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Systems and society (2235.YR.014541.1)

General information

Type:

 BAS

Curs:

 1

Period:

 S semester

ECTS Credits:

 6 ECTS

Teaching Staff:

Group Teacher Department Language
Year 1 Ferran Macipe Catalán Ciencias Sociales ENG

Prerequisites

CA03: Expressive Clarity
CA04: Applied Creative & Critical Thinking

Workload distribution

This is a 6 ECTS course, which means that students are expected to dedicate approximately 150 hours of workload. (25 hours per ECTS). This workload encompasses various activities, including blended classes, both in-person and online, synchronous, or asynchronous, autonomous student work, study time, or any other time dedicated to the subject.

COURSE CONTRIBUTION TO PROGRAM

This course focuses on effective engagement in social systems. Students will examine social interaction through the lens of complex systems theory, which provides a powerful framework for understanding human behavior and group dynamics. Students learn to recognize that they are embedded within many different complex social systems, and they apply their understanding of these systems to analyzing and improving social interactions.

Course Learning Objectives

Analyze complex systems
. emergent properties: Identify emergent properties of complex systems and discern their causes.
. system analysis: Analyze and apply decompositions of systems into constituent parts at multiple levels of analysis.

Analyze behavior
. psychological explanation: Analyze the relations among interacting motivating factors that shape behavior.
. purpose: Identify and evaluate underlying goals and the values on which they are based, as well as the guiding principles that determine how an individual or group will try to attain these goals.
. utility: Consider different types of costs and benefits for all stakeholders.

Resolve ethical problems
. ethical conflicts: Resolve conflicts among competing ethical claims and act in a way that best satisfies relevant ethical considerations.
. ethical framing: Identify ethical problems, framing them in a way that helps to resolve them.

Self-monitor and self-correct
. conformity: Identify and mitigate conformity in group settings.
. responsibility: Follow through on commitments, be proactive, and take responsibility.
. self-awareness: Identify and monitor your strengths and weaknesses; mitigate behaviors and habits that impair effective performance.

CONTENT

1. Characteristics of Complex Systems

This unit serves as a foundation for the course by introducing students to the study of complex systems. Students learn to recognize the characteristics of complex systems and anticipate their effects by examining the Big Question: ¿What does it mean to be a social being?¿

2. Agents

Agents are the most basic components of complex systems. In the case of social systems, we focus on human agents, who behave on the basis of their motivations and interests, but who are also subject to the influence of emotions and biases. Drawing on a complex systems perspective, students learn to recognize how the causes of behavior in individual agents impact the behavior of the systems in which they are embedded, using the Big Question ¿Why do people commit crimes?¿ as a source of examples.

3. Distributive Justice

Ethical considerations are one of the most important factors that determine how one should engage in social interactions. In this unit, students approach ethical decision making by studying distributive justice. They examine different frameworks for determining fair outcomes and learn how to resolve situations in which ethical principles come into conflict. The Big Question ¿How can we feed the world?¿ provides a case study for investigating these topics.

Relation between Activities and Contents

1 2 3
Complex Systems Analysis Case Study      
Reforming Capitalism - paper      
In-class activities      
Pre-class work and in-class polls      
Final exam      

Methodology

- Blended learning: an approach that includes activities inside and outside the classroom, combining virtual and face-to-face activities, synchronous and asynchronous, on campus or in spaces in the city / s.
- Guided learning: a mechanism that includes activities that are generally carried out outside the classroom asynchronously with specific instructions or guidelines indicated by the teacher.
- Autonomous learning: activities where the student must carry out readings, studies, visualizations or other activities autonomously without specific instructions or guidelines.

There will be readings, videos and/or short-answer questions to be completed prior to each session

ASSESSMENT

ASSESSMENT BREAKDOWN

Description %
Complex Systems Analysis Case Study 20
Reforming Capitalism - paper 20
In-class activities 30
Pre-class work and in-class polls 10
Final exam 20

Assessment criteria

All student work is evaluated based on the specific learning outcomes related to the learning objectives of the course:

Positive and active contribution to learning in clases. Students will be required to show professional maturity and active engagement in the pedagogical activities of the course. Maintaining such an attitude throughout the course presupposes a number of things. First, it assumes that you attend a majority of the sessions. Second, it assumes that you demonstrate interest. Third, it supposes that you contribute to maintaining a positive class atmosphere. Fourth, it presumes that you are prepared, such that when you offer comments, they evidence a previous analysis of the issue being discussed, showing a deep understanding of the corresponding class. Fifth, is supposes that you are a good listener, showing it through comments that are relevant to the discussion and/or linked to the comments of others. Finally, it assumes that you an effective communicator, presenting your arguments concisely and convincingly.

Class activities. Students will demonstrate their understanding of the topics by completing tailored in-class activitites. These may include polls, short exercises, oral explanations of concepts, or short quizzes. In all cases, students will be required to show their understanding of the concepts discussed before, during or after the class. For this purpose, they will have to had completed the readings, come prepared, and made sure they revise contents from previous sessions. The course will follow a continous learning, incremental approach, meaning that you will be required to keep up-to-date with the materials to progress through the semester.

Timely completion and submission of assignments and reports. As part of their autonomous work, students will be required to complete a series of assignments during their independent study hours. In these assignment, students will be asked to deepen their understanding of the topics. Group projects will include peer evaluation.

Final Exam

Bibliography

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.

Sandel, M. (2010). Justice: What's the right thing to do? New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. (Original work 2009)

Timetable and sections

Group Teacher Department
Year 1 Ferran Macipe Catalán Ciencias Sociales

Timetable Year 1

From 2024/4/5 to 2024/5/31:
Each Friday from 11:00 to 12:30.

From 2024/4/15 to 2024/5/6:
Each Monday from 9:00 to 12:00. (Except: 2024/4/22, 2024/4/29 and 2024/5/6)
Each Monday from 11:00 to 14:00. (Except: 2024/4/15 and 2024/4/22)

From 2024/5/9 to 2024/5/29:
From Wednesday to Thursday from 11:00 to 12:30. (Except: 2024/5/15, 2024/5/22 and 2024/5/23)
Each Tuesday from 11:00 to 14:00. (Except: 2024/5/14 and 2024/5/28)

From 2024/5/27 to 2024/6/3:
Each Monday from 11:00 to 12:30.
Each Monday from 13:00 to 14:30. (Except: 2024/5/27)