12/13/99 -0500, you wrote:
>Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1999 13:01:18 -0500 (EST)
>From: Jason Foster <jafoster@engmail.uwaterloo.ca>
>To: k-12sd <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
>Subject: Re: Request For Help
>
>Hi!
>
>A while back you sent the following message to the K-12 Systems Dynamics
>mailing list.
>
>> We are a group of 5 Industrial students of Sharif University Of
>> Technology Of Iran. We are very interested in System Theory especially
>> System Dyanmics. We have heard that there is this plan of teaching
>> Systematic Thinking and relevant subjects to highschool students. We also
>> heard that your group is the one working on this project. So we thought
>> perhaps every one of you could give us some help.
>
>[snip]
>
>> And last but not least is this main question: "IS THERE A RESOURCE BOOK
>> WHICH SHOWS HOW TO TEACH SYSTEM ANALAYSIS TO SCHOOL STUDENTS?"
>
>My Master's research is looking at teaching Design and Systems Thinking to
>undergraduate engineering students, so I was interested in your request.
>
>I was wondering whether you received any replies to your message, and in
>particular whether you found a resource book that worked for you? So far
>I have had little or no success finding such a book.
>
>Thanks for your help.
>
>Jason Foster
>jafoster@engmail.uwaterloo.ca

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1999
Subject: Re: stocks/flows/converters question
From: "David Gibson" <dgibson@vismt.org>
To: "k-12sd" k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu

, Niall Palfreyman <Niall.Palfreyman@assyst-intl.com>
> Can anyone please offer me either a coherent (PLEASE
> non-economical) explanation of the issues involved in using a converter
> instead of a stock,
Can't vouch for coherence, but stocks are (perhaps obviously) about
conserved resources, i.e. materiality, and converters are about the
nonconserved, i.e. information.
- wWw - wWw - wWw - wWw - wWw - wWw - wWw -
David Gibson

Xxxxxxxxx

Date: Thu, 16 Dec 1999
To: "k-12sd" <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
From: "Jay W. Forrester" <jforestr@MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: stocks/flows/converters question

Logically, converters are subdivisions of the rate equations. They lie in the information links between the level equations and the rates of flow. Algebraically, the converters can, in principle, be substituted into one another until none exist; they collapse into the rate equations. Doing so would be impossibly complex and confusing because we usually see and think about the parts of a rate equation separately.
Dear NP
Your questions about stocks vs. converters is an important one, not that I necessarily know the "right"answers. I like your description of stocks as entities and converters as quantities which depend on a spatial (temporal) "field". I wonder however if you say converter but mean flow.
I was told that stocks represent accumulations, that is, they are things that persist if time stops. For example, in a race the stock is distance, not velocity.

---------------------------------------------------------
Jay W. Forrester
Professor of Management
Sloan School
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Room E60-389
Cambridge, MA 02139
tel: 617-253-1571
fax: 617-258-9405
Home office:
tel: 978-369-9372
fax: 978-369-9077

xxxxxxxxx

Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999
From: Marion Brady <mbrady@digital.net>
To: k-12sd <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
Subject: Student assignment

In response to a question on another listserv, I described the kind
of comprehensive assignments I like. Having gone to the trouble to type
it out, and because the need for systems thinking is woven thru it, I
thought perhaps someone on this list might find it interesting.
Here it is:
________________________________
One way of thinking about Earth is to see it as a self-contained
life support system. Air and water and other essentials of life are
recycled and stored, ready to be used again. It's a good system. If
taken care of, it seems capable of working for a very long time.
One of the research concerns of the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration is life-support systems. For travel away from Earth,
what's needed are portable versions of Earth--systems which can supply
food, water, air, and waste management for an indefinite period of time.
To be practical in space, a self-contained life support system
would have to be light in weight, compact, and very energy efficient.
However, in the much friendlier environment of Earth, these factors are
far less critical. The design problems for building a self-contained
facility to provide a continuous supply of food, water, energy, and
waste disposal would be challenging but not insurmountable. (If this
seems far-fetched, remember that it's been done before. Not many
decades ago, thousands of families had their own self-contained life
support systems. They were bulky and required constant servicing by
their owners, but they worked. They were called "family farms."
(a) Design a self-contained life support system sufficient to meet the
needs of four people, operable in your own climate, and needing no
outside connections to utilities. Make it as compact as possible, so
that it could be delivered by truck or helicopter and add relatively
little to the size of living quarters.
(b) Compute the approximate cost per unit of the system.
(c) Devise a complete marketing program.
(d) Lay out multimedia advertising materials.
(e) Predict both the possible and probable impact of the equipment on
the demographics, environment, patterns of action, and cognitive system
of your society.
(f) Take and defend a value position on the preferable consequences of
the equipment.
(g) Repeat (c) through (f) for another sociocultural system markedly
different from your own.
________________________________
Marion
--
SUPRADISCIPLINARY, SEAMLESS CURRICULA
http://digital.net/~mbrady/

