Vol. 2, Issue 4
Jul - Aug 2004
Return to the Front Page

Learning about Systems Dynamics:
One Experience

Diana Fisher
Wilson High School
Portland, Oregon

I was supposed to catch the Starlight at noon to return to Portland from Eugene. The 1990 NCCE conference had been held in Eugene in March. I had asked the courtesy car to pick me up from my last workshop at 10:30 so I could be sure to make the train. I probably shouldn't have tried to fit in the last workshop. It was scheduled from 9 to 12. But the topic seemed interesting... "Modeling using the STELLA Program." I thought I could at least get a gist of the material, or the technique, or whatever it was in the hour or so I would be able to attend. What a fortuitous decision. I was captivated, within the first 15 minutes, by what I saw demonstrated. Luckily I was able to receive the handouts and the trial programs. It was a start.

When I returned to Portland I decided to purchase the STELLA program. At $200 it was no small decision. I didn't even tell my husband, because I thought he'd argue me out of it. When the program and materials arrived I started to read the manuals. They were well written, but I didn't understand fully what I was reading. I became interested in some of the examples and even more excited about the potential for what students might be able to create. I started talking to some of the teachers at Franklin High School, where I taught. There was some interest, but it was my first year there and most of the teachers didn't know what to make of me let alone a new idea about modeling systems.

I decided to write an in-district "Technology on the Teacher's Desk" grant proposal in April. These grants were easier to get than others but they were still competitive. I started to twist some arms to get at least 5 other teachers to agree to try to do something with STELLA in the next 3 years. I wanted to have a cross-curricular approach to the effort, so I was able to get 2 other math teachers, 2 science teachers, and one social studies teacher somewhat interested. The idea must have been well enough defined, because we got the grant ($12,000) which bought us not only STELLA but some much needed computer equipment - like the first laser printer and overhead panel display accessible to all the teachers. This helped my reputation with the other teachers, even though they knew nothing about system dynamics. Some of the grant readers in the district became interested.

Diana Fisher
About the author
Diana Fisher received her bachelor's degree in mathematics from the University of Texas, El Paso and her master's degree in mathematics from the University of Montana. A teacher since 1969, she is currently teaching Advanced Algebra, AP Calculus, C++ and Java Programming, and Modeling Dynamic Systems at Wilson High School in Portland, Oregon.

She has presented at the International System Dynamics Conference since 1994, presenting plenary papers in 1998, 2000, and 2003. In 1995 she received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics Teaching for the state of Oregon. In 1996 she was first-place co-winner of the Intel "Innovations in Teaching" Award for the state of Oregon. She was the director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) CC-STADUS (Cross-Curricular Systems Thinking and Dynamics Using STELLA) grant (1993-1996) and also co-directed the NSF CC-SUSTAIN (Cross-Curricular Systems Using STELLA: Training and In-service) grant (1997-2000).

Diana published "Lessons in Mathematics: A Dynamic Approach" in 2001 and "Modeling Dynamic Systems: Lessons for a First Course" to be released in August 2004. Both are produced by isee systems. She has worked in industry as a software engineer for two and a half years and co-authored (in the 1980s) three programming textbooks published by Computer Science Press.

E-mail: dfisher25@verizon.net

There was disappointment and encouragement that first year. As the project leader I tried to learn enough to prepare some materials to help the other 5 learn will less effort. It wasn't enough. Only one of the other teachers and I were able to continue to progress without a real teacher to help us. I just could not learn the material fast enough to help the other teachers over some of the more difficult problems creating some of our early models. I did, however, continue to talk to other teachers about the idea, informally. I also communicated with other teachers who had been using STELLA to get some ideas for resource material. That's when I purchased Nancy Roberts' book "Introduction to Computer Simulation: A System Dynamics Modeling Approach." This book helped me a great deal. It was so easy to read! and the examples were terrific! What a great book. (Then it was out of print a year later - a significant problem, since it was the one best resource for high school teachers that I had found.)

I also attended the NERD conference during the fall of 1990. The NERD conference was the brain-child of an exceptionally talented physics teacher in the district, Ron Zaraza. With seed money from his Presidential Award for Science Teacher of the Year in Oregon he set up a remote retreat for science teachers (and some math) teachers in the Portland School District to share how they were using technology in their classrooms. It was at this retreat that I pulled a few science teachers aside and showed them STELLA. Another seed was planted. (I will be giving the keynote address this year -1992 - at this conference - on STELLA and system dynamics in math and science)

I demonstrated the population model (from the second chapter of the STELLA User's Manual) to my second year Algebra class during the spring of 1991. A student who had not done well in the class commented, "Why didn't we do something like this earlier? This I can understand." I had anticipated that the visual nature of the STELLA interface would reach certain students better than the traditional equation approach.

