Trust in Classroom-as-Organization Simulations: Parallel Experiences of Participants and Facilitators

Background. As classroom-as-organization (CAO) simulations unfold within corporate or higher education classrooms, novice facilitators and their participants experience uncertainty in the absence of familiar and implicit sources of trust. Initial trust derived from the context, simulation, peers, and one’s self wanes as awareness dawns regarding the magnitude of difference between CAO and typical classrooms. New sources of trust arise from shared sensemaking about unfamiliar roles and interactions, growing confidence in redistributed responsibilities and authority, an environment characterized by psychological safety, feedback, and behavioral experimentation modeled upon the experiential learning cycle ( Kolb, 1976 ). Purpose. This article examines the parallel experiences of participants and novice facilitators as they initially lose trust in CAO simulations and those involved, and discover new sources of trust related to the simulation design. Using first- and second-hand experiences and extant literatures on trust and teaching and learning, the erosion of initial trust is explored, as well as how CAO simulation design principles foster new sources of emergent trust. Conclusion. Understanding the ebb and flow of participants’ trust in CAO simulations allows for targeted facilitation and coaching. Novice facilitators who examine how their own trust experiences parallel those of participants gain insight into interventions and empathy into the participant experience within this fully-experiential learning environment. Empirical research is needed to examine the mechanisms of trust loss and rebuilding in CAO simulations in relation to the enactment of unfamiliar roles, routines, and responsibilities.

Tool Support for Co-Simulation-Based Analysis

The development of collaborative embedded systems (CESs) requires the validation of their runtime behavior during design time. In this context, simulation-based analysis methods play a key role in the development of such systems. Simulations of CESs tend to become complex. One cause is that CESs work in collaborative system groups (CSGs) within a dynamic context., which is why CESs must be simulated as participants of a CSG. Another cause stems from the fact that CES simulations cover various cyber-physical domains. The models incorporated are often managed by different tools that are specialized for specific simulation disciplines and must be jointly executed in a cosimulation. Besides the methodological aspects, the interoperability of models and tools within such a co-simulation is a major challenge. This chapter focusses on the tool integration aspect of enabling co-simulations. It motivates the need for co-simulation for CES development and describes a general tool architecture. The chapter presents the advantages and limitations of adopting existing standards such as FMI and DCP, as well as best practices for integrating simulation tools and models for CESs and CSGs.

A computational model of the cultural co-evolution of language and mindreading

Several evolutionary accounts of human social cognition posit that language has co-evolved with the sophisticated mindreading abilities of modern humans. It has also been argued that these mindreading abilities are the product of cultural, rather than biological, evolution. Taken together, these claims suggest that the evolution of language has played an important role in the cultural evolution of human social cognition. Here we present a new computational model which formalises the assumptions that underlie this hypothesis, in order to explore how language and mindreading interact through cultural evolution. This model treats communicative behaviour as an interplay between the context in which communication occurs, an agent’s individual perspective on the world, and the agent’s lexicon. However, each agent’s perspective and lexicon are private mental representations, not directly observable to other agents. Learners are therefore confronted with the task of jointly inferring the lexicon and perspective of their cultural parent, based on their utterances in context. Simulation results show that given these assumptions, an informative lexicon evolves not just under a pressure to be successful at communicating, but also under a pressure for accurate perspective-inference. When such a lexicon evolves, agents become better at inferring others’ perspectives; not because their innate ability to learn about perspectives changes, but because sharing a language (of the right type) with others helps them to do so.

A computational model of the cultural co-evolution of language and mindreading

Several evolutionary accounts of human social cognition posit that language has co-evolved with the sophisticated mindreading abilities of modern humans. It has also been argued that these mindreading abilities are the product of cultural, rather than biological, evolution. Taken together, these claims suggest that the evolution of language has played an important role in the cultural evolution of human social cognition. Here we present a new computational model which formalises the assumptions that underlie this hypothesis, in order to explore how language and mindreading interact through cultural evolution. This model treats communicative behaviour as an interplay between the context in which communication occurs, an agent’s individual perspective on the world, and the agent’s lexicon. However, each agent’s perspective and lexicon are private mental representations, not directly observable to other agents. Learners are therefore confronted with the task of jointly inferring the lexicon and perspective of their cultural parent, based on their utterances in context. Simulation results show that given these assumptions, an informative lexicon evolves not just under a pressure to be successful at communicating, but also under a pressure for accurate perspective inference. When such a lexicon evolves, agents become better at inferring others’ perspectives; not because their innate ability to learn about perspectives changes, but because sharing a language (of the right type) with others helps them to do so.

Model-Based Approach to Engineering Resilience in Multi-UAV Systems

Multi-UAV Operations are an area of great interest in government, industry, and research community. In multi-UAV operations, a group of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are deployed to carry out missions such as search and rescue or disaster relief. As multi-UAV systems operate in an open operational environment, many disrupting events can occur. To this end, resilience of these systems is of great importance. The research performed and reported in this paper utilizes simulation-based research methodology and demonstrates that resilience of multi-UAV systems can be achieved by real-time evaluation of resilience alternatives during system operation. This evaluation is done using a dynamic utility function where priorities change as a function of context. Simulation results show that resilience response can in fact change depending on the context.

The qualification of e-learning for higher education through the development of affective usability, self-evaluation test and virtual laboratory

This contribution presents some aspects of the Department Interdisciplinary Research Project (PRID) of Roma Tre University. The main aim of the project is to define an innovative e-learning integrated didactic model that can promote the acquisition and development of skills for Lifelong Learning (European Parliament & European Council, 2008). To this end, the implementation of the following essential variables and components of the Integrated Model is a priority: 1) the learners’ motivational involvement; 2) the quality of the experience of immersion within a virtual environment; 3) evaluation and self-evaluation practices. Considering the original model successfully experimented in the Degree Course in Education Sciences at “Roma Tre” University (Domenici, 2016) and particularly focused on evaluation and self-evaluation processes, we propose an implementation of so-called affective usability of the e-learning platform by creating relaxing, stimulating and aesthetic online environments, promoting a greater immersive capacity. To this must be added the students’ use of advanced ICT programs enabling them to experience scientific demonstrations and experiments in order to acquire a scientific mentality through the use of Context Simulation Tests and Virtual Didactic Laboratories (VDLs). The effectiveness of implementing the FAD e-learning system in acquiring the scientific thinking modality will be empirically assess.