2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Towards a framework for assessing systems thinking in collaborative problem-solving in STEM

Presented at ERM Technical Session: Improving Assessment in Engineering Education

In this evidence-based practice research brief, we expand on previous work related to the development of a framework for teaching and assessing introductory systems thinking in first-year STEM education. We employ the framework to create and refine a rubric useful for
teaching and assessing systems thinking, and present initial results from applying the rubric to a case of structured case work involving collaborative problem-solving in STEM. We discuss the implications of this approach to teaching and assessing systems thinking in collaborative settings and discuss the potential of applying the framework as a research tool to compare different variations of interdisciplinarity and complexity in collaborative problem-solving in STEM.

Authors

Dr. Lykke Brogaard Bertel http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1460-2905 Aalborg University [biography]

Lykke Brogaard Bertel is Associate Professor in PBL and digital transformation at the UNESCO center for Problem-based Learning in Engineering, Science and Sustainability at Aalborg University.
Dr. Rea Lavi http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0788-7236 Massachusetts Institute of Technology [biography]

Rea Lavi received his Ph.D. degree from the Faculty of Education in Science and Technology, Technion—Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel. He is Lecturer and a Curriculum Designer with the NEET program, School of Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, where he teaches thinking skills to undergraduate students. His research interests in STEM education involve the fostering and assessment of thinking skills involved in complex problem-solving, with special focus on systems thinking, creative thinking, and metacognition. His doctoral research received several awards, including the Zeff Fellowship for Excelling First-year Ph.D. Students and the Miriam and Aaron Gutwirth Fellowship for Excelling Ph.D. Students. Rea is also the inventor of the SNAP Method® for structured creative problem-solving (US & UK trademarks).
Kamilla Rathcke Aalborg University
Nelson F. Coelho Aalborg University
Sun Cole Seeberg Dyremose Aalborg University

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