xxxxxxxxxxxx

Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999
From: "RICHARD TURNOCK" <Richard_Turnock@pgn.com>
To: k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu
Subject: Re: stocks/flows/converters question

>>> From: George Richardson>>>>>>>
Subject: Re: stocks/flows/converters question
"......A stock in a simulation model is a 'dynamically significant'
accumulation in the system you are trying to model. 'Dynamically
significant' means it's an accumulation that doesn't change too slowly or
two quickly over the time frame of the problem being modeled...."
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Also, see Andrew Ford's book "Modeling the Environment", Chapter 11.
As George has suggested, the decision about whether to use a stock or a
converter depends on the DT needed for the simulation and the time frame.
Ford suggests not to have more than 1,000 time steps.

Xxxxxxxxx

Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999
From: jan mons <jmons@glynn.k12.ga.us>
To: k-12sd <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: students\

I have not been involved in this discussion, but walking back into the
office and reading these messages I could not resist a reply.
I have been working with an Elementary Teacher of the Gifted (grades
1-5). We have worked with a different grade level every day, introducing
some general ST/SD concepts and doing BOTGs. This morning before the 1st
and 2nd graders came I asked the teacher how she felt things were going.
Her response was she has been surprised at her students ability and
knowledge. She did not believe they knew so much or that they could
explain connections as they have been.
Then her 1st and 2nd graders walked in. At the end of an hour they had
explained to us the interdependent relationship between themselves and
their pets and the Balancing Loop between Rabbits and Grass by looking
at a BOTG of it. In this discussion they explained the increase was due
to births and the decrease was because there were more deaths (lack of
food) than births. The teacher and I just looked at each other and drew
a S/FD of simple population dynamics with the students as they explained
more adults means more babies which mean more adults etc.
The depth of the discussion was not planned. We were actually just
trying to introduce BOTGs and the idea of steepness indicating the
speed(rate) of change so they could graph happiness in "Rainbow Fish".
Granted some did not "get it" but many did, if I had had a computer I
would have and believe I could have created a simple population model
with their help.
So, I agree we are often our own worst enemies in education. We can't
know what students are capable of until we give them a chance to show
us. Maybe the biggest change any of us can help make in Education is
breakng down that wall of assumptions.
Jan Mons
GIST Project Coordinator
A Waters Foundation Grant Project
Brunswick, Georgia

> >However, we can only know what students "have done". Can we really know
> >"what they are capable of?" While leadership is based on prediction,
> >learning should never have a "capability cap" on it. Maybe students are
> >only performing at a certain level, not because of their ability, but
> >because of how the system has failed to challenge that capability.
> >
> >Jim Lunsford
> >Cabarrus County Schools
> >660 Concord Parkway N, P.O. Box 388
> >Concord, NC 28026-0388
> >(704)786-6195, Ext. 115
> >jiml@cabarrus.k12.nc.us
> >
>
> To support the above, at the last conference of K-12 teachers that I
> attended, I was surprised by the number of teachers who said, "I had no
> idea these students could do so much."
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> Jay W. Forrester
> Professor of Management
> Sloan School
> Massachusetts Institute of Technology
> Room E60-389
> Cambridge, MA 02139
> tel: 617-253-1571
> fax: 617-258-9405
> Home office:
> tel: 978-369-9372
> fax: 978-369-9077

xxxxxxxxxx

Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999
From: Marion Brady <mbrady@digital.net>
To: k-12sd <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Role of student in the system

