Collaborative Research: NRT-IGE: Employing Model-Based Reasoning in Environmental Science (EMBeRS)

Massachusetts Institute Of Technology, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

NRT-IGE: Employing Model-Based Reasoning in Environmental Science (EMBeRS) Scientific synthesis across disciplines is at the heart of addressing important challenges such as impacts of global change, trade-offs between water, food, and energy production, and the need for sustainable cities. Studies of interdisciplinary research teams indicate that team members struggle to achieve knowledge synthesis across disciplines. Issues arise due to the inability of team members to develop deep knowledge at the frontier of other disciplines and to connect that knowledge with their own expertise to provide a collaborative path forward. The ability to work collaboratively in a research team with others who may hold very different perspectives is a critical aspect of preparing today's students to meet future workforce demands. This National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) award in the Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) track is a collaborative project led by the University of Texas at El Paso involving graduate students and faculty from multiple institutions. The project will test a new model for training graduate student teams in environmental sciences to overcome knowledge integration and synthesis challenges. This model will draw on findings from cognitive, learning, and social sciences to develop and test training for graduate students and faculty in model-based reasoning approaches. Model-based reasoning theory posits that humans reason by constructing an internal mental model of the situations, events, and processes that they encounter, and that external representations can be used to facilitate construction of these mental models. External representations include the use of analogies, metaphor, visual models, diagrams and/or other representations for abstraction and communication of complex concepts. In a team setting, these external representations are called boundary negotiating objects. This project will place doctoral students in multidisciplinary teams and facilitate a structured, participatory process that includes a progression of standard, individual and group model-based reasoning activities as well as instruction on the purposeful co-creation of boundary negotiating objects. Students from multiple institutions will learn together through two-week summer experiences; students who are conducting research in conjunction with larger interdisciplinary teams will be targeted. In addition, the project will train faculty from multiple institution in the model. The project will examine the implementation of ten faculty members. Survey, interview, and digital data will be collected to examine how graduate students respond to being directly exposed to theories behind the approach as well as the efficacy of the approach as faculty employ it in their graduate classes. This design will allow comparison of the outcomes from guiding students on what to do, versus teaching students why and how to do it. The NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Program is designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new, potentially transformative, and scalable models for STEM graduate education training. The Innovations in Graduate Education Track is dedicated solely to piloting, test, and evaluating novel, innovative, and potentially transformative approaches to graduate education. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.