Wicked Challenges Research Articles

Teaching and learning cultures in higher education: a mismatch in conceptions

ABSTRACTInstructional approaches in higher education that foster learning based on internal values are required with the enrollment of wider and more diverse audiences. The current study explores this challenge with a focus on the relationship between students’ learning cultures and the way instructors’ view them. We interviewed 76 students and six instructors at an established academic institution. Data comprised of 210 students’ and 146 instructors’ utterances that were analyzed using mixed methods. Findings revealed a mismatch of instructors’ conceptions about the learning culture of the typical student, potentially leading to compromises in their teaching practices. We provide evidence that reciprocal relations exist between cultures of teaching and learning, contributing to the wicked challenges of rethinking the role of teachers in reinforcing passive learning cultures in undergraduate education. Adoption of internal-based values teaching approaches can help break this feedback loop.

Building Powerful Partnerships: Lessons from Portland's Climate Action Collaborative

Abstract There is growing interest in partnerships between universities and communities and how such collaborations can help address the wicked challenges facing the world today. This article traces the development of the institutional commitments at Portland State University (PSU) in its efforts to build sustainability-focused community–university partnerships. The Institute for Sustainable Solutions at PSU has served as a mechanism to catalyze and nurture such partnerships on and off campus. This article examines two cases under the Portland Climate Action Collaborative that illustrate how community–university partnerships have emerged, what impacts they have had on the community, and what factors contributed to their success. Interviews with university and community representatives throughout the Pacific Northwest on important considerations in the process of building effective, high-impact partnerships provide insights and some key takeaways that include: the value of having an institutional unit that...

A road map for developing and applying object-oriented bayesian networks to “WICKED” problems

Wildlife managers, conservation-based authorities and NGOS are often tasked to provide management guidelines concerning “wicked” problems and Ecosystem Services (ESS) with scarce data and limited resources. More often than not, this dilemma is further intensified by competing objectives and the need for economic profitability. A range of quantitative and qualitative models are often applied to model ecosystem services. However, lack of quantifiable data remains an obstacle. We provide a brief overview of Bayesian Networks (BNs), Object Oriented Bayesian Networks (OOBNs), Dynamic Bayesian Networks (DBNs), and Dynamic Object Oriented Bayesian Networks (DOOBNs) construction and a flow chart highlights their utility. OOBNs are a semi-quantitative modelling approach that uses Bayes probability theorem to represent ecological complexities and conservation concerns. Its transparency allows it to act as a conceptual system and a decision support tool. And yet, Bayesian networks are not commonly applied to the ecological discipline because they are computationally expensive. We promote the notion that sustainable management is advanced by providing biology-based decision-making networks to address wicked problems. First, we provide a brief reasoning for the applicability of Bayes theorem to wicked challenges. Then, we demonstrate the efficiency of Bayesian modelling by applying it to the case study of the black wildebeest (Connochaetes gnou) and blue wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus) hybridization concern in South Africa. Empirical data, in addition to expert explicit understanding of uncertainties was utilized to infer the probability that specific ecological, biological, and economic parameters, and their relationships, facilitate hybridization. We found the following management variables to be key to impact the probability of hybridization: (i) blue wildebeest male to black wildebeest male ratio, (ii) land cover (tree savanna vs. grassland), and (iii) spatial connectivity (i.e., fences). By quantifying ecological uncertainty, OOBN illuminates decision-making tradeoffs and serves to promote informed decision making either during the risk assessment stage or the management impact analysis stage. We offer a SWOT analysis (Strength, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) and put forth a step-by-step user friendly roadmap by which OOBNs may be applied to solve similar “wicked” problems. We identify three primary phases: phases: (1) a priori data generation, (2) model development, and (3) model validation and verification. Our suggested step-by-step framework of OOBN construction and validation is of global relevance; it is designed to model similar “wicked” problems worldwide.