> (To Curtis Lee" <clee@spusd.k12.ca.us> and Marion Brady <mbrady@digital.net>)
> I am having some difficulty understanding what you are saying here!!!
>
> With this conversation, are we really asking "Do kids understand System
> Dynamics or Systems Thinking"???
> I believe that they understand Systems Thinking about the systems they
> encounter everyday, however, they don't necessarily think about the fact
> that they are thinking systemically...they aren't really doing conscious
> metacognition about it....
No, they aren't. I see my primary task as helping them do that. To this
end, I have them begin by looking around and identifying what they see in
immediate experience, then working out a system for organizing it.
Having done this with several thousand students over the years (middle
school
thru university), I've put together a composite model. It can be found on my
website, about a half dozen screens down "under" the button titled "A Seamless
Curriculum." It's called "Master Conceptual Framework."
As I say immediately underneath the framework, the use of it at any
particular point in time provides a "snapshot" -- a static model of reality.
Two or three screens on, within a screen titled "Generating Relationship
Hypotheses," there's an interactive device which, with the click of a
mouse, mixes
and matches the elements of the conceptual framework in several hundred
different
ways. Spinning out the consequences of various combinations of those elements
requires a dynamic model of reality, with all that entails -- feedback,
multiple
causation, cumulative causation, etc.
Marion
--
SUPRADISCIPLINARY, SEAMLESS CURRICULA
http://digital.net/~mbrady/

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Date: Thu, 16 Dec 1999
To: "k-12sd" <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
From: "Jay W. Forrester" <jforestr@MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: stocks/flows/converters question

>Can't vouch for coherence, but stocks are (perhaps obviously) about
>conserved resources, i.e. materiality, and converters are about the
>nonconserved, i.e. information.
There are stocks in information channels. Any averaging requires a stock,
as in average sales, which is information.
---------------------------------------------------------
Jay W. Forrester
Professor of Management
Sloan School
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Room E60-389
Cambridge, MA 02139
tel: 617-253-1571
fax: 617-258-9405
Home office:
tel: 978-369-9372
fax: 978-369-9077

xxxxxxxxxx

(Ed gave me permission to add his thoughts from another list below. NL)

Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1999
To: system-dynamics-digest@world.std.com
From: Ed Gallaher <gallaher@mail.teleport.com>
Subject: REPLY variables, parameters, constants (SD2487)
As mentioned in a previous post, variables may be considered those things
that change over time. They can therefore be plotted during a typical SD
simulation. Some of these will be of immediate interest and will be the
main focus of the inquiry. Others may occur in the background and do not
need to be followed in detail during each simulation. Of course, it would
be a good idea to examine _all_ of them occassionally to be sure they are
behaving as expected.
True constants would _never_ change from one simulation to another. The
speed of light might be an example. I would say the acceleration of gravity
comes close to being such an example, unless very precise dynamics are
involved that would vary in Death Valley, Mt. Everest, the N. Pole, or the
equator. Or if you are on the moon, or on Mars. (Perhaps NASA needs to look
more closely at this issue . . . ?)
Parameters are variables which are held constant within a given simulation.
For example, a rabbit population model contains a number of "constants"
such as birth rate and death rate. The simulation runs and the population
(variable) is plotted as a function of time. In reality, the birth rate and
death rate is not constant, it is just held constant for each particular
simulation. Parameters can be changed systematically from one simulation to
the next to determine the influence of one parameter at a time, or several
parameters in relation to each other, on the final variable of interest, in
this case population.
In fact, not only _can_ parameters be examined in this way, they should be
examined _intensively_ in this way! One of the major hurdles I find with
beginners is convincing them how important this is, and how much they
should do it. (Of course I'm a simulation junkie; I LOVE this part of SD!)
Try low birth rates, zero birth rates, moderate birth rates, high birth
rates. Try low, zero, moderate, death rates. Try low birth rates with high
death rates, low birth rates with low death rates, etc. etc. etc.; you get
the idea.
There is a real art and science to sensivity testing beyond just mindless
combinations of every combination, which soon becomes impossible anyway
with more complex models. But this is another topic altogether.
When does a parameter become a variable?
After a basic understanding of birth and death rates, and their
interactions is obtained, it may be time to add some complexity (realism?)
to the model. (Again, always consistent with the purpose of the model . . .
).
Perhaps you have evidence that population density increases; i.e. the
growing population is limited to some finite environment. Food becomes
scarce as population density increases, and food shortages lead to
progressively lower birth rates.
Keeping in mind that our initial variable of interest was (and still is)
population, now we have several new variables to examine. One is population
density (which in this case is not too interesting since it will be
directly proportional to population), and the other is birth rate. What was
once a parameter (fixed birth rate) is now a variable, dependent upon
population.
Aha, the plot thickens! Now the model begins to exhibit S-shaped growth!
Shifting loop dominance! And so on . . .

