Education Case Studies

Minnesota System Information Modeling (MinSIM) Project

 A collaboration with the Transforming Schools Consortium, Ramsey MN (Dr. Ralph Brauer, Executive Director):

Problem Statement: Student outcomes or performance have always been the primary focus of thoughtful school reform and improvement efforts. Student performance, however, is the result of myriad influences acting directly or indirectly on the students. Further, these influences interact with and influence each other in complex combinations of feedbacks, often non-linear and often with significant delays. There is little wonder that reform efforts have been contentious and have, at best, a mixed record of achievement. Within that context we sought to use and refine our current understanding of educational data and relationships to construct a simulation of such a system to aid educators in addressing a fundamental question: How can we better manage and improve student performance?

Approach: Using our Ladder of Engagement to structure our approach to this problem:

• We collaborated with Dr. Brauer, faculty at the University of Minnesota, school administrators, and school teachers to establish a shared baseline of KNOWLEDGE of the relationships that influence the dynamics of student learning and performance.
• Working with those insights, we then probed and captured the participants’ UNDERSTANDING of the feedbacks that control the evolution of those factors. These feedbacks were then utilized to construct a computer simulation to allow objective exploration of those relationships.
• Finally the model was fine-tuned and user interfaces constructed so that school personnel could define policies and explore their ability to positively INFLUENCE the student outcomes.

Click here for a more complete description of this project.

Education Case Studies: Introduction  |  MinSIM  |  College Decision Making  |  High School Quality

System Dynamics and Collegiate Decision Making

Problem Statement: Enrollment and financial shortfalls led the Vice President of Academic Affairs at a small women’s college to pose the question:

Might system dynamics provide to the college new and better perspectives for understanding and then for better managing the problem?

Approach: We implicitly drew upon the logic of our Ladder of Engagement:

• To engage a disparate audience of college administrators in sharing their KNOWLEDGE of the problem. What had been the recent, underlying dynamics of student enrollment and finances and how were those dynamics forecast into the future.
• To organize and integrate that disparate knowledge into an UNDERSTANDING of the feedbacks through which those enrollments and finances were connected and exerted mutual control in a set of feedback loops. and
• Finally, through computer simulation and projection of future trends, to identify higher leverage policy options that could INFLUENCE the situation to reverse the recent, worrisome trends.
  

Click here for a more complete description of this project.

Our findings were presented at the annual meeting of the Association of American Colleges and Universities in 1999 and may be downloaded here.

Education Case Studies: Introduction  |  MinSIM  |  College Decision Making  |  High School Quality

Exploring Issues of Quality in a Vermont High School

Problem Statement: In 2000, a local school board and the senior members of its administration engaged us to:

• facilitate a deeper understanding of the long-term implications of the community’s continuing financial and demographic changes on the board’s capacity to manage this school “system,” and subsequently
• develop a system dynamics model (Computer Simulation) to assist the board in its decision-making. 

The starting point for the process began with a broadly framed question:  How can the school board and the administration maintain the high overall quality of its regional high school/technical center and its strong reputation in the community while recognizing financial pressures?

Approach: We implicitly drew upon the structure of our Ladder of Engagement to:

• Engage the board and administrators in sharing their respective concerns and KNOWLEDGE of the “problem,” its behaviors, and their root causes;
• Organize and integrate that knowledge into an UNDERSTANDING of the feedbacks through which key components of the system (students, teachers, and budgets) interact to generate those behaviors; and finally
• Through simulations of the school, identify and evaluate strategies to allow the board and administration to guide and INFLUENCE future developments in a desirable direction.

Click here for a more complete description of this project.

Education Case Studies: Introduction  |  MinSIM  |  College Decision Making  |  High School Quality