Games, Stories and Language: Motivating Second Language Acquisition With Play

This paper reports a design case for a story-driven language learning game called Arena. Arena was developed in the design science tradition, where purpose-built artifacts are used as a springboard for scientific inquiry. As such, Arena is a vehicle for designers and researchers to study the effectiveness of story-based games for engaging learners, as well as to explore some of the various challenges that manifest when designing and implementing gameful educational experiences. In this design case, we—myself, as author, and by extension, my design team of 14 undergraduate developers and researchers—report on the theoretical underpinnings of Arena and then draw contrasts between these and our experiences as practical designers. The contrasts we note include: (a) second language storytelling as a wicked challenge, (b) managing competing requirements for ease-of-use versus meaningful learning and engagement, (c) making playful connections between play and work, (d) the subtle impact of player point of view, and (e) designing for our target demographic of young male gamers.

Optimists’ Creed: Brave New Cyberlearning, Evolving Utopias (Circa 2041)

This essay imagines the role that artificial intelligence innovations play in the integrated living, learning and research environments of 2041. Here, in 2041, in the context of increasingly complex wicked challenges, whose solutions by their very nature continue to evade even the most capable experts, society and technology have co-evolved to embrace cyberlearning as an essential tool for envisioning and refining utopias–non-existent societies described in considerable detail. Our society appreciates that evolving these utopias is critical to creating and resolving wicked challenges and to better understanding how to create a world in which we are actively “learning to be” – deeply engaged in intrinsically motivating experiences that empower each of us to reach our full potential. Since 2015, Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED) has transitioned from what was primarily a research endeavour, with educational impact involving millions of user/learners, to serving, now, as a core contributor to democratizing learning (Dewey 2004) and active citizenship for all (billions of learners throughout their lives). An expansive experiential super computing cyberlearning environment, we affectionately call the “Holodeck,” supports transdisciplinary collaboration and integrated education, research, and innovation, providing a networked software/hardware infrastructure that synthesizes visual, audio, physical, social, and societal components. The Holodeck’s large-scale integration of learning, research, and innovation, through real-world problem solving and teaching others what you have learned, effectively creates a global meritocratic network with the potential to resolve society’s wicked challenges while empowering every citizen to realize her or his full potential.

Rediscovering Deep Time: Sustainability and the Need to Re‐Engage With Multiple Dimensions of Time in Leadership Studies

The current article makes the case that increasing our comfort with and responsiveness to extended timescales—both the far future and past—is essential to leadership against the backdrop of wicked challenges that shape the current and future leadership landscape. We offer a loose structure of four dimensions of time—present, near, distant, and deep time—to help advance this work. We frequently fail in thinking about the broader impact of our leadership work for generations to come and to ground that work in our extended, collective history. In order to think about lasting leadership, and particularly when utilizing a framework of sustainability and peace, it is essential that we critically examine our relationship with time and better incorporate it into our leadership theory, practice, development, and education. We need to further develop our ability to relate to and make sound decisions based on an informed consideration of the futures we wish to create and the deep histories that have led us to where we are now.

The wicked challenge of the business environment

Today's business environment has seen the emergence of ubiquitous and increasingly significant forces. Three such 'mega-forces' are the inevitability of globalisation, the imperative of innovation, and the importance of shared value. These forces are significant individually, but when they interact they generate powerful phenomena, namely, disruptive technologies, conflicted stakeholders and unknowable futures. The confluence of these phenomena gives rise to wicked problems. The mega-forces and the resulting wicked problems make traditional techniques of strategic analysis ineffective and require new approaches to strategy making. Recognising how the phenomena generated by the mega-forces give rise to wicked problems provides firms with guidelines for dealing with the distinctive and daunting challenge posed by these wicked problems.