I hope this helps any beginners out there, and I'd be happy to receive
comments or corrections about these issues from the experts.
"True" constants (speed of light)
"Almost true" constants (acceleration of gravity on earth)
"Constant variables" (i.e. parameters; what would otherwise be variables,
but are fixed for now)
Variables, which can be plotted as functions of time
Ed Gallaher, PhD
From: Ed Gallaher <gallaher@mail.teleport.com>
VA Research Pharmacologist
Associate Professor
Behavioral Neuroscience and Physiology/Pharmacology
Oregon Health Sciences University
Portland, OR 97201

Xxxxxxx

Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1999
To: "k-12sd" <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
From: teresa@northwest.com
Subject: Re: REPLY variables, parameters, constants (SD2487)

Then one of the distinct advantages of modeling is to be able to use the
graphical function in STELLA (or VenSim??) to test your mental model of one
variable against another. I think that with beginning students, this is
where we can really begin to get them to think more about the relationships
within the model.
I was speaking with our district TOSA teacher (teacher on special
assignment to help teachers integrate technology into their curricula) last
week when he sat in on my introductory instruction to a class of physics
students, about the fact that there is a hurdle that students need to get
beyond and that is when they become comfortable enough with the software
that they can devote more mental energy into thinking about what they are
doing. He said that this is typical of students no matter what technology
they are using. I have found this year, in comparing my experience with
introducing ST/SD to my lowest level science classes to these physics
students that the low level students really have to be coached to do this
type of thinking. Most of them are still operating with the attitude of
just get it done and move on to the next assignment to get the credit or
whatever.
I have to continually work hard to get them to spend some time thinking
through things like graphical functions and just what the equations mean
that they use to define an inflow, etc. I continually have to emphasize
that this is all about thinking through a situation rather than just
mechanically going through a process to get a grade. I think it all goes
back to the fact that this level of student has not been given enough
opportunities to really find out for themselves what they are capable of
doing/understanding. They have been given too many "worksheet' exercises
to fill in the one right answer.
Teachers committed to working with students with ST/SD have to be willing
to put out so much more effort. Maybe that's why many of them don't stick
with it once they have some training. It's just like any other
teaching/learning strategy that takes teachers willing to change and
willing to expend the effort to do so. The hardest working teachers who
are willing to go beyond the usual workday and are willing to scrounge for
computer equipment and/or computer time, hopefully, will not get burned out
in the process of trying to make a change in students over time.
Is anyone else out there feeling the same????

Xxxxxxxxx

Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1999
To: "k-12sd" <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
From: rileye1@massed.net (Eileen Riley)
Subject: Re: students

In response to Jan Mons' comment, Carlisle says, "right on!" We know the
younger kids may not be getting everything at every technical level, but we
do believe they are absolutely understanding the concepts, because we
haven't compartmentalized the learning yet! Way to go.
Happy holidays,
Eileen Riley

Xxxxxxxxxx

From: "Michael Reber" <reber@neptune.kanazawa-it.ac.jp>
To: "k-12sd" <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
Subject: Prague Study Group
Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1999

Dear K-12 members,
I have just joined this listserve and am learning much regarding the application of system dynamics in schools. I am an Assistant Professor of English at Kanazawa Institute of Technology (http://www.kanazawa-it.ac.jp/) and am completing a doctorate in Education and Institutional Transformation >from The International University (<http://tiu.com/> http://tiu.com/) (I see myself transferring from the field of foreign language education to education and institutional transformation in the very near future).
My research is in Community Learning Center development and implementation, Internet-based learning and courseware systems for distance learning, as well as community development. Community Learning Centers (CLC) is my dissertation subject as well as the work of the CLC International Ad Hoc Committee (http://www2.kanazawa-it.ac.jp/englishd/reber/clc1.htm), of which I am Chairperson.
In addition to this work, I specifically want to develop a theoretical framework for a concept on the Inter-University Futures Collaborative. The purpose of a Collaborative is to allow universities to network with one another and to share resources in order to help communities address community issues within a systemic framework. This would entail community members developing a systems "thinking" frame of mind as well as becoming familiar with using system dynamics. (For more on this, please consult my paper "Inter-University Futures Collaborative" at http://www2.kanazawa-it.ac.jp/englishd/reber/clc1.htm).
As part of my research, I plan to spend a week at The Center for Theoretical Studies in Prague on March 6-13, and would like to invite any listserve members to join me who have a particular interest in this topic. If you are interested in this, please contact me at: reber@neptune.kanazawa-it.ac.jp
Happy New Millennium,
Michael Reber
Assistant ProfessorKanazawa Institute of Technology7-1 Ohgigaoka, Nonoichi-machiIshikawa-ken 921-8501JAPANPh: 81-762-48-1100 X2226Fax: 81-762-94-6701http://www2.kanazawa-it.ac.jp/englishd/reber/clc1.htm

