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Introduction to the problem: Systems thinking draws on complex cognitive processes. Many instructors of systems thinking and systems dynamics lack expertise in cognitively-informed pedagogy, and thus may be misunderstanding their students' struggles or missing opportunities to build their students' strengths. Approach to the work: Cognitive task analysis is the process of examining how learners process information and build understanding while completing an instructional activity. We have analyzed an assignment in which students identify a feedback loop in a reading from popular media, draw a causal loop diagram, write a narrative that describes how the loop works, and articulate the impact of the loop on the larger system within which the loop is embedded. Results: The activity exercises analogical reasoning when identifying the loop in the reading passage, causal reasoning to create the A ® B links of the diagram, facility with switching between parts and wholes at all steps of the assignment, use of external visualizations to relieve load on working memory and make essential aspects of the loop more salient, and use of sophisticated linguistic structures to convey conditionality while writing the narrative. Discussion: Our learning goal for this assignment is that students will be able to recognize, analyze, and explain feedback loops wherever they may encounter them in their personal and professional lives. Our motivation in explicating the cognitive processes required to reach this learning goal is that instructors will be better equipped to craft effective lessons, diagnose their students' difficulties, and recognize their students' cognitive accomplishments along their learning trajectory. 

Drawing on What Matters: Sketching Reduces Memory for Seductive Details. ALLISON J. JAEGER, ANASTASIA DAWDANOW and THOMAS F. SHIPLEY, Temple University — Seductive details are interesting pieces of information in expository text that are non-essential to the target concepts and can result in reduced comprehension (Garner, Gillingham, & White, 1989). Previous work has unsuccessfully attempted to reduce the impact of seductive details through various manipulations. Research suggests sketching is beneficial for science learning and can improve learning from science text (Ainsworth et al., 2011). The current experiment tested whether a post-reading sketching task could reduce the negative impact of seductive details and facilitate learning from a geology text. Results indicated that the presence of seductive details reduced recall of target concepts compared to a plain text. While sketching did not lead to higher recall of target concepts compared to summarizing, those who sketched recalled fewer seductive details. This suggests that sketching may help to focus attention on more relevant information in expository text. Interactions with spatial skills will also be discussed. Email: Allison J. Jaeger, allison.jaeger@temple.edu