What are the Levers by which a Complex Systems Approach may Empower Learning?

This study examined middle school students’ learning of the gaseous phase in chemistry through an emergent complex systems perspective as compared with learning through a normative disciplinary view. Building and adding onto previous research, We examine the contribution of design components (computer models and physical laboratories) to leverage learning in a novel learning environment based on complex systems approach. As schooling turns to increasingly more digital experiences of learning, it is important to assess whether vital contributions of earlier approaches to science learning are lost in the process. We explore the contribution of physical experiences with labor atories and computational model-based complex-systems approach to learning a chemical system. The study compares junior-high school students’ learning of the gaseous phase in chemistry in three modes: with computer models using a complexity approach (M), with a normative disciplinary approach that includes laboratories (L), and with computer models using a complexity approach that includes laboratories (ML). Learning is tracked for relevant science concepts, such as pressure, and systems ideas, such as emergence and randomness. Extending previous research, we focus on agent-based modeling a more recent complex-systems approach to modeling systems, and we study a more nuanced set of learning outcomes. (מתוך המאמר‎)