Xxxxxxxxxx

Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1999
To: k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu
From: "k-12sd" <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
Subject: Diana Fisher's book

Dear List Members,
This is some info on how to obtain the book Teresa wrote of recently. It's
available for Mac or PC.
"A First Course in System Dynamics Modeling"
Diana M. Fisher
Summer Creek Press (Ed and Janet Gallaher)
12140 S.W. Merestone Court
Tigard OR 97223
gallaher@teleport.com
Phone: 503-590-6661
Nan Lux
MIT System Dynamics Group

Xxxxxxxxxx

From: "Art Schneiderheinze" <ats1025@email.msn.com>
To: "SYSDynamics Discussion" <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
Subject: PreService Teacher Education
Date: Wed, 22 Dec 1999

I am interested in talking with others in teacher education programs about
any work (research for example) that has been done with using systems
thinking instruction with preservice teachers (undergraduates). I
implemented ST/SD in curriculum I've developed for 4th and 5th graders but
now work at the University of Missouri in Columbia, MO for the College of Ed
while I work on my PhD in instructional technology.
In just my individual brainstorming, I can see how implementing ST/SD with
preservice teachers can totally change how we instruct and how we facilitate
future teachers in developing problem-solving skills. The classroom is a
system - and all the things we have traditionally taught preservice teachers
can be modeled as dynamics in the system, changes in variables impacting the
system, and system interactions.
So, I would be very interested in talking with others who work with
preservice teachers using ST/SD. Or, at the least, brainstorming ideas in
this discussion group.
Art Schneiderheinze, MA
PhD student
University of Missouri at Columbia
College of Education
School of Information Science and Technology
111 London Hall
(573) 882-2162
--------------------------------------
Clinical Associate
Teacher Development Program
Software Designer / Research Assistant
Center for Technology Innovations in Education

Xxxxxxxxxx

From: KCStarguy@aol.com
Date: Fri, 24 Dec 1999
Subject: Reply
To: k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu, teresa@northwest.com

In a message dated 12/21/99 12:39:55 PM, k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu writes:
Regarding
" to test your mental model of one variable against another. "
DrEric: that is very good. Focusing on variables and possibly how they effect
things by using stella and studying the varibles working visually. Students
don't usually have an opportunity to test variables. May be a way to
introduce scientific thinking.
Varibles can be introduced with simlife, simcity2000 and others as I have
done. The trick is to make the kids aware of some of them . Sim Farm is very
good too.
<< I continually have to emphasize
that this is all about thinking through a situation rather than just
mechanically going through a process to get a grade. >>
DrEric: what you are referring to is "metacognitive thinking" of which I am
doing a lot of work with my E.J.A.W.s- (Explorers, Judges, Artists and
Warriors) sheets. Students are not used to reflecting back on their thoughts
and also planning out their thoughts.
As for
" They have been given too many "worksheet' exercises to fill in the one
right answer."
DrEric: You are right. But sheets can be used to structure the exploration
towards discovery . I have designed sim sheets for use with sims and they are
very valuable. I am now working on sheets for stella.
DrEric: Change of students over time needs to be more then technology. You
also need to work on Education, Applications and Microworld learning
environments and molding them with the technology. There are too many
technology people who are very closed minded and only see the Technology
part. That is why we technology is not making an impact sometimes.
Dr. Eric Flescher (KCStarguy@aol.com) Project S.I.M. (Simulations,
Interdisciplinary internet and Metacognitive activities)
http://members.aol.com/kcstarguy/sim/index.htm
Educational Technology Consultant-Adjunct Faculty, Lesley College-Multimedia-
Gifted education consultant- Piper HS; Northwest MS, Coronado MS (Kansas
City, KS)

