Abstract for:Skilled System Dynamics Sailors: developing competences for building S&F models

The System Dynamics (SD) course at Universidad de los Andes in Bogota (Colombia) is a mandatory course for all undergraduate students of Industrial Engineering and an optional course for students of other programs. This course is designed to develop competences in building SD models and in using them for improving problematic situations in social (human) systems. The learning objectives of the course are: build and assess stocks and flows models (Competence 1), identify feedback in complex situations (Competence 2), and design systemic policies and evaluate them under different scenarios (Competence 3).

Parallelly, Schaffernicht & Groesser’s (2016) framework for teaching and learning SD details competencies and learning outcomes. When examining this framework, we find that the design of our course fits consistently into it and can be used as a case to illustrate its potential. This paper focuses on how Competence 1 of our System Dynamics course develops the learning outcomes of Schaffernicht & Groesser’s framework (2016). In this work in progress, we want to share with the System Dynamics community our insights on how we think that this framework may contribute to the design of SD courses and for the assessment of SD skills.