Wicked global challenges: sustainability in the enterprise crosshairs

Purpose– This paper aims to address wicked sustainability issues lurking behind sensational headlines: “Humanity faces significant and unprecedented challenges on grand, global scales”. Such headlines refer to the span of such challenges as well as their complex roots and consequences. In a cosmic version of the “chicken or the egg” issue, causes and consequences of these grand global challenges are often difficult to distinguish from one another, although distinction is critical to solution derivations.Sustainable Enterprise Excellence, Resilience & Robustness(SEER2) is discussed relative to selected wicked challenges, including ones associated with climate change and human security.Design/methodology/approach– Roots of grand global challenges and the present and future reality they portend are discussed relative to intersections with enterprise strategy, performance and impact.Findings– Social-ecological innovation, big and small data analytics and intelligence and supply chain proficiency are identified as key drivers of enterprise response to grand global challenges. These are embedded in a holistic model for enterprise sustainability, resilience and robustness.Social implications– The SEER2 approach to enterprise sustainability, resilience and robustness that emphasizes performance and impact has the capability to aid progress toward more sustainable futures for enterprises and humankind alike.Originality/value– The SEER2 model leverages business excellence thinking to advance strategic and tactical approaches to enterprise excellence, sustainability, resilience and robustness. As such, the model is distinctly performance-oriented. Performance alone is not sufficient, however, so that impact – financial, societal and ecological – is also deeply embedded.

Ain't about Politics? The Wicked Power‐Geometry of Sydney's Greening Governance

AbstractThe globalization of Sydney and its rise to world city status tell us a profoundly political story that presents critical challenges both in terms of local development and long‐term sustainability. Green is at the centre of this imagineering, which situates environmental sustainability at the core of Sydney's competitive and innovative edge. Yet the Harbour City, while rising to worldwide fame, has also been progressively troubled by wicked challenges that question its increasingly entrepreneurial and largely unproblematized approach to urban governance. At present, the metropolis has tackled these challenges by means of ad hoc solutions and policy‐making processes that, on deeper analysis, reveal little coordination beyond an impetus for growth as the driver of collective action at the urban scale. Due to the lack of a clear metropolis‐wide authority and the multiscalar nature of urban governance, the city has turned too much towards tackling sustainability within its urban dimension as a source of global competitiveness, while social polarization questions are steadily advancing to the forefront. It is time, I argue, for a Greater Sydney Authority.RésuméLa mondialisation de Sydney et son ascension au rang de ville mondiale racontent une histoire profondément politique où apparaissent des problèmes cruciaux, à la fois en termes de développement local et de viabilitéà long terme. Défini comme pivot de cet ‘ingéniomaginaire’ ou imagineering, le thème ‘vert’ place la viabilité environnementale au cœur de l’avantage compétitif et novateur de Sydney. Pourtant, tout en bâtissant sa renommée mondiale, ‘Harbour City’ a peu à peu rencontré des ‘problèmes pernicieux’ qui menacent son approche de plus en plus entrepreneuriale de la gouvernance urbaine, approche dont la problématique est largement ignorée. La métropole a répondu à ces difficultés par des solutions ponctuelles et des processus de décision politique qui, une fois analysés en profondeur, révèlent une faible coordination hormis l’élan en faveur de la croissance comme moteur de l’action collective à l’échelon urbain. En l’absence d’autorité métropolitaine claire et à cause des multiples échelons de gouvernance, la ville s’est trop intéressée à la durabilité dans sa dimension urbaine en tant que source de compétitivité mondiale, alors que des problèmes de polarisation sociale prennent peu à peu le devant de la scène. Il est temps que soit instaurée une ‘Autorité du Grand Sydney’.

Education to Face the Wicked Challenges of Sustainability

Problem statement: The nature of sustainable development requires new paradigms for education. Issues of sustainability are ‘wicked problems’ that do not lend themselves to conventional didactic approaches. The challenge for higher education is to examine interdisciplinary approaches to global societal responsibility and, within this, issues of education for sustainable development. Approach: A project, sponsored by the Royal Academy of Engineering, developed a course unit in sustainable development across several disciplines. The approach was initially pedagogic in nature, with a strong evaluative theme. At the same time, a Delphi study was undertaken by the same team and this inter-relates with the main project. The focus of the action research was a series of ‘wicked’ problems that would provide real-world challenges with no simple answers. Results: The project was evaluated in a number of ways, not least the pre-and post-testing of students’ attitudes and approaches, but also using nominal group techniques. The project demonstrated that an interdisciplinary PBL approach succeeded in deepening the learning of the students as well as developing key skills. Conclusion: The use of collaborative, group-based approaches, notably PBL, offers a key way of approaching the design of curricula for sustainable development and other areas of global societal responsibility that hinge on ‘wicked problems’.

Education to Face the Wicked Challenges of Sustainability

Education to Face the Wicked Challenges of Sustainability