Xxxxxxxxx

Date: Mon, 27 Dec 1999
From: "RICHARD TURNOCK" <Richard_Turnock@pgn.com>
To: k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu
Subject: A Beginners Mind

The story of Percival and the Quest for the Holy Grail is an example of how
NOT to think with a beginners mind. Because Percival was trained as a
knight to not ask questions, so as to not appear to be a fool, he lost the
grail.
Listening with a beginners mind means I'm willing to ask questions, become
vulnerable and to appear to be foolish. When I've done this teaching
teachers system dynamics, I've had great results and I've found it's hard
to do.
richard_turnock@pgn.com
Educational Services
www.pge-edsvcs.com
503-464-8503

xxxxxxxxx

Date: Mon, 27 Dec 1999 16:06:25 -0800
From: "RICHARD TURNOCK" <Richard_Turnock@pgn.com>
To: k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu
Subject: Scientific Method

My mental model for teaching teachers includes following the scientific
method every time I introduce an example model to them.
1. What is the process we should have teachers follow when students create
models?
2. However you describe it, isn't that process the scientific method?
3. How does SD encourage teachers to implement the scientific method in
the classroom?
4. How do you introduce the scientific method so that non-science teachers
to use it with their students?
richard_turnock@pgn.com
Educational Services
www.pge-edsvcs.com
503-464-8503

xxxxxxxxx

Subject: Re: PreService Teacher Education
To: "k-12sd" <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
From: dsmith@lasalle.edu
Date: Thu, 30 Dec 1999

Art, and anyone else who's interested,
I'm burried in grading so I can't write much now, but check out the website
for a project I run:
http://www.LaSalle.edu/academ/iamst/e-sist.htm
It's pretty bare-bones, but will give you an idea of our goals at least.
We've just finished our first semester. I hope to be posting some student
models to the website very soon. I have indeed subtly shifted much of my
teacher-speak (which I try hard to minimize) to talk of models, mental and
otherwise, as we conduct and then try to explain experiments in this class.
I've also learned a lot about the interplay of metacognition and modelling.
I'd be very interested in what you did with 4th and 5th graders as my
colleagues and I are having some trouble conceptualizing how elementary
students could make effective use of Stella.
Nudge me in January and I'll tell you more about what we've learned - by
then maybe I'll know ;-)
Dave Smith, Geology, Environmental Science, and Physics
La Salle University
dsmith@lasalle.edu

Xxxxxxxxx

Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1999
To: "k-12sd" <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
From: Janis Dutton <jldutton@iac.net>
Subject: Re: A Beginners Mind

Richard Turnock wrote:
>Listening with a beginners mind means I'm willing to ask questions, become
>vulnerable and to appear to be foolish. When I've done this teaching
>teachers system dynamics, I've had great results and I've found it's hard
>to do.
Perhaps it would be easier Richard if you changed the words (and maybe your
thinking) "appear to be foolish." The word "appearance" suggests a false
front or what you want people to see, a pretence. And "foolish" implies
silliness and not deserving respect.
From what I have read of your earlier messages, I can't imagine this
describes you. I sense instead an expertise that is open to learning, and
deserving of respect. I prefer the words "open to possibilities." I don't
think you can fake these characteristics before a group of adult (or any
age) learners and have great results. Great results in teaching SD to
teachers come from modeling behavior as well creating models.
The beginner's mind suggests openness, which is a way of being that is not
false. It also suggests a humility that allows us to learn instead of
knowing all the answers ahead of time. Neither of these are appearances or
foolishness.
"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's
there are few."--Shunryu Suzuki
"The more I learn, the more I realize I don't know."--Albert Einstein
"To know that you do not know is the best. To pretend to know when you do
not know is a disease."---Lao-Tzu
Janis Dutton

Xxxxxxxxxx

Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1999
To: "k-12sd" <k-12sd@sysdyn.mit.edu>
From: teresa@northwest.com
Subject: Re: A Beginners Mind

Richard,
I think that message is difficult to get across to students because they
don't want to ask questions that they think are simple because of the peer
pressure not to look stupid. I have to constantly remind them that they
need to always be willing to take risks in their thinking, lay it all out,
so others can also learn from it. I even have some difficulty getting
students to commit themselves in writing. They are always wanting to make
sure they have the "one right answer". Another good reason to begin with
systems instruction in lower elementary school. Teresa

xxxxxxxxx

End of December, 1999