Introduction to Modeling a Dynamic System

In this project, students created a model of basketball as a dynamic system. Students explored several ways to understand the system: as a class, students “played” basketball while documenting what they thought were the broadly understood conventions of the sport; students watched a basketball game, and documented the rules in-use; and students read the basketball rulebook, and created a list of terms, a list of processes, and a list of agents and objects that were governed by the rules.  These lists were prioritized, and students explored several approaches to mapping: concept mapping, system flow diagrams, and types of hierarchical structures. The final result is based upon a ruleset established by each student team. The project was based upon a similar project by Hugh Dubberly.