Seminar - AM-Smart Methods: Setting the Vision and Exploring a new Agenda, Opportunities, and Challenges

Title:

AM-Smart Methods: Setting the Vision and Exploring a new Agenda, Opportunities, and Challenges

Presentation Overview

In the first half of this talk, Dr. Schimpf will present the emerging vision of AM-Smart, a new methods field, which leverages and integrates innovations in smart technologies, the learning sciences and human-computer interaction to enable greater access and use of advanced methods (computational and others). AM-Smart is coalescing as a new methods genre in response to three trends. First, the enormous growth in computational methods; second, datafication of everything and rise of big data; and third, the increasing complexity of the social world and interdisciplinary nature of modern problems. In this space, we will review forerunners of the AM-Smart genre and synthesize their core features (often not shared by all existing platforms) to set a vision of what AM-Smart could be and how it might address these challenges. The features are (1) bespoke tools that (2) involve a small network of interrelated methods, (3) which embed distributed expertise, (4) scaffold method use, (5) provide rapid and formative feedback, (6) leverage visual reasoning, (7) enable product failure, (8) promote user-driven inquiry and (9) embodying methodological rigor and reliability.

In the second half of this talk, Dr. Schimpf and co-author Dr. Castellani will facilitate breakout discussions around AM-Smart. In particular, given the newness of the field, we will explore three major themes: (1) possible research agenda directions, (2) opportunities these methods could provide researchers and practitioners and (3) challenges, threats, or risks that AM-Smart may create to learning, deploying, and innovating in methods use. This will be an opportunity to help co-create what is possible or infeasible for this new genre and contribute to the vision and agenda going forward. This discussion will build on Methods CON discussions that were facilitated by Dr. Castellani recent presentation and workshop there.

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