This comment was reinforcing. The next major leap occurred when I heard about the STACI project, and heard that they were going to have a one week work session at Stanford in June 1991. I called the director and pleaded to be allowed to audit. With much effort and a great deal of compromise as to what my audit would allow me to do, I was permitted to attend. It was there that I met the HPS people and other teachers who were very open and willing to share what they could with me, especially Paul Dye and the Arizona contingent. (As it happened, Paul Dye and his students had be invited by the NCCE program committee to do a presentation in Portland in the spring of 1991. I made a point to seek him out and talk to him about what he was doing and about the STACI project.)

In the fall of 1991 I wrote another in-district grant proposal for expanding STELLA more into the social studies area. This grant money was distributed at the discretion of the Director of Instruction for our cluster. (Portland has so many schools in the district, they are divided into clusters.) He was not sold on the idea and wanted a demonstration. I demonstrated what we wanted to do with STELLA and dynamic modeling to him AND my principal and curriculum vice-principal. He awarded only half of the money for the grant - but the principal and viceprincipal liked the idea so much they paid for the rest of the idea from the building funds. It has been the continued support of the academic vice-principal, Mike Hryciw, that has made a difference for me. I felt my efforts were being recognized and my work appreciated.

We finally were able to purchase a full lab set of STELLA. We started to make some progress, but I quickly realized one important component I had left out of the grant proposal - release time. It was very difficult for the teachers who already had full teaching loads, and coaching responsibilities, to find extra time to devote to learning something that was not as easy to learn as it first appeared.

I introduced STELLA in both my BASIC and Pascal programming classes. I knew I needed some significant time with students to determine how to teach the method and develop materials. Since I teach four classes a day, with four different preparations, it had been difficult to find enough time to do what I needed to do to increase the speed of my learning. It allowed me to focus on my own understanding of system dynamics. I spent a month on the topic in each class. I found I had to redo explanations from the User's Manual for my students. The questions they asked caused me to try to find underlying principles to help guide them. There was no substitute for this time. It was invaluable in the progress I made. I didn't want to just use other teacher's models. I wanted to be able to create my own, and I wanted my students to be able to create their own. I also was able, because of this focus time, to create some lessons for my second year algebra students, which dovetailed nicely with the standard curriculum.

During the 1991-1992 school year I made 8 to 10 STELLA presentations, mostly at math and computer conventions. It seemed every time I talked to a group of teachers, informally, I was talking about STELLA and system dynamics. I became very boring. But I couldn't seem to help myself. The more I learned the more I saw applications, and other people saw applications.

In the spring of 1992 I attended the first annual Systems Thinking in Education Conference in Tucson, Arizona. For the first time I was able to meet people I had just talked to on the phone or written. It was very exciting for me to meet the people who attended. I returned renewed and excited to continue the struggle. I also was able to convince the curriculum council at Franklin that a one semester course in Math Modeling (focusing on system dynamics) was perhaps one way to do cross-curricular modeling. I'd train the students and have them do projects for the teachers who had an interest but not enough time to model themselves. Lastly, I started to meet some people outside of education, in the Portland area, who were actually using STELLA to do real modeling in their work. One person in particular, a research pharmacologist, Dr. Edward Gallaher, who had been using STELLA in his research for 4 years, became an outstanding resource. He was more a STELLAvangelist than I. He feels that all medical students should be trained to use STELLA because the human body abounds with dynamic processes that are so much more easily explained using the STELLA diagramming language. These three occurrences pushed the effort ahead in great strides.

I was strongly encouraged to write an NSF grant proposal to train teachers in the use of system dynamics. I had taught a one credit course for teachers in the spring of 1992. With that experience, my own struggles, and some experience teaching students, I felt I had enough information to put together some useful ideas for a training program. I was fortunate in that I now had interest from some teachers (especially Ron Zaraza) I felt could really cause the progress to quicken and who had excellent reputations as teachers and curriculum writers. I spent two months during the summer of 1992 working on the grant, without compensation. One administrator thought enough of the idea to convince the district to assign a grant writer to assist me in this effort.The NSF Grant was awarded May 7, 1993. The total award was $764,971 for three years.

We will work to continue to change our courses to incorporate a more systemic look at certain problems. We must teach ourselves and our students to approach problems in a more systemic fashion or we are doomed to attack dynamic problems with linear solutions.