System Dynamics as a viable tool for Engineering Education (original) (raw)
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Measurement and Control, 2002
As our world becomes ever more complex, engineering solutions to meet our needs become more difficult to realise. These solutions are born through projects that, because of this complexity, have been increasingly difficult to deliver on time and to budget. There is not a week goes by without reports of yet another project disaster, or another embarrassment for government! What is going wrong? Our ability to design and construct complex engineering solutions is improving, mainly through the formal application of systems engineering, but there is another entity in play that is not benefiting from the same degree of attention — the delivery mechanism or, as it is more commonly termed the “project”. This project can be as complex as the engineering solution, with behaviour that is extremely dynamic in nature. The application of system dynamics modelling is currently the only way by which this behaviour can be understood and ultimately controlled. System dynamics may therefore be the mis...
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Educational programs leading to degrees in system dynamics are rare and thus of critical importance to the future of the field of system dynamics. However, to a large extent such programs have not yet been made transparent to the system dynamics community as a whole. The present article describes the design and rationale for undergraduate and graduate programs at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). The goal of the article is to invite feedback from the system dynamics community about our specific programs as well as to facilitate wider discussion about the appropriate content, design, and pedagogy of degree programs and courses in system dynamics.
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This paper contains the description of a successful system dynamics (SD) modeling approach used for almost a quarter-century in secondary schools, both in algebra classes and in a year-long SD modeling course. Secondary school students have demonstrated an ability to build original models from the news, write technical papers explaining their models, and present a newfound understanding of dynamic feedback behavior to an audience. The educational learning theory and instructional methods used for both the algebra and modeling courses are detailed, with examples. Successful student SD modeling experiences suggest the SD approach can expand the sophistication of topics that secondary school students can understand.
System Dynamics: A Field of Study, a Methodology or Both?
Practitioners of System Dynamics have long lamented the slow rate of acceptance of System Dynamics by business, government, academics and other organizations. Essential to the acceptance of any new idea or innovation is the ability for its advocates to clearly and simply state what the concept is. This paper investigates the idea that a part of the problem may be attributable to the practice of its practitioners to position System Dynamics as both a field of study and an applied methodology. This mixed message creates a classic Watzlawick double bind paradox in which the field appears to define the methodology and the methodology appears to define the field. This paper argues it can not be both if the Society expects to succeed in its goal to increase the acceptance of System Dynamics, whether it be a field or a methodology. The author proposes an approach for decoupling the method from the field by developing separate terms and distinct operational definitions for each that are not self-referential and explores the implications to the method, the field and its practitioners.
The Design of Educational Programs in System Dynamics at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI)
Systems, 2014
M.J.R.) † Based on -Doyle, J.K.; Eberlein, B.; Ford, A.; Hines, J.; Lyneis, J.M.; Parsons, K.; Pavlov, O.; Radzicki, M.J.; Saeed, K.; Warren, K. Design of a Master
Using the System Dynamics Paradigm in Teaching and Learning Technological University Subjets
2010
Knowledge of Differential Equations is applied to various scientific fields such as physics, chemistry, biology and engineering and therefore often an important part in the basic subjects of mathematics in the first college courses related to those areas. The logic and common sense seems to indicate teachers use these basic skills acquired by students and employ them to curricula development in the following intensification courses, but unfortunately it is not usually the case. According to the authors, that is because instead of using a generic software to set up and solve the problems of Differential Equations that arise at different areas, what we have is a proliferation of software applied to solve special case problems. Some of these programs offer sophisticated graphical user interfaces to create complex system models, usually by putting together some library components, as if it were a puzzle, but without the need to set up the differential equations. According to the authors...
The Design of Educational Programs in System Dynamics at WPI
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
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