Course Introduction 12.000 Solving Complex Problems, Fall 2003

HODGES: The basic goal of 12.000 is to provide freshman at MIT with an opportunity to put together concepts and ideas that they get in a more formal way, in particular in the science core at MIT in their first year and put those in turn together with social issues, fundamental social issues in the context of big environmental problems. The subject changes from year to year in terms of its theme. We tend to focus on different areas at different times. But, on the other hand, the overarching goal is to have them think about how you approach really complicated problems that require multiple perspectives and don't necessary have any simple solutions. I mean most of the problems that they tend to deal with, in the other subjects that they take in the freshman year, have straightforward known solutions. So it's like taking a problem set, working on it and solving those problems in particular. But most of the problems that really keep you awake at night are not those kinds of problems. And so, as a consequence, this puts us in a position that we can literally let them think a little bit about what it is like to solve cutting-edge problems that have no simple answers. The course is structured in such a way that students get grades based on their individual work. They get grades based on teamwork. And they get grades as an entire class. And those are different components of the overall grade for the class. The reason for that kind of structure is that, in particular, we are trying to emphasize team learning and teamwork in this subject. And so, by setting up the grade structure in such a way that a substantial proportion of the grade, far more than half the grade actually depends on the overall outcome for the class and the overall outcome for the individual teams that make up the class. It began, a number of years ago, as an experiment that was supported by the d'arbeloff Fund here at MIT, really an experiment in project-based, team-based learning specifically directed at freshman. And it was specifically supposed to be interdisciplinary right from the get-go. So what has happened is it has been used as a model over the years to try and think about how one would run that kind of a subject for freshman in particular. Because one of the big problems that we all have with freshman education at MIT is the balance between the incredible intellectual capacity of the freshman who come in versus the amount of training that they have and, therefore, their sophistication in looking at problems. So lots of people would argue that project-based learning is best done, for example, in the junior year or the senior year or even in the graduate years. But one of the things that we found out from this class is that, even though students don't necessarily have a lot of the formal training that forms the foundation for high-level learning they have a tremendous amount of creativity. And this really builds a self-confidence in them to work on problems that normally they would perceive as problems that are insolvable for them. 12.000 is not a formal subject within the departmental curriculum of EAPS, although it can count as a restrictive elective for students who are taking the environmental science track within our departmental program. However, it is really meant as an opportunity for freshman to think very broadly about their own education and how they learn things, how they put together solutions to these big complicated problems. I think one of the highlights of this class is the final presentation at the end of the academic year, sorry, at the end of the semester. And the rationale behind that is that I wanted to give the students a sense that if they do work well and if they come up with an effective solution to one of these complicated problems that they will be paid attention to. I mean this is part of building this sense of empowerment among these students. So the simplest way, the best way to do that is to put them in a position where they are trying to explain their solution to a bunch of people who are themselves deeply immersed in that particular problem. And they really have a knowledge of the issues that surround any solution that particular problem. So every year, for the final presentation, I invite a panel of maybe five or six people who have special knowledge of this particular area or have special knowledge of the kinds of problems that are confronted by that particular class. And one of the things that I have found is that has been a tremendous motivator, a far greater motivator than the grades that students would get in this class, because there is no fear like the fear of looking stupid in front of a bunch of people who know what they are talking about. We also do a live webcast of that final presentation for a variety of reasons. We started doing it because we wanted to have it for assessment purposes, not for what a particular class does but for assessment for the subject as a whole. By looking back at those from year to year we can sort of see what seemed to have worked well pedagogically, what didn't seem to have worked well pedagogically, and we can get a sense of how well the students are really learning the material that way, I think more so than we could by, for example, entrance and exit examples. With this kind of material it is hard to devise those anyway, but we can do it well because I always believe that the better you can articulate a problem the more you understand it. I think one of the most difficult things about teaching this subject is that you have to stop being a professor and you have to let the students do the work on their own. Throughout the years you find that the students are going to stumble and they are going to make mistakes and they do things really inefficiently in a subject of this kind. If you create an environment for learning but you don't actually hold the control stick for the learning of the students then it is a little bit of a scary thing. You believe every year, I believe that the system is beginning to be chaotic and it is not going to work very effectively. And then at the end of every year, every semester that I teach this class the students come out of it beautifully. And I think that is a testimonial, not to anything that I do, but a testimonial to their capacity to learn as a group but